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diff --git a/2550.txt b/2550.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..c144783 --- /dev/null +++ b/2550.txt @@ -0,0 +1,7132 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Tales of Trail and Town, 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: Tales of Trail and Town + +Author: Bret Harte + +Release Date: May 18, 2006 [EBook #2550] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TALES OF TRAIL AND TOWN *** + + + + +Produced by Donald Lainson + + + + + +TALES OF TRAIL AND TOWN + + +By Bret Harte + + + + +CONTENTS + + +THE ANCESTORS OF PETER ATHERLY + +TWO AMERICANS + +THE JUDGMENT OF BOLINAS PLAIN + +THE STRANGE EXPERIENCE OF ALKALI DICK + +A NIGHT ON THE DIVIDE + +THE YOUNGEST PROSPECTOR IN CALAVERAS + +A TALE OF THREE TRUANTS + + + + +TALES OF TRAIL AND TOWN + + + + +THE ANCESTORS OF PETER ATHERLY + + +CHAPTER I + + +It must be admitted that the civilizing processes of Rough and Ready +were not marked by any of the ameliorating conditions of other improved +camps. After the discovery of the famous "Eureka" lead, there was the +usual influx of gamblers and saloon-keepers; but that was accepted as a +matter of course. But it was thought hard that, after a church was built +and a new school erected, it should suddenly be found necessary to have +doors that locked, instead of standing shamelessly open to the criticism +and temptation of wayfarers, or that portable property could no longer +be left out at night in the old fond reliance on universal brotherhood. +The habit of borrowing was stopped with the introduction of more money +into the camp, and the establishment of rates of interest; the poorer +people either took what they wanted, or as indiscreetly bought on +credit. There were better clothes to be seen in its one long straggling +street, but those who wore them generally lacked the grim virtue of the +old pioneers, and the fairer faces that were to be seen were generally +rouged. There was a year or two of this kind of mutation, in which the +youthful barbarism of Rough and Ready might have been said to struggle +with adult civilized wickedness, and then the name itself disappeared. +By an Act of the Legislature the growing town was called "Atherly," +after the owner of the Eureka mine,--Peter Atherly,--who had given +largess to the town in its "Waterworks" and a "Gin Mill," as the new +Atherly Hotel and its gilded bar-rooms were now called. Even at the last +moment, however, the new title of "Atherly" hung in the balance. The +romantic daughter of the pastor had said that Mr. Atherly should +be called "Atherly of Atherly," an aristocratic title so strongly +suggestive of an innovation upon democratic principles that it was not +until it was discreetly suggested that everybody was still free to call +him "Atherly, late of Rough and Ready," that opposition ceased. + +Possibly this incident may have first awakened him to the value of his +name, and some anxiety as to its origin. Roughly speaking, Atherly's +father was only a bucolic emigrant from "Mizzouri," and his mother had +done the washing for the camp on her first arrival. The Atherlys had +suffered on their overland journey from drought and famine, with the +addition of being captured by Indians, who had held them captive for ten +months. Indeed, Mr. Atherly, senior, never recovered from the effects +of his captivity, and died shortly after Mrs. Atherly had given birth +to twins, Peter and Jenny Atherly. This was scant knowledge for Peter +in the glorification of his name through his immediate progenitors; but +"Atherly of Atherly" still sounded pleasantly, and, as the young lady +had said, smacked of old feudal days and honors. It was believed +beyond doubt, even in their simple family records,--the flyleaf of a +Bible,--that Peter Atherly's great-grandfather was an Englishman who +brought over to his Majesty's Virginian possessions his only son, then +a boy. It was not established, however, to what class of deportation +he belonged: whether he was suffering exile from religious or judicial +conviction, or if he were only one of the articled "apprentices" +who largely made up the American immigration of those days. Howbeit, +"Atherly" was undoubtedly an English name, even suggesting respectable +and landed ancestry, and Peter Atherly was proud of it. He looked +somewhat askance upon his Irish and German fellow citizens, and talked +a good deal about "race." Two things, however, concerned him: he was not +in looks certainly like any type of modern Englishman as seen either +on the stage in San Francisco, or as an actual tourist in the mining +regions, and his accent was undoubtedly Southwestern. He was tall and +dark, with deep-set eyes in a singularly immobile countenance; he had +an erect but lithe and sinewy figure even for his thirty odd years, +and might easily have been taken for any other American except for the +single exception that his nose was distinctly Roman, and gave him a +distinguished air. There was a suggestion of Abraham Lincoln (and even +of Don Quixote) in his tall, melancholy figure and length of limb, but +nothing whatever that suggested an Englishman. + +It was shortly after the christening of Atherly town that an incident +occurred which at first shook, and then the more firmly established, his +mild monomania. His widowed mother had been for the last two years +an inmate of a private asylum for inebriates, through certain habits +contracted while washing for the camp in the first year of her +widowhood. This had always been a matter of open sympathy to Rough and +Ready; but it was a secret reproach hinted at in Atherly, although +it was known that the rich Peter Atherly kept his mother liberally +supplied, and that both he and his sister "Jinny" or Jenny Atherly +visited her frequently. One day he was telegraphed for, and on going to +the asylum found Mrs. Atherly delirious and raving. Through her son's +liberality she had bribed an attendant, and was fast succumbing to a +private debauch. In the intervals of her delirium she called Peter +by name, talked frenziedly and mysteriously of his "high +connections"--alluded to himself and his sister as being of the +"true breed"--and with a certain vigor of epithet, picked up in the +familiarity of the camp during the days when she was known as "Old Ma'am +Atherly" or "Aunt Sally," declared that they were "no corn-cracking +Hoosiers," "hayseed pikes," nor "northern Yankee scum," and that she +should yet live to see them "holding their own lands again and the lands +of their forefathers." Quieted at last by opiates, she fell into a more +lucid but scarcely less distressing attitude. Recognizing her son again, +as well as her own fast failing condition, she sarcastically thanked +him for coming to "see her off," congratulated him that he would soon be +spared the lie and expense of keeping her here on account of his pride, +under the thin pretext of trying to "cure" her. She knew that Sally +Atherly of Rough and Ready wasn't considered fit company for "Atherly of +Atherly" by his fine new friends. This and much more in a voice mingling +maudlin sentiment with bitter resentment, and with an ominous glitter in +her bloodshot and glairy eyes. Peter winced with a consciousness of the +half-truth of her reproaches, but the curiosity and excitement awakened +by the revelations of her frenzy were greater than his remorse. He said +quickly:-- + +"You were speaking of father!--of his family--his lands and possessions. +Tell me again!" + +"Wot are ye givin' us?" she ejaculated in husky suspicion, opening upon +him her beady eyes, in which the film of death was already gathering. + +"Tell me of father,--my father and his family! his +great-grandfather!--the Atherlys, my relations--what you were saying. +What do you know about them?" + +"THAT'S all ye wanter know--is it? THAT'S what ye'r' comin' to the old +washer-woman for--is it?" she burst out with the desperation of disgust. +"Well--give it up! Ask me another!" + +"But, mother--the old records, you know! The family Bible--what you once +told us--me and Jinny!" + +Something gurgled in her throat like a chuckle. With the energy of +malevolence, she stammered: "There wasn't no records--there wasn't no +family Bible! it's all a lie--you hear me! Your Atherly that you're so +proud of was just a British bummer who was kicked outer his family in +England and sent to buzz round in Americky. He honey-fogled me--Sally +Magregor--out of a better family than his'n, in Kansas, and skyugled me +away, but it was a straight out marriage, and I kin prove it. It was +in the St. Louis papers, and I've got it stored away safe enough in +my trunk! You hear me! I'm shoutin'! But he wasn't no old settler in +Mizzouri--he wasn't descended from any settler, either! He was a new man +outer England--fresh caught--and talked down his throat. And he fooled +ME--the darter of an old family that was settled on the right bank +of the Mizzouri afore Dan'l Boone came to Kentucky--with his new +philanderings. Then he broke up, and went all to pieces when we struck +Californy, and left ME--Sally Magregor, whose father had niggers of his +own--to wash for Rough and Ready! THAT'S your Atherly! Take him! I don't +want him--I've done with him! I was done with him long afore--afore"--a +cough checked her utterance,--"afore"--She gasped again, but the words +seemed to strangle in her throat. Intent only on her words and scarcely +heeding her sufferings, Peter was bending over her eagerly, when the +doctor rudely pulled him away and lifted her to a sitting posture. But +she never spoke again. The strongest restoratives quickly administered +only left her in a state of scarcely breathing unconsciousness. + +"Is she dying? Can't you bring her to," said the anxious Peter, "if only +for a moment, doctor?" + +"I'm thinkin'," said the visiting doctor, an old Scotch army surgeon, +looking at the rich Mr. Atherly with cool, professional contempt, "that +your mother willna do any more washing for me as in the old time, nor +give up her life again to support her bairns. And it isna my eentention +to bring her back to pain for the purposes of geeneral conversation!" + +Nor, indeed, did she ever come back to any purpose, but passed away with +her unfinished sentence. And her limbs were scarcely decently composed +by the attendants before Peter was rummaging the trunk in her room for +the paper she had spoken of. It was in an old work-box--a now faded +yellow clipping from a newspaper, lying amidst spoils of cotton thread, +buttons, and beeswax, which he even then remembered to have seen upon +his mother's lap when she superadded the sewing on of buttons to her +washing of the miners' shirts. And his dark and hollow cheek glowed with +gratified sentiment as he read the clipping. + +"We hear with regret of the death of Philip Atherly, Esq., of Rough and +Ready, California. Mr. Atherly will be remembered by some of our readers +as the hero of the romantic elopement of Miss Sallie Magregor, daughter +of Colonel 'Bob' Magregor, which created such a stir in well-to-do +circles some thirty years ago. It was known vaguely that the young +couple had 'gone West,'--a then unknown region,--but it seems that +after severe trials and tribulations on the frontier with savages, they +emigrated early to Oregon, and then, on the outbreak of the gold fever, +to California. But it will be a surprise to many to know that it has +just transpired that Mr. Atherly was the second son of Sir Ashley +Atherly, an English baronet, and by the death of his brother might have +succeeded to the property and title." + +He remained for some moments looking fixedly at the paper, until the +commonplace paragraph imprinted itself upon his brain as no line of +sage or poet had ever done, and then he folded it up and put it in his +pocket. In his exaltation he felt that even the mother he had never +loved was promoted to a certain respect as his father's wife, although +he was equally conscious of a new resentment against her for her +contemptuous allusions to HIS father, and her evident hopeless inability +to comprehend his position. His mother, he feared, was indeed low!--but +HE was his father's son! Nevertheless, he gave her a funeral at Atherly, +long remembered for its barbaric opulence and display. Thirty carriages, +procured from Sacramento at great expense, were freely offered to his +friends to join in the astounding pageant. A wonderful casket of +iron and silver, brought from San Francisco, held the remains of the +ex-washerwoman of Rough and Ready. But a more remarkable innovation was +the addition of a royal crown to the other ornamentation of the casket. +Peter Atherly's ideas of heraldry were very vague,--Sacramento at that +time offered him no opportunity of knowing what were the arms of the +Atherlys,--and the introduction of the royal crown seemed to satisfy +Peter's mind as to what a crest MIGHT be, while to the ordinary +democratic mind it simply suggested that the corpse was English! +Political criticism being thus happily averted, Mrs. Atherly's body +was laid in the little cemetery, not far away from certain rude wooden +crosses which marked the burial-place of wanderers whose very names were +unknown, and in due time a marble shaft was erected over it. But +when, the next day, the county paper contained, in addition to +the column-and-a-half description of the funeral, the more formal +announcement of the death of "Mrs. Sallie Atherly, wife of the late +Philip Atherly, second son of Sir Ashley Atherly, of England," criticism +and comment broke out. The old pioneers of Rough and Ready felt that +they had been imposed upon, and that in some vague way the unfortunate +woman had made them the victims of a huge practical joke during all +these years. That she had grimly enjoyed their ignorance of her position +they did not doubt. "Why, I remember onct when I was sorter bullyraggin' +her about mixin' up my duds with Doc Simmons's, and sendin' me Whiskey +Dick's old rags, she turned round sudden with a kind of screech, and ran +out into the brush. I reckoned, at the time, that it was either 'drink' +or feelin's, and could hev kicked myself for being sassy to the +old woman, but I know now that all this time that air critter--that +barrownet's daughter-in-law--was just laughin' herself into fits in the +brush! No, sir, she played this yer camp for all it was worth, year in +and out, and we just gave ourselves away like speckled idiots! and now +she's lyin' out thar in the bone yard, and keeps on p'intin' the joke, +and a-roarin' at us in marble." + +Even the later citizens in Atherly felt an equal resentment against her, +but from different motives. That her drinking habits and her powerful +vocabulary were all the effect of her aristocratic alliance they never +doubted. And, although it brought the virtues of their own superior +republican sobriety into greater contrast, they felt a scandal at having +been tricked into attending this gilded funeral of dissipated rank. +Peter Atherly found himself unpopular in his own town. The sober who +drank from his free "Waterworks," and the giddy ones who imbibed at +his "Gin Mill," equally criticised him. He could not understand it; his +peculiar predilections had been accepted before, when they were mere +presumptions; why should they not NOW, when they were admitted facts? +He was conscious of no change in himself since the funeral! Yet the +criticism went on. Presently it took the milder but more contagious form +of ridicule. In his own hotel, built with his own money, and in his own +presence, he had heard a reckless frequenter of the bar-room decline +some proffered refreshment on the ground that "he only drank with his +titled relatives." A local humorist, amidst the applause of an admiring +crowd at the post-office window, had openly accused the postmaster of +withholding letters to him from his only surviving brother, "the Dook of +Doncherknow." "The ole dooky never onct missed the mail to let me +know wot's goin' on in me childhood's home," remarked the humorist +plaintively; "and yer's this dod-blasted gov'ment mule of a postmaster +keepin' me letters back!" Letters with pretentious and gilded coats of +arms, taken from the decorated inner lining of cigar-boxes, were posted +to prominent citizens. The neighboring and unregenerated settlement of +Red Dog was more outrageous in its contribution. The Red Dog "Sentinel," +in commenting on the death of "Haulbowline Tom," a drunken English +man-o'-war's man, said: "It may not be generally known that our +regretted fellow citizen, while serving on H. M. S. Boxer, was secretly +married to Queen Kikalu of the Friendly Group; but, unlike some of +our prosperous neighbors, he never boasted of his royal alliance, and +resisted with steady British pluck any invitation to share the throne. +Indeed, any allusion to the subject affected him deeply. There are those +among us who will remember the beautiful portrait of his royal bride +tattooed upon his left arm with the royal crest and the crossed flags of +the two nations." Only Peter Atherly and his sister understood the sting +inflicted either by accident or design in the latter sentence. Both +he and his sister had some singular hieroglyphic branded on their +arms,--probably a reminiscence of their life on the plains in their +infant Indian captivity. But there was no mistaking the general +sentiment. The criticisms of a small town may become inevasible. Atherly +determined to take the first opportunity to leave Rough and Ready. He +was rich; his property was secure; there was no reason why he should +stay where his family pretensions were a drawback. And a further +circumstance determined his resolution. + +He was awaiting his sister in his new house on a little crest above +the town. She had been at the time of her mother's death, and since, a +private boarder in the Sacred Heart Convent at Santa Clara, whence she +had been summoned to the funeral, but had returned the next day. Few +people had noticed in her brother's carriage the veiled figure which +might have belonged to one of the religious orders; still less did they +remember the dark, lank, heavy-browed girl who had sometimes been seen +about Rough and Ready. For she had her brother's melancholy, and greater +reticence, and had continued of her own free will, long after her +girlish pupilage at the convent, to live secluded under its maternal +roof without taking orders. A general suspicion that she was either a +religious "crank," or considered herself too good to live in a mountain +mining town, had not contributed to her brother's popularity. In her +abstraction from worldly ambitions she had, naturally, taken no part +in her brother's family pretensions. He had given her an independent +allowance, and she was supposed to be equally a sharer in his good +fortune. Yet she had suddenly declared her intention of returning +to Atherly, to consult him on affairs of importance. Peter was both +surprised and eager; there was but little affection between them, but, +preoccupied with his one idea, he was satisfied that she wanted to talk +about the family. + +But he was amazed, disappointed, and disconcerted. For Jenny Atherly, +the sober recluse of Santa Clara, hidden in her sombre draperies at the +funeral, was no longer to be recognized in the fashionable, smartly but +somewhat over-dressed woman he saw before him. In spite of her large +features and the distinguishing Roman nose, like his own, she looked +even pretty in her excitement. She had left the convent, she was tired +of the life there, she was satisfied that a religious vocation would not +suit her. In brief, she intended to enjoy herself like other women. +If he really felt a pride in the family he ought to take her out, like +other brothers, and "give her a show." He could do it there if he liked, +and she would keep house for him. If he didn't want to, she must have +enough money to keep her fashionably in San Francisco. But she wanted +excitement, and that she WOULD HAVE! She wanted to go to balls, +theatres, and entertainments, and she intended to! Her voice grew quite +high, and her dark cheek glowed with some new-found emotion. + +Astounded as he was, Peter succumbed. It was better that she should +indulge her astounding caprice under his roof than elsewhere. It +would not do for the sister of an Atherly to provoke scandal. He gave +entertainments, picnics, and parties, and "Jinny" Atherly plunged into +these mild festivities with the enthusiasm of a schoolgirl. She not only +could dance with feverish energy all night, but next day could mount +a horse--she was a fearless rider--and lead the most accomplished +horsemen. She was a good shot, she walked with the untiring foot of a +coyote, she threaded the woods with the instinct of a pioneer. Peter +regarded her with a singular mingling of astonishment and fear. Surely +she had not learned this at school! These were not the teachings nor the +sports of the good sisters! He once dared to interrogate her regarding +this change in her habits. "I always FELT like it," she answered +quickly, "but I kept it down. I used sometimes to feel that I couldn't +stand it any longer, but must rush out and do something," she said +passionately; "but," she went on with furtive eyes, and a sudden wild +timidity like that of a fawn, "I was afraid! I was afraid IT WAS LIKE +MOTHER! It seemed to me to be HER blood that was rising in me, and I +kept it down,--I didn't want to be like her,--and I prayed and struggled +against it. Did you," she said, suddenly grasping his hand, "ever feel +like that?" + +But Peter never had. His melancholy faith in his father's race had +left no thought of his mother's blood mingling with it. "But," he said +gravely, "believing this, why did you change?" + +"Because I could hold out no longer. I should have gone crazy. Times I +wanted to take some of those meek nuns, some of those white-faced pupils +with their blue eyes and wavy flaxen hair, and strangle them. I couldn't +strive and pray and struggle any longer THERE, and so I came here to +let myself out! I suppose when I get married--and I ought to, with my +money--it may change me! You don't suppose," she said, with a return of +her wild-animal-like timidity, "it is anything that was in FATHER, in +those ATHERLYS,--do you?" + +But Peter had no idea of anything but virtue in the Atherly blood; he +had heard that the upper class of Europeans were fond of field +sports and of hunting; it was odd that his sister should inherit this +propensity and not he. He regarded her more kindly for this evidence of +race. "You think of getting married?" he said more gently, yet with a +certain brotherly doubt that any man could like her enough, even +with her money. "Is there any one here would--suit you?" he added +diplomatically. + +"No--I hate them all!" she burst out. "There isn't one I don't despise +for his sickening, foppish, womanish airs." + +Nevertheless, it was quite evident that some of the men were attracted +by her singular originality and a certain good comradeship in her ways. +And it was on one of their riding excursions that Peter noticed that she +was singled out by a good-looking, blond-haired young lawyer of the town +for his especial attentions. As the cavalcade straggled in climbing +the mountain, the young fellow rode close to her saddle-bow, and as +the distance lengthened between the other stragglers, they at last were +quite alone. When the trail became more densely wooded, Peter quite +lost sight of them. But when, a few moments later, having lost the +trail himself, they again appeared in the distance before him, he was +so amazed that he unconsciously halted. For the two horses were walking +side by side, and the stranger's arm was round his sister's waist. + +Had Peter any sense of humor he might have smiled at this weakness in +his Amazonian sister, but he saw only the serious, practical side of +the situation, with, of course, its inevitable relation to his one +controlling idea. The young man was in good practice, and would have +made an eligible husband to any one else. But was he fit to mate with an +Atherly? What would those as yet unknown and powerful relatives say +to it? At the same time he could not help knowing that "Jinny," in +the eccentricities of her virgin spinsterhood, might be equally +objectionable to them, as she certainly was a severe trial to him here. +If she were off his hands he might be able to prosecute his search for +his relatives with more freedom. After all, there were mesalliances in +all families, and being a woman she was not in the direct line. Instead, +therefore, of spurring forward to join them, he lingered a little until +they passed out of sight, and until he was joined by a companion from +behind. Him, too, he purposely delayed. They were walking slowly, +breathing their mustangs, when his companion suddenly uttered a cry of +alarm, and sprang from his horse. For on the trail before them lay the +young lawyer quite unconscious, with his riderless steed nipping the +young leaves of the underbrush. He was evidently stunned by a fall, +although across his face was a livid welt which might have been caused +by collision with the small elastic limb of a sapling, or a blow from +a riding-whip; happily the last idea was only in Peter's mind. As they +lifted him up he came slowly to consciousness. He was bewildered and +dazed at first, but as he began to speak the color came back freshly to +his face. He could not conceive, he stammered, what had happened. He +was riding with Miss Atherly, and he supposed his horse had slipped upon +some withered pine needles and thrown him! A spasm of pain crossed his +face suddenly, and he lifted his hand to the top of his head. Was he +hurt THERE? No, but perhaps his hair, which was flowing and curly, had +caught in the branches--like Absalom's! He tried to smile, and even +begged them to assist him to his horse that he might follow his fair +companion, who would be wondering where he was; but Peter, satisfied +that he had received no serious injury, hurriedly enjoined him to stay, +while he himself would follow his sister. Putting spurs to his horse, +he succeeded, in spite of the slippery trail, in overtaking her near +the summit. At the sound of his horse's hoofs she wheeled quickly, came +dashing furiously towards him, and only pulled up at the sound of his +voice. But she had not time to change her first attitude and expression, +which was something which perplexed and alarmed him. Her long lithe +figure was half crouching, half clinging to the horse's back, her +loosened hair flying over her shoulders, her dark eyes gleaming with an +odd nymph-like mischief. Her white teeth flashed as she recognized +him, but her laugh was still mocking and uncanny. He took refuge in +indignation. + +"What has happened?" he said sharply. + +"The fool tried to kiss me!" she said simply. "And I--I--let out at +him--like mother!" + +Nevertheless, she gave him one of those shy, timid glances he had +noticed before, and began coiling something around her fingers, with +a suggestion of coy embarrassment, indescribably inconsistent with her +previous masculine independence. + +"You might have killed him," said Peter angrily. + +"Perhaps I might! OUGHT I have killed him, Peter?" she said anxiously, +yet with the same winning, timid smile. If she had not been his sister, +he would have thought her quite handsome. + +"As it is," he said impetuously, "you have made a frightful scandal +here." + +"HE won't say anything about it--will he?" she inquired shyly, still +twisting the something around her finger. + +Peter did not reply; perhaps the young lawyer really loved her and would +keep her secret! But he was vexed, and there was something maniacal in +her twisting fingers. "What have you got there?" he said sharply. + +She shook the object in the air before her with a laugh. "Only a lock of +his hair," she said gayly; "but I didn't CUT it off!" + +"Throw it away, and come here!" he said angrily. + +But she only tucked the little blond curl into her waist belt and shook +her head. He urged his horse forward, but she turned and fled, laughing +as he pursued her. Being the better rider she could easily evade him +whenever he got too near, and in this way they eventually reached the +town and their house long before their companions. But she was far +enough ahead of her brother to be able to dismount and hide her trophy +with childish glee before he arrived. + +She was right in believing that her unfortunate cavalier would make no +revelation of her conduct, and his catastrophe passed as an accident. +But Peter could not disguise the fact that much of his unpopularity +was shared by his sister. The matrons of Atherly believed that she was +"fast," and remembered more distinctly than ever the evil habits of her +mother. That she would, in the due course of time, "take to drink," they +never doubted. Her dancing was considered outrageous in its unfettered +freedom, and her extraordinary powers of endurance were looked upon as +"masculine" by the weaker girls whose partners she took from them. She +reciprocally looked down upon them, and made no secret of her contempt +for their small refinements and fancies. She affected only the society +of men, and even treated them with a familiarity that was both fearless +and scornful. Peter saw that it was useless to face the opposition; +Miss Atherly did not seem to encourage the renewal of the young lawyer's +attentions, although it was evident that he was still attracted by her, +nor did she seem to invite advances from others. He must go away--and +he would have to take her with him. It seemed ridiculous that a woman of +thirty, of masculine character, should require a chaperon in a brother +of equal age; but Peter knew the singular blending of childlike +ignorance with this Amazonian quality. He had made his arrangements +for an absence from Atherly of three or four years, and they departed +together. The young fair-haired lawyer came to the stage-coach office to +see them off. Peter could detect no sentiment in his sister's familiar +farewell of her unfortunate suitor. At New York, however, it was +arranged that "Jinny" should stay with some friends whom they had made +en route, and that, if she wished, she could come to Europe later, and +join him in London. + +Thus relieved of one, Peter Atherly of Atherly started on his cherished +quest of his other and more remote relations. + + +CHAPTER II + + +Peter Atherly had been four months in England, but knew little of the +country until one summer afternoon when his carriage rolled along the +well-ordered road between Nonningsby Station and Ashley Grange. + +In that four months he had consulted authorities, examined records, +visited the Heralds' College, written letters, and made a few friends. A +rich American, tracing his genealogical tree, was not a new thing--even +in that day--in London; but there was something original and simple in +his methods, and so much that was grave, reserved, and un-American in +his personality, that it awakened interest. A recognition that he was a +foreigner, but a puzzled doubt, however, of his exact nationality, which +he found everywhere, at first pained him, but he became reconciled to +it at about the same time that his English acquaintances abandoned their +own reserve and caution before the greater reticence of this melancholy +American, and actually became the questioners! In this way his quest +became known only as a disclosure of his own courtesy, and offers +of assistance were pressed eagerly upon him. That was why Sir Edward +Atherly found himself gravely puzzled, as he sat with his family +solicitor one morning in the library of Ashley Grange. + +"Humph!" said Sir Edward. "And you say he has absolutely no other +purpose in making these inquiries?" + +"Positively none," returned the solicitor. "He is even willing to sign a +renunciation of any claim which might arise out of this information. It +is rather a singular case, but he seems to be a rich man and quite able +to indulge his harmless caprices." + +"And you are quite sure he is Philip's son?" + +"Quite, from the papers he brings me. Of course I informed him that +even if he should be able to establish a legal marriage he could expect +nothing as next of kin, as you had children of your own. He seemed to +know that already, and avowed that his only wish was to satisfy his own +mind." + +"I suppose he wants to claim kinship and all that sort of thing for +society's sake?" + +"I do not think so," said the solicitor dryly. "I suggested an interview +with you, but he seemed to think it quite unnecessary, if I could give +him the information he required." + +"Ha!" said Sir Edward promptly, "we'll invite him here. Lady Atherly can +bring in some people to see him. Is he--ahem--What is he like? The usual +American, I suppose?" + +"Not at all. Quite foreign-looking--dark, and rather like an Italian. +There is no resemblance to Mr. Philip," he said, glancing at the +painting of a flaxen-haired child fondling a greyhound under the elms of +Ashley Park. + +"Ah! Yes, yes! Perhaps the mother was one of those Southern creoles, or +mulattoes," said Sir Edward with an Englishman's tolerant regard for +the vagaries of people who were clearly not English; "they're rather +attractive women, I hear." + +"I think you do quite well to be civil to him," said the solicitor. "He +seems to take an interest in the family, and being rich, and apparently +only anxious to enhance the family prestige, you ought to know him. Now, +in reference to those mortgages on Appleby Farm, if you could get"-- + +"Yes, yes!" said Sir Edward quickly; "we'll have him down here; and, I +say! YOU'LL come too?" + +The solicitor bowed. "And, by the way," continued Sir Edward, "there was +a girl too,--wasn't there? He has a sister, I believe?" + +"Yes, but he has left her in America." + +"Ah, yes!--very good--yes!--of course. We'll have Lord Greyshott and +Sir Roger and old Lady Everton,--she knows all about Sir Ashley and the +family. And--er--is he young or old?" + +"About thirty, I should say, Sir Edward." + +"Ah, well! We'll have Lady Elfrida over from the Towers." + +Had Peter known of these preparations he might have turned back to +Nonningsby without even visiting the old church in Ashley Park, which +he had been told held the ashes of his ancestors. For during these four +months the conviction that he was a foreigner and that he had little or +nothing in common with things here had been clearly forced upon him. He +could recognize some kinship in the manners and customs of the people to +those he had known in the West and on the Atlantic coast, but not to his +own individuality, and he seemed even more a stranger here--where he had +expected to feel the thrill of consanguinity--than in the West. He +had accepted the invitation of the living Atherly for the sake of the +Atherlys long dead and forgotten. As the great quadrangle of stone +and ivy lifted itself out of the park, he looked longingly towards the +little square tower which peeped from between the yews nearer the road. +As the carriage drove up to the carved archway whence so many Atherlys +had issued into the world, he could not believe that any of his blood +had gone forth from it, or, except himself, had ever entered it before. +Once in the great house he felt like a prisoner as he wandered through +the long corridors to his room; even the noble trees beyond his +mullioned windows seemed of another growth than those he had known. + +There was no doubt that he created a sensation at Ashley Grange, not +only from his singular kinship, but from his striking individuality. The +Atherlys and their guests were fascinated and freely admiring. His very +originality, which prevented them from comparing him with any English +or American standard of excellence, gave them a comfortable assurance +of safety in their admiration. His reserve, his seriousness, his +simplicity, very unlike their own, and yet near enough to suggest a +delicate flattery, was in his favor. So was his naive frankness in +regard to his status in the family, shown in the few words of greeting +with Sir Ashley, and in his later simple yet free admissions regarding +his obscure youth, his former poverty, and his present wealth. He +boasted of neither; he was disturbed by neither. Standing alone, a +stranger, for the first time in an assemblage of distinguished and +titled men and women, he betrayed no consciousness; surrounded for the +first time by objects which he knew his wealth could not buy, he showed +the most unmistakable indifference,--the indifference of temperament. +The ladies vied with each other to attack this unimpressible +nature,--this profound isolation from external attraction. They +followed him about, they looked into his dark, melancholy eyes; it was +impossible, they thought, that he could continue this superb acting +forever. A glance, a smile, a burst of ingenuous confidence, a covert +appeal to his chivalry would yet catch him tripping. But the melancholy +eyes that had gazed at the treasures of Ashley Grange and the +opulent ease of its guests without kindling, opened to their first +emotion,--wonder! At which Lady Elfrida, who had ingenuously admired +him, hated him a little, as the first step towards a kindlier feeling. + +The next day, having declared his intention of visiting Ashley Church, +and, as frankly, his intention of going there alone, he slipped out in +the afternoon and made his way quietly through the park to the square +ivied tower he had first seen. In this tranquil level length of the wood +there was the one spot, the churchyard, where, oddly enough, the green +earth heaved into little billows as if to show the turbulence of that +life which those who lay below them had lately quitted. It was a +relief to the somewhat studied and formal monotony of the well-ordered +woodland,--every rood, of which had been paced by visitors, keepers, or +poachers,--to find those decrepit and bending tombstones, lurching +at every angle, or deeply sinking into the green sea of forgetfulness +around them. All this, and the trodden paths of the villagers towards +that common place of meeting, struck him as being more human than +anything he had left behind him at the Grange. + +He entered the ivy-grown porch and stared for a moment at the half-legal +official parochial notices posted on the oaken door,--his first +obtrusive intimation of the combination of church and state,--and +hesitated. He was not prepared to find that this last resting-place of +his people had something to do with taxes and tithes, and that a certain +material respectability and security attended his votive sigh. God and +the reigning sovereign of the realm preserved a decorous alliance in the +royal arms that appeared above the official notices. Presently he pushed +open the door gently and entered the nave. For a moment it seemed to him +as if the arched gloom of the woods he had left behind was repeated +in the dim aisle and vaulted roof; there was an earthy odor, as if the +church itself, springing from the fertilizing dust below, had taken root +in the soil; the chequers of light from the faded stained-glass windows +fell like the flicker of leaves on the pavement. He paused before the +cold altar, and started, for beside him lay the recumbent figure of +a warrior pillowed on his helmet with the paraphernalia of his trade +around him. A sudden childish memory of the great Western plains, and +the biers of the Indian "braves" raised on upright poles against the +staring sky and above the sunbaked prairie, rushed upon him. There, +too, had lain the weapons of the departed chieftain; there, too, lay the +Indian's "faithful hound," here simulated by the cross-legged +crusader's canine effigy. And now, strangest of all, he found that this +unlooked-for recollection and remembrance thrilled him more at that +moment than the dead before him. Here they rested,--the Atherlys of +centuries; recumbent in armor or priestly robes, upright in busts that +were periwigged or hidden in long curls, above the marble record of +their deeds and virtues. Some of these records were in Latin,--an +unknown tongue to Peter,--some in a quaint English almost as +unintelligible; but none as foreign to him as the dead themselves. Their +banners waved above his head; their voices filled the silent church, but +fell upon his vacant eye and duller ear. He was none of them. + +Presently he was conscious of a footstep, so faint, so subtle, that it +might have come from a peregrinating ghost. He turned quickly and saw +Lady Elfrida, half bold, yet half frightened, halting beside a pillar +of the chancel. But there was nothing of the dead about her: she was +radiating and pulsating with the uncompromising and material freshness +of English girlhood. The wild rose in the hedgerow was not more tangible +than her cheek, nor the summer sky more clearly cool and blue than her +eyes. The vigor of health and unfettered freedom of limb was in her +figure from her buckled walking-shoe to her brown hair topped by a +sailor hat. The assurance and contentment of a well-ordered life, of +secured position and freedom from vain anxieties or expectations, were +visible in every line of her refined, delicate, and evenly quiescent +features. And yet Lady Elfrida, for the first time in her girlhood, felt +a little nervous. + +Yet she was frank, too, with the frankness of those who have no thought +of being misunderstood. She said she had come there out of curiosity to +see how he would "get on" with his ancestors. She had been watching him +from the chancel ever since he came,--and she was disappointed. As far +as emotion went she thought he had the advantage of the stoniest and +longest dead of them all. Perhaps he did not like them? But he must be +careful what he SAID, for some of her own people were there,--manifestly +this one. (She put the toe of her buckled shoe on the crusader Peter had +just looked at.) And then there was another in the corner. So she had a +right to come there as well as he,--and she could act as cicerone! This +one was a De Brecy, one of King John's knights, who married an Atherly. +(She swung herself into a half-sitting posture on the effigy of the +dead knight, composed her straight short skirt over her trim ankles, +and looked up in Peter's dark face.) That would make them some kind of +relations,--wouldn't it? He must come over to Bentley Towers and see the +rest of the De Brecys in the chapel there to-morrow. Perhaps there might +be some he liked better, and who looked more like him. For there was no +one here or at the Grange who resembled him in the least. + +He assented to the truth of this with such grave, disarming courtesy, +and yet with such undisguised wonder,--as she appeared to talk with +greater freedom to a stranger than an American girl would,--that she at +once popped off the crusader, and accompanied him somewhat more demurely +around the church. Suddenly she stopped with a slight exclamation. + +They had halted before a tablet to the memory of a later Atherly, +an officer of his Majesty's 100th Foot, who was killed at Braddock's +defeat. The tablet was supported on the one side by a weeping Fame, +and on the other by a manacled North American Indian. She stammered and +said: "You see there are other Atherlys who went to America even before +your father," and then stopped with a sense of having made a slip. + +A wild and inexplicable resentment against this complacent historical +outrage suddenly took possession of Peter. He knew that his rage was +inconsistent with his usual calm, but he could not help it! His swarthy +cheek glowed, his dark eyes flashed, he almost trembled with excitement +as he hurriedly pointed out to Lady Elfrida that the Indians were +VICTORIOUS in that ill-fated expedition of the British forces, and that +the captive savage was an allegorical lie. So swift and convincing was +his emotion that the young girl, knowing nothing of the subject and +caring less, shared his indignation, followed him with anxious eyes, and +their hands for an instant touched in innocent and generous sympathy. +And then--he knew not how or why--a still more wild and terrible idea +sprang up in his fancy. He knew it was madness, yet for a moment he +could only stand and grapple with it silently and breathlessly. It +was to seize this young and innocent girl, this witness of his +disappointment, this complacent and beautiful type of all they valued +here, and bear her away--a prisoner, a hostage--he knew not why--on a +galloping horse in the dust of the prairie--far beyond the seas! It was +only when he saw her cheek flush and pale, when he saw her staring at +him with helpless, frightened, but fascinated eyes,--the eyes of the +fluttering bird under the spell of the rattlesnake,--that he drew his +breath and turned bewildered away. "And do you know, dear," she said +with naive simplicity to her sister that evening, "that although he was +an American, and everybody says that they don't care at all for those +poor Indians, he was so magnanimous in his indignation that I fancied +he looked like one of Cooper's heroes himself rather than an Atherly. It +was such a stupid thing for me to show him that tomb of Major Atherly, +you know, who fought the Americans,--didn't he?--or was it later?--but I +quite forgot he was an American." And with this belief in her mind, and +in the high expiation of a noble nature, she forbore her characteristic +raillery, and followed him meekly, manacled in spirit like the +allegorical figure, to the church porch, where they separated, to meet +on the morrow. But that morrow never came. + +For late in the afternoon a cable message reached him from California +asking him to return to accept a nomination to Congress from his own +district. It determined his resolution, which for a moment at the church +porch had wavered under the bright eyes of Lady Elfrida. He telegraphed +his acceptance, hurriedly took leave of his honestly lamenting kinsman, +followed his dispatch to London, and in a few days was on the Atlantic. + +How he was received in California, how he found his sister married to +the blond lawyer, how he recovered his popularity and won his election, +are details that do not belong to this chronicle of his quest. And that +quest seems to have terminated forever with his appearance at Washington +to take his seat as Congressman. + +It was the night of a levee at the White House. The East Room was +crowded with smartly dressed men and women of the capital, quaintly +simple legislators from remote States in bygone fashions, officers in +uniform, and the diplomatic circle blazing with orders. The invoker +of this brilliant assembly stood in simple evening dress near the +door,--unattended and hedged by no formality. He shook the hand of +the new Congressman heartily, congratulated him by name, and turned +smilingly to the next comer. Presently there was a slight stir at one +of the opposite doors, the crowd fell back, and five figures stalked +majestically into the centre of the room. They were the leading chiefs +of an Indian reservation coming to pay their respects to their +"Great Father," the President. Their costumes were a mingling of the +picturesque with the grotesque; of tawdriness with magnificence; of +artificial tinsel and glitter with the regal spoils of the chase; of +childlike vanity with barbaric pride. Yet before these the glittering +orders and ribbons of the diplomats became dull and meaningless, the +uniforms of the officers mere servile livery. Their painted, immobile +faces and plumed heads towered with grave dignity above the meaner +crowd; their inscrutable eyes returned no response to the timid +glances directed towards them. They stood by themselves, alone and +impassive,--yet their presence filled the room with the sense of kings. +The unostentatious, simple republican court suddenly seemed to have +become royal. Even the interpreter who stood between their remote +dignity and the nearer civilized world acquired the status of a court +chamberlain. + +When their "Great Father," apparently the less important personage, had +smilingly received them, a political colleague approached Peter and took +his arm. "Gray Eagle would like to speak with you. Come on! Here's your +chance! You may be put on the Committee on Indian Relations, and pick up +a few facts. Remember we want a firm policy; no more palaver about the +'Great Father' and no more blankets and guns! You know what we used to +say out West, 'The only "Good Indian" is a dead one.' So wade in, and +hear what the old plug hat has to say." + +Peter permitted himself to be led to the group. Even at that moment he +remembered the figure of the Indian on the tomb at Ashley Grange, and +felt a slight flash of satisfaction over the superior height and bearing +of Gray Eagle. + +"How!" said Gray Eagle. "How!" said the other four chiefs. "How!" +repeated Peter instinctively. At a gesture from Gray Eagle the +interpreter said: "Let your friend stand back; Gray Eagle has nothing to +say to him. He wishes to speak only with you." + +Peter's friend reluctantly withdrew, but threw a cautioning glance +towards him. "Ugh!" said Gray Eagle. "Ugh!" said the other chiefs. A few +guttural words followed to the interpreter, who turned, and facing Peter +with the monotonous impassiveness which he had caught from the chiefs, +said: "He says he knew your father. He was a great chief,--with many +horses and many squaws. He is dead." + +"My father was an Englishman,--Philip Atherly!" said Peter, with an odd +nervousness creeping over him. + +The interpreter repeated the words to Grey Eagle, who, after a guttural +"Ugh!" answered in his own tongue. + +"He says," continued the interpreter with a slight shrug, yet relapsing +into his former impassiveness, "that your father was a great chief, +and your mother a pale face, or white woman. She was captured with an +Englishman, but she became the wife of the chief while in captivity. She +was only released before the birth of her children, but a year or two +afterwards she brought them as infants to see their father,--the Great +Chief,--and to get the mark of their tribe. He says you and your sister +are each marked on the left arm." + +Then Gray Eagle opened his mouth and uttered his first English sentence. +"His father, big Injin, take common white squaw! Papoose no good,--too +much white squaw mother, not enough big Injin father! Look! He big man, +but no can bear pain! Ugh!" + +The interpreter turned in time to catch Peter. He had fainted. + + +CHAPTER III + + +A hot afternoon on the plains. A dusty cavalcade of United States +cavalry and commissary wagons, which from a distance preserved a certain +military precision of movement, but on nearer view resolved itself into +straggling troopers in twos and fours interspersed between the wagons, +two noncommissioned officers and a guide riding ahead, who had already +fallen into the cavalry slouch, but off to the right, smartly erect and +cadet-like, the young lieutenant in command. A wide road that had the +appearance of being at once well traveled and yet deserted, and that, +although well defined under foot, still seemed to disappear and lose +itself a hundred feet ahead in the monotonous level. A horizon that +in that clear, dry, hazeless atmosphere never mocked you, yet never +changed, but kept its eternal rim of mountains at the same height and +distance from hour to hour and day to day. Dust--a parching alkaline +powder that cracked the skin--everywhere, clinging to the hubs and +spokes of the wheels, without being disturbed by movement, incrusting +the cavalryman from his high boots to the crossed sabres of his cap; +going off in small puffs like explosions under the plunging hoofs of the +horses, but too heavy to rise and follow them. A reeking smell of horse +sweat and boot leather that lingered in the road long after the train +had passed. An external silence broken only by the cough of a jaded +horse in the suffocating dust, or the cracking of harness leather. +Within one of the wagons that seemed a miracle of military neatness and +methodical stowage, a lazy conversation carried on by a grizzled driver +and sunbrowned farrier. + +"'Who be you?' sezee. 'I'm Philip Atherly, a member of Congress,' sez +the long, dark-complected man, sezee, 'and I'm on a commission +for looking into this yer Injin grievance,' sezee. 'You may be God +Almighty,' sez Nebraska Bill, sezee, 'but you look a d--d sight +more like a hoss-stealin' Apache, and we don't want any of your +psalm-singing, big-talkin' peacemakers interferin' with our ways of +treatin' pizen,--you hear me? I'm shoutin',' sezee. With that the +dark-complected man's eyes began to glisten, and he sorter squirmed all +over to get at Bill, and Bill outs with his battery.--Whoa, will ye; +what's up with YOU now?" The latter remark was directed to the young +spirited near horse he was driving, who was beginning to be strangely +excited. + +"What happened then?" said the farrier lazily. + +"Well," continued the driver, having momentarily quieted his horse, "I +reckoned it was about time for me to wheel into line, for fellers of the +Bill stripe, out on the plains, would ez leave plug a man in citizen's +clothes, even if he was the President himself, as they would drop on +an Injin or a nigger. 'Look here, Bill,' sez I, 'I'm escortin' this +stranger under gov'ment orders, and I'm responsible for him. I ain't +allowed to waste gov'ment powder and shot on YOUR kind onless I've +orders, but if you'll wait till I strip off this shell* I'll lam the +stuffin' outer ye, afore the stranger.' With that Bill just danced with +rage, but dassent fire, for HE knew, and I knew, that if he'd plugged me +he'd been a dead frontiersman afore the next mornin'." + + * Cavalry jacket. + +"But you'd have had to give him up to the authorities, and a jury of his +own kind would have set him free." + +"Not much! If you hadn't just joined, you'd know that ain't the way o' +30th Cavalry," returned the driver. "The kernel would have issued his +orders to bring in Bill dead or alive, and the 30th would have managed +to bring him in DEAD! Then your jury might have sat on him! Tell you +what, chaps of the Bill stripe don't care overmuch to tackle the yaller +braid."* + + * Characteristic trimming of cavalry jacket. + +"But what's this yer Congressman interferin' for, anyway?" + +"He's a rich Californian. Thinks he's got a 'call,' I reckon, to look +arter Injins, just as them Abolitionists looked arter slaves. And get +hated just as they was by the folks here,--and as WE are, too, for the +matter of that." + +"Well, I dunno," rejoined the farrier, "it don't seem nateral for white +men to quarrel with each other about the way to treat an Injin, and that +Injin lyin' in ambush to shoot 'em both. And ef gov'ment would only make +up its mind how to treat 'em, instead of one day pretendin' to be +their 'Great Father' and treatin' them like babies, and the next makin' +treaties with 'em like as they wos forriners, and the next sendin' out +a handful of us to lick ten thousand of them--Wot's the use of ONE +regiment--even two--agin a nation--on their own ground?" + +"A nation,--and on their own ground,--that's just whar you've hit it, +Softy. That's the argument of that Congressman Atherly, as I've heard +him talk with the kernel." + +"And what did the kernel say?" + +"The kernel reckoned it was his business to obey orders,--and so should +you. So shut your head! If ye wanted to talk about gov'ment ye might +say suthin' about its usin' us to convoy picnics and excursion parties +around, who come out here to have a day's shootin', under some big-wig +of a political boss or a railroad president, with a letter to the +general. And WE'RE told off to look arter their precious skins, and +keep the Injins off 'em,--and they shootin' or skeerin' off the Injins' +nat'ral game, and our provender! Darn my skin ef there'll be much to +scout for ef this goes on. And b'gosh!--of they aren't now ringin' in +a lot of titled forriners to hunt 'big game,' as they call it,--Lord +This-and-That and Count So-and-So,--all of 'em with letters to the +general from the Washington cabinet to show 'hospitality,' or from +millionaires who've bin hobnobbin' with 'em in the old country. And darn +my skin ef some of 'em ain't bringin' their wives and sisters along too. +There was a lord and lady passed through here under escort last week, +and we're goin' to pick up some more of 'em at Fort Biggs tomorrow,--and +I reckon some of us will be told off to act as ladies' maids or +milliners. Nothin' short of a good Injin scare, I reckon, would send +them and us about our reg'lar business. Whoa, then, will ye? At it +again, are ye? What's gone of the d--d critter?" + +Here the fractious near horse was again beginning to show signs of +disturbance and active terror. His quivering nostrils were turned +towards the wind, and he almost leaped the centre pole in his frantic +effort to avoid it. The eyes of the two men were turned instinctively in +that direction. Nothing was to be seen,--the illimitable plain and +the sinking sun were all that met the eye. But the horse continued to +struggle, and the wagon stopped. Then it was discovered that the horse +of an adjacent trooper was also laboring under the same mysterious +excitement, and at the same moment wagon No. 3 halted. The infection +of some inexplicable terror was spreading among them. Then two +non-commissioned officers came riding down the line at a sharp canter, +and were joined quickly by the young lieutenant, who gave an order. +The trumpeter instinctively raised his instrument to his lips, but was +stopped by another order. + +And then, as seen by a distant observer, a singular spectacle was +unfolded. The straggling train suddenly seemed to resolve itself into a +large widening circle of horsemen, revolving round and partly hiding +the few heavy wagons that were being rapidly freed from their struggling +teams. These, too, joined the circle, and were driven before the +whirling troopers. Gradually the circle seemed to grow smaller under the +"winding-up" of those evolutions, until the horseless wagons reappeared +again, motionless, fronting the four points of the compass, thus making +the radii of a smaller inner circle, into which the teams of the wagons +as well as the troopers' horses were closely "wound up" and densely +packed together in an immovable mass. As the circle became smaller the +troopers leaped from their horses,--which, however, continued to blindly +follow each other in the narrower circle,--and ran to the wagons, +carbines in hand. In five minutes from the time of giving the order +the straggling train was a fortified camp, the horses corralled in the +centre, the dismounted troopers securely posted with their repeating +carbines in the angles of the rude bastions formed by the deserted +wagons, and ready for an attack. The stampede, if such it was, was +stopped. + +And yet no cause for it was to be seen! Nothing in earth or sky +suggested a reason for this extraordinary panic, or the marvelous +evolution that suppressed it. The guide, with three men in open order, +rode out and radiated across the empty plain, returning as empty of +result. In an hour the horses were sufficiently calmed and fed, the camp +slowly unwound itself, the teams were set to and were led out of the +circle, and as the rays of the setting sun began to expand fanlike +across the plain the cavalcade moved on. But between them and the +sinking sun, and visible through its last rays, was a faint line of haze +parallel with their track. Yet even this, too, quickly faded away. + +Had the guide, however, penetrated half a mile further to the west +he would have come upon the cause of the panic, and a spectacle more +marvelous than that he had just witnessed. For the illimitable plain +with its monotonous prospect was far from being level; a hundred yards +further on he would have slowly and imperceptibly descended into +a depression nearly a mile in width. Here he not only would have +completely lost sight of his own cavalcade, but have come upon another +thrice its length. For here was a trailing line of jog-trotting dusky +shapes, some crouching on dwarf ponies half their size, some trailing +lances, lodge-poles, rifles, women and children after them, all moving +with a monotonous rhythmic motion as marked as the military precision +of the other cavalcade, and always on a parallel line with it. They had +done so all day, keeping touch and distance by stealthy videttes that +crept and crawled along the imperceptible slope towards the unconscious +white men. It was, no doubt, the near proximity of one of those watchers +that had touched the keen scent of the troopers' horses. + +The moon came up; the two cavalcades, scarcely a mile apart, moved on +in unison together. Then suddenly the dusky caravan seemed to arise, +stretch itself out, and swept away like a morning mist towards the west. +The bugles of Fort Biggs had just rung out. + +***** + +Peter Atherly was up early the next morning pacing the veranda of the +commandant's house at Fort Biggs. It had been his intention to visit +the new Indian Reservation that day, but he had just received a letter +announcing an unexpected visit from his sister, who wished to join him. +He had never told her the secret of their Indian paternity, as it had +been revealed to him from the scornful lips of Gray Eagle a year ago; +he knew her strangely excitable nature; besides, she was a wife now, and +the secret would have to be shared with her husband. When he himself +had recovered from the shock of the revelation, two things had impressed +themselves upon his reserved and gloomy nature: a horror of his previous +claim upon the Atherlys, and an infinite pity and sense of duty towards +his own race. He had devoted himself and his increasing wealth to this +one object; it seemed to him at times almost providential that his +position as a legislator, which he had accepted as a whim or fancy, +should have given him this singular opportunity. + +Yet it was not an easy task or an enviable position. He was obliged to +divorce himself from his political party as well as keep clear of the +wild schemes of impractical enthusiasts, too practical "contractors," +and the still more helpless bigotry of Christian civilizers, who would +have regenerated the Indian with a text which he did not understand +and they were unable to illustrate by example. He had expected the +opposition of lawless frontiersmen and ignorant settlers--as roughly +indicated in the conversation already recorded; indeed he had felt +it difficult to argue his humane theories under the smoking roof of +a raided settler's cabin, whose owner, however, had forgotten his +own repeated provocations, or the trespass of which he was proud. But +Atherly's unaffected and unobtrusive zeal, his fixity of purpose, +his undoubted courage, his self-abnegation, and above all the gentle +melancholy and half-philosophical wisdom of this new missionary, won +him the respect and assistance of even the most callous or the most +skeptical of officials. The Secretary of the Interior had given him +carte blanche; the President trusted him, and it was said had granted +him extraordinary powers. Oddly enough it was only his own Californian +constituency, who had once laughed at what they deemed his early +aristocratic pretensions, who now found fault with his democratic +philanthropy. That a man who had been so well received in England--the +news of his visit to Ashley Grange had been duly recorded--should sink +so low as "to take up with the Injins" of his own country galled their +republican pride. A few of his personal friends regretted that he had +not brought back from England more conservative and fashionable graces, +and had not improved his opportunities. Unfortunately there was no +essentially English policy of trusting aborigines that they knew of. + +In his gloomy self-scrutiny he had often wondered if he ought not to +openly proclaim his kinship with the despised race, but he was always +deterred by the thought of his sister and her husband, as well as by the +persistent doubt whether his advocacy of Indian rights with his fellow +countrymen would be as well served by such a course. And here again he +was perplexed by a singular incident of his early missionary efforts +which he had at first treated with cold surprise, but to which later +reflection had given a new significance. After Gray Eagle's revelation +he had made a pilgrimage to the Indian country to verify the statements +regarding his dead father,--the Indian chief Silver Cloud. Despite +the confusion of tribal dialects he was amazed to find that the Indian +tongue came back to him almost as a forgotten boyish memory, so that +he was soon able to do without an interpreter; but not until that +functionary, who knew his secret, appeared one day as a more significant +ambassador. "Gray Eagle says if you want truly to be a brother to his +people you must take a wife among them. He loves you--take one of his!" +Peter, through whose veins--albeit of mixed blood--ran that Puritan ice +so often found throughout the Great West, was frigidly amazed. In +vain did the interpreter assure him that the wife in question, Little +Daybreak, was a wife only in name, a prudent reserve kept by Gray +Eagle in the orphan daughter of a brother brave. But Peter was adamant. +Whatever answer the interpreter returned to Gray Eagle he never knew. +But to his alarm he presently found that the Indian maiden Little +Daybreak had been aware of Gray Eagle's offer, and had with pathetic +simplicity already considered herself Peter's spouse. During his stay +at the encampment he found her sitting before his lodge every morning. +A girl of sixteen in years, a child of six in intellect, she flashed +her little white teeth upon him when he lifted his tent flap, content +to receive his grave, melancholy bow, or patiently trotted at his side +carrying things he did not want, which she had taken from the lodge. +When he sat down to work, she remained seated at a distance, looking at +him with glistening beady eyes like blackberries set in milk, and softly +scratching the little bare brown ankle of one foot with the turned-in +toes of the other, after an infantine fashion. Yet after he had left--a +still single man, solely though his interpreter's diplomacy, as he +always believed--he was very worried as to the wisdom of his course. +Why should he not in this way ally himself to his unfortunate race +irrevocably? Perhaps there was an answer somewhere in his consciousness +which he dared not voice to himself. Since his visit to the English +Atherlys, he had put resolutely aside everything that related to that +episode, which he now considered was an unhappy imposture. But there +were times when a vision of Lady Elfrida, gazing at him with wondering, +fascinated eyes, passed across his fancy; even the contact with his own +race and his thoughts of their wrongs recalled to him the tomb of the +soldier Atherly and the carven captive savage supporter. He could not +pass the upright supported bier of an Indian brave--slowly desiccating +in the desert air--without seeing in the dead warrior's paraphernalia of +arms and trophies some resemblance to the cross-legged crusader on whose +marble effigy SHE had girlishly perched herself as she told the story of +her ancestors. Yet only the peaceful gloom and repose of the old church +touched him now; even she, too, with all her glory of English girlhood, +seemed to belong to that remote past. She was part of the restful quiet +of the church; the yews in the quaint old churchyard might have waved +over her as well. + +Still, he was eager to see his sister, and if he should conclude to +impart to her his secret, she might advise him. At all events, he +decided to delay his departure until her arrival, a decision with which +the commanding officer concurred, as a foraging party had that morning +discovered traces of Indians in the vicinity of the fort, and the lately +arrived commissary train had reported the unaccountable but promptly +prevented stampede. + +Unfortunately, his sister Jenny appeared accompanied by her husband, who +seized an early opportunity to take Peter aside and confide to him his +anxiety about her health, and the strange fits of excitement under which +she occasionally labored. Remembering the episode of the Californian +woods three years ago, Peter stared at this good-natured, good-looking +man, whose life he had always believed she once imperiled, and wondered +more than ever at their strange union. + +"Do you ever quarrel?" asked Peter bluntly. + +"No," said the good-hearted fellow warmly, "never! We have never had a +harsh word; she's the dearest girl,--the best wife in the world to me, +but"--he hesitated, "you know there are times when I think she confounds +me with somebody else, and is strange! Sometimes when we are in company +she stands alone and stares at everybody, without saying a word, as +if she didn't understand them. Or else she gets painfully excited and +dances all night until she is exhausted. I thought, perhaps," he added +timidly, "that you might know, and would tell me if she had any singular +experience as a child,--any illness, or," he went on still more gently, +"if perhaps her mother or father"-- + +"No," interrupted Peter almost brusquely, with the sudden conviction +that this was no time for revelation of his secret, "no, nothing." + +"The doctor says," continued Lascelles with that hesitating, almost +mystic delicacy with which most gentlemen approach a subject upon which +their wives talk openly, "that it may be owing to Jenny's peculiar state +of health just now, you know, and that if--all went well, you know, and +there should be--don't you see--a little child"-- + +Peter interrupted him with a start. A child! Jenny's child! Silver +Cloud's grandchild! This was a complication he had not thought of. +No! It was too late to tell his secret now. He only nodded his head +abstractedly and said coldly, "I dare say he is right." + +Nevertheless, Jenny was looking remarkably well. Perhaps it was the +excitement of travel and new surroundings; but her tall, lithe figure, +nearly half a head taller than her husband's, was a striking one among +the officers' wives in the commandant's sitting-room. Her olive cheek +glowed with a faint illuminating color; there was something even +patrician in her slightly curved nose and high cheek bones, and her +smile, rare even in her most excited moments, was, like her brother's, +singularly fascinating. The officers evidently thought so too, and when +the young lieutenant of the commissary escort, fresh from West Point +and Flirtation Walk, gallantly attached himself to her, the ladies were +slightly scandalized at the naive air of camaraderie with which Mrs. +Lascelles received his attentions. Even Peter was a little disturbed. +Only Lascelles, delighted with his wife's animation, and pleased at her +success, gazed at her with unqualified admiration. Indeed, he was +so satisfied with her improvement, and so sanguine of her ultimate +recovery, that he felt justified in leaving her with her brother and +returning to Omaha by the regular mail wagon next day. There was no +danger to be apprehended in her accompanying Peter; they would have +a full escort; the reservation lay in a direction unfrequented by +marauding tribes; the road was the principal one used by the government +to connect the fort with the settlements, and well traveled; the +officers' wives had often journeyed thither. + +The childish curiosity and high spirits which Jenny showed on the +journey to the reservation was increased when she reached it and drew +up before the house of the Indian agent. Peter was relieved; he had been +anxious and nervous as to any instinctive effect which might be produced +on her excitable nature by a first view of her own kinsfolk, although +she was still ignorant of her relationship. Her interest and curiosity, +however, had nothing abnormal in it. But he was not prepared for the +effect produced upon THEM at her first appearance. A few of the braves +gathered eagerly around her, and one even addressed her in his own +guttural tongue, at which she betrayed a slight feeling of alarm; and +Peter saw with satisfaction that she drew close to him. Knowing that his +old interpreter and Gray Eagle were of a different and hostile tribe a +hundred miles away, and that his secret was safe with them, he simply +introduced her as his sister. But he presently found that the braves had +added to their curiosity a certain suspiciousness and sullen demeanor, +and he was glad to resign his sister into the hands of the agent's wife, +while he prosecuted his business of examination and inspection. Later, +on his return to the cabin, he was met by the agent, who seemed to be +with difficulty suppressing a laugh. + +"Your sister is exciting quite a sensation here," he said. "Do you know +that some of these idiotic braves and the Medicine Man insist upon it +that she's A SQUAW, and that you're keeping her in captivity against +your plighted faith to them! You'll excuse me," he went on with an +attempt to recover his gravity, "troubling you with their d--d fool +talk, and you won't say anything to HER about it, but I thought you +ought to know it on account of your position among 'em. You don't want +to lose their confidence, and you know how easily their skeery faculties +are stampeded with an idea!" + +"Where is she now?" demanded Peter, with a darkening face. + +"Somewhere with the squaws, I reckon. I thought she might be a little +skeered of the braves, and I've kept them away. SHE'S all right, you +know; only if you intend to stay here long I'd"-- + +But Peter was already striding away in the direction of a thicket of +cottonwood where he heard the ripple of women's and children's voices. +When he had penetrated it, he found his sister sitting on a stump, +surrounded by a laughing, gesticulating crowd of young girls and old +women, with a tightly swaddled papoose in her lap. Some of them had +already half mischievously, half curiously possessed themselves of her +dust cloak, hat, parasol, and gloves, and were parading before her +in their grotesque finery, apparently as much to her childish excited +amusement as their own. She was even answering their gesticulations with +equivalent gestures in her attempt to understand them, and trying amidst +shouts of laughter to respond to the monotonous chant of the old women +who were zigzagging a dance before her. With the gayly striped blankets +lying on the ground, the strings of beads, wampum, and highly colored +feathers hanging from the trees, and the flickering lights and shadows, +it was an innocent and even idyllic picture, but the more experienced +Peter saw in the performances only the uncertain temper and want of +consecutive idea of playing animals, and the stolid unwinking papoose in +his sister's lap gave his sentiment a momentary shock. + +Seeing him approach she ran to meet him, the squaws and children +slinking away from his grave face. "I have had such a funny time, Peter! +Only to think of it, I believe they've never seen men or women with +decent clothes before,--of course the settlers' wives don't dress +much,--and I believe they'd have had everything I possess if you hadn't +come. But they're TOO funny for anything. It was killing to see them put +on my hat wrong side before, and try to make one out of my parasol. But +I like them a great deal better than those gloomy chiefs, and I think I +understand them almost. And do you know, Peter, somehow I seem to have +known them all before. And those dear little papooses, aren't they +ridiculously lovely. I only wish"--she stopped, for Peter had somewhat +hurriedly taken the Indian boy from her arms and restored it to the +frightened mother. A singular change came over her face, and she glanced +at him quickly. But she resumed, with a heightened color, "I like it +ever so much better here than down at the fort. And ever so much better +than New York. I don't wonder that you like them so much, Peter, and +are so devoted to them. Don't be angry, dear, because I let them have +my things; I'm sure I never cared particularly for them, and I think +it would be such fun to dress as they do." Peter remembered keenly his +sudden shock at her precipitate change to bright colors after leaving +her novitiate at the Sacred Heart. "I do hope," she went on eagerly, +"that we are going to stay a long time here." + +"We are leaving to-morrow," he said curtly. "I find I have urgent +business at the fort." + +And they did leave. None too soon, thought Peter and the Indian agent, +as they glanced at the faces of the dusky chiefs who had gathered around +the cabin. Luckily the presence of their cavalry escort rendered any +outbreak impossible, and the stoical taciturnity of the race kept +Peter from any verbal insult. But Mrs. Lascelles noticed their lowering +dissatisfaction, and her eyes flashed. "I wonder you don't punish them," +she said simply. + +For a few days after their return she did not allude to her visit, and +Peter was beginning to think that her late impressions were as volatile +as they were childlike. He devoted himself to his government report, and +while he kept up his communications with the reservation and the agent, +for the present domiciled himself at the fort. + +Colonel Bryce, the commandant though doubtful of civilians, was not +slow to appreciate the difference of playing host to a man of Atherly's +wealth and position and even found in Peter's reserve and melancholy an +agreeable relief to the somewhat boisterous and material recreations of +garrison life, and a gentle check upon the younger officers. For, while +Peter did not gamble or drink, there was yet an unobtrusive and gentle +dignity in his abstention that relieved him from the attitude of a +prig or an "example." Mrs. Lascelles was popular with the officers, +and accepted more tolerantly by the wives, since they recognized her +harmlessness. Once or twice she was found apparently interested in +the gesticulations of a few "friendlies" who had penetrated the parade +ground of the fort to barter beads and wampum. The colonel was obliged +at last to caution her against this, as it was found that in her +inexperience she had given them certain articles that were contraband of +the rules, and finally to stop them from an intrusion which was becoming +more frequent and annoying. Left thus to herself, she relieved her +isolation by walks beyond the precincts of the garrison, where she +frequently met those "friendly" wanderers, chiefly squaws and children. +Here she was again cautioned by the commander,-- + +"Don't put too much faith in those creatures, Mrs. Lascelles." + +Jenny elevated her black brows and threw up her arched nose like a +charger. "I'm not afraid of old women and children," she said loftily. + +"But I am," said the colonel gravely. "It's a horrible thing to think +of, but these feeble old women and innocent children are always selected +to torture the prisoners taken by the braves, and, by Jove, they seem to +like it." + +Thus restricted, Mrs. Lascelles fell back upon the attentions of +Lieutenant Forsyth, whose gallantry was always as fresh as his smart +cadet-like tunics, and they took some rides together. Whether it was +military caution or the feminine discretion of the colonel's wife,--to +the quiet amusement of the other officers,--a trooper was added to the +riding party by the order of the colonel, and thereafter it consisted +of three. One night, however, the riders did not appear at dinner, and +there was considerable uneasiness mingled with some gossip throughout +the garrison. It was already midnight before they arrived, and then with +horses blown and trembling with exhaustion, and the whole party bearing +every sign of fatigue and disturbance. The colonel said a few sharp, +decisive words to the subaltern, who, pale and reticent, plucked at his +little moustache, but took the whole blame upon himself. HE and Mrs. +Lascelles had, he said, outridden the trooper and got lost; it was late +when Cassidy (the trooper) found them, but it was no fault of HIS, and +they had to ride at the top of their speed to cover the ground between +them and the fort. It was noticed that Mrs. Lascelles scarcely spoke to +Forsyth, and turned abruptly away from the colonel's interrogations and +went to her room. + +Peter, absorbed in his report, scarcely noticed the incident, nor +the singular restraint that seemed to fall upon the little military +household for a day or two afterwards. He had accepted the lieutenant's +story without comment or question; he knew his own sister too well to +believe that she had lent herself to a flirtation with Forsyth; indeed, +he had rather pitied the young officer when he remembered Lascelles' +experience in his early courtship. But he was somewhat astonished one +afternoon to find the trooper Cassidy alone in his office. + +"Oi thought Oi'd make bould to have a word wid ye, sorr," he said, +recovering from a stiff salute with his fingers nipping the cord of his +trousers. "It's not for meeself, sorr, although the ould man was +harrd on me, nor for the leddy, your sister, but for the sake of the +leftenant, sorr, who the ould man was harrdest on of all. Oi was of the +parrty that rode with your sister." + +"Yes, yes, I remember, I heard the story," said Peter. "She and Mr. +Forsyth got lost." + +"Axin' your pardin, sorr, she didn't. Mr. Forsyth loid. Loid like an +officer and a jintleman--as he is, God bless him--to save a leddy, more +betoken your sister, sorr. They never got lost, sorr. We was all three +together from the toime we shtarted till we got back, and it's the love +av God that we ever got back at all. And it's breaking me hearrt, sorr, +to see HIM goin' round with the black looks of everybody upon him, and +he a-twirlin' his moustache and purtending not to mind." + +"What do you mean?" said Peter, uneasily. + +"Oi mane to be tellin' you what happened, sorr," said Cassidy stoutly. +"When we shtarted out Oi fell three files to the rear, as became me, +so as not to be in the way o' their colloguing, but sorra a bit o' +stragglin' was there, and Oi kept them afore me all the toime. When we +got to Post Oak Bottom the leddy p'ints her whip off to the roight, +and sez she: 'It's a fine bit of turf there, Misther Forsyth,' invitin' +like, and with that she gallops away to the right. The leftenant follys +her, and Oi closed up the rear. So we rides away innoshent like amongst +the trees, me thinkin' only it wor a mighty queer place for manoovrin', +until we seed, just beyond us in the hollow, the smoke of an Injin camp +and a lot of women and childer. And Mrs. Lascelles gets off and goes +to discoursin' and blarneying wid 'em: and Oi sees Mr. Forsyth glancin' +round and lookin' oneasy. Then he goes up and sez something to your +sister, and she won't give him a hearin'. And then he tells her she must +mount and be off. And she turns upon him, bedad, like a tayger, and bids +him be off himself. Then he comes to me and sez he, 'Oi don't like the +look o' this, Cassidy,' sez he; 'the woods behind is full of braves,' +sez he. 'Thrue for you, leftenant,' sez Oi, 'it's into a trap that the +leddy hez led us, God save her!' 'Whisht,' he sez, 'take my horse, it's +the strongest. Go beside her, and when Oi say the word lift her up into +the saddle before ye, and gallop like blazes. Oi'll bring up the rear +and the other horse.' Wid that we changed horses and cantered up to +where she was standing, and he gives the word when she isn't lookin', +and Oi grabs her up--she sthrugglin' like mad but not utterin' a +cry--and Oi lights out for the trail agin. And sure enough the braves +made as if they would folly, but the leftenant throws the reins of her +horse over the horn of his saddle, and whips out his revolver and houlds +'em back till I've got well away to the trail again. And then they let +fly their arrows, and begorra the next thing a BULLET whizzes by him. +And then he knows they have arrms wid 'em and are 'hostiles,' and he +rowls the nearest one over, wheelin' and fightin' and coverin' our +retreat till we gets to the road agin. And they daren't folly us out of +cover. Then the lady gets more sinsible, and the leftenant pershuades +her to mount her horse agin. But before we comes to the fort, he sez to +me: 'Cassidy,' sez he, 'not a word o' this on account of the leddy.' +And I was mum, sorr, while he was shootin' off his mouth about him bein' +lost and all that, and him bein' bully-ragged by the kernel, and me +knowin' that but for him your sister wouldn't be between these walls +here, and Oi wouldn't be talkin' to ye. And shure, sorr, ye might be +tellin's the kernel as how the leddy was took by the hysterics, and was +that loony that she didn't know whatever she was sayin', and so get the +leftenant in favor again." + +"I will speak with the colonel to-night," said Peter gloomily. + +"Lord save yer honor," returned the trooper gratefully, "and if ye could +be sayin' that the LEDDY tould you,--it would only be the merest taste +of a loi ye'd be tellin',--and you'd save me from breakin' me word to +the leftenant." + +"I shall of course speak to my sister first," returned Peter, with a +guilty consciousness that he had accepted the trooper's story mainly +from his previous knowledge of his sister's character. Nevertheless, in +spite of this foregone conclusion, he DID speak to her. To his +surprise she did not deny it. Lieutenant Forsyth,--a vain and conceited +fool,--whose silly attentions she had accepted solely that she might get +recreation beyond the fort,--had presumed to tell her what SHE must do! +As if SHE was one of those stupid officers' wives or sisters! And +it never would have happened if he--Peter--had let her remain at the +reservation with the Indian agent's wife, or if "Charley" (the gentle +Lascelles) were here! HE would have let her go, or taken her there. +Besides all the while she was among friends; HIS, Peter's own +friends,--the people whose cause he was championing! In vain did Peter +try to point out to her that these "people" were still children in mind +and impulse, and capable of vacillation or even treachery. He remembered +he was talking to a child in mind and impulse, who had shown the same +qualities, and in trying to convince her of her danger he felt he was +only voicing the common arguments of his opponents. + +He spoke also to the colonel, excusing her through her ignorance, her +trust in his influence with the savages, and the general derangement of +her health. The colonel, relieved of his suspicions of a promising +young officer, was gentle and sympathetic, but firm as to Peter's future +course. In a moment of caprice and willfulness she might imperil the +garrison as she had her escort, and, more than that, she was imperiling +Peter's influence with the Indians. Absurd stories had come to his ears +regarding the attitude of the reservation towards him. He thought she +ought to return home as quickly as possible. Fortunately an opportunity +offered. The general commanding had advised him of the visit to the fort +of a party of English tourists who had been shooting in the vicinity, +and who were making the fort the farthest point of their western +excursion. There were three or four ladies in the party, and as they +would be returning to the line of railroad under escort, she could +easily accompany them. This, added Colonel Carter, was also Mrs. +Carter's opinion,--she was a woman of experience, and had a married +daughter of her own. In the mean time Peter had better not broach the +subject to his sister, but trust to the arrival of the strangers, +who would remain for a week, and who would undoubtedly divert Mrs. +Lascelles' impressible mind, and eventually make the proposition more +natural and attractive. + +In the interval Peter revisited the reservation, and endeavored to +pacify the irritation that had sprung from his previous inspection. +The outrage at Post Oak Bottom he was assured had no relation to the +incident at the reservation, but was committed by some stragglers from +other tribes who had not yet accepted the government bounty, yet had not +been thus far classified as "hostile." There had been no "Ghost Dancing" +nor other indication of disturbance. The colonel had not deemed +it necessary to send out an exemplary force, or make a counter +demonstration. The incident was allowed to drop. At the reservation +Peter had ignored the previous conduct of the chiefs towards him; +had with quiet courage exposed himself fully--unarmed and +unattended--amongst them, and had as fully let it be known that this +previous incident was the reason that his sister had not accompanied him +on his second visit. He left them at the close of the second day more +satisfied in his mind, and perhaps in a more enthusiastic attitude +towards his report. + +As he came within sound of the sunset bugles, he struck a narrower trail +which led to the fort, through an oasis of oaks and cottonwoods and +a small stream or "branch," which afterwards lost itself in the dusty +plain. He had already passed a few settler's cabins, a sutler's shop, +and other buildings that had sprung up around this armed nucleus of +civilization--which, in due season, was to become a frontier town. But +as yet the brief wood was wild and secluded; frequented only by the +women and children of the fort, within whose protecting bounds it +stood, and to whose formal "parade," and trim white and green cottage +"quarters," it afforded an agreeable relief. As he rode abstractedly +forward under the low cottonwood vault he felt a strange influence +stealing over him, an influence that was not only a present experience +but at the same time a far-off memory. The concave vault above deepened; +the sunset light from the level horizon beyond streamed through the +leaves as through the chequers of stained glass windows; through the two +shafts before him stretched the pillared aisles of Ashley Church! He +was riding as in a dream, and when a figure suddenly slipped across his +pathway from a column-like tree trunk, he woke with the disturbance and +sense of unreality of a dream. For he saw Lady Elfrida standing before +him! + +It was not a mere memory conjured up by association, for although the +figure, face, and attitude were the same, there were certain changes +of costume which the eye of recollection noticed. In place of the smart +narrow-brimmed sailor hat he remembered, she was wearing a slouched +cavalry hat with a gold cord around its crown, that, with all its +becomingness and picturesque audacity, seemed to become characteristic +and respectable, as a crest to her refined head, and as historic as a +Lely canvas. She wore a flannel shirt, belted in at her slight waist +with a band of yellow leather, defining her small hips, and short +straight pleatless skirts that fell to her trim ankles and buckled +leather shoes. She was fresh and cool, wholesome and clean, free and +unfettered; indeed, her beauty seemed only an afterthought or accident. +So much so that when Peter saw her afterwards, amidst the billowy, +gauzy, and challenging graces of the officer's wives, who were dressed +in their best and prettiest frocks to welcome her, the eye turned +naturally from that suggestion of enhancement to the girl who seemed to +defy it. She was clearly not an idealized memory, a spirit or a ghost, +but naturalistic and rosy; he thought a trifle rosier, as she laughingly +addressed him:-- + +"I suppose it isn't quite fair to surprise you like that," she said, +with an honest girlish hand-shake, "for you see I know all about you +now, and what you are doing here, and even when you were expected; and +I dare say you thought we were still in England, if you remembered us +at all. And we haven't met since that day at Ashley Church when I put my +foot in it,--or rather on your pet protege's, the Indian's: you remember +Major Atherly's tomb? And to think that all the while we didn't know +that you were a public man and a great political reformer, and had a fad +like this. Why, we'd have got up meetings for you, and my father would +have presided,--he's always fond of doing these things,--and we'd have +passed resolutions, and given you subscriptions, and Bibles, and flannel +shirts, and revolvers--but I believe you draw the line at that. My +brother was saying only the other day that you weren't half praised +enough for going in for this sort of thing when you were so rich, +and needn't care. And so that's why you rushed away from Ashley +Grange,--just to come here and work out your mission?" + +His whole life, his first wild Californian dream, his English visit, the +revelation of Gray Eagle, the final collapse of his old beliefs, were +whirling through his brain to the music of this clear young voice. And +by some cruel irony of circumstance it seemed now to even mock his later +dreams of expiation as it also called back his unhappy experience of the +last week. + +"Have you--have you"--he stammered with a faint smile, "seen my sister?" + +"Not yet," said Lady Elfrida. "I believe she is not well and is confined +to her room; you will introduce me, won't you?" she added eagerly. "Of +course, when we heard that there was an Atherly here we inquired about +you; and I told them you were a relation of ours," she went on with a +half-mischievous shyness,--"you remember the de Bracys,--and they seemed +surprised and rather curious. I suppose one does not talk so much about +these things over here, and I dare say you have so much to occupy your +mind you don't talk of us in England." With the quickness of a refined +perception she saw a slight shade in his face, and changed the subject. +"And we have had such a jolly time; we have met so many pleasant people; +and they've all been so awfully good to us, from the officials and +officers down to the plainest working-man. And all so naturally too--so +different from us. I sometimes think we have to work ourselves up to +be civil to strangers." "No," she went on gayly, in answer to his +protesting gesture, and his stammered reminder of his own reception. +"No. You came as a sort of kinsman, and Sir Edward knew all about you +before he asked you down to the Grange--or even sent over for me from +the Towers. No! you Americans take people on their 'face value,' as +my brother Reggy says, and we always want to know what are the +'securities.' And then American men are more gallant, though," she +declared mischievously, "I think you are an exception in that way. +Indeed," she went on, "the more I see of your countrymen the less you +seem like them. You are more like us,--more like an Englishman--indeed, +more like an Englishman than most Englishmen,--I mean in the matter of +reserve and all that sort of thing, you know. It's odd,--isn't it? Is +your sister like you?" + +"You shall judge for yourself," said Peter with a gayety that was forced +in proportion as his forebodings became more gloomy. Would his sister's +peculiarities--even her secret--be safe from the clear eyes of the young +girl? + +"I know I shall like her," said Lady Elfrida, simply. "I mean to make +friends with her before we leave, and I hope to see a great deal of her; +and," she said with a naive non sequitur, that, however, had its painful +significance to Peter, "I do want you to show me some Indians--your +Indians, you know YOUR friends. I've seen some of them, of course; I +am afraid I am a little prejudiced, for I did not like them. You see +my taste has to be educated, I suppose; but I thought them so foolishly +vain and presuming." + +"That is their perfect childishness," said Peter quickly. "It is not, I +believe, considered a moral defect," he added bitterly. + +Lady Elfrida laughed, and yet at the same moment a look of appeal that +was in itself quite as childlike shone in her blue eyes. "There, I +have blundered again, I know; but I told you I have such ridiculous +prejudices! And I really want to like them as you do. Only," she laughed +again, "it seems strange that YOU, of all men, should have interested +yourself in people so totally different to you. But what will be the +result if your efforts are successful? Will they remain a distinct race? +Will you make citizens, soldiers, congressmen, governors of them? Will +they intermarry with the whites? Is that a part of your plan? I hope +not!" + +It was a part of Peter's sensitive excitement that even through the +unconscious irony of this speech he was noticing the difference between +the young English girl's evident interest in a political problem and the +utter indifference of his own countrywomen. Here was a girl scarcely out +of her teens, with no pretension to being a blue stocking, with half +the aplomb of an American girl of her own age, gravely considering +a question of political economy. Oddly enough, it added to his other +irritation, and he said almost abruptly, "Why not?" + +She took the question literally and with a little youthful timidity. +"But these mixed races never attain to anything, do they? I thought that +was understood. But," she added with feminine quickness, "and I suppose +it's again only a PERSONAL argument, YOU wouldn't like your sister to +have married an Indian, would you?" + +The irony of the situation had reached its climax to Peter. It didn't +seem to be his voice that said, "I can answer by an argument still more +personal. I have even thought myself of marrying an Indian woman." + +It seemed to him that what he said was irrevocable, but he was +desperate. It seemed to him that in a moment more he would have told her +his whole secret. But the young girl drew back from him with a slight +start of surprise. There may have been something in the tone of his +voice and in his manner that verged upon a seriousness she was never +contemplating in her random talk; it may have been an uneasiness of +some youthful imprudence in pressing the subject upon a man of his +superiority, and that his abrupt climax was a rebuke. But it was only +for a moment; her youthful buoyancy, and, above all, a certain common +sense that was not incompatible to her high nature, came to her rescue. +"But that," she said with quick mischievousness, "would be a SACRIFICE +taken in the interest of these people, don't you see; and being a +sacrifice, it's no argument." + +Peter saw his mistake, but there was something so innocent and +delightful in the youthful triumph of this red-lipped logician, that +he was forced to smile. I have said that his smile was rare and +fascinating, a concession wrung from his dark face and calm beardless +lips that most people found irresistible, but it was odd, nevertheless, +that Lady Elfrida now for the first time felt a sudden and not +altogether unpleasant embarrassment over the very subject she had +approached with such innocent fearlessness. There was a new light in her +eyes, a fresher color in her cheeks as she turned her face--she knew not +why--away from him. But it enabled her to see a figure approaching them +from the fort. And I grieve to say that, perhaps for the first time in +her life, Lady Elfrida was guilty of an affected start. + +"Oh, here's Reggy coming to look for me. I'd quite forgotten, but I'm +so glad. I want you to know my brother Reggy. He was always so sorry he +missed you at the Grange." + +The tall, young, good-looking brown Englishman who had sauntered up +bestowed a far more critical glance upon Peter's horse than upon Peter, +but nevertheless grasped his hand heartily as his sister introduced him. +Perhaps both men were equally undemonstrative, although the reserve of +one was from temperament and the other from education. Nevertheless Lord +Reginald remarked, with a laugh, that it was awfully jolly to be there, +and that it had been a beastly shame that he was in Scotland when +Atherly was at the Grange. That none of them had ever suspected till +they came to the fort that he, Atherly, was one of those government +chappies, and so awfully keen on Indian politics. "Friddy" had been +the first to find it out, but they thought she was chaffing. At which +"Friddy," who had suddenly resolved herself into the youthfulest of +schoolgirls in the presence of her brother, put her parasol like an +Indian club behind her back, and still rosy, beamed admiringly upon +Reggy. Then the three, Peter leading his horse, moved on towards the +fort, presently meeting "Georgy," the six-foot Guardsman cousin in +extraordinary tweeds and flannel shirt; Lord Runnybroke, uncle +of Friddy, middle-aged and flannel-shirted, a mighty hunter; Lady +Runnybroke, in a brown duster, but with a stately head that suggested +ostrich feathers; Moyler-Spence, M. P., with an eyeglass, and the Hon. +Evelyn Kayne, closely attended by the always gallant Lieutenant Forsyth. +Peter began to feel a nervous longing to be alone on the burning plain +and the empty horizon beyond them, until he could readjust himself to +these new conditions, and glanced half-wearily around him. But his eye +met Friddy's, who seemed to have evoked this gathering with a wave of +her parasol, like the fairy of a pantomime, and he walked on in silence. + +A day or two of unexpected pleasure passed for Peter. In these new +surroundings he found he could separate Lady Elfrida from his miserable +past, and the conventional restraint of Ashley Grange. Again, the +revelation of her familiar name Friddy seemed to make her more +accessible and human to him than her formal title, and suited the +girlish simplicity that lay at the foundation of her character, of which +he had seen so little before. At least so he fancied, and so excused +himself; it was delightful to find her referring to him as an older +friend; pleasant, indeed, to see that her family tacitly recognized it, +and frequently appealed to him with the introduction, "Friddy says you +can tell us," or "You and Friddy had better arrange it between you." +Even the dreaded introduction of his sister was an agreeable surprise, +owing to Lady Elfrida's frank and sympathetic prepossession, which Jenny +could not resist. In a few moments they were walking together in serious +and apparently confidential conversation. For to Peter's wonder it was +the "Lady Elfrida" side of the English girl's nature that seemed to +have attracted Jenny, and not the playfulness of "Friddy," and he was +delighted to see that the young girl had assumed a grave chaperonship +of the tall Mrs. Lascelles that would have done credit to Mrs. Carter +or Lady Runnybroke. Had he been less serious he might have been amused, +too, at the importance of his own position in the military outpost, +through the arrival of the strangers. That this grave political +enthusiast and civilian should be on familiar terms with a young +Englishwoman of rank was at first inconceivable to the officers. +And that he had never alluded to it before seemed to them still more +remarkable. + +Nevertheless, there was much liveliness and good fellowship at the fort. +Captains and lieutenants down to the youngest "cub," Forsyth, vied +with each other to please the Englishmen, supplied them with that +characteristic American humor and anecdote which it is an Englishman's +privilege to bring away with him, and were picturesquely and +chivalrously devoted in their attentions to the ladies, who were pleased +and amused by it, though it is to be doubted if it increased their +respect for the giver, although they were more grateful for it than +the average American woman. Lady Elfrida found the officers very +entertaining and gallant. Accustomed to the English officer, and his +somewhat bored way of treating his profession and his duties, she may +have been amused at the zeal, earnestness, and enthusiasm of these +youthful warriors, who aspired to appear as nothing but soldiers, when +she contrasted them with her Guardsmen relatives who aspired to +be everything else but that; but she kept it to herself. It was a +recognized, respectable, and even superior occupation for gentlemen in +England; what it might be in America,--who knows? She certainly found +Peter, the civilian, more attractive, for there really was nothing +English to compare him with, and she had something of the same feeling +in her friendship for Jenny, except the patronage which Jenny seemed to +solicit, and perhaps require, as a foreigner. + +One afternoon the English guests, accompanied by a few of their hosts +and a small escort, were making a shooting expedition to the vicinity of +Green Spring, when Peter, plunged in his report, looked up to find his +sister entering his office. Her face was pale, and there was something +in her expression which reawakened his old anxiety. Nevertheless he +smiled, and said gently:-- + +"Why are you not enjoying yourself with the others?" + +"I have a headache," she said, languidly, "but," lifting her eyes +suddenly to his, "why are YOU not? You are their good friend, you +know,--even their relation." + +"No more than you are," he returned, with affected gayety. "But look at +the report--it is only half finished! I have already been shirking it +for them." + +"You mustn't let your devotion to the Indians keep you from your older +friends," said Mrs. Lascelles, with an odd laugh. "But you never told +me about these people before, Peter; tell me now. They were very kind to +you, weren't they, on account of your relationship?" + +"Entirely on account of that," said Peter, with a sudden bitterness he +could not repress. "But they are very pleasant," he added quickly, "and +very simple and unaffected, in spite of their rank; perhaps I ought to +say, BECAUSE of it." + +"You mean they are kind to us because they feel themselves +superior,--just as you are kind to the Indians, Peter." + +"I am afraid they have no such sense of political equality towards us, +Jenny, as impels me to be just to the Indian," he said with affected +lightness. "But Lady Elfrida sympathizes with the Indians--very much." + +"She!" The emphasis which his sister put upon the personal pronoun was +unmistakable, but Peter ignored it, and so apparently did she, as she +said the next moment in a different voice, "She's very pretty, don't you +think?" + +"Very," said Peter coldly. + +There was a long pause. Peter slightly fingered one of the sheets of his +delayed report on his desk. His sister looked up. "I'm afraid I'm as bad +as Lady Elfrida in keeping you from your Indians; but I had something to +say to you. No matter, another time will do when you're not so busy." + +"Please go on now," said Peter, with affected unconcern, yet with a +feeling of uneasiness creeping over him. + +"It was only this," said Jenny, seating herself with her elbow on the +desk and her chin in a cup-like hollow of her hand, "did you ever think +that in the interests of these poor Indians, you know, purely for the +sake of your belief in them, and just to show that you were above vulgar +prejudices,--did you ever think you could marry one of them?" + +Two thoughts flashed quickly on Peter's mind,--first, that Lady Elfrida +had repeated something of their conversation to his sister; secondly, +that some one had told her of Little Daybreak. Each was equally +disturbing. But he recovered himself quickly and said, "I might if I +thought it was required. But even a sacrifice is not always an example." + +"Then you think it would be a sacrifice?" she said, slowly raising her +dark eyes to his. + +"If I did something against received opinion, against precedent, and +for aught I know against even the prejudices of those I wish to serve, +however lofty my intention was and however great the benefit to them in +the end, it would still be a sacrifice in the present." He saw his own +miserable logic and affected didactics, but he went on lightly, "But +why do you ask such a question? You haven't any one in your mind for me, +have you?" + +She had risen thoughtfully and was moving towards the door. Suddenly she +turned with a quick, odd vivacity: "Perhaps I had. Oh, Peter, there was +such a lovely little squaw I saw the last time I was at Oak Bottom! She +was no darker than I am, but so beautiful. Even in her little cotton +gown and blanket, with only a string of beads around her throat, she +was as pretty as any one here. And I dare say she could be educated and +appear as well as any white woman. I should so like to have you see her. +I would have tried to bring her to the fort, but the braves are very +jealous of their wives or daughters seeing white men, you know, and I +was afraid of the colonel." + +She had spoken volubly and with a strange excitement, but even at the +moment her face changed again, and as she left the office, with a quick +laugh and parting gesture, there were tears in her eyes. + +Accustomed to her moods and caprices, Peter thought little of the +intrusion, relieved as he was of his first fears. She had come to him +from loneliness and curiosity, and, perhaps, he thought with a sad +smile, from a little sisterly jealousy of the young girl who had evinced +such an interest in him, and had known him before. He took up his pen +and continued the interrupted paragraph of his report. + +"I am satisfied that much of the mischievous and extravagant prejudice +against the half breed and all alliances of the white and red +races springs from the ignorance of the frontiersman and his hasty +generalization of facts. There is no doubt that an intermixture of blood +brings out purely superficial contrasts the more strongly, and that +against the civilizing habits and even costumes of the half breed, +certain Indian defects appear the more strongly as in the case of the +color line of the quadroon and octoroon, but it must not be forgotten +that these are only the contrasts of specific improvement, and the +inference that the borrowed defects of a half breed exceed the original +defects of the full-blooded aborigine is utterly illogical." He stopped +suddenly and laid down his pen with a heightened color; the bugle had +blown, the guard was turning out to receive the commandant and his +returning party, among whom was Friddy. + +***** + +Through the illusions of depression and distance the "sink" of Butternut +Creek seemed only an incrustation of blackish moss on the dull gray +plain. It was not until one approached within half a mile of it that it +resolved itself into a copse of butternut-trees sunken below the distant +levels. Here once, in geological story, the waters of Butternut Creek, +despairing of ever crossing the leagues of arid waste before them, had +suddenly disappeared in the providential interposition of an area of +looser soil, and so given up the effort and the ghost forever, their +grave being marked by the butternut copse, chance-sown by bird or beast +in the saturated ground. In Indian legend the "sink" commemorated the +equally providential escape of a great tribe who, surrounded by enemies, +appealed to the Great Spirit for protection, and was promptly conveyed +by subterraneous passages to the banks of the Great River a hundred +miles away. Its outer edges were already invaded by the dust of the +plain, but within them ran cool recesses, a few openings, and the +ashes of some long-forgotten camp-fires. To-day its sombre shadows were +relieved by bright colored dresses, the jackets of the drivers of a +large sutler's wagon, whose white canvas head marked the entrance of the +copse, and all the paraphernalia of a picnic. It was a party gotten up +by the foreign guests to the ladies of the fort, prepared and arranged +by the active Lady Elfrida, assisted by the only gentleman of the party, +Peter Atherly, who, from his acquaintance with the locality, was allowed +to accompany them. The other gentlemen, who with a large party of +officers and soldiers were shooting in the vicinity, were sufficiently +near for protection. They would rejoin the ladies later. + +"It does not seem in the least as if we were miles away from any town +or habitation," said Lady Runnybroke, complacently seating herself on a +stump, "and I shouldn't be surprised to see a church tower through those +trees. It's very like the hazel copse at Longworth, you know. Not at all +what I expected." + +"For the matter of that neither are the Indians," said the Hon. Evelyn +Rayne. "Did you ever see such grotesque creatures in their cast-off +boots and trousers? They're no better than gypsies. I wonder what Mr. +Atherly can find in them." + +"And he a rich man, too,--they say he's got a mine in California worth +a million,--to take up a craze like this," added the lively Mrs. Captain +Joyce, "that's what gets me! You know," she went on confidentially, +"that cranks and reformers are always poor--it's quite natural; but +I don't see what he, a rich man, expects to make by his reforms, I'm +sure." + +"He'll get over it in time," said the Hon. Evelyn Kayne, "they all do. +At least he expects to get the reforms he wants in a year, and then he's +coming over to England again." + +"Indeed, how very nice," responded Lady Runnybroke quickly. "Did he say +so?" + +"No. But Friddy says he is." + +The two officers' wives glanced at each other. Lady Runnybroke put up +her eyeglass in default of ostrich feathers, and said didactically, "I'm +sure Mr. Atherly is very much in earnest, and sincerely devoted to his +work. And in a man of his wealth and position here it's most estimable. +My dear," she said, getting up and moving towards Mrs. Lascelles, "we +were just saying how good and unselfish your brother was in his work for +these poor people." + +But Jenny Lascelles must have been in one of those abstracted moods +which so troubled her husband, for she seemed to be staring straight +before her into the recesses of the wood. In her there was a certain +resemblance to the attitude of a listening animal. + +"I wish Mr. Atherly was a little more unselfish to US poor people," +said the Hon. Evelyn Kayne, "for he and Friddy have been nearly an hour +looking for a place to spread our luncheon baskets. I wish they'd leave +the future of the brown races to look after itself and look a little +more after us. I'm famished." + +"I fancy they find it difficult to select a clear space for so large +a party as we will be when the gentlemen come in," returned Lady +Runnybroke, glancing in the direction of Jenny's abstracted eyes. + +"I suppose you must feel like chicken and salad, too, Lady Runnybroke," +suggested Mrs. Captain Joyce. + +"I don't think I quite know HOW chicken and salad feel, dear," said +Lady Runnybroke with a puzzled air, "but if that's one of your husband's +delightful American stories, do tell us. I never CAN get Runnybroke to +tell me any, although he roars over them all. And I dare say he gets +them all wrong. But look, here comes our luncheon." + +Peter and Lady Elfrida were advancing towards them. The scrutiny of a +dozen pairs of eyes--wondering, mischievous, critical, impertinent, or +resentful--would have been a trying ordeal to any errant couple; but +there was little if any change in Peter's grave and gentle demeanor, +albeit his dark eyes were shining with a peculiar light, and Lady +Elfrida had only the animation, color, and slight excitability that +became the responsible leader of the little party. They neither +apologized or alluded to their delay. They had selected a spot on the +other side of the copse, and the baskets could be sent around by the +wagon; they had seen a slight haze on the plain towards the east which +betokened the vicinity of the rest of the party, and they were about to +propose that as the gentlemen were so near they had better postpone +the picnic until they came up. Lady Runnybroke smiled affably; the only +thing she had noticed was that Lady Elfrida in joining them had gone +directly to the side of the abstracted Jenny, and placed her arm around +her waist. At which Lady Runnybroke airily joined them. + +The surmises of Peter and Friddy appeared to be correct. The transfer +of the provisions and the party to the other side was barely concluded +before they could see the gentlemen coming; they were riding a little +more rapidly than when they had set out, and were arriving fully +three hours before their time. They burst upon the ladies a little +boisterously but gayly; they had had a glorious time, but little sport; +they had hurried back to join the ladies so as to be able to return with +them betimes. They were ravenously hungry; they wanted to fall to at +once. Only the officers' wives noticed that the two files of troopers +DID NOT DISMOUNT, but filed slowly before the entrance to the woods. +Lady Elfrida as hostess was prettily distressed by it, but was told by +Captain Joyce that it was "against rules," and that she could "feed" +them at the fort. The officers' wives put a few questions in whispers, +and were promptly frowned down. Nevertheless, the luncheon was a +successful festivity: the gentlemen were loud in the praises of their +gracious hostess; the delicacies she had provided by express from +distant stations, and much that was distinctly English and despoiled +from her own stores, were gratefully appreciated by the officers of +a remote frontier garrison. Lady Elfrida's health was toasted by +the gallant colonel in a speech that was the soul of chivalry. Lord +Runnybroke responded, perhaps without the American abandon, but with +the steady conscientiousness of an hereditary legislator, but the M. P. +summed up a slightly exaggerated but well meaning episode by pointing +out that it was on occasions like this that the two nations showed their +common ancestry by standing side by side. Only one thing troubled the +rosy, excited, but still clear-headed Friddy; the plates were whisked +away like magic after each delicacy, by the military servants, and +vanished; the tables were in the same mysterious way cleared as rapidly +as they were set, and any attempt to recall a dish was met by the +declaration that it was already packed away in the wagon. As they +at last rose from the actually empty board, and saw even the tables +disappear, Lady Elfrida plaintively protested that she felt as if she +had been presiding over an Arabian Nights entertainment, served by +genii, and she knew that they would all awaken hungry when they were +well on their way back. Nevertheless, in spite of this expedition, the +officers lounged about smoking until every trace of the festivity had +vanished. Reggy found himself standing near Peter. "You know," he said, +confidentially, "I don't think the colonel has a very high opinion of +your pets,--the Indians. And, by Jove, if the 'friendlies' are as nasty +towards you as they were to us this morning, I wonder what you call the +'hostile' tribes." + +"Did you have any difficulty with them?" said Peter quickly. + +"No, not exactly, don't you know--we were too many, I fancy; but, by +Jove, the beggars whenever we met them,--and we met one or two gypsy +bands of them,--you know, they seemed to look upon us as TRESPASSERS, +don't you know." + +"And you were, in point of fact," said Peter, smiling grimly. + +"Oh, I say, come now!" said Reggy, opening his eyes. After a moment he +laughed. "Oh, yes, I see--of course, looking at it from their point +of view. By Jove, I dare say the beggars were right, you know; all the +same,--don't you see,--YOUR people were poaching too." + +"So we were," said Peter gravely. + +But here, at a word from the major, the whole party debouched from +the woods. Everything appeared to be awaiting them,--the large covered +carryall for the guests, and the two saddle horses for Mrs. Lascelles +and Lady Elfrida, who had ridden there together. Peter, also mounted, +accompanied the carryall with two of the officers; the troopers and +wagons brought up the rear. + +It was very hot, with little or no wind. On this part of the plain the +dust seemed lighter and finer, and rose with the wheels of the carryall +and the horses of the escort, trailing a white cloud over the cavalcade +like the smoke of an engine over a train. It was with difficulty the +troopers could be kept from opening out on both sides of the highway to +escape it. The whole atmosphere seemed charged with it; it even appeared +in a long bank to the right, rising and obscuring the declining sun. But +they were already within sight of the fort and the little copse beside +it. Then trooper Cassidy trotted up to the colonel, who was riding in a +dusty cloud beside the carryall, "Captain Fleetwood's compliments, sorr, +and there are two sthragglers,--Mrs. Lascelles and the English lady." He +pointed to the rapidly flying figures of Jenny and Friddy making towards +the wood. + +The colonel made a movement of impatience. "Tell Mr. Forsyth to bring +them back at once," he said. + +But here a feminine chorus of excuses and expostulations rose from +the carryall. "It's only Mrs. Lascelles going to show Friddy where the +squaws and children bathe," said Lady Runnybroke, "it's near the fort, +and they'll be there as quick as we shall." + +"One moment, colonel," said Peter, with mortified concern. "It's another +folly of my sister's! pray let me take it upon myself to bring them +back." + +"Very well, but see you don't linger, and," turning to Cassidy, as Peter +galloped away, he added, "you follow him." + +Peter kept the figures of the two women in view, but presently saw +them disappear in the wood. He had no fear for their safety, but he was +indignant at this last untimely caprice of his sister. He knew the idea +had originated with her, and that the officers knew it, and yet she had +made Lady Elfrida bear an equal share of the blame. He reached the edge +of the copse, entered the first opening, but he had scarcely plunged +into its shadow and shut out the plain behind him before he felt his +arms and knees quickly seized from behind. So sudden and unexpected was +the attack that he first thought his horse had stumbled against a coil +of wild grapevine and was entangled, but the next moment he smelled the +rank characteristic odor and saw the brown limbs of the Indian who had +leaped on his crupper, while another rose at his horse's head. Then a +warning voice in his ear said in the native tongue:-- + +"If the great white medicine man calls to his fighting men, the +pale-faced girl and the squaw he calls his sister die! They are here, he +understands." + +But Peter had neither struggled nor uttered a cry. At that touch, and +with the accents of that tongue in his ears, all his own Indian blood +seemed to leap and tingle through his veins. His eyes flashed; pinioned +as he was he drew himself erect and answered haughtily in his captor's +own speech:-- + +"Good! The great white medicine man obeys, for he and his sister have +no fear. But if the pale-face girl is not sent back to her people before +the sun sets, then the yellow jackets will swarm the woods, and they +will follow her trail to the death. My brother is wise; let the girl go. +I have spoken." + +"My brother is very cunning too. He would call to his fighting men +through the lips of the pale-face girl." + +"He will not. The great white medicine man does not lie to his red +brother. He will tell the pale-face girl to say to the chief of the +yellow jackets that he and his sister are with his brothers, and all is +peace. But the pale-face girl must not see the great white medicine man +in these bonds, nor as a captive! I have spoken." + +The two Indians fell back. There was so much of force and dignity in the +man, so much of their own stoic calmness, that they at once mechanically +loosened the thongs of plaited deer hide with which they had bound him, +and side by side led him into the recesses of the wood. + +***** + +There was some astonishment, although little alarm at the fort, when +Lady Elfrida returned accompanied by the orderly who had followed Peter +to the wood, but without Peter and his sister. The reason given was +perfectly natural and conceivable. Mrs. Lascelles had preceded Lady +Elfrida in entering the wood and taken another opening, so that Lady +Elfrida had found herself suddenly lost, and surrounded by two or three +warriors in dreadful paint. They motioned her to dismount, and said +something she did not understand, but she declined, knowing that she had +heard Mr. Atherly and the orderly following her, and feeling no fear. +And sure enough Mr. Atherly presently came up with a couple of braves, +apologized to her for their mistake, but begged her to return to the +fort at once and assure the colonel that everything was right, and that +he and his sister were safe. He was perfectly cool and collected and +like himself; she blushed slightly, as she said she thought that he +wished to impress upon her, for some reason she could not understand, +that he did not want the colonel to send any assistance. She was +positive of that. She told her story unexcitedly; it was evident that +she had not been frightened, but Lady Runnybroke noticed that there was +a shade of anxious abstraction in her face. + +When the officers were alone the colonel took hurried counsel of them. +"I think," said Captain Fleetwood, "that Lady Elfrida's story quite +explains itself. I believe this affair is purely a local one, and has +nothing whatever to do with the suspicious appearances we noticed this +afternoon, or the presence of so large a body of Indians near Butternut. +Had this been a hostile movement they would have scarcely allowed so +valuable a capture as Lady Elfrida to escape them." + +"Unless they kept Atherly and his sister as a hostage," said Captain +Joyce. + +"But Atherly is one of their friends; indeed he is their mediator +and apostle, a non-combatant, and has their confidence," returned the +colonel. "It is much more reasonable to suppose that Atherly has noticed +some disaffection among these 'friendlies,' and he fears that our +sending a party to his assistance might precipitate a collision. Or he +may have reason to believe that this stopping of the two women under +the very walls of the fort is only a feint to draw our attention from +something more serious. Did he know anything of our suspicions of the +conduct of those Indians this morning?" + +"Not unless he gathered it from what Lord Reginald foolishly told +him. We said nothing, of course," returned Captain Fleetwood, with a +soldier's habitual distrust of the wisdom of the civil arm. + +"That will do, gentlemen," said the colonel, as the officers dispersed; +"send Cassidy here." + +The colonel was alone on the veranda as Cassidy came up. + +"You followed Mr. Atherly to-day?" + +"Yes sorr." + +"And you saw him when he gave the message to the young lady?" + +"Yes sorr." + +"Did you form any opinion from anything else you saw, of his object in +sending that message?" + +"Only from what I saw of HIM." + +"Well, what was that?" + +"I saw him look afther the young leddy as she rode away, and then wheel +about and go straight back into the wood." + +"And what did you think of that?" said the colonel, with a half smile. + +"I thought it was shacrifice, sorr." + +"What do you mean?" said the colonel sharply. + +"I mane, sorr," said Cassidy stoutly, "that he was givin' up hisself and +his sister for that young leddy." + +The colonel looked at the sergeant. "Ask Mr. Forsyth to come to me +privately, and return here with him." + +As darkness fell, some half a dozen dismounted troopers, headed by +Forsyth and Cassidy, passed quietly out of the lower gate and entered +the wood. An hour later the colonel was summoned from the dinner table, +and the guests heard the quick rattle of a wagon turning out of the road +gate--but the colonel did not return. An indefinable uneasiness crept +over the little party, which reached its climax in the summoning of the +other officers, and the sudden flashing out of news. The reconnoitring +party had found the dead bodies of Peter Atherly and his sister on the +plains at the edge of the empty wood. + +The women were gathered in the commandant's quarters, and for the +moment seemed to have been forgotten. The officers' wives talked with +professional sympathy and disciplined quiet; the English ladies were +equally sympathetic, but collected. Lady Elfrida, rather white, but +patient, asked a few questions in a voice whose contralto was rather +deepened. One and all wished to "do something"--anything "to help"--and +one and all rebelled that the colonel had begged them to remain within +doors. There was an occasional quick step on the veranda, or the +clatter of a hoof on the parade, a continued but subdued murmur from the +whitewashed barracks, but everywhere a sense of keen restraint. + +When they emerged on the veranda again, the whole aspect of the garrison +seemed to have changed in that brief time. In the faint moonlight they +could see motionless files of troopers filling the parade, the officers +in belted tunics and slouched hats,--but apparently not the same men; +the half lounging ease and lazy dandyism gone, a grim tension in all +their faces, a set abstraction in all their acts. Then there was the +rolling of heavy wheels in the road, and the two horses of the ambulance +appeared. The sentries presented arms; the colonel took off his hat; +the officers uncovered; the wagon wheeled into the parade; the surgeon +stepped out. He exchanged a single word with the colonel, and lifted the +curtain of the ambulance. + +As the colonel glanced within, a deep but embarrassed voice fell +upon his ear. He turned quickly. It was Lord Reginald, flushed and +sympathetic. + +"He was a friend,--a relation of ours, you know," he stammered. "My +sister would like--to look at him again." + +"Not now," said the colonel in a low voice. The surgeon added something +in a voice still lower, which scarcely reached the veranda. + +Lord Reginald turned away with a white face. + +"Fall back there!" Captain Fleetwood rode up. + +"All ready, sir." + +"One moment, captain," said the colonel quietly. "File your first half +company before that ambulance, and bid the men look in." + +The singular order was obeyed. The men filed slowly forward, each in +turn halting before the motionless wagon and its immobile freight. They +were men inured to frontier bloodshed and savage warfare; some halted +and hurried on; others lingered, others turned to look again. One man +burst into a short laugh, but when the others turned indignantly upon +him, they saw that in his face that held them in awe. What they saw in +the ambulance did not transpire; what they felt was not known. Strangely +enough, however, what they repressed themselves was mysteriously +communicated to their horses, who snorted and quivered with eagerness +and impatience as they rode back again. The horse of the trooper who +had laughed almost leaped into the air. Only Sergeant Cassidy was +communicative; he took a larger circuit in returning to his place, and +managed to lean over and whisper hoarsely in the ear of a camp follower +spectator, "Tell the young leddy that the torturin' divvils couldn't +take the smile off him!" + +The little column filed out of the gateway into the road. As Captain +Fleetwood passed Colonel Carter the two men's eyes met. The colonel said +quietly, "Good night, captain. Let us have a good report from you." + +The captain replied only with his gauntleted hand against the brim of +his slouched hat, but the next moment his voice was heard strong and +clear enough in the road. The little column trotted away as evenly as on +parade. But those who climbed the roof of the barracks a quarter of an +hour later saw, in the moonlight, a white cloud drifting rapidly across +the plain towards the west. It was a small cloud in that bare, +menacing, cruel, and illimitable waste; but in its breast was crammed a +thunderbolt. + +It fell thirty miles away, blasting and scattering a thousand warriors +and their camp, giving and taking no quarter, vengeful, exterminating, +and complete. Later there were different opinions about it and the +horrible crime that had provoked it: the opposers of Peter's policy +jubilant over the irony of the assassination of the Apostle of +Peace, Peter's disciples as actively deploring the merciless and +indiscriminating vengeance of the military; and so the problem that +Peter had vainly attempted to solve was left an open question. There +were those, too, who believed that Peter had never sacrificed himself +and his sister for the sake of another, but had provoked and incensed +the savages by the blind arrogance of a reformer. There were wild +stories by scouts and interpreters how he had challenged his fate by +an Indian bravado; how himself and his sister had met torture with +an Indian stoicism, and how the Indian braves themselves at last in a +turmoil of revulsion had dipped their arrows and lances in the heroic +heart's blood of their victims, and worshiped their still palpitating +flesh. + +But there was one honest loyal little heart that carried back--three +thousand miles--to England the man as it had known and loved him. Lady +Elfrida Runnybroke never married; neither did she go into retirement, +but lived her life and fulfilled her duties in her usual clear-eyed +fashion. She was particularly kind to all Americans,--barring, I fear, a +few pretty-faced, finely-frocked title-hunters,--told stories of the +Far West, and had theories of a people of which they knew little, cared +less, and believed to be vulgar. But I think she found a new pleasure in +the old church at Ashley Grange, and loved to linger over the effigy of +the old Crusader,--her kinsman, the swashbuckler De Bracy,--with a vague +but pretty belief that devotion and love do not die with brave men, but +live and flourish even in lands beyond the seas. + + + + +TWO AMERICANS + + +Perhaps if there was anything important in the migration of the Maynard +family to Europe it rested solely upon the singular fact that Mr. +Maynard did not go there in the expectation of marrying his daughter to +a nobleman. A Charleston merchant, whose house represented two honorable +generations, had, thirty years ago, a certain self-respect which did +not require extraneous aid and foreign support, and it is exceedingly +probable that his intention of spending a few years abroad had no +ulterior motive than pleasure seeking and the observation of many +things--principally of the past--which his own country did not possess. +His future and that of his family lay in his own land, yet with +practical common sense he adjusted himself temporarily to his new +surroundings. In doing so, he had much to learn of others, and others +had something to learn of him; he found that the best people had a +high simplicity equal to his own; he corrected their impressions that a +Southerner had more or less negro blood in his veins, and that, although +a slave owner, he did not necessarily represent an aristocracy. With a +distinguishing dialect of which he was not ashamed, a frank familiarity +of approach joined to an invincible courtesy of manner, which made even +his republican "Sir" equal to the ordinary address to royalty, he +was always respected and seldom misunderstood. When he was--it was +unfortunate for those who misunderstood him. His type was as distinctive +and original as his cousin's, the Englishman, whom it was not the +fashion then to imitate. So that, whether in the hotel of a capital, +the Kursaal of a Spa, or the humbler pension of a Swiss village, he was +always characteristic. Less so was his wife, who, with the chameleon +quality of her transplanted countrywomen, was already Parisian in +dress; still less so his daughter, who had by this time absorbed the +peculiarities of her French, German, and Italian governesses. Yet +neither had yet learned to evade their nationality--or apologize for it. + +Mr. Maynard and his family remained for three years in Europe, his stay +having been prolonged by political excitement in his own State of +South Carolina. Commerce is apt to knock the insularity out of people; +distance from one's own distinctive locality gives a wider range to the +vision, and the retired merchant foresaw ruin in his State's politics, +and from the viewpoint of all Europe beheld instead of the usual +collection of individual States--his whole country. But the excitement +increasing, he was finally impelled to return in a faint hope of +doing something to allay it, taking his wife with him, but leaving +his daughter at school in Paris. At about this time, however, a single +cannon shot fired at the national flag on Fort Sumter shook the whole +country, reverberated even in Europe, sending some earnest hearts back +to do battle for State or country, sending others less earnest into +inglorious exile, but, saddest of all! knocking over the school bench +of a girl at the Paris pensionnat. For that shot had also sunk Maynard's +ships at the Charleston wharves, scattered his piled Cotton bales +awaiting shipment at the quays, and drove him, a ruined man, into the +"Home Guard" against his better judgment. Helen Maynard, like a good +girl, had implored her father to let her return and share his risks. But +the answer was "to wait" until this nine days' madness of an uprising +was over. That madness lasted six years, outlived Maynard, whose gray, +misdoubting head bit the dust at Ball's Bluff; outlived his colorless +widow, and left Kelly a penniless orphan. + +Yet enough of her country was left in her to make her courageous and +independent of her past. They say that when she got the news she cried +a little, and then laid the letter and what was left of her last +monthly allowance in Madame Ablas' lap. Madame was devastated. "But you, +impoverished and desolated angel, what of you?" "I shall get some of +it back," said the desolated angel with ingenuous candor, "for I speak +better French and English than the other girls, and I shall teach THEM +until I can get into the Conservatoire, for I have a voice. You yourself +have told papa so." From such angelic directness there was no appeal. +Madame Ablas had a heart,--more, she had a French manageress's +discriminating instinct. The American schoolgirl was installed in a +teacher's desk; her bosom friends and fellow students became her pupils. +To some of the richest, and they were mainly of her own country, she +sold her smartest, latest dresses, jewels, and trinkets at a very good +figure, and put the money away against the Conservatoire in the future. +She worked hard, she endured patiently everything but commiseration. +"I'd have you know, Miss," she said to Miss de Laine, daughter of the +famous house of Musslin, de Laine & Co., of New York, "that whatever my +position HERE may be, it is not one to be patronized by a tapeseller's +daughter. My case is not such a very 'sad one,' thank you, and I prefer +not to be spoken of as having seen 'better days' by people who haven't. +There! Don't rap your desk with your pencil when you speak to me, or +I shall call out 'Cash!' before the whole class." So regrettable an +exhibition of temper naturally alienated certain of her compatriots who +were unduly sensitive of their origin, and as they formed a considerable +colony who were then reveling in the dregs of the Empire and the last +orgies of a tottering court, eventually cost her her place. A republican +so aristocratic was not to be tolerated by the true-born Americans who +paid court to De Morny for the phosphorescent splendors of St. Cloud +and the Tuileries, and Miss Helen lost their favor. But she had already +saved enough money for the Conservatoire and a little attic in a very +tall house in a narrow street that trickled into the ceaseless flow +of the Rue Lafayette. Here for four years she trotted backwards +and forwards regularly to work with the freshness of youth and the +inflexible set purpose of maturity. Here, rain or shine, summer or +winter, in the mellow season when the large cafes expanded under the +white sunshine into an overflow of little tables on the pavement, or +when the red glow of the Brasserie shone through frosty panes on the +turned-up collars of pinched Parisians who hurried by, she was always to +be seen. + +Half Paris had looked into her clear, gray eyes and passed on; a smaller +and not very youthful portion of Paris had turned and followed her with +small advantage to itself and happily no fear to her. For even in her +young womanhood she kept her child's loving knowledge of that great +city; she even had an innocent camaraderie with street sweepers, kiosk +keepers, and lemonade venders, and the sternness of conciergedom +melted before her. In this wholesome, practical child's experience she +naturally avoided or overlooked what would not have interested a child, +and so kept her freshness and a certain national shrewd simplicity +invincible. There is a story told of her girlhood that, one day playing +in the Tuileries gardens, she was approached by a gentleman with a waxed +mustache and a still more waxen cheek beneath his heavy-lidded eyes. +There was an exchange of polite amenities. + +"And your name, ma petite?" + +"Helen," responded the young girl naively. "What's yours?" + +"Ah," said the kind gentleman, gallantly pulling at his mustache, "if +you are Helen I am Paris." + +The young girl raised her clear eyes to his and said gravely, "I reckon +your majesty is FRANCE!" + +She retained this childish fearlessness as the poor student of the +Conservatoire; went alone all over Paris with her maiden skirts +untarnished by the gilded dust of the boulevards or the filth of +by-ways; knew all the best shops for her friends, and the cheapest for +her own scant purchases; discovered breakfasts for a few sous with pale +sempstresses, whose sadness she understood, and reckless chorus girls, +whose gayety she didn't; she knew where the earliest chestnut buds were +to be found in the Bois, when the slopes of the Buttes Chaumont were +green, and which was the old woman who sold the cheapest flowers before +the Madeleine. Alone and independent, she earned the affection of +Madame Bibelot, the concierge, and, what was more, her confidence. Her +outgoings and incomings were never questioned. The little American could +take care of herself. Ah, if her son Jacques were only as reasonable! +Miss Maynard might have made more friends had she cared; she might have +joined hands with the innocent and light-hearted poverty of the coterie +of her own artistic compatriots, but something in her blood made her +distrust Bohemianism; her poverty was something to her too sacred for +jest or companionship; her own artistic aim was too long and earnest +for mere temporary enthusiasms. She might have found friends in her own +profession. Her professor opened the sacred doors of his family circle +to the young American girl. She appreciated the delicacy, refinement, +and cheerful equal responsibilities of that household, so widely +different from the accepted Anglo-Saxon belief, but there were certain +restrictions that rightly or wrongly galled her American habits of +girlish freedom, and she resolutely tripped past the first etage four or +five flights higher to her attic, the free sky, and independence! Here +she sometimes met another kind of independence in Monsieur Alphonse, +aged twenty two, and she who ought to have been Madame Alphonse, aged +seventeen, and they often exchanged greetings on the landing with great +respect towards each other, and, oddly enough, no confusion or distrait. +Later they even borrowed each other's matches without fear and without +reproach, until one day Monsieur Alphonse's parents took him away, +and the desolated soi-disant Madame Alphonse, in a cheerful burst of +confidence, gave Helen her private opinion of monsieur, and from her +seventeen years' experience warned the American infant of twenty against +possible similar complications. + +One day--it was near the examination for prizes, and her funds were +running low--she was obliged to seek one of those humbler restaurants +she knew of for her frugal breakfast. But she was not hungry, and after +a few mouthfuls left her meal unfinished as a young man entered and half +abstractedly took a seat at her table. She had already moved towards +the comptoir to pay her few sous, when, chancing to look up in a mirror +which hung above the counter, reflecting the interior of the cafe, she +saw the stranger, after casting a hurried glance around him, remove +from her plate the broken roll and even the crumbs she had left, and +as hurriedly sweep them into his pocket-handkerchief. There was nothing +very strange in this; she had seen something like it before in these +humbler cafes,--it was a crib for the birds in the Tuileries Gardens, +or the poor artist's substitute for rubber in correcting his crayon +drawing! But there was a singular flushing of his handsome face in the +act that stirred her with a strange pity, made her own cheek hot with +sympathy, and compelled her to look at him more attentively. The back +that was turned towards her was broad-shouldered and symmetrical, and +showed a frame that seemed to require stronger nourishment than the +simple coffee and roll he had ordered and was devouring slowly. His +clothes, well made though worn, fitted him in a smart, soldier-like way, +and accentuated his decided military bearing. The singular use of his +left hand in lifting his cup made her uneasy, until a slight movement +revealed the fact that his right sleeve was empty and pinned to his +coat. He was one-armed. She turned her compassionate eyes aside, yet +lingered to make a few purchases at the counter, as he paid his bill and +walked away. But she was surprised to see that he tendered the waiter +the unexampled gratuity of a sou. Perhaps he was some eccentric +Englishman; he certainly did not look like a Frenchman. + +She had quite forgotten the incident, and in the afternoon had strolled +with a few fellow pupils into the galleries of the Louvre. It was +"copying-day," and as her friends loitered around the easels of the +different students with the easy consciousness of being themselves +"artists," she strolled on somewhat abstractedly before them. Her own +art was too serious to permit her much sympathy with another, and in +the chatter of her companions with the young painters a certain levity +disturbed her. Suddenly she stopped. She had reached a less frequented +room; there was a single easel at one side, but the stool before it was +empty, and its late occupant was standing in a recess by the window, +with his back towards her. He had drawn a silk handkerchief from +his pocket. She recognized his square shoulders, she recognized the +handkerchief, and as he unrolled it she recognized the fragments of her +morning's breakfast as he began to eat them. It was the one-armed man. + +She remained so motionless and breathless that he finished his scant +meal without noticing her, and even resumed his place before the easel +without being aware of her presence. The noise of approaching feet +gave a fresh impulse to her own, and she moved towards him. But he was +evidently accustomed to these interruptions, and worked on steadily +without turning his head. As the other footsteps passed her she was +emboldened to take a position behind him and glance at his work. It +was an architectural study of one of Canaletto's palaces. Even her +inexperienced eyes were struck with its vigor and fidelity. But she was +also conscious of a sense of disappointment. Why was he not--like the +others--copying one of the masterpieces? Becoming at last aware of +a motionless woman behind him, he rose, and with a slight gesture of +courtesy and a half-hesitating "Vous verrez mieux la, mademoiselle," +moved to one side. + +"Thank you," said Miss Maynard in English, "but I did not want to +disturb you." + +He glanced quickly at her face for the first time. "Ah, you are +English!" he said. + +"No. I am American." + +His face lightened. "So am I." + +"I thought so," she said. + +"From my bad French?" + +"No. Because you did not look up to see if the woman you were polite to +was old or young." + +He smiled. "And you, mademoiselle,--you did not murmur a compliment to +the copy over the artist's back." + +She smiled, too, yet with a little pang over the bread. But she was +relieved to see that he evidently had not recognized her. "You are +modest," she said; "you do not attempt masterpieces." + +"Oh, no! The giants like Titian and Corregio must be served with both +hands. I have only one," he said half lightly, half sadly. + +"But you have been a soldier," she said with quick intuition. + +"Not much. Only during our war,--until I was compelled to handle nothing +larger than a palette knife. Then I came home to New York, and, as I was +no use there, I came here to study." + +"I am from South Carolina," she said quietly, with a rising color. + +He put his palette down, and glanced at her black dress. "Yes," she went +on doggedly, "my father lost all his property, and was killed in battle +with the Northerners. I am an orphan,--a pupil of the Conservatoire." It +was never her custom to allude to her family or her lost fortunes; she +knew not why she did it now, but something impelled her to rid her mind +of it to him at once. Yet she was pained at his grave and pitying face. + +"I am very sorry," he said simply. Then, after a pause, he added, with +a gentle smile, "At all events you and I will not quarrel here under the +wings of the French eagles that shelter us both." + +"I only wanted to explain why I was alone in Paris," she said, a little +less aggressively. + +He replied by unhooking his palette, which was ingeniously fastened by a +strap over his shoulder under the missing arm, and opened a portfolio of +sketches at his side. "Perhaps they may interest you more than the +copy, which I have attempted only to get at this man's method. They are +sketches I have done here." + +There was a buttress of Notre Dame, a black arch of the Pont Neuf, part +of an old courtyard in the Faubourg St. Germain,--all very fresh and +striking. Yet, with the recollection of his poverty in her mind, she +could not help saying, "But if you copied one of those masterpieces, you +know you could sell it. There is always a demand for that work." + +"Yes," he replied, "but these help me in my line, which is architectural +study. It is, perhaps, not very ambitious," he added thoughtfully, +"but," brightening up again, "I sell these sketches, too. They are quite +marketable, I assure you." + +Helen's heart sank again. She remembered now to have seen such +sketches--she doubted not they were his--in the cheap shops in the +Rue Poissoniere, ticketed at a few francs each. She was silent as he +patiently turned them over. Suddenly she uttered a little cry. + +He had just uncovered a little sketch of what seemed at first sight only +a confused cluster of roof tops, dormer windows, and chimneys, level +with the sky-line. But it was bathed in the white sunshine of Paris, +against the blue sky she knew so well. There, too, were the gritty +crystals and rust of the tiles, the red, brown, and greenish mosses +of the gutters, and lower down the more vivid colors of geraniums and +pansies in flower-pots under the white dimity curtains which hid the +small panes of garret windows; yet every sordid detail touched and +transfigured with the poetry and romance of youth and genius. + +"You have seen this?" she said. + +"Yes; it is a study from my window. One must go high for such effects. +You would be surprised if you could see how different the air and +sunshine"-- + +"No," she interrupted gently, "I HAVE seen it." + +"You?" he repeated, gazing at her curiously. + +Helen ran the point of her slim finger along the sketch until it +reached a tiny dormer window in the left-hand corner, half-hidden by an +irregular chimney-stack. The curtains were closely drawn. Keeping her +finger upon the spot, she said, interrogatively, "And you saw THAT +window?" + +"Yes, quite plainly. I remember it was always open, and the room seemed +empty from early morning to evening, when the curtains were drawn." + +"It is my room," she said simply. + +Their eyes met with this sudden confession of their equal poverty. "And +mine," he said gayly, "from which this view was taken, is in the rear +and still higher up on the other street." + +They both laughed as if some singular restraint had been removed; Helen +even forgot the incident of the bread in her relief. Then they compared +notes of their experiences, of their different concierges, of their +housekeeping, of the cheap stores and the cheaper restaurants of +Paris,--except one. She told him her name, and learned that his was +Philip, or, if she pleased, Major Ostrander. Suddenly glancing at her +companions, who were ostentatiously lingering at a little distance, +she became conscious for the first time that she was talking quite +confidentially to a very handsome man, and for a brief moment wished, +she knew not why, that he had been plainer. This momentary restraint was +accented by the entrance of a lady and gentleman, rather distingue in +dress and bearing, who had stopped before them, and were eying +equally the artist, his work, and his companion with somewhat insolent +curiosity. Helen felt herself stiffening; her companion drew himself up +with soldierly rigidity. For a moment it seemed as if, under that banal +influence, they would part with ceremonious continental politeness, but +suddenly their hands met in a national handshake, and with a frank smile +they separated. + +Helen rejoined her companions. + +"So you have made a conquest of the recently acquired but unknown +Greek statue?" said Mademoiselle Renee lightly. "You should take up +a subscription to restore his arm, ma petite, if there is a modern +sculptor who can do it. You might suggest it to the two Russian +cognoscenti, who have been hovering around him as if they wanted to buy +him as well as his work. Madame La Princesse is rich enough to indulge +her artistic taste." + +"It is a countryman of mine," said Helen simply. + +"He certainly does not speak French," said mademoiselle mischievously. + +"Nor think it," responded Helen with equal vivacity. Nevertheless, she +wished she had seen him alone. + +She thought nothing more of him that day in her finishing exercises. But +the next morning as she went to open her window after dressing, she +drew back with a new consciousness, and then, making a peephole in the +curtain, looked over the opposite roofs. She had seen them many times +before, but now they had acquired a new picturesqueness, which as her +view was, of course, the reverse of the poor painter's sketch, must have +been a transfigured memory of her own. Then she glanced curiously along +the line of windows level with hers. All these, however, with their +occasional revelations of the menage behind them, were also familiar to +her, but now she began to wonder which was his. A singular instinct at +last impelled her to lift her eyes. Higher in the corner house, and so +near the roof that it scarcely seemed possible for a grown man to stand +upright behind it, was an oeil de boeuf looking down upon the other +roofs, and framed in that circular opening like a vignette was the +handsome face of Major Ostrander. His eyes seemed to be turned towards +her window. Her first impulse was to open it and recognize him with a +friendly nod. But an odd mingling of mischief and shyness made her turn +away quickly. + +Nevertheless, she met him the next morning walking slowly so near her +house that their encounter might have been scarcely accidental on his +part. She walked with him as far as the Conservatoire. In the light +of the open street she thought he looked pale and hollow-cheeked; +she wondered if it was from his enforced frugality, and was trying to +conceive some elaborate plan of obliging him to accept her hospitality +at least for a single meal, when he said:-- + +"I think you have brought me luck, Miss Maynard." + +Helen opened her eyes wonderingly. + +"The two Russian connoisseurs who stared at us so rudely were pleased, +however, to also stare at my work. They offered me a fabulous sum for +one or two of my sketches. It didn't seem to me quite the square thing +to old Favel the picture-dealer, whom I had forced to take a lot at one +fifteenth the price, so I simply referred them to him." + +"No!" said Miss Helen indignantly; "you were not so foolish?" + +Ostrander laughed. + +"I'm afraid what you call my folly didn't avail, for they wanted what +they saw in my portfolio." + +"Of course," said Helen. "Why, that sketch of the housetop alone was +worth a hundred times more than what you"--She stopped; she did not like +to reveal what he got for his pictures, and added, "more than what any +of those usurers would give." + +"I am glad you think so well of it, for I do not mean to sell it," he +said simply, yet with a significance that kept her silent. + +She did not see him again for several days. The preparation for her +examination left her no time, and her earnest concentration in her work +fully preoccupied her thoughts. She was surprised, but not disturbed, on +the day of the awards to see him among the audience of anxious parents +and relations. Miss Helen Maynard did not get the first prize, nor +yet the second; an accessit was her only award. She did not know until +afterwards that this had long been a foregone conclusion of her teachers +on account of some intrinsic defect in her voice. She did not know until +long afterwards that the handsome painter's nervousness on that occasion +had attracted even the sympathy of some of those who were near him. For +she herself had been calm and collected. No one else knew how crushing +was the blow which shattered her hopes and made her three years of labor +and privation a useless struggle. Yet though no longer a pupil she could +still teach; her master had found her a small patronage that saved her +from destitution. That night she circled up quite cheerfully in her +usual swallow flight to her nest under the eaves, and even twittered on +the landing a little over the condolences of the concierge--who knew, +mon Dieu! what a beast the director of the Conservatoire was and how he +could be bribed; but when at last her brown head sank on her pillow she +cried--just a little. + +But what was all this to that next morning--the glorious spring morning +which bathed all the roofs of Paris with warmth and hope, rekindling +enthusiasm and ambition in the breast of youth, and gilding even much +of the sordid dirt below. It seemed quite natural that she should meet +Major Ostrander not many yards away as she sallied out. In that bright +spring sunshine and the hopeful spring of their youth they even laughed +at the previous day's disappointment. Ah! what a claque it was, after +all! For himself, he, Ostrander, would much rather see that satin-faced +Parisian girl who had got the prize smirking at the critics from the +boards of the Grand Opera than his countrywoman! The Conservatoire +settled things for Paris, but Paris wasn't the world! America would +come to the fore yet in art of all kinds--there was a free academy +there now--there should be a Conservatoire of its own. Of course, Paris +schooling and Paris experience weren't to be despised in art; but, thank +heaven! she had THAT, and no directors could take it from her! This and +much more, until, comparing notes, they suddenly found that they were +both free for that day. Why should they not take advantage of that rare +weather and rarer opportunity to make a little suburban excursion? But +where? There was the Bois, but that was still Paris. Fontainebleau? Too +far; there were always artists sketching in the forest, and he would +like for that day to "sink the shop." Versailles? Ah, yes! Versailles! + +Thither they went. It was not new to either of them. Ostrander knew +it as an artist and as an American reader of that French historic +romance--a reader who hurried over the sham intrigues of the Oeil de +Boeuf, the sham pastorals of the Petit Trianon, and the sham heroics of +a shifty court, to get to Lafayette. Helen knew it as a child who had +dodged these lessons from her patriotic father, but had enjoyed the +woods, the parks, the terraces, and particularly the restaurant at the +park gates. That day they took it like a boy and girl,--with the amused, +omniscient tolerance of youth for a past so inferior to the present. +Ostrander thought this gray-eyed, independent American-French girl far +superior to the obsequious filles d'honneur, whose brocades had rustled +through those quinquonces, and Helen vaguely realized the truth of her +fellow pupil's mischievous criticism of her companion that day at the +Louvre. Surely there was no classical statue here comparable to the +one-armed soldier-painter! + +All this was as yet free from either sentiment or passion, and was only +the frank pride of friendship. But, oddly enough, their mere presence +and companionship seemed to excite in others that tenderness they had +not yet felt themselves. Family groups watched the handsome pair in +their innocent confidences, and, with French exuberant recognition of +sentiment, thought them the incarnation of Love. Something in +their manifest equality of condition kept even the vainest and +most susceptible of spectators from attempted rivalry or cynical +interruption. And when at last they dropped side by side on a sun-warmed +stone bench on the terrace, and Helen, inclining her brown head towards +her companion, informed him of the difficulty she had experienced in +getting gumbo soup, rice and chicken, corn cakes, or any of her favorite +home dishes in Paris, an exhausted but gallant boulevardier rose from a +contiguous bench, and, politely lifting his hat to the handsome couple, +turned slowly away from what he believed were tender confidences he +would not permit himself to hear. + +But the shadow of the trees began to lengthen, casting broad bars across +the alle, and the sun sank lower to the level of their eyes. They were +quite surprised, on looking around a few moments later, to discover that +the gardens were quite deserted, and Ostrander, on consulting his watch, +found that they had just lost a train which the other pleasure-seekers +had evidently availed themselves of. No matter; there was another train +an hour later; they could still linger for a few moments in the brief +sunset and then dine at the local restaurant before they left. They both +laughed at their forgetfulness, and then, without knowing why, suddenly +lapsed into silence. A faint wind blew in their faces and trilled the +thin leaves above their heads. Nothing else moved. The long windows +of the palace in that sunset light seemed to glisten again with the +incendiary fires of the Revolution, and then went out blankly and +abruptly. The two companions felt that they possessed the terrace and +all its memories as completely as the shadows who had lived and died +there. + +"I am so glad we have had this day together," said the painter, with +a very conscious breaking of the silence, "for I am leaving Paris +to-morrow." + +Helen raised her eyes quickly to his. + +"For a few days only," he continued. "My Russian customers--perhaps I +ought to say my patrons--have given me a commission to make a study of +an old chateau which the princess lately bought." + +A swift recollection of her fellow pupil's raillery regarding the +princess's possible attitude towards the painter came over her and gave +a strange artificiality to her response. + +"I suppose you will enjoy it very much," she said dryly. + +"No," he returned with the frankness that she had lacked. "I'd much +rather stay in Paris, but," he added with a faint smile, "it's a +question of money, and that is not to be despised. Yet I--I--somehow +feel that I am deserting you,--leaving you here all alone in Paris." + +"I've been all alone for four years," she said, with a bitterness she +had never felt before, "and I suppose I'm accustomed to it." + +Nevertheless she leaned a little forward, with her fawn-colored lashes +dropped over her eyes, which were bent upon the ground and the point +of the parasol she was holding with her little gloved hands between her +knees. He wondered why she did not look up; he did not know that it +was partly because there were tears in her eyes and partly for another +reason. As she had leaned forward his arm had quite unconsciously moved +along the back of the bench where her shoulders had rested, and she +could not have resumed her position except in his half embrace. + +He had not thought of it. He was lost in a greater abstraction. That +infinite tenderness,--far above a woman's,--the tenderness of strength +and manliness towards weakness and delicacy, the tenderness that looks +down and not up, was already possessing him. An instinct of protection +drew him nearer this bowed but charming figure, and if he then noticed +that the shoulders were pretty, and the curves of the slim waist +symmetrical, it was rather with a feeling of timidity and a +half-consciousness of unchivalrous thought. Yet why should he not try to +keep the brave and honest girl near him always? Why should he not claim +the right to protect her? Why should they not--they who were alone in a +strange land--join their two lonely lives for mutual help and happiness? + +A sudden perception of delicacy, the thought that he should have +spoken before her failure at the Conservatoire had made her feel her +helplessness, brought a slight color to his cheek. Would it not seem +to her that he was taking an unfair advantage of her misfortune? Yet +it would be so easy now to slip a loving arm around her waist, while he +could work for her and protect her with the other. THE OTHER! His eye +fell on his empty sleeve. Ah, he had forgotten that! He had but ONE arm! + +He rose up abruptly,--so abruptly that Helen, rising too, almost touched +the arm that was hurriedly withdrawn. Yet in that accidental contact, +which sent a vague tremor through the young girl's frame, there was +still time for him to have spoken. But he only said:-- + +"Perhaps we had better dine." + +She assented quickly,--she knew not why,--with a feeling of relief. They +walked very quietly and slowly towards the restaurant. Not a word of +love had been spoken; not even a glance of understanding had passed +between them. Yet they both knew by some mysterious instinct that a +crisis of their lives had come and gone, and that they never again could +be to each other as they were but a brief moment ago. They talked very +sensibly and gravely during their frugal meal; the previous spectator +of their confidences would have now thought them only simple friends and +have been as mistaken as before. They talked freely of their hopes and +prospects,--all save one! They even spoke pleasantly of repeating their +little expedition after his return from the country, while in their +secret hearts they had both resolved never to see each other again. +Yet by that sign each knew that this was love, and were proud of each +other's pride, which kept it a secret. + +The train was late, and it was past ten o'clock when they at last +appeared before the concierge of Helen's home. During their journey, +and while passing though the crowds at the station and in the streets, +Ostrander had exhibited a new and grave guardianship over the young +girl, and, on the first landing, after a scrutinizing and an almost +fierce glance at one or two of Helen's odd fellow lodgers, he had +extended his protection so far as to accompany her up the four flights +to the landing of her apartment. Here he took leave of her with a grave +courtesy that half pained, half pleased her. She watched his broad +shoulders and dangling sleeve as he went down the stairs, and then +quickly turned, entered her room, and locked the door. The smile had +faded from her lips. Going to the window, she pressed her hot forehead +against the cool glass and looked out upon the stars nearly level with +the black roofs around her. She stood there some moments until another +star appeared higher up against the roof ridge, the star she was looking +for. But here the glass pane before her eyes became presently dim with +moisture; she was obliged to rub it out with her handkerchief; yet, +somehow, it soon became clouded, at which she turned sharply away and +went to bed. + +But Miss Helen did not know that when she had looked after the +retreating figure of her protector as he descended the stairs that night +that he was really carrying away on those broad shoulders the character +she had so laboriously gained during her four years' solitude. For when +she came down the next morning the concierge bowed to her with an air +of easy, cynical abstraction, the result of a long conversation with his +wife the night before. He had taken Helen's part with a kindly +cynicism. "Ah! what would you--it was bound to come. The affair of +the Conservatoire had settled that. The poor child could not starve; +penniless, she could not marry. Only why consort with other swallows +under the eaves when she could have had a gilded cage on the first +etage?" But girls were so foolish--in their first affair; then it was +always LOVE! The second time they were wiser. And this maimed warrior +and painter was as poor as she. A compatriot, too; well, perhaps +that saved some scandal; one could never know what the Americans were +accustomed to do. The first floor, which had been inclined to be civil +to the young teacher, was more so, but less respectful; one or two young +men were tentatively familiar until they looked in her gray eyes and +remembered the broad shoulders of the painter. Oddly enough, only +Mademoiselle Fifine, of her own landing, exhibited any sympathy with +her, and for the first time Helen was frightened. She did not show it, +however, only she changed her lodgings the next day. But before she left +she had a few moments' conversation with the concierge and an exchange +of a word or two with some of her fellow lodgers. I have already hinted +that the young lady had great precision of statement; she had a pretty +turn for handling colloquial French and an incisive knowledge of French +character. She left No. 34, Rue de Frivole, working itself into a white +rage, but utterly undecided as to her real character. + +But all this and much more was presently blown away in the hot breath +that swept the boulevards at the outburst of the Franco-German War, +and Miss Helen Maynard disappeared from Paris with many of her fellow +countrymen. The excitement reached even a quaint old chateau in Brittany +where Major Ostrander was painting. The woman who was standing by his +side as he sat before his easel on the broad terrace observed that he +looked disturbed. + +"What matters?" she said gently. "You have progressed so well in your +work that you can finish it elsewhere. I have no great desire to stay +in France with a frontier garrisoned by troops while I have a villa +in Switzerland where you could still be my guest. Paris can teach you +nothing more, my friend; you have only to create now--and be famous." + +"I must go to Paris," he said quietly. "I have +friends--countrymen--there, who may want me now." + +"If you mean the young singer of the Rue de Frivole, you have +compromised her already. You can do her no good." + +"Madame!" + +The pretty face which he had been familiar with for the past six weeks +somehow seemed to change its character. Under the mask of dazzling skin +he fancied he saw the high cheek-bones and square Tartar angle; the +brilliant eyes were even brighter than before, but they showed more of +the white than he had ever seen in them. + +Nevertheless she smiled, with an equally stony revelation of her white +teeth, yet said, still gently, "Forgive me if I thought our friendship +justified me in being frank,--perhaps too frank for my own good." + +She stopped as if half expecting an interruption; but as he remained +looking wonderingly at her, she bit her lip, and went on: "You have +a great career before you. Those who help you must do so without +entangling you; a chain of roses may be as impeding as lead. Until you +are independent, you--who may in time compass everything yourself--will +need to be helped. You know," she added with a smile, "you have but one +arm." + +"In your kindness and appreciation you have made me forget it," he +stammered. Yet he had a swift vision of the little bench at Versailles +where he had NOT forgotten it, and as he glanced around the empty +terrace where they stood he was struck with a fateful resemblance to it. + +"And I should not remind you now of it," she went on, "except to say +that money can always take its place. As in the fairy story, the prince +must have a new arm made of gold." She stopped, and then suddenly coming +closer to him said, hurriedly and almost fiercely, "Can you not see that +I am advising you against my interests,--against myself? Go, then, to +Paris, and go quickly, before I change my mind. Only if you do not find +your friends there, remember you have always ONE here." Before he could +reply, or even understand that white face, she was gone. + +He left for Paris that afternoon. He went directly to the Rue de +Frivole; his old resolution to avoid Helen was blown to the winds in +the prospect of losing her utterly. But the concierge only knew that +mademoiselle had left a day or two after monsieur had accompanied her +home. And, pointedly, there was another gentleman who had inquired +eagerly--and bountifully as far as money went--for any trace of +the young lady. It was a Russe. The concierge smiled to himself at +Ostrander's flushed cheek. It served this one-armed, conceited American +poseur right. Mademoiselle was wiser in this SECOND affair. + +Ostrander did not finish his picture. The princess sent him a cheque, +which he coldly returned. Nevertheless he had acquired through his +Russian patronage a local fame which stood him well with the picture +dealers,--in spite of the excitement of the war. But his heart was no +longer in his work; a fever of unrest seized him, which at another time +might have wasted itself in mere dissipation. Some of his fellow artists +had already gone into the army. After the first great reverses he +offered his one arm and his military experience to that Paris which +had given him a home. The old fighting instinct returned to him with a +certain desperation he had never known before. In the sorties from +Paris the one-armed American became famous, until a few days before the +capitulation, when he was struck down by a bullet through the lung, and +left in a temporary hospital. Here in the whirl and terror of Commune +days he was forgotten, and when Paris revived under the republic he had +disappeared as completely as his compatriot Helen. + +But Miss Helen Maynard had been only obscured and not extinguished. At +the first outbreak of hostilities a few Americans had still kept giddy +state among the ruins of the tottering empire. A day or two after she +left the Rue de Frivole she was invited by one of her wealthy former +schoolmates to assist with her voice and talent at one of their +extravagant entertainments. "You will understand, dear," said Miss de +Laine, with ingenious delicacy, as she eyed her old comrade's well-worn +dress, "that Poppa expects to pay you professional prices, and it may be +an opening for you among our other friends." + +"I should not come otherwise, dear," said Miss Helen with equal +frankness. But she played and sang very charmingly to the fashionable +assembly in the Champs Elysees,--so charmingly, indeed, that Miss de +Laine patronizingly expatiated upon her worth and her better days in +confidence to some of the guests. + +"A most deserving creature," said Miss de Laine to the dowager duchess +of Soho, who was passing through Paris on her way to England; "you would +hardly believe that Poppa knew her father when he was one of the richest +men in South Carolina." + +"Your father seems to have been very fortunate," said the duchess +quietly, "and so are YOU. Introduce me." + +This not being exactly the reply that Miss de Laine expected, she +momentarily hesitated: but the duchess profited by it to walk over to +the piano and introduce herself. When she rose to go she invited Helen +to luncheon with her the next day. "Come early, my dear, and we'll have +a long talk." Helen pointed out hesitatingly that she was practically +a guest of the de Laines. "Ah, well, that's true, my dear; then you may +bring one of them with you." + +Helen went to the luncheon, but was unaccompanied. She had a long talk +with the dowager. "I am not rich, my dear, like your friends, and cannot +afford to pay ten napoleons for a song. Like you I have seen 'better +days.' But this is no place for you, child, and if you can bear with an +old woman's company for a while I think I can find you something to +do." That evening Helen left for England with the duchess, a piece of +"ingratitude, indelicacy, and shameless snobbery," which Miss de Laine +was never weary of dilating upon. "And to think I introduced her, though +she was a professional!" + +***** + +It was three years after. Paris, reviving under the republic, had +forgotten Helen and the American colony; and the American colony, +emigrating to more congenial courts, had forgotten Paris. + +It was a bleak day of English summer when Helen, standing by the window +of the breakfast-room at Hamley Court, and looking over the wonderful +lawn, kept perennially green by humid English skies, heard the +practical, masculine voice of the duchess in her ear at the same moment +that she felt the gentle womanly touch of her hand on her shoulder. + +"We are going to luncheon at Moreland Hall to-day, my dear." + +"Why, we were there only last week!" said Helen. + +"Undoubtedly," returned the duchess dryly, "and we may luncheon there +next week and the next following. And," she added, looking into her +companion's gray eyes, "it rests with YOU to stay there if you choose." + +Helen stared at her protector. + +"My dear," continued the duchess, slipping her arm around Helen's waist, +"Sir James has honored ME--as became my relations to YOU--with his +confidences. As you haven't given me YOURS I suppose you have none, and +that I am telling you news when I say that Sir James wishes to marry +you." + +The unmistakable astonishment in the girl's eye satisfied the duchess +even before her voice. + +"But he scarcely knows me or anything of me!" said the young girl +quickly. + +"On the contrary, my dear, he knows EVERYTHING about you. I have been +particular in telling him all I know--and some things even YOU don't +know and couldn't tell him. For instance, that you are a very nice +person. Come, my dear, don't look so stupefied, or I shall really think +there's something in it that I don't know. It's not a laughing nor a +crying matter yet--at present it's only luncheon again with a civil +man who has three daughters and a place in the county. Don't make the +mistake, however, of refusing him before he offers--whatever you do +afterwards." + +"But"--stammered Helen. + +"But--you are going to say that you don't love him and have never +thought of him as a husband," interrupted the duchess; "I read it in +your face,--and it's a very proper thing to say." + +"It is so unexpected," urged Helen. + +"Everything is unexpected from a man in these matters," said the +duchess. "We women are the only ones that are prepared." + +"But," persisted Helen, "if I don't want to marry at all?" + +"I should say, then, that it is a sign that you ought; if you were +eager, my dear, I should certainly dissuade you." She paused, and then +drawing Helen closer to her, said, with a certain masculine tenderness, +"As long as I live, dear, you know that you have a home here. But I +am an old woman living on the smallest of settlements. Death is as +inevitable to me as marriage should be to you." + +Nevertheless, they did not renew the conversation, and later received +the greetings of their host at Moreland Hall with a simplicity and +frankness that were, however, perfectly natural and unaffected in both +women. Sir James,--a tall, well-preserved man of middle age, with +the unmistakable bearing of long years of recognized and unchallenged +position,--however, exhibited on this occasion that slight consciousness +of weakness and susceptibility to ridicule which is apt to indicate the +invasion of the tender passion in the heart of the average Briton. His +duty as host towards the elder woman of superior rank, however, covered +his embarrassment, and for a moment left Helen quite undisturbed to gaze +again upon the treasures of the long drawing-room of Moreland Hall with +which she was already familiar. There were the half-dozen old masters, +whose respectability had been as recognized through centuries as +their owner's ancestors; there were the ancestors themselves,--wigged, +ruffled, and white-handed, by Vandyke, Lely, Romney, and Gainsborough; +there were the uniform, expressionless ancestresses in stiff brocade +or short-waisted, clinging draperies, but all possessing that brilliant +coloring which the gray skies outside lacked, and which seemed to have +departed from the dresses of their descendants. The American girl had +sometimes speculated upon what might have been the appearance of the +lime-tree walk, dotted with these gayly plumaged folk, and wondered if +the tyranny of environment had at last subdued their brilliant colors. +And a new feeling touched her. Like most of her countrywomen, she was +strongly affected by the furniture of life; the thought that all that +she saw there MIGHT BE HERS; that she might yet stand in succession to +these strange courtiers and stranger shepherdesses, and, like them, look +down from the canvas upon the intruding foreigner, thrilled her for a +moment with a half-proud, half-passive sense of yielding to what seemed +to be her fate. A narrow-eyed, stiff-haired Dutch maid of honor before +whom she was standing gazed at her with staring vacancy. Suddenly +she started. Before the portrait upon a fanciful easel stood a small +elaborately framed sketch in oils. It was evidently some recently +imported treasure. She had not seen it before. As she moved quickly +forward, she recognized at a glance that it was Ostrander's sketch from +the Paris grenier. + +The wall, the room, the park beyond, even the gray sky, seemed to fade +away before her. She was standing once more at her attic window looking +across the roofs and chimney stacks upward to the blue sky of Paris. +Through a gap in the roofs she could see the chestnut-trees trilling in +the little square; she could hear the swallows twittering in the leaden +troughs of the gutter before her; the call of the chocolate vender +or the cry of a gamin floated up to her from the street below, or +the latest song of the cafe chantant was whistled by the blue-bloused +workman on the scaffolding hard by. The breath of Paris, of youth, of +blended work and play, of ambition, of joyous freedom, again filled her +and mingled with the scent of the mignonette that used to stand on the +old window-ledge. + +"I am glad you like it. I have only just put it up." + +It was the voice of Sir James--a voice that had regained a little of +its naturalness--a calm, even lazy English voice--confident from the +experience of years of respectful listeners. Yet it somehow jarred upon +her nerves with its complacency and its utter incongruousness to her +feelings. Nevertheless, the impulse to know more about the sketch was +the stronger. + +"Do you mean you have just bought it?" asked Helen. "It's not English?" + +"No," said Sir James, gratified with his companion's interest. "I bought +it in Paris just after the Commune." + +"From the artist?" continued Helen, in a slightly constrained voice. + +"No," said Sir James, "although I knew the poor chap well enough. You +can easily see that he was once a painter of great promise. I rather +think it was stolen from him while he was in hospital by those +incendiary wretches. I recognized it, however, and bought for a few +francs from them what I would have paid HIM a thousand for." + +"In hospital?" repeated Helen dazedly. + +"Yes," said Sir James. "The fact is it was the ending of the usual +Bohemian artist's life. Though in this case the man was a real +artist,--and I believe, by the way, was a countryman of yours." + +"In hospital?" again repeated Helen. "Then he was poor?" + +"Reckless, I should rather say; he threw himself into the fighting +before Paris and was badly wounded. But it was all the result of the +usual love affair--the girl, they say, ran off with the usual richer +man. At all events, it ruined him for painting; he never did anything +worth having afterwards." + +"And now?" said Helen in the same unmoved voice. + +Sir James shrugged his shoulders. "He disappeared. Probably he'll turn +up some day on the London pavement--with chalks. That sketch, by the +way, was one that had always attracted me to his studio--though he never +would part with it. I rather fancy, don't you know, that the girl had +something to do with it. It's a wonderfully realistic sketch, don't you +see; and I shouldn't wonder if it was the girl herself who lived behind +one of those queer little windows in the roof there." + +"She did live there," said Helen in a low voice. + +Sir James uttered a vague laugh. Helen looked around her. The duchess +had quietly and unostentatiously passed into the library, and in full +view, though out of hearing, was examining, with her glass to her eye, +some books upon the shelves. + +"I mean," said Helen, in a perfectly clear voice, "that the young girl +did NOT run away from the painter, and that he had neither the right nor +the cause to believe her faithless or attribute his misfortunes to her." +She hesitated, not from any sense of her indiscretion, but to recover +from a momentary doubt if the girl were really her own self--but only +for a moment. + +"Then you knew the painter, as I did?" he said in astonishment. + +"Not as YOU did," responded Helen. She drew nearer the picture, and, +pointing a slim finger to the canvas, said:-- + +"Do you see that small window with the mignonette?" + +"Perfectly." + +"That was MY room. His was opposite. He told me so when I first saw the +sketch. I am the girl you speak of, for he knew no other, and I believe +him to have been a truthful, honorable man." + +"But what were you doing there? Surely you are joking?" said Sir James, +with a forced smile. + +"I was a poor pupil at the Conservatoire, and lived where I could afford +to live." + +"Alone?" + +"Alone." + +"And the man was"-- + +"Major Ostrander was my friend. I even think I have a better right to +call him that than you had." + +Sir James coughed slightly and grasped the lapel of his coat. "Of +course; I dare say; I had no idea of this, don't you know, when I +spoke." He looked around him as if to evade a scene. "Ah! suppose we +ask the duchess to look at the sketch; I don't think she's seen it." He +began to move in the direction of the library. + +"She had better wait," said Helen quietly. + +"For what?" + +"Until"--hesitated Helen smilingly. + +"Until? I am afraid I don't understand," said Sir James stiffly, +coloring with a slight suspicion. + +"Until you have APOLOGIZED." + +"Of course," said Sir James, with a half-hysteric laugh. "I do. You +understand I only repeated a story that was told me, and had no idea of +connecting YOU with it. I beg your pardon, I'm sure. I er--er--in fact," +he added suddenly, the embarrassed smile fading from his face as he +looked at her fixedly, "I remember now it must have been the concierge +of the house, or the opposite one, who told me. He said it was a Russian +who carried off that young girl. Of course it was some made-up story." + +"I left Paris with the duchess," said Helen quietly, "before the war." + +"Of course. And she knows all about your friendship with this man." + +"I don't think she does. I haven't told her. Why should I?" returned +Helen, raising her clear eyes to his. + +"Really, I don't know," stammered Sir James. "But here she is. Of course +if you prefer it, I won't say anything of this to her." + +Helen gave him her first glance of genuine emotion; it happened, +however, to be scorn. + +"How odd!" she said, as the duchess leisurely approached them, her glass +still in her eye. "Sir James, quite unconsciously, has just been showing +me a sketch of my dear old mansarde in Paris. Look! That little window +was my room. And, only think of it, Sir James bought it of an old friend +of mine, who painted it from the opposite attic, where he lived. And +quite unconsciously, too." + +"How very singular!" said the duchess; "indeed, quite romantic!" + +"Very!" said Sir James. + +"Very!" said Helen. + +The tone of their voices was so different that the duchess looked from +one to the other. + +"But that isn't all," said Helen with a smile, "Sir James actually +fancied"-- + +"Will you excuse me for a moment?" said Sir James, interrupting, and +turning hastily to the duchess with a forced smile and a somewhat +heightened color. "I had forgotten that I had promised Lady Harriet to +drive you over to Deep Hill after luncheon to meet that South American +who has taken such a fancy to your place, and I must send to the +stables." + +As Sir James disappeared, the duchess turned to Helen. "I see what has +happened, dear; don't mind me, for I frankly confess I shall now eat my +luncheon less guiltily than I feared. But tell me, HOW did you refuse +him?" + +"I didn't refuse him," said Helen. "I only prevented his asking me." + +"How?" + +Then Helen told her all,--everything except her first meeting with +Ostrander at the restaurant. A true woman respects the pride of those +she loves more even than her own, and while Helen felt that although +that incident might somewhat condone her subsequent romantic passion in +the duchess's eyes, she could not tell it. + +The duchess listened in silence. + +"Then you two incompetents have never seen each other since?" she asked. + +"No." + +"But you hope to?" + +"I cannot speak for HIM," said Helen. + +"And you have never written to him, and don't know whether he is alive +or dead?" + +"No." + +"Then I have been nursing in my bosom for three years at one and the +same time a brave, independent, matter-of-fact young person and the most +idiotic, sentimental heroine that ever figured in a romantic opera or a +country ballad." Helen did not reply. "Well, my dear," said the duchess +after a pause, "I see that you are condemned to pass your days with +me in some cheap hotel on the continent." Helen looked up wonderingly. +"Yes," she continued, "I suppose I must now make up my mind to sell my +place to this gilded South American, who has taken a fancy to it. But +I am not going to spoil my day by seeing him NOW. No; we will excuse +ourselves from going to Deep Hill to-day, and we will go back home +quietly after luncheon. It will be a mercy to Sir James." + +"But," said Helen earnestly, "I can go back to my old life, and earn my +own living." + +"Not if I can help it," said the duchess grimly. "Your independence has +made you a charming companion to me, I admit; but I shall see that it +does not again spoil your chances of marrying. Here comes Sir James. +Really, my dear, I don't know which one of you looks the more relieved." + +On their way back through the park Helen again urged the duchess to give +up the idea of selling Hamley Court, and to consent to her taking up +her old freedom and independence once more. "I shall never, never +forget your loving kindness and protection," continued the young girl, +tenderly. "You will let me come to you always when you want me; but +you will let me also shape my life anew, and work for my living." The +duchess turned her grave, half humorous face towards her. "That means +you have determined to seek HIM. Well! Perhaps if you give up your other +absurd idea of independence, I may assist you. And now I really believe, +dear, that there is that dreadful South American," pointing to a figure +that was crossing the lawn at Hamley Court, "hovering round like a +vulture. Well, I can't see him to-day if he calls, but YOU may. By the +way, they say he is not bad-looking, was a famous general in the South +American War, and is rolling in money, and comes here on a secret +mission from his government. But I forget--the rest of our life is to +be devoted to seeking ANOTHER. And I begin to think I am not a good +matchmaker." + +Helen was in no mood for an interview with the stranger, whom, like the +duchess, she was inclined to regard as a portent of fate and sacrifice. +She knew her friend's straitened circumstances, which might make such +a sacrifice necessary to insure a competency for her old age, and, +as Helen feared also, a provision for herself. She knew the strange +tenderness of this masculine woman, which had survived a husband's +infidelities and a son's forgetfulness, to be given to her, and her +heart sank at the prospect of separation, even while her pride demanded +that she should return to her old life again. Then she wondered if the +duchess was right; did she still cherish the hope of meeting Ostrander +again? The tears she had kept back all that day asserted themselves +as she flung open the library door and ran across the garden into the +myrtle walk. "In hospital!" The words had been ringing in her ears +though Sir James's complacent speech, through the oddly constrained +luncheon, through the half-tender, half-masculine reasoning of her +companion. He HAD loved her--he had suffered and perhaps thought her +false. Suddenly she stopped. At the further end of the walk the ominous +stranger whom she wished to avoid was standing looking towards the +house. + +How provoking! She glanced again; he was leaning against a tree and was +obviously as preoccupied as she was herself. He was actually sketching +the ivy-covered gable of the library. What presumption! And he was +sketching with his left hand. A sudden thrill of superstition came over +her. She moved eagerly forward for a better view of him. No! he had two +arms! + +But his quick eye had already caught sight of her, and before she could +retreat she could see that he had thrown away his sketch-book and was +hastening eagerly toward her. Amazed and confounded she would have +flown, but her limbs suddenly refused their office, and as he at last +came near her with the cry of "Helen!" upon his lips, she felt herself +staggering, and was caught in his arms. + +"Thank God," he said. "Then she HAS let you come to me!" + +She disengaged herself slowly and dazedly from him and stood looking at +him with wondering eyes. He was bronzed and worn; there was the second +arm: but still it was HE. And with the love, which she now knew he had +felt, looking from his honest eyes! + +"SHE has let me come!" she repeated vacantly. "Whom do you mean?" + +"The duchess." + +"The duchess?" + +"Yes." He stopped suddenly, gazing at her blank face, while his own grew +ashy white. "Helen! For God's sake tell me! You have not accepted him?" + +"I have accepted no one," she stammered, with a faint color rising to +her cheeks. "I do not understand you." + +A look of relief came over him. "But," he said amazedly, "has not the +duchess told you how I happen to be here? How, when you disappeared from +Paris long ago--with my ambition crushed, and nothing left to me but +my old trade of the fighter--I joined a secret expedition to help the +Chilian revolutionists? How I, who might have starved as a painter, +gained distinction as a partisan general, and was rewarded with an +envoyship in Europe? How I came to Paris to seek you? How I found that +even the picture--your picture, Helen--had been sold. How, in tracing it +here, I met the duchess at Deep Hill, and learning you were with her, in +a moment of impulse told her my whole story. How she told me that though +she was your best friend, you had never spoken of me, and how she begged +me not to spoil your chance of a good match by revealing myself, and so +awakening a past--which she believed you had forgotten. How she implored +me at least to let her make a fair test of your affections and your +memory, and until then to keep away from you--and to spare you, Helen; +and for your sake, I consented. Surely she has told this, NOW!" + +"Not a word," said Helen blankly. + +"Then you mean to say that if I had not haunted the park to-day, in the +hope of seeing you, believing that as you would not recognize me with +this artificial arm, I should not break my promise to her,--you would +not have known I was even living." + +"No!--yes!--stay!" A smile broke over her pale face and left it rosy. "I +see it all now. Oh, Philip, don't you understand? She wanted only to try +us!" + +There was a silence in the lonely wood, broken only by the trills of a +frightened bird whose retreat was invaded. + +"Not now! Please! Wait! Come with me!" + +The next moment she had seized Philip's left hand, and, dragging him +with her, was flying down the walk towards the house. But as they neared +the garden door it suddenly opened on the duchess, with her glasses to +her eyes, smiling. + +The General Don Felipe Ostrander did not buy Hamley Court, but he and +his wife were always welcome guests there. And Sir James, as became an +English gentleman,--amazed though he was at Philip's singular return, +and more singular incognito,--afterwards gallantly presented Philip's +wife with Philip's first picture. + + + + + +THE JUDGMENT OF BOLINAS PLAIN + + +The wind was getting up on the Bolinas Plain. It had started the fine +alkaline dust along the level stage road, so that even that faint track, +the only break in the monotony of the landscape, seemed fainter than +ever. But the dust cloud was otherwise a relief; it took the semblance +of distant woods where there was no timber, of moving teams where there +was no life. And as Sue Beasley, standing in the doorway of One Spring +House that afternoon, shading her sandy lashes with her small red hand, +glanced along the desolate track, even HER eyes, trained to the dreary +prospect, were once or twice deceived. + +"Sue!" + +It was a man's voice from within. Sue took no notice of it, but remained +with her hand shading her eyes. + +"Sue! Wot yer yawpin' at thar?" + +"Yawpin'" would seem to have been the local expression for her +abstraction, since, without turning her head, she answered slowly and +languidly: "Reckoned I see'd som' un on the stage road. But 'tain't +nothin' nor nobody." + +Both voices had in their accents and delivery something of the sadness +and infinite protraction of the plain. But the woman's had a musical +possibility in its long-drawn cadence, while the man's was only +monotonous and wearying. And as she turned back into the room again, +and confronted her companion, there was the like difference in their +appearance. Ira Beasley, her husband, had suffered from the combined +effects of indolence, carelessness, misadventure, and disease. Two of +his fingers had been cut off by a scythe, his thumb and part of his left +ear had been blown away by an overcharged gun; his knees were crippled +by rheumatism, and one foot was lame from ingrowing nails,--deviations +that, however, did not tend to correct the original angularities of his +frame. His wife, on the other hand, had a pretty figure, which still +retained--they were childless--the rounded freshness of maidenhood. Her +features were irregular, yet not without a certain piquancy of outline; +her hair had the two shades sometimes seen in imperfect blondes, and +her complexion the sallowness of combined exposure and alkaline +assimilation. + +She had lived there since, an angular girl of fifteen, she had been +awkwardly helped by Ira from the tail-board of the emigrant wagon in +which her mother had died two weeks before, and which was making its +first halt on the Californian plains, before Ira's door. On the second +day of their halt Ira had tried to kiss her while she was drawing water, +and had received the contents of the bucket instead,--the girl knowing +her own value. On the third day Ira had some conversation with +her father regarding locations and stock. On the fourth day this +conversation was continued in the presence of the girl; on the fifth day +the three walked to Parson Davies' house, four miles away, where Ira +and Sue were married. The romance of a week had taken place within the +confines of her present view from the doorway; the episode of her life +might have been shut in in that last sweep of her sandy lashes. + +Nevertheless, at that moment some instinct, she knew not what, impelled +her when her husband left the room to put down the dish she was washing, +and, with the towel lapped over her bare pretty arms, to lean once more +against the doorpost, lazily looking down the plain. A cylindrical +cloud of dust trailing its tattered skirt along the stage road suddenly +assaulted the house, and for an instant enveloped it. As it whirled away +again something emerged, or rather dropped from its skirts behind the +little cluster of low bushes which encircled the "One Spring." It was a +man. + +"Thar! I knew it was suthin'," she began aloud, but the words somehow +died upon her lips. Then she turned and walked towards the inner +door, wherein her husband had disappeared,--but here stopped again +irresolutely. Then she suddenly walked through the outer door into the +road and made directly for the spring. The figure of a man crouching, +covered with dust, half rose from the bushes when she reached them. She +was not frightened, for he seemed utterly exhausted, and there was a +singular mixture of shame, hesitation, and entreaty in his broken voice +as he gasped out:-- + +"Look here!--I say! hide me somewhere, won't you? Just for a little. +You see--the fact is--I'm chased! They're hunting me now,--they're +just behind me. Anywhere will do till they go by! Tell you all about it +another time. Quick! Please do!" + +In all this there was nothing dramatic nor even startling to her. Nor +did there seem to be any present danger impending to the man. He did +not look like a horse-thief nor a criminal. And he had tried to laugh, +half-apologetically, half-bitterly,--the consciousness of a man who had +to ask help of a woman at such a moment. + +She gave a quick glance towards the house. He followed her eyes, +and said hurriedly: "Don't tell on me. Don't let any one see me. I'm +trusting you. + +"Come," she said suddenly. "Get on THIS side." + +He understood her, and slipped to her side, half-creeping, +half-crouching like a dog behind her skirts, but keeping her figure +between him and the house as she moved deliberately towards the barn, +scarce fifty yards away. When she reached it she opened the half-door +quickly, said: "In there--at the top--among the hay"--closed it, and was +turning away, when there came a faint rapping from within. She opened +the door again impatiently; the man said hastily: "Wanted to tell +you--it was a man who insulted a WOMAN! I went for him, you see--and"-- + +But she shut the door sharply. The fugitive had made a blunder. The +importation of her own uncertain sex into the explanation did not help +him. She kept on towards the house, however, without the least trace +of excitement or agitation in her manner, entered the front door again, +walked quietly to the door of the inner room, glanced in, saw that her +husband was absorbed in splicing a riata, and had evidently not missed +her, and returned quietly to her dish-washing. With this singular +difference: a few moments before she had seemed inattentive and careless +of what she was doing, as if from some abstraction; now, when she +was actually abstracted, her movements were mechanically perfect and +deliberate. She carefully held up a dish and examined it minutely for +cracks, rubbing it cautiously with the towel, but seeing all the while +only the man she had left in the barn. A few moments elapsed. Then there +came another rush of wind around the house, a drifting cloud of dust +before the door, the clatter of hoofs, and a quick shout. + +Her husband reached the door, from the inner room, almost as quickly as +she did. They both saw in the road two armed mounted men--one of whom +Ira recognized as the sheriff's deputy. + +"Has anybody been here, just now?" he asked sharply. + +"No." + +"Seen anybody go by?" he continued. + +"No. What's up?" + +"One of them circus jumpers stabbed Hal Dudley over the table in Dolores +monte shop last night, and got away this morning. We hunted him into the +plain and lost him somewhere in this d----d dust." + +"Why, Sue reckoned she saw suthin' just now," said Ira, with a flash of +recollection. "Didn't ye, Sue?" + +"Why the h-ll didn't she say it before?--I beg your pardon, ma'am; +didn't see you; you'll excuse haste." + +Both the men's hats were in their hands, embarrassed yet gratified +smiles on their faces, as Sue came forward. There was the faintest of +color in her sallow cheek, a keen brilliancy in her eyes; she looked +singularly pretty. Even Ira felt a slight antenuptial stirring through +his monotonously wedded years. + +The young woman walked out, folding the towel around her red hands and +forearms--leaving the rounded whiteness of bared elbow and upper arm +in charming contrast--and looked gravely past the admiring figures that +nearly touched her own. "It was somewhar over thar," she said lazily, +pointing up the road in the opposite direction to the barn, "but I ain't +sure it WAS any one." + +"Then he'd already PASSED the house afore you saw him?" said the deputy. + +"I reckon--if it WAS him," returned Sue. + +"He must have got on," said the deputy; "but then he runs like a deer; +it's his trade." + +"Wot trade?" + +"Acrobat." + +"Wot's that?" + +The two men were delighted at this divine simplicity. "A man who runs, +jumps, climbs--and all that sort, in the circus." + +"But isn't he runnin', jumpin', and climbin' away from ye now?" she +continued with adorable naivete. + +The deputy smiled, but straightened in the saddle. "We're bound to come +up with him afore he reaches Lowville; and between that and this house +it's a dead level, where a gopher couldn't leave his hole without your +spottin' him a mile off! Good-by!" The words were addressed to Ira, +but the parting glance was directed to the pretty wife as the two men +galloped away. + +An odd uneasiness at this sudden revelation of his wife's prettiness and +its evident effect upon his visitors came over Ira. It resulted in his +addressing the empty space before his door with, "Well, ye won't ketch +much if ye go on yawpin' and dawdlin' with women-folks like this;" and +he was unreasonably delighted at the pretty assent of disdain and scorn +which sparkled in his wife's eyes as she added:-- + +"Not much, I reckon!" + +"That's the kind of official trash we have to pay taxes to keep up," +said Ira, who somehow felt that if public policy was not amenable to +private sentiment there was no value in free government. Mrs. Beasley, +however, complacently resumed her dish-washing, and Ira returned to his +riata in the adjoining room. For quite an interval there was no sound +but the occasional click of a dish laid upon its pile, with fingers +that, however, were firm and untremulous. Presently Sue's low voice was +heard. + +"Wonder if that deputy caught anything yet. I've a good mind to meander +up the road and see." + +But the question brought Ira to the door with a slight return of his +former uneasiness. He had no idea of subjecting his wife to another +admiring interview. "I reckon I'll go myself," he said dubiously; "YOU'D +better stay and look after the house." + +Her eyes brightened as she carried a pile of plates to the dresser; +it was possible she had foreseen this compromise. "Yes," she said +cheerfully, "you could go farther than me." + +Ira reflected. He could also send them about their business if they +thought of returning. He lifted his hat from the floor, took his rifle +down carefully from its pegs, and slouched out into the road. Sue +watched him until he was well away, then flew to the back door, stopping +only an instant to look at her face in a small mirror on the wall,--yet +without noticing her new prettiness,--then ran to the barn. Casting +a backward glance at the diminishing figure of her husband in the +distance, she threw open the door and shut it quickly behind her. +At first the abrupt change from the dazzling outer plain to the deep +shadows of the barn bewildered her. She saw before her a bucket half +filled with dirty water, and a quantity of wet straw littering the +floor; then lifting her eyes to the hay-loft, she detected the figure of +the fugitive, unclothed from the waist upward, emerging from the loose +hay in which he had evidently been drying himself. Whether it was the +excitement of his perilous situation, or whether the perfect symmetry +of his bared bust and arms--unlike anything she had ever seen +before--clothed him with the cold ideality of a statue, she could not +say, but she felt no shock of modesty; while the man, accustomed to +the public half-exposure in tights and spangles, was more conscious of +detected unreadiness than of shame. + +"Gettin' the dust off me," he said, in hurried explanation; "be down +in a second." Indeed, in another moment he had resumed his shirt and +flannel coat, and swung himself to the floor with a like grace and +dexterity, that was to her the revelation of a descending god. She found +herself face to face with him,--his features cleansed of dirt and grime, +his hair plastered in wet curls on his low forehead. It was a face +of cheap adornment, not uncommon in his profession--unintelligent, +unrefined, and even unheroic; but she did not know that. Overcoming a +sudden timidity, she nevertheless told him briefly and concisely of the +arrival and departure of his pursuers. + +His low forehead wrinkled. "Thar's no getting away until they come +back," he said without looking at her. "Could ye keep me in here +to-night?" + +"Yes," she returned simply, as if the idea had already occurred to her; +"but you must lie low in the loft." + +"And could you"--he hesitated, and went on with a forced smile--"you +see, I've eaten nothing since last night. Could you"-- + +"I'll bring you something," she said quickly, nodding her head. + +"And if you had"--he went on more hesitatingly, glancing down at his +travel-torn and frayed garments--"anything like a coat, or any other +clothing? It would disguise me also, you see, and put 'em off the +track." + +She nodded her head again rapidly: she had thought of that too; there +was a pair of doeskin trousers and a velvet jacket left by a Mexican +vaquero who had bought stock from them two years ago. Practical as she +was, a sudden conviction that he would look well in the velvet jacket +helped her resolve. + +"Did they say"--he said, with his forced smile and uneasy glance--"did +they--tell you anything about me?" + +"Yes," she said abstractedly, gazing at him. + +"You see," he began hurriedly, "I'll tell you how it was." + +"No, don't!" she said quickly. She meant it. She wanted no facts to +stand between her and this single romance of her life. "I must go and +get the things," she added, turning away, "before he gets back." + +"Who's HE?" asked the man. + +She was about to reply, "My husband," but without knowing why stopped +and said, "Mr. Beasley," and then ran off quickly to the house. + +She found the vaquero's clothes, took some provisions, filled a flask of +whiskey in the cupboard, and ran back with them, her mouth expanded to +a vague smile, and pulsating like a schoolgirl. She even repressed +with difficulty the ejaculation "There!" as she handed them to him. He +thanked her, but with eyes fixed and fascinated by the provisions. She +understood it with a new sense of delicacy, and saying, "I'll come again +when he gets back," ran off and returned to the house, leaving him alone +to his repast. + +Meantime her husband, lounging lazily along the high road, had +precipitated the catastrophe he wished to avoid. For his slouching +figure, silhouetted against the horizon on that monotonous level, had +been the only one detected by the deputy sheriff and the constable, his +companion, and they had charged down within fifty yards of him before +they discovered their mistake. They were not slow in making this an +excuse for abandoning their quest as far as Lowville: in fact, after +quitting the distraction of Mrs. Beasley's presence they had, without in +the least suspecting the actual truth, become doubtful if the fugitive +had proceeded so far. He might at that moment be snugly ensconced behind +some low wire-grass ridge, watching their own clearly defined figures, +and waiting only for the night to evade them. The Beasley house seemed a +proper place of operation in beating up the field. Ira's cold reception +of the suggestion was duly disposed of by the deputy. "I have the RIGHT, +ye know," he said, with a grim pleasantry, "to summon ye as my posse +to aid and assist me in carrying out the law; but I ain't the man to +be rough on my friends, and I reckon it will do jest as well if I +'requisition' your house." The dreadful recollection that the deputy had +the power to detail him and the constable to scour the plain while he +remained behind in company with Sue stopped Ira's further objections. +Yet, if he could only get rid of her while the deputy was in the +house,--but then his nearest neighbor was five miles away! There was +nothing left for him to do but to return with the men and watch his +wife keenly. Strange to say, there was a certain stimulus in this which +stirred his monotonous pulses and was not without a vague pleasure. +There is a revelation to some natures in newly awakened jealousy that is +a reincarnation of love. + +As they came into the house a slight circumstance, which an hour ago +would have scarcely touched his sluggish sensibilities, now appeared to +corroborate his fear. His wife had changed her cuffs and collar, taken +off her rough apron, and evidently redressed her hair. This, with the +enhanced brightness of her eyes, which he had before noticed, convinced +him that it was due to the visit of the deputy. There was no doubt that +the official was equally attracted and fascinated by her prettiness, and +although her acceptance of his return was certainly not a cordial one, +there was a kind of demure restraint and over-consciousness in her +manner that might be coquetry. Ira had vaguely observed this quality in +other young women, but had never experienced it in his brief courtship. +There had been no rivalry, no sexual diplomacy nor insincerity in his +capture of the motherless girl who had leaped from the tail-board of her +father's wagon almost into his arms, and no man had since come between +them. The idea that Sue should care for any other than himself had been +simply inconceivable to his placid, matter-of-fact nature. That their +sacrament was final he had never doubted. If his two cows, bought +with his own money or reared by him, should suddenly have developed +an inclination to give milk to a neighbor, he would not have been more +astonished. But THEY could have been brought back with a rope, and +without a heart throb. + +Passion of this kind, which in a less sincere society restricts its +expression to innuendo or forced politeness, left the rustic Ira only +dumb and lethargic. He moved slowly and abstractedly around the room, +accenting his slight lameness more than ever, or dropped helplessly into +a chair, where he sat, inanely conscious of the contiguity of his +wife and the deputy, and stupidly expectant of--he knew not what. +The atmosphere of the little house seemed to him charged with some +unwholesome electricity. It kindled his wife's eyes, stimulating the +deputy and his follower to coarse playfulness, enthralled his own limbs +to the convulsive tightening of his fingers around the rungs of his +chair. Yet he managed to cling to his idea of keeping his wife occupied, +and of preventing any eyeshot between her and her guests, or the +indulgence of dangerously flippant conversation, by ordering her to +bring some refreshment. "What's gone o' the whiskey bottle?" he said, +after fumbling in the cupboard. + +Mrs. Beasley did not blench. She only gave her head a slight toss. "Ef +you men can't get along with the coffee and flapjacks I'm going to give +ye, made with my own hands, ye kin just toddle right along to the +first bar, and order your tangle-foot there. Ef it's a barkeeper you're +looking for, and not a lady, say so!" + +The novel audacity of this speech, and the fact that it suggested +that preoccupation he hoped for, relieved Ira for a moment, while it +enchanted the guests as a stroke of coquettish fascination. Mrs. Beasley +triumphantly disappeared in the kitchen, slipped off her cuffs and set +to work, and in a few moments emerged with a tray bearing the cakes and +steaming coffee. As neither she nor her husband ate anything (possibly +owing to an equal preoccupation) the guests were obliged to confine +their attentions to the repast before them. The sun, too, was already +nearing the horizon, and although its nearly level beams acted like a +powerful search-light over the stretching plain, twilight would soon +put an end to the quest. Yet they lingered. Ira now foresaw a new +difficulty: the cows were to be brought up and fodder taken from the +barn; to do this he would be obliged to leave his wife and the deputy +together. I do not know if Mrs. Beasley divined his perplexity, but she +carelessly offered to perform that evening function herself. Ira's heart +leaped and sank again as the deputy gallantly proposed to assist her. +But here rustic simplicity seemed to be equal to the occasion. "Ef I +propose to do Ira's work," said Mrs. Beasley, with provocative archness, +"it's because I reckon he'll do more good helpin' you catch your +man than you'll do helpin' ME! So clear out, both of ye!" A feminine +audacity that recalled the deputy to himself, and left him no choice but +to accept Ira's aid. I do not know whether Mrs. Beasley felt a pang of +conscience as her husband arose gratefully and limped after the deputy; +I only know that she stood looking at them from the door, smiling and +triumphant. + +Then she slipped out of the back door again, and ran swiftly to the +barn, fastening on her clean cuffs and collar as she ran. The fugitive +was anxiously awaiting her, with a slight touch of brusqueness in his +eagerness. + +"Thought you were never coming!" he said. + +She breathlessly explained, and showed him through the half-opened door +the figures of the three men slowly spreading and diverging over the +plain, like the nearly level sun-rays they were following. The sunlight +fell also on her panting bosom, her electrified sandy hair, her red, +half-opened mouth, and short and freckled upper lip. The relieved +fugitive turned from the three remoter figures to the one beside him, +and saw, for the first time, that it was fair. At which he smiled, and +her face flushed and was irradiated. + +Then they fell to talk,--he grateful, boastful,--as the distant figures +grew dim; she quickly assenting, but following his expression rather +than his words, with her own girlish face and brightening eyes. But what +he said, or how he explained his position, with what speciousness he +dwelt upon himself, his wrongs, and his manifold manly virtues, is not +necessary for us to know, nor was it, indeed, for her to understand. +Enough for her that she felt she had found the one man of all the world, +and that she was at that moment protecting him against all the world! He +was the unexpected, spontaneous gift to her, the companion her childhood +had never known, the lover she had never dreamed of, even the child of +her unsatisfied maternal yearnings. If she could not comprehend all his +selfish incoherences, she felt it was her own fault; if she could not +follow his ignorant assumptions, she knew it was SHE who was deficient; +if she could not translate his coarse speech, it was because it was the +language of a larger world from which she had been excluded. To this +world belonged the beautiful limbs she gazed on,--a very different +world from that which had produced the rheumatic deformities and useless +mayhem of her husband, or the provincially foppish garments of the +deputy. Sitting in the hayloft together, where she had mounted for +greater security, they forgot themselves in his monologue of cheap +vaporing, broken only by her assenting smiles and her half-checked +sighs. The sharp spices of the heated pine-shingles over their heads +and the fragrance of the clover-scented hay filled the close air around +them. The sun was falling with the wind, but they heeded it not; until +the usual fateful premonition struck the woman, and saying "I must go +now," she only half-unconsciously precipitated the end. For, as she +rose, he caught first her hand and then her waist, and attempted to +raise the face that was suddenly bending down as if seeking to hide +itself in the hay. It was a brief struggle, ending in a submission as +sudden, and their lips met in a kiss, so eager that it might have been +impending for days instead of minutes. + +"Oh, Sue! where are ye?" + +It was her husband's voice, out of a darkness that they only then +realized. The man threw her aside with a roughness that momentarily +shocked her above any sense of surprise or shame: SHE would have +confronted her husband in his arms,--glorified and translated,--had he +but kept her there. Yet she answered, with a quiet, level voice that +astonished her lover, "Here! I'm just coming down!" and walked coolly +to the ladder. Looking over, and seeing her husband with the deputy +standing in the barnyard, she quickly returned, put her finger to her +lips, made a gesture for her companion to conceal himself in the hay +again, and was turning away, when, perhaps shamed by her superior +calmness, he grasped her hand tightly and whispered, "Come again +tonight, dear; do!" She hesitated, raised her hand suddenly to her lips, +and then quickly disengaging it, slipped down the ladder. + +"Ye haven't done much work yet as I kin see," said Ira wearily. "Whitey +and Red Tip [the cows] are hangin' over the corral, just waitin'." + +"The yellow hen we reckoned was lost is sittin' in the hayloft, and +mustn't be disturbed," said Mrs. Beasley, with decision; "and ye'll have +to take the hay from the stack to-night. And," with an arch glance at +the deputy, "as I don't see that you two have done much either, you're +just in time to help fodder down." + +Setting the three men to work with the same bright audacity, the task +was soon completed--particularly as the deputy found no opportunity for +exclusive dalliance with Mrs. Beasley. She shut the barn door herself, +and led the way to the house, learning incidentally that the deputy had +abandoned the chase, was to occupy a "shake-down" on the kitchen-floor +that night with the constable, and depart at daybreak. The gloom of +her husband's face had settled into a look of heavy resignation and +alternate glances of watchfulness, which only seemed to inspire her +with renewed vivacity. But the cooking of supper withdrew her disturbing +presence for a time from the room, and gave him some relief. When +the meal was ready he sought further surcease from trouble in copious +draughts of whiskey, which she produced from a new bottle, and even +pressed upon the deputy in mischievous contrition for her previous +inhospitality. + +"Now I know that it wasn't whiskey only ye came for, I'll show you that +Sue Beasley is no slouch of a barkeeper either," she said. + +Then, rolling her sleeves above her pretty arms, she mixed a cocktail in +such delightful imitation of the fashionable barkeeper's dexterity that +her guests were convulsed with admiration. Even Ira was struck with +this revelation of a youthfulness that five years of household care had +checked, but never yet subdued. He had forgotten that he had married a +child. Only once, when she glanced at the cheap clock on the mantel, +had he noticed another change, more remarkable still from its very +inconsistency with her burst of youthful spirits. It was another face +that he saw,--older and matured with an intensity of abstraction that +struck a chill to his heart. It was not HIS Sue that was standing there, +but another Sue, wrought, as it seemed to his morbid extravagance, by +some one else's hand. + +Yet there was another interval of relief when his wife, declaring she +was tired, and even jocosely confessing to some effect of the liquor she +had pretended to taste, went early to bed. The deputy, not finding the +gloomy company of the husband to his taste, presently ensconced himself +on the floor, before the kitchen fire, in the blankets that she had +provided. The constable followed his example. In a few moments the house +was silent and sleeping, save for Ira sitting alone, with his head sunk +on his chest and his hands gripping the arms of his chair before the +dying embers of his hearth. + +He was trying, with the alternate quickness and inaction of an +inexperienced intellect and an imagination morbidly awakened, to grasp +the situation before him. The common sense that had hitherto governed +his life told him that the deputy would go to-morrow, and that there was +nothing in his wife's conduct to show that her coquetry and aberration +would not pass as easily. But it recurred to him that she had never +shown this coquetry or aberration to HIM during their own brief +courtship,--that she had never looked or acted like this before. If this +was love, she had never known it; if it was only "women's ways," as he +had heard men say, and so dangerously attractive, why had she not shown +it to him? He remembered that matter-of-fact wedding, the bride without +timidity, without blushes, without expectation beyond the transference +of her home to his. Would it have been different with another man?--with +the deputy, who had called this color and animation to her face? What +did it all mean? Were all married people like this? There were the +Westons, their neighbors,--was Mrs. Weston like Sue? But he remembered +that Mrs. Weston had run away with Mr. Weston from her father's house. +It was what they called "a love match." Would Sue have run away with +him? Would she now run away with--? + +The candle was guttering as he rose with a fierce start--his first +impulse of anger--from the table. He took another gulp of whiskey. It +tasted like water; its fire was quenched in the greater heat of his +blood. He would go to bed. Here a new and indefinable timidity took +possession of him; he remembered the strange look in his wife's face. It +seemed suddenly as if the influence of the sleeping stranger in the next +room had not only isolated her from him, but would make his presence +in her bedroom an intrusion on their hidden secrets. He had to pass the +open door of the kitchen. The head of the unconscious deputy was close +to Ira's heavy boot. He had only to lift his heel to crush that ruddy, +good-looking, complacent face. He hurried past him, up the creaking +stairs. His wife lay still on one side of the bed, apparently asleep, +her face half-hidden in her loosened, fluffy hair. It was well; for in +the vague shyness and restraint that was beginning to take possession +of him he felt he could not have spoken to her, or, if he had, it would +have been only to voice the horrible, unformulated things that seemed to +choke him. He crept softly to the opposite side of the bed, and began to +undress. As he pulled off his boots and stockings, his eye fell upon +his bare, malformed feet. This caused him to look at his maimed hand, +to rise, drag himself across the floor to the mirror, and gaze upon his +lacerated ear. She, this prettily formed woman lying there, must have +seen it often; she must have known all these years that he was not like +other men,--not like the deputy, with his tight riding-boots, his soft +hand, and the diamond that sparkled vulgarly on his fat little finger. +A cold sweat broke over him. He drew on his stockings again, lifted the +outer counterpane, and, half undressed, crept under it, wrapping its +corner around his maimed hand, as if to hide it from the light. Yet he +felt that he saw things dimly; there was a moisture on his cheeks and +eyelids he could not account for; it must be the whiskey "coming out." + +His wife lay very still; she scarcely seemed to breathe. What if she +should never breathe again, but die as the old Sue he knew, the lanky +girl he had married, unchanged and uncontaminated? It would be better +than this. Yet at the same moment the picture was before him of her +pretty simulation of the barkeeper, of her white bared arms and laughing +eyes, all so new, so fresh to him! He tried to listen to the slow +ticking of the clock, the occasional stirring of air through the house, +and the movement, like a deep sigh, which was the regular, inarticulate +speech of the lonely plain beyond, and quite distinct from the evening +breeze. He had heard it often, but, like so many things he had learned +that day, he never seemed to have caught its meaning before. Then, +perhaps, it was his supine position, perhaps some cumulative effect of +the whiskey he had taken, but all this presently became confused and +whirling. Out of its gyrations he tried to grasp something, to hear +voices that called him to "wake," and in the midst of it he fell into a +profound sleep. + +The clock ticked, the wind sighed, the woman at his side lay motionless +for many minutes. + +Then the deputy on the kitchen floor rolled over with an appalling +snort, struggled, stretched himself, and awoke. A healthy animal, he had +shaken off the fumes of liquor with a dry tongue and a thirst for water +and fresh air. He raised his knees and rubbed his eyes. The water bucket +was missing from the corner. Well, he knew where the spring was, and a +turn out of the close and stifling kitchen would do him good. He +yawned, put on his boots softly, opened the back door, and stepped out. +Everything was dark, but above and around him, to the very level of his +feet, all apparently pricked with bright stars. The bulk of the barn +rose dimly before him on the right, to the left was the spring. He +reached it, drank, dipped his head and hands in it, and arose refreshed. +The dry, wholesome breath that blew over this flat disk around him, +rimmed with stars, did the rest. He began to saunter slowly back, +the only reminiscence of his evening's potations being the figure he +recalled of his pretty hostess, with bare arms and lifted glasses, +imitating the barkeeper. A complacent smile straightened his yellow +mustache. How she kept glancing at him and watching him, the little +witch! Ha! no wonder! What could she find in the surly, slinking, stupid +brute yonder? (The gentleman here alluded to was his host.) But the +deputy had not been without a certain provincial success with the fair. +He was true to most men, and fearless to all. One may not be too hard +upon him at this moment of his life. + +For as he was passing the house he stopped suddenly. Above the dry, +dusty, herbal odors of the plain, above the scent of the new-mown hay +within the barn, there was distinctly another fragrance,--the smell of +a pipe. But where? Was it his host who had risen to take the outer air? +Then it suddenly flashed upon him that Beasley did NOT smoke, nor +the constable either. The smell seemed to come from the barn. Had he +followed out the train of ideas thus awakened, all might have been well; +but at this moment his attention was arrested by a far more exciting +incident to him,--the draped and hooded figure of Mrs. Beasley was just +emerging from the house. He halted instantly in the shadow, and held +his breath as she glided quickly across the intervening space and +disappeared in the half-opened door of the barn. Did she know he +was there? A keen thrill passed over him; his mouth broadened into a +breathless smile. It was his last! for, as he glided forward to the +door, the starry heavens broke into a thousand brilliant fragments +around him, the earth gave way beneath his feet, and he fell forward +with half his skull shot away. + +Where he fell there he lay without an outcry, with only one +movement,--the curved and grasping fingers of the fighter's hand towards +his guarded hip. Where he fell there he lay dead, his face downwards, +his good right arm still curved around across his back. Nothing of him +moved but his blood,--broadening slowly round him in vivid color, and +then sluggishly thickening and darkening until it stopped too, and sank +into the earth, a dull brown stain. For an instant the stillness of +death followed the echoless report, then there was a quick and feverish +rustling within the barn, the hurried opening of a window in the loft, +scurrying footsteps, another interval of silence, and then out of the +farther darkness the sounds of horse-hoofs in the muffled dust of the +road. But not a sound or movement in the sleeping house beyond. + + +The stars at last paled slowly, the horizon lines came back,--a thin +streak of opal fire. A solitary bird twittered in the bush beside the +spring. Then the back door of the house opened, and the constable came +forth, half-awakened and apologetic, and with the bewildered haste of a +belated man. His eyes were level, looking for his missing leader as he +went on, until at last he stumbled and fell over the now cold and rigid +body. He scrambled to his feet again, cast a hurried glance around +him,--at the half-opened door of the barn, at the floor littered with +trampled hay. In one corner lay the ragged blouse and trousers of the +fugitive, which the constable instantly recognized. He went back to the +house, and reappeared in a few moments with Ira, white, stupefied, and +hopelessly bewildered; clear only in his statement that his wife had +just fainted at the news of the catastrophe, and was equally helpless in +her own room. The constable--a man of narrow ideas but quick action--saw +it all. The mystery was plain without further evidence. The deputy had +been awakened by the prowling of the fugitive around the house in search +of a horse. Sallying out, they had met, and Ira's gun, which stood in +the kitchen, and which the deputy had seized, had been wrested from him +and used with fatal effect at arm's length, and the now double assassin +had escaped on the sheriff's horse, which was missing. Turning the body +over to the trembling Ira, he saddled his horse and galloped to Lowville +for assistance. + +These facts were fully established at the hurried inquest which met that +day. There was no need to go behind the evidence of the constable, the +only companion of the murdered man and first discoverer of the body. The +fact that he, on the ground floor, had slept through the struggle and +the report, made the obliviousness of the couple in the room above +a rational sequence. The dazed Ira was set aside, after half a dozen +contemptuous questions; the chivalry of a Californian jury excused the +attendance of a frightened and hysterical woman confined to her room. +By noon they had departed with the body, and the long afternoon shadows +settled over the lonely plain and silent house. At nightfall Ira +appeared at the door, and stood for some moments scanning the plain; he +was seen later by two packers, who had glanced furtively at the scene +of the late tragedy, sitting outside his doorway, a mere shadow in the +darkness; and a mounted patrol later in the night saw a light in the +bedroom window where the invalid Mrs. Beasley was confined. But no one +saw her afterwards. Later, Ira explained that she had gone to visit a +relative until her health was restored. Having few friends and fewer +neighbors, she was not missed; and even the constable, the sole +surviving guest who had enjoyed her brief eminence of archness and +beauty that fatal night, had quite forgotten her in his vengeful quest +of the murderer. So that people became accustomed to see this lonely man +working in the fields by day, or at nightfall gazing fixedly from his +doorway. At the end of three months he was known as the recluse or +"hermit" of Bolinas Plain; in the rapid history-making of that epoch it +was forgotten that he had ever been anything else. + +But Justice, which in those days was apt to nod over the affairs of the +average citizen, was keenly awake to offenses against its own officers; +and it chanced that the constable, one day walking through the streets +of Marysville, recognized the murderer and apprehended him. He was +removed to Lowville. Here, probably through some modest doubt of the +ability of the County Court, which the constable represented, to deal +with purely circumstantial evidence, he was not above dropping a hint to +the local Vigilance Committee, who, singularly enough, in spite of his +resistance, got possession of the prisoner. It was the rainy season, and +business was slack; the citizens of Lowville were thus enabled to +give so notorious a case their fullest consideration, and to assist +cheerfully at the ultimate hanging of the prisoner, which seemed to be a +foregone conclusion. + +But herein they were mistaken. For when the constable had given his +evidence, already known to the county, there was a disturbance in the +fringe of humanity that lined the walls of the assembly room where the +committee was sitting, and the hermit of Bolinas Plain limped painfully +into the room. He had evidently walked there: he was soaked with rain +and plastered with mud; he was exhausted and inarticulate. But as he +staggered to the witness-bench, and elbowed the constable aside, he +arrested the attention of every one. A few laughed, but were +promptly silenced by the court. It was a reflection upon its only +virtue,--sincerity. + +"Do you know the prisoner?" asked the judge. + +Ira Beasley glanced at the pale face of the acrobat, and shook his head. + +"Never saw him before," he said faintly. + +"Then what are you doing here?" demanded the judge sternly. + +Ira collected himself with evident effort, and rose to his halting feet. +First he moistened his dry lips, then he said, slowly and distinctly, +"Because I killed the deputy of Bolinas." + +With the thrill which ran through the crowded room, and the relief that +seemed to come upon him with that utterance, he gained strength and even +a certain dignity. + +"I killed him," he went on, turning his head slowly around the circle of +eager auditors with the rigidity of a wax figure, "because he made +love to my wife. I killed him because he wanted to run away with her. I +killed him because I found him waiting for her at the door of the barn +at the dead o' night, when she'd got outer bed to jine him. He hadn't no +gun. He hadn't no fight. I killed him in his tracks. That man," pointing +to the prisoner, "wasn't in it at all." He stopped, loosened his collar, +and, baring his rugged throat below his disfigured ear, said: "Now take +me out and hang me!" + +"What proof have we of this? Where's your wife? Does she corroborate +it?" + +A slight tremor ran over him. + +"She ran away that night, and never came back again. Perhaps," he added +slowly, "because she loved him and couldn't bear me; perhaps, as I've +sometimes allowed to myself, gentlemen, it was because she didn't want +to bear evidence agin me." + +In the silence that followed the prisoner was heard speaking to one that +was near him. Then he rose. All the audacity and confidence that the +husband had lacked were in HIS voice. Nay, there was even a certain +chivalry in his manner which, for the moment, the rascal really +believed. + +"It's true!" he said. "After I stole the horse to get away, I found that +woman running wild down the road, cryin' and sobbin'. At first I thought +she'd done the shooting. It was a risky thing for me to do, gentlemen; +but I took her up on the horse and got her away to Lowville. It was that +much dead weight agin my chances, but I took it. She was a woman and--I +ain't a dog!" + +He was so exalted and sublimated by his fiction that for the first time +the jury was impressed in his favor. And when Ira Beasley limped across +the room, and, extending his maimed hand to the prisoner, said, "Shake!" +there was another dead silence. + +It was broken by the voice of the judge addressing the constable. + +"What do you know of the deputy's attentions to Mrs. Beasley? Were they +enough to justify the husband's jealousy? Did he make love to her?" + +The constable hesitated. He was a narrow man, with a crude sense of +the principles rather than the methods of justice. He remembered the +deputy's admiration; he now remembered, even more strongly, the object +of that admiration, simulating with her pretty arms the gestures of +the barkeeper, and the delight it gave them. He was loyal to his +dead leader, but he looked up and down, and then said, slowly and +half-defiantly: "Well, judge, he was a MAN." + +Everybody laughed. That the strongest and most magic of all human +passions should always awake levity in any public presentment of or +allusion to it was one of the inconsistencies of human nature which even +a lynch judge had to admit. He made no attempt to control the tittering +of the court, for he felt that the element of tragedy was no longer +there. The foreman of the jury arose and whispered to the judge amid +another silence. Then the judge spoke:-- + +"The prisoner and his witness are both discharged. The prisoner to leave +the town within twenty-four hours; the witness to be conducted to his +own house at the expense of, and with the thanks of, the Committee." + +They say that one afternoon, when a low mist of rain had settled over +the sodden Bolinas Plain, a haggard, bedraggled, and worn-out woman +stepped down from a common "freighting wagon" before the doorway where +Beasley still sat; that, coming forward, he caught her in his arms and +called her "Sue;" and they say that they lived happily together ever +afterwards. But they say--and this requires some corroboration--that +much of that happiness was due to Mrs. Beasley's keeping forever in her +husband's mind her own heroic sacrifice in disappearing as a witness +against him, her own forgiveness of his fruitless crime, and the +gratitude he owed to the fugitive. + + + + +THE STRANGE EXPERIENCE OF ALKALI DICK + + +He was a "cowboy." A reckless and dashing rider, yet mindful of his +horse's needs; good-humored by nature, but quick in quarrel; independent +of circumstance, yet shy and sensitive of opinion; abstemious by +education and general habit, yet intemperate in amusement; self-centred, +yet possessed of a childish vanity,--taken altogether, a characteristic +product of the Western plains, which he never should have left. + +But reckless adventure after adventure had brought him into +difficulties, from which there was only one equally adventurous escape: +he joined a company of Indians engaged by Buffalo Bill to simulate +before civilized communities the sports and customs of the uncivilized. +In divers Christian arenas of the nineteenth century he rode as a +northern barbarian of the first might have disported before the Roman +populace, but harmlessly, of his own free will, and of some little +profit to himself. He threw his lasso under the curious eyes of languid +men and women of the world, eager for some new sensation, with admiring +plaudits from them and a half contemptuous egotism of his own. But +outside of the arena he was lonely, lost, and impatient for excitement. + +An ingenious attempt to "paint the town red" did not commend itself as a +spectacle to the householders who lived in the vicinity of Earl's Court, +London, and Alkali Dick was haled before a respectable magistrate by a +serious policeman, and fined as if he had been only a drunken coster. A +later attempt at Paris to "incarnadine" the neighborhood of the Champs +de Mars, and "round up" a number of boulevardiers, met with a more +disastrous result,--the gleam of steel from mounted gendarmes, and a +mandate to his employers. + +So it came that one night, after the conclusion of the performance, +Alkali Dick rode out of the corral gate of the Hippodrome with his +last week's salary in his pocket and an imprecation on his lips. He had +shaken the sawdust of the sham arena from his high, tight-fitting boots; +he would shake off the white dust of France, and the effeminate soil +of all Europe also, and embark at once for his own country and the Far +West! + +A more practical and experienced man would have sold his horse at the +nearest market and taken train to Havre, but Alkali Dick felt himself +incomplete on terra firma without his mustang,--it would be hard enough +to part from it on embarking,--and he had determined to ride to the +seaport. + +The spectacle of a lithe horseman, clad in a Rembrandt sombrero, velvet +jacket, turnover collar, almost Van Dyke in its proportions, white +trousers and high boots, with long curling hair falling over his +shoulders, and a pointed beard and mustache, was a picturesque one, but +still not a novelty to the late-supping Parisians who looked up under +the midnight gas as he passed, and only recognized one of those men whom +Paris had agreed to designate as "Booflo-bils," going home. + +At three o'clock he pulled up at a wayside cabaret, preferring it to +the publicity of a larger hotel, and lay there till morning. The slight +consternation of the cabaret-keeper and his wife over this long-haired +phantom, with glittering, deep-set eyes, was soothed by a royally-flung +gold coin, and a few words of French slang picked up in the arena, +which, with the name of Havre, comprised Dick's whole knowledge of +the language. But he was touched with their ready and intelligent +comprehension of his needs, and their genial if not so comprehensive +loquacity. Luckily for his quick temper, he did not know that they had +taken him for a traveling quack-doctor going to the Fair of Yvetot, and +that madame had been on the point of asking him for a magic balsam to +prevent migraine. + +He was up betimes and away, giving a wide berth to the larger towns; +taking byways and cut-offs, yet always with the Western pathfinder's +instinct, even among these alien, poplar-haunted plains, low-banked +willow-fringed rivers, and cloverless meadows. The white sun shining +everywhere,--on dazzling arbors, summer-houses, and trellises; on light +green vines and delicate pea-rows; on the white trousers, jackets, and +shoes of smart shopkeepers or holiday makers; on the white headdresses +of nurses and the white-winged caps of the Sisters of St. Vincent,--all +this grew monotonous to this native of still more monotonous wastes. The +long, black shadows of short, blue-skirted, sabotted women and short, +blue-bloused, sabotted men slowly working in the fields, with slow oxen, +or still slower heavy Norman horses; the same horses gayly bedecked, +dragging slowly not only heavy wagons, but their own apparently more +monstrous weight over the white road, fretted his nervous Western +energy, and made him impatient to get on. + +At the close of the second day he found some relief on entering a +trackless wood,--not the usual formal avenue of equidistant trees, +leading to nowhere, and stopping upon the open field,--but apparently +a genuine forest as wild as one of his own "oak bottoms." Gnarled roots +and twisted branches flung themselves across his path; his mustang's +hoofs sank in deep pits of moss and last year's withered leaves; +trailing vines caught his heavy-stirruped feet, or brushed his broad +sombrero; the vista before him seemed only to endlessly repeat the same +sylvan glade; he was in fancy once more in the primeval Western forest, +and encompassed by its vast, dim silences. He did not know that he had +in fact only penetrated an ancient park which in former days resounded +to the winding fanfare of the chase, and was still, on stated occasions, +swept over by accurately green-coated Parisians and green-plumed +Dianes, who had come down by train! To him it meant only unfettered and +unlimited freedom. + +He rose in his stirrups, and sent a characteristic yell ringing down +the dim aisles before him. But, alas! at the same moment, his mustang, +accustomed to the firmer grip of the prairie, in lashing out, stepped +upon a slimy root, and fell heavily, rolling over his clinging and still +unlodged rider. For a few moments both lay still. Then Dick extricated +himself with an oath, rose giddily, dragged up his horse,--who, +after the fashion of his race, was meekly succumbing to his reclining +position,--and then became aware that the unfortunate beast was badly +sprained in the shoulder, and temporarily lame. The sudden recollection +that he was some miles from the road, and that the sun was sinking, +concentrated his scattered faculties. The prospect of sleeping out in +that summer woodland was nothing to the pioneer-bred Dick; he could +make his horse and himself comfortable anywhere--but he was delaying his +arrival at Havre. He must regain the high road,--or some wayside inn. +He glanced around him; the westering sun was a guide for his general +direction; the road must follow it north or south; he would find a +"clearing" somewhere. But here Dick was mistaken; there seemed no +interruption of, no encroachment upon this sylvan tract, as in his +western woods. There was no track or trail to be found; he missed even +the ordinary woodland signs that denoted the path of animals to water. +For the park, from the time a Northern Duke had first alienated it from +the virgin forest, had been rigidly preserved. + +Suddenly, rising apparently from the ground before him, he saw the high +roof-ridges and tourelles of a long, irregular, gloomy building. A few +steps further showed him that it lay in a cup-like depression of the +forest, and that it was still a long descent from where he had wandered +to where it stood in the gathering darkness. His mustang was moving +with great difficulty; he uncoiled his lariat from the saddle-horn, +and, selecting the most open space, tied one end to the trunk of a large +tree,--the forty feet of horsehair rope giving the animal a sufficient +degree of grazing freedom. + +Then he strode more quickly down the forest side towards the building, +which now revealed its austere proportions, though Dick could see that +they were mitigated by a strange, formal flower-garden, with quaint +statues and fountains. There were grim black allees of clipped trees, a +curiously wrought iron gate, and twisted iron espaliers. On one side the +edifice was supported by a great stone terrace, which seemed to him as +broad as a Parisian boulevard. Yet everywhere it appeared sleeping in +the desertion and silence of the summer twilight. The evening breeze +swayed the lace curtains at the tall windows, but nothing else moved. To +the unsophisticated Western man it looked like a scene on the stage. + +His progress was, however, presently checked by the first sight of +preservation he had met in the forest,--a thick hedge, which interfered +between him and a sloping lawn beyond. It was up to his waist, yet he +began to break his way through it, when suddenly he was arrested by the +sound of voices. Before him, on the lawn, a man and woman, evidently +servants, were slowly advancing, peering into the shadows of the wood +which he had just left. He could not understand what they were saying, +but he was about to speak and indicate by signs his desire to find the +road when the woman, turning towards her companion, caught sight of his +face and shoulders above the hedge. To his surprise and consternation, +he saw the color drop out of her fresh cheeks, her round eyes fix in +their sockets, and with a despairing shriek she turned and fled +towards the house. The man turned at his companion's cry, gave the +same horrified glance at Dick's face, uttered a hoarse "Sacre!" crossed +himself violently, and fled also. + +Amazed, indignant, and for the first time in his life humiliated, +Dick gazed speechlessly after them. The man, of course, was a sneaking +coward; but the woman was rather pretty. It had not been Dick's +experience to have women run from him! Should he follow them, knock the +silly fellow's head against a tree, and demand an explanation? Alas, +he knew not the language! They had already reached the house and +disappeared in one of the offices. Well! let them go--for a mean +"lowdown" pair of country bumpkins:--HE wanted no favors from them! + +He turned back angrily into the forest to seek his unlucky beast. The +gurgle of water fell on his ear; hard by was a spring, where at least he +could water the mustang. He stooped to examine it; there was yet light +enough in the sunset sky to throw back from that little mirror the +reflection of his thin, oval face, his long, curling hair, and his +pointed beard and mustache. Yes! this was his face,--the face that +many women in Paris had agreed was romantic and picturesque. Had those +wretched greenhorns never seen a real man before? Were they idiots, +or insane? A sudden recollection of the silence and seclusion of the +building suggested certainly an asylum,--but where were the keepers? + +It was getting darker in the wood; he made haste to recover his horse, +to drag it to the spring, and there bathe its shoulder in the water +mixed with whiskey taken from his flask. His saddle-bag contained enough +bread and meat for his own supper; he would camp for the night where he +was, and with the first light of dawn make his way back through the +wood whence he came. As the light slowly faded from the wood he rolled +himself in his saddle-blanket and lay down. + +But not to sleep. His strange position, the accident to his horse, +an unusual irritation over the incident of the frightened +servants,--trivial as it might have been to any other man,--and, above +all, an increasing childish curiosity, kept him awake and restless. +Presently he could see also that it was growing lighter beyond the +edge of the wood, and that the rays of a young crescent moon, while it +plunged the forest into darkness and impassable shadow, evidently was +illuminating the hollow below. He threw aside his blanket, and made his +way to the hedge again. He was right; he could see the quaint, formal +lines of the old garden more distinctly,--the broad terrace, the queer, +dark bulk of the house, with lights now gleaming from a few of its open +windows. + +Before one of these windows opening on the terrace was a small, white, +draped table with fruits, cups, and glasses, and two or three chairs. As +he gazed curiously at these new signs of life and occupation, he became +aware of a regular and monotonous tap upon the stone flags of the +terrace. Suddenly he saw three figures slowly turn the corner of the +terrace at the further end of the building, and walk towards the table. +The central figure was that of an elderly woman, yet tall and stately +of carriage, walking with a stick, whose regular tap he had heard, +supported on the one side by an elderly Cure in black soutaine, and on +the other by a tall and slender girl in white. + +They walked leisurely to the other end of the terrace, as if performing +a regular exercise, and returned, stopping before the open French +window; where, after remaining in conversation a few moments, the +elderly lady and her ecclesiastical companion entered. The young girl +sauntered slowly to the steps of the terrace, and leaning against a huge +vase as she looked over the garden, seemed lost in contemplation. Her +face was turned towards the wood, but in quite another direction from +where he stood. + +There was something so gentle, refined, and graceful in her figure, yet +dominated by a girlish youthfulness of movement and gesture, that Alkali +Dick was singularly interested. He had probably never seen an ingenue +before; he had certainly never come in contact with a girl of that caste +and seclusion in his brief Parisian experience. He was sorely tempted +to leave his hedge and try to obtain a nearer view of her. There was a +fringe of lilac bushes running from the garden up the slope; if he could +gain their shadows, he could descend into the garden. What he should do +after his arrival he had not thought; but he had one idea--he knew not +why--that if he ventured to speak to her he would not be met with the +abrupt rustic terror he had experienced at the hands of the servants. +SHE was not of that kind! He crept through the hedge, reached the +lilacs, and began the descent softly and securely in the shadow. But at +the same moment she arose, called in a youthful voice towards the open +window, and began to descend the steps. A half-expostulating reply +came from the window, but the young girl answered it with the laughing, +capricious confidence of a spoiled child, and continued her way into the +garden. Here she paused a moment and hung over a rose-tree, from which +she gathered a flower, afterwards thrust into her belt. Dick paused, +too, half-crouching, half-leaning over a lichen-stained, cracked stone +pedestal from which the statue had long been overthrown and forgotten. + +To his surprise, however, the young girl, following the path to the +lilacs, began leisurely to ascend the hill, swaying from side to side +with a youthful movement, and swinging the long stalk of a lily at her +side. In another moment he would be discovered! Dick was frightened; his +confidence of the moment before had all gone; he would fly,--and yet, an +exquisite and fearful joy kept him motionless. She was approaching him, +full and clear in the moonlight. He could see the grace of her delicate +figure in the simple white frock drawn at the waist with broad satin +ribbon, and its love-knots of pale blue ribbons on her shoulders; he +could see the coils of her brown hair, the pale, olive tint of her oval +cheek, the delicate, swelling nostril of her straight, clear-cut nose; +he could even smell the lily she carried in her little hand. Then, +suddenly, she lifted her long lashes, and her large gray eyes met his. + +Alas! the same look of vacant horror came into her eyes, and fixed +and dilated their clear pupils. But she uttered no outcry,--there was +something in her blood that checked it; something that even gave a +dignity to her recoiling figure, and made Dick flush with admiration. +She put her hand to her side, as if the shock of the exertion of her +ascent had set her heart to beating, but she did not faint. Then her +fixed look gave way to one of infinite sadness, pity, and pathetic +appeal. Her lips were parted; they seemed to be moving, apparently in +prayer. At last her voice came, wonderingly, timidly, tenderly: "Mon +Dieu! c'est donc vous? Ici? C'est vous que Marie a crue voir! Que +venez-vous faire ici, Armand de Fontonelles? Repondez!" + +Alas, not a word was comprehensible to Dick; nor could he think of +a word to say in reply. He made an uncouth, half-irritated, +half-despairing gesture towards the wood he had quitted, as if to +indicate his helpless horse, but he knew it was meaningless to the +frightened yet exalted girl before him. Her little hand crept to her +breast and clutched a rosary within the folds of her dress, as her soft +voice again arose, low but appealingly: + +"Vous souffrez! Ah, mon Dieu! Peuton vous secourir? Moi-meme--mes +prieres pourraient elles interceder pour vous? Je supplierai le ciel de +prendre en pitie l'ame de mon ancetre. Monsieur le Cure est la,--je lui +parlerai. Lui et ma mere vous viendront en aide." + +She clasped her hands appealingly before him. + +Dick stood bewildered, hopeless, mystified; he had not understood a +word; he could not say a word. For an instant he had a wild idea of +seizing her hand and leading her to his helpless horse, and then came +what he believed was his salvation,--a sudden flash of recollection that +he had seen the word he wanted, the one word that would explain all, in +a placarded notice at the Cirque of a bracelet that had been LOST,--yes, +the single word "PERDU." He made a step towards her, and in a voice +almost as faint as her own, stammered, "PERDU!" + +With a little cry, that was more like a sigh than an outcry, the girl's +arms fell to her side; she took a step backwards, reeled, and fainted +away. + +Dick caught her as she fell. What had he said!--but, more than all, what +should he do now? He could not leave her alone and helpless,--yet how +could he justify another disconcerting intrusion? He touched her hands; +they were cold and lifeless; her eyes were half closed; her face as pale +and drooping as her lily. Well, he must brave the worst now, and carry +her to the house, even at the risk of meeting the others and terrifying +them as he had her. He caught her up,--he scarcely felt her weight +against his breast and shoulder,--and ran hurriedly down the slope to +the terrace, which was still deserted. If he had time to place her on +some bench beside the window within their reach, he might still fly +undiscovered! But as he panted up the steps of the terrace with his +burden, he saw that the French window was still open, but the light +seemed to have been extinguished. It would be safer for her if he could +place her INSIDE the house,--if he but dared to enter. He was desperate, +and he dared! + +He found himself alone, in a long salon of rich but faded white and gold +hangings, lit at the further end by two tall candles on either side of +the high marble mantel, whose rays, however, scarcely reached the window +where he had entered. He laid his burden on a high-backed sofa. In +so doing, the rose fell from her belt. He picked it up, put it in +his breast, and turned to go. But he was arrested by a voice from the +terrace:-- + +"Renee!" + +It was the voice of the elderly lady, who, with the Cure at her side, +had just appeared from the rear of the house, and from the further end +of the terrace was looking towards the garden in search of the young +girl. His escape in that way was cut off. To add to his dismay, the +young girl, perhaps roused by her mother's voice, was beginning to show +signs of recovering consciousness. Dick looked quickly around him. +There was an open door, opposite the window, leading to a hall which, no +doubt, offered some exit on the other side of the house. It was his only +remaining chance! He darted through it, closed it behind him, and +found himself at the end of a long hall or picture-gallery, strangely +illuminated through high windows, reaching nearly to the roof, by the +moon, which on that side of the building threw nearly level bars of +light and shadows across the floor and the quaint portraits on the wall. + +But to his delight he could see at the other end a narrow, lance-shaped +open postern door showing the moonlit pavement without--evidently the +door through which the mother and the Cure had just passed out. He ran +rapidly towards it. As he did so he heard the hurried ringing of bells +and voices in the room he had quitted--the young girl had evidently +been discovered--and this would give him time. He had nearly reached the +door, when he stopped suddenly--his blood chilled with awe! It was his +turn to be terrified--he was standing, apparently, before HIMSELF! + +His first recovering thought was that it was a mirror--so accurately +was every line and detail of his face and figure reflected. But a second +scrutiny showed some discrepancies of costume, and he saw it was a +panelled portrait on the wall. It was of a man of his own age, height, +beard, complexion, and features, with long curls like his own, falling +over a lace Van Dyke collar, which, however, again simulated the +appearance of his own hunting-shirt. The broad-brimmed hat in the +picture, whose drooping plume was lost in shadow, was scarcely +different from Dick's sombrero. But the likeness of the face to Dick was +marvelous--convincing! As he gazed at it, the wicked black eyes seemed +to flash and kindle at his own,--its lip curled with Dick's own sardonic +humor! + +He was recalled to himself by a step in the gallery. It was the Cure who +had entered hastily, evidently in search of one of the servants. +Partly because it was a man and not a woman, partly from a feeling of +bravado--and partly from a strange sense, excited by the picture, that +he had some claim to be there, he turned and faced the pale priest with +a slight dash of impatient devilry that would have done credit to the +portrait. But he was sorry for it the next moment! + +The priest, looking up suddenly, discovered what seemed to him to be the +portrait standing before its own frame and glaring at him. Throwing +up his hands with an averted head and an "EXORCIS--!" he wheeled and +scuffled away. Dick seized the opportunity, darted through the narrow +door on to the rear terrace, and ran, under cover of the shadow of +the house, to the steps into the garden. Luckily for him, this new and +unexpected diversion occupied the inmates too much with what was going +on in the house to give them time to search outside. Dick reached the +lilac hedge, tore up the hill, and in a few moments threw himself, +panting, on his blanket. In the single look he had cast behind, he had +seen that the half-dark salon was now brilliantly lighted--where no +doubt the whole terrified household was now assembled. He had no fear +of being followed; since his confrontation with his own likeness in +the mysterious portrait, he understood everything. The apparently +supernatural character of his visitation was made plain; his ruffled +vanity was soothed--his vindication was complete. He laughed to himself +and rolled about, until in his suppressed merriment the rose fell from +his bosom, and--he stopped! Its freshness and fragrance recalled +the innocent young girl he had frightened. He remembered her gentle, +pleading voice, and his cheek flushed. Well, he had done the best he +could in bringing her back to the house--at the risk of being taken for +a burglar--and she was safe now! If that stupid French parson didn't +know the difference between a living man and a dead and painted one, it +wasn't his fault. But he fell asleep with the rose in his fingers. + +He was awake at the first streak of dawn. He again bathed his horse's +shoulder, saddled, but did not mount him, as the beast, although better, +was still stiff, and Dick wished to spare him for the journey to still +distant Havre, although he had determined to lie over that night at the +first wayside inn. Luckily for him, the disturbance at the chateau had +not extended to the forest, for Dick had to lead his horse slowly and +could not have escaped; but no suspicion of external intrusion seemed to +have been awakened, and the woodland was, evidently, seldom invaded. + +By dint of laying his course by the sun and the exercise of a little +woodcraft, in the course of two hours he heard the creaking of a +hay-cart, and knew that he was near a traveled road. But to his +discomfiture he presently came to a high wall, which had evidently +guarded this portion of the woods from the public. Time, however, had +made frequent breaches in the stones; these had been roughly filled in +with a rude abatis of logs and treetops pointing towards the road. But +as these were mainly designed to prevent intrusion into the park rather +than egress from it, Dick had no difficulty in rolling them aside and +emerging at last with his limping steed upon the white high-road. +The creaking cart had passed; it was yet early for traffic, and Dick +presently came upon a wine-shop, a bakery, a blacksmith's shop, laundry, +and a somewhat pretentious cafe and hotel in a broader space which +marked the junction of another road. + +Directly before it, however, to his consternation, were the massive, but +timeworn, iron gates of a park, which Dick did not doubt was the one +in which he had spent the previous night. But it was impossible to go +further in his present plight, and he boldly approached the restaurant. +As he was preparing to make his usual explanatory signs, to his great +delight he was addressed in a quaint, broken English, mixed with +forgotten American slang, by the white-trousered, black-alpaca coated +proprietor. More than that--he was a Social Democrat and an enthusiastic +lover of America--had he not been to "Bos-town" and New York, and +penetrated as far west as "Booflo," and had much pleasure in that +beautiful and free country? Yes! it was a "go-a-'ed" country--you +"bet-your-lif'." One had reason to say so: there was your +electricity--your street cars--your "steambots"--ah! such steambots--and +your "r-rail-r-roads." Ah! observe! compare your r-rail-r-roads and the +buffet of the Pullman with the line from Paris, for example--and where +is one? Nowhere! Actually, positively, without doubt, nowhere! + +Later, at an appetizing breakfast--at which, to Dick's great +satisfaction, the good man had permitted and congratulated himself to +sit at table with a free-born American--he was even more loquacious. +For what then, he would ask, was this incompetence, this imbecility, of +France? He would tell. It was the vile corruption of Paris, the grasping +of capital and companies, the fatal influence of the still clinging +noblesse, and the insidious Jesuitical power of the priests. As for +example, Monsieur "the Booflo-bil" had doubtless noticed the great gates +of the park before the cafe? It was the preserve,--the hunting-park of +one of the old grand seigneurs, still kept up by his descendants, the +Comtes de Fontonelles--hundreds of acres that had never been tilled, +and kept as wild waste wilderness,--kept for a day's pleasure in a year! +And, look you! the peasants starving around its walls in their small +garden patches and pinched farms! And the present Comte de Fontonelles +cascading gold on his mistresses in Paris; and the Comtesse, his mother, +and her daughter living there to feed and fatten and pension a brood +of plotting, black-cowled priests. Ah, bah! where was your Republican +France, then? But a time would come. The "Booflo-bil" had, without +doubt, noticed, as he came along the road, the breaches in the wall of +the park? + +Dick, with a slight dry reserve, "reckoned that he had." + +"They were made by the scythes and pitchforks of the peasants in the +Revolution of '93, when the count was emigre, as one says with reason +'skedadelle,' to England. Let them look the next time that they burn not +the chateau,--'bet your lif'!'" + +"The chateau," said Dick, with affected carelessness. "Wot's the blamed +thing like?" + +It was an old affair,--with armor and a picture-gallery,--and bricabrac. +He had never seen it. Not even as a boy,--it was kept very secluded +then. As a man--you understand--he could not ask the favor. The Comtes +de Fontonelles and himself were not friends. The family did not like a +cafe near their sacred gates,--where had stood only the huts of their +retainers. The American would observe that he had not called it "Cafe de +Chateau," nor "Cafe de Fontonelles,"--the gold of California would not +induce him. Why did he remain there? Naturally, to goad them! It was a +principle, one understood. To GOAD them and hold them in check! One kept +a cafe,--why not? One had one's principles,--one's conviction,--that was +another thing! That was the kind of "'air-pin"--was it not?--that HE, +Gustav Ribaud, was like! + +Yet for all his truculent socialism, he was quick, obliging, and +charmingly attentive to Dick and his needs. As to Dick's horse, he +should have the best veterinary surgeon--there was an incomparable one +in the person of the blacksmith--see to him, and if it were an affair of +days, and Dick must go, he himself would be glad to purchase the +beast, his saddle, and accoutrements. It was an affair of business,--an +advertisement for the cafe! He would ride the horse himself before the +gates of the park. It would please his customers. Ha! he had learned a +trick or two in free America. + +Dick's first act had been to shave off his characteristic beard and +mustache, and even to submit his long curls to the village barber's +shears, while a straw hat, which he bought to take the place of his +slouched sombrero, completed his transformation. His host saw in the +change only the natural preparation of a voyager, but Dick had really +made the sacrifice, not from fear of detection, for he had recovered his +old swaggering audacity, but from a quick distaste he had taken to his +resemblance to the portrait. He was too genuine a Westerner, and too +vain a man, to feel flattered at his resemblance to an aristocratic +bully, as he believed the ancestral De Fontonelles to be. Even his +momentary sensation as he faced the Cure in the picture-gallery was +more from a vague sense that liberties had been taken with his, Dick's, +personality, than that he had borrowed anything from the portrait. + +But he was not so clear about the young girl. Her tender, appealing +voice, although he knew it had been addressed only to a vision, still +thrilled his fancy. The pluck that had made her withstand her fear +so long--until he had uttered that dreadful word--still excited his +admiration. His curiosity to know what mistake he had made--for he knew +it must have been some frightful blunder--was all the more keen, as he +had no chance to rectify it. What a brute she must have thought him--or +DID she really think him a brute even then?--for her look was one more +of despair and pity! Yet she would remember him only by that last word, +and never know that he had risked insult and ejection from her friends +to carry her to her place of safety. He could not bear to go across the +seas carrying the pale, unsatisfied face of that gentle girl ever before +his eyes! A sense of delicacy--new to Dick, but always the accompaniment +of deep feeling--kept him from even hinting his story to his host, +though he knew--perhaps BECAUSE he knew--that it would gratify his +enmity to the family. A sudden thought struck Dick. He knew her house, +and her name. He would write her a note. Somebody would be sure to +translate it for her. + +He borrowed pen, ink, and paper, and in the clean solitude of his fresh +chintz bedroom, indited the following letter:-- + + +DEAR MISS FONTONELLES,--Please excuse me for having skeert you. I hadn't +any call to do it, I never reckoned to do it--it was all jest my +derned luck; I only reckoned to tell you I was lost--in them blamed +woods--don't you remember?--"lost"--PERDOO!--and then you up and +fainted! I wouldn't have come into your garden, only, you see, I'd just +skeered by accident two of your helps, reg'lar softies, and I wanted to +explain. I reckon they allowed I was that man that that picture in the +hall was painted after. I reckon they took ME for him--see? But he ain't +MY style, nohow, and I never saw the picture at all until after I'd +toted you, when you fainted, up to your house, or I'd have made my +kalkilations and acted according. I'd have laid low in the woods, and +got away without skeerin' you. You see what I mean? It was mighty mean +of me, I suppose, to have tetched you at all, without saying, "Excuse +me, miss," and toted you out of the garden and up the steps into your +own parlor without asking your leave. But the whole thing tumbled so +suddent. And it didn't seem the square thing for me to lite out and +leave you lying there on the grass. That's why! I'm sorry I skeert that +old preacher, but he came upon me in the picture hall so suddent, that +it was a mighty close call, I tell you, to get off without a shindy. +Please forgive me, Miss Fontonelles. When you get this, I shall be going +back home to America, but you might write to me at Denver City, saying +you're all right. I liked your style; I liked your grit in standing up +to me in the garden until you had your say, when you thought I was +the Lord knows what--though I never understood a word you got off--not +knowing French. But it's all the same now. Say! I've got your rose! + +Yours very respectfully, + +RICHARD FOUNTAINS. + + +Dick folded the epistle and put it in his pocket. He would post it +himself on the morning before he left. When he came downstairs he found +his indefatigable host awaiting him, with the report of the veterinary +blacksmith. There was nothing seriously wrong with the mustang, but it +would be unfit to travel for several days. The landlord repeated his +former offer. Dick, whose money was pretty well exhausted, was fain to +accept, reflecting that SHE had never seen the mustang and would not +recognize it. But he drew the line at the sombrero, to which his host +had taken a great fancy. He had worn it before HER! + +Later in the evening Dick was sitting on the low veranda of the cafe, +overlooking the white road. A round white table was beside him, his +feet were on the railing, but his eyes were resting beyond on the high, +mouldy iron gates of the mysterious park. What he was thinking of did +not matter, but he was a little impatient at the sudden appearance of +his host--whom he had evaded during the afternoon--at his side. The +man's manner was full of bursting loquacity and mysterious levity. + +Truly, it was a good hour when Dick had arrived at Fontonelles,--"just +in time." He could see now what a world of imbeciles was France. What +stupid ignorance ruled, what low cunning and low tact could achieve,--in +effect, what jugglers and mountebanks, hypocritical priests and +licentious and lying noblesse went to make up existing society. +Ah, there had been a fine excitement, a regular coup d'theatre at +Fontonelles,--the chateau yonder; here at the village, where the news +was brought by frightened grooms and silly women! He had been in the +thick of it all the afternoon! He had examined it,--interrogated them +like a juge d'instruction,--winnowed it, sifted it. And what was it +all? An attempt by these wretched priests and noblesse to revive in the +nineteenth century--the age of electricity and Pullman cars--a miserable +mediaeval legend of an apparition, a miracle! Yes; one is asked to +believe that at the chateau yonder was seen last night three times the +apparition of Armand de Fontonelles! + +Dick started. "Armand de Fontonelles!" He remembered that she had +repeated that name. + +"Who's he?" he demanded abruptly. + +"The first Comte de Fontonelles! When monsieur knows that the first +comte has been dead three hundred years, he will see the imbecility of +the affair!" + +"Wot did he come back for?" growled Dick. + +"Ah! it was a legend. Consider its artfulness! The Comte Armand had been +a hard liver, a dissipated scoundrel, a reckless beast, but a mighty +hunter of the stag. It was said that on one of these occasions he had +been warned by the apparition of St. Hubert; but he had laughed,--for, +observe, HE always jeered at the priests too; hence this story!--and +had declared that the flaming cross seen between the horns of the sacred +stag was only the torch of a poacher, and he would shoot it! Good! the +body of the comte, dead, but without a wound, was found in the wood the +next day, with his discharged arquebus in his hand. The Archbishop of +Rouen refused his body the rites of the Church until a number of masses +were said every year and--paid for! One understands! one sees their +'little game;' the count now appears,--he is in purgatory! More +masses,--more money! There you are. Bah! One understands, too, that +the affair takes place, not in a cafe like this,--not in a public +place,--but at a chateau of the noblesse, and is seen by--the +proprietor checked the characters on his fingers--TWO retainers; one +young demoiselle of the noblesse, daughter of the chatelaine herself; +and, my faith, it goes without saying, by a fat priest, the Cure! In +effect, two interested ones! And the priest,--his lie is magnificent! +Superb! For he saw the comte in the picture-gallery,--in effect, +stepping into his frame!" + +"Oh, come off the roof," said Dick impatiently; "they must have seen +SOMETHING, you know. The young lady wouldn't lie!" + +Monsieur Ribaud leaned over, with a mysterious, cynical smile, and +lowering his voice said:-- + +"You have reason to say so. You have hit it, my friend. There WAS a +something! And if we regard the young lady, you shall hear. The story of +Mademoiselle de Fontonelles is that she has walked by herself alone in +the garden,--you observe, ALONE--in the moonlight, near the edge of the +wood. You comprehend? The mother and the Cure are in the house,--for the +time effaced! Here at the edge of the wood--though why she continues, +a young demoiselle, to the edge of the wood does not make itself +clear--she beholds her ancestor, as on a pedestal, young, pale, but very +handsome and exalte,--pardon!" + +"Nothing," said Dick hurriedly; "go on!" + +"She beseeches him why! He says he is lost! She faints away, on the +instant, there--regard me!--ON THE EDGE OF THE WOOD, she says. But her +mother and Monsieur le Cure find her pale, agitated, distressed, ON +THE SOFA IN THE SALON. One is asked to believe that she is transported +through the air--like an angel--by the spirit of Armand de Fontonelles. +Incredible!" + +"Well, wot do YOU think?" said Dick sharply. + +The cafe proprietor looked around him carefully, and then lowered his +voice significantly:-- + +"A lover!" + +"A what?" said Dick, with a gasp. + +"A lover!" repeated Ribaud. "You comprehend! Mademoiselle has +no dot,--the property is nothing,--the brother has everything. A +Mademoiselle de Fontonelles cannot marry out of her class, and the +noblesse are all poor. Mademoiselle is young,--pretty, they say, of +her kind. It is an intolerable life at the old chateau; mademoiselle +consoles herself!" + +Monsieur Ribaud never knew how near he was to the white road below the +railing at that particular moment. Luckily, Dick controlled himself, and +wisely, as Monsieur Ribaud's next sentence showed him. + +"A romance,--an innocent, foolish liaison, if you like,--but, all the +same, if known of a Mademoiselle de Fontonelles, a compromising, a fatal +entanglement. There you are. Look! for this, then, all this story of +cock and bulls and spirits! Mademoiselle has been discovered with her +lover by some one. This pretty story shall stop their mouths!" + +"But wot," said Dick brusquely, "wot if the girl was really skeert +at something she'd seen, and fainted dead away, as she said she +did,--and--and"--he hesitated--"some stranger came along and picked her +up?" + +Monsieur Ribaud looked at him pityingly. + +"A Mademoiselle de Fontonelle is picked up by her servants, by her +family, but not by the young man in the woods, alone. It is even more +compromising!" + +"Do you mean to say," said Dick furiously, "that the ragpickers and +sneaks that wade around in the slumgallion of this country would dare to +spatter that young gal?" + +"I mean to say, yes,--assuredly, positively yes!" said Ribaud, +rubbing his hands with a certain satisfaction at Dick's fury. "For you +comprehend not the position of la jeune fille in all France! Ah! in +America the young lady she go everywhere alone; I have seen her--pretty, +charming, fascinating--alone with the young man. But here, no, never! +Regard me, my friend. The French mother, she say to her daughter's +fiance, 'Look! there is my daughter. She has never been alone with a +young man for five minutes,--not even with you. Take her for your wife!' +It is monstrous! it is impossible! it is so!" + +There was a silence of a few minutes, and Dick looked blankly at the +iron gates of the park of Fontonelles. Then he said: "Give me a cigar." + +Monsieur Ribaud instantly produced his cigar case. Dick took a cigar, +but waved aside the proffered match, and entering the cafe, took from +his pocket the letter to Mademoiselle de Fontonelles, twisted it in a +spiral, lighted it at a candle, lit his cigar with it, and returning +to the veranda held it in his hand until the last ashes dropped on the +floor. Then he said, gravely, to Ribaud:-- + +"You've treated me like a white man, Frenchy, and I ain't goin' back +on yer--though your ways ain't my ways--nohow; but I reckon in this yer +matter at the shotto you're a little too previous! For though I don't +as a gin'ral thing take stock in ghosts, I BELIEVE EVERY WORD THAT THEM +FOLK SAID UP THAR. And," he added, leaning his hand somewhat heavily on +Ribaud's shoulder, "if you're the man I take you for, you'll believe it +too! And if that chap, Armand de Fontonelles, hadn't hev picked up that +gal at that moment, he would hev deserved to roast in hell another three +hundred years! That's why I believe her story. So you'll let these yer +Fontonelles keep their ghosts for all they're worth; and when you next +feel inclined to talk about that girl's LOVER, you'll think of me, and +shut your head! You hear me, Frenchy, I'm shoutin'! And don't you forget +it!" + +Nevertheless, early the next morning, Monsieur Ribaud accompanied his +guest to the railway station, and parted from him with great effusion. +On his way back an old-fashioned carriage with a postilion passed him. +At a sign from its occupant, the postilion pulled up, and Monsieur +Ribaud, bowing to the dust, approached the window, and the pale, stern +face of a dignified, white-haired woman of sixty that looked from it. + +"Has he gone?" said the lady. + +"Assuredly, madame; I was with him at the station." + +"And you think no one saw him?" + +"No one, madame, but myself." + +"And--what kind of a man was he?" + +Monsieur Ribaud lifted his shoulders, threw out his hands despairingly, +yet with a world of significance, and said:-- + +"An American." + +"Ah!" + +The carriage drove on and entered the gates of the chateau. And Monsieur +Ribaud, cafe proprietor and Social Democrat, straightened himself in the +dust and shook his fist after it. + + + + +A NIGHT ON THE DIVIDE + + +With the lulling of the wind towards evening it came on to +snow--heavily, in straight, quickly succeeding flakes, dropping like +white lances from the sky. This was followed by the usual Sierran +phenomenon. The deep gorge, which, as the sun went down, had lapsed into +darkness, presently began to reappear; at first the vanished trail came +back as a vividly whitening streak before them; then the larches and +pines that ascended from it like buttresses against the hillsides +glimmered in ghostly distinctness, until at last the two slopes curved +out of the darkness as if hewn in marble. For the sudden storm, which +extended scarcely two miles, had left no trace upon the steep granite +face of the high cliffs above; the snow, slipping silently from them, +left them still hidden in the obscurity of night. In the vanished +landscape the gorge alone stood out, set in a chaos of cloud and storm +through which the moonbeams struggled ineffectually. + +It was this unexpected sight which burst upon the occupants of a large +covered "station wagon" who had chanced upon the lower end of the gorge. +Coming from a still lower altitude, they had known nothing of the storm, +which had momentarily ceased, but had left a record of its intensity +in nearly two feet of snow. For some moments the horses floundered and +struggled on, in what the travelers believed to be some old forgotten +drift or avalanche, until the extent and freshness of the fall became +apparent. To add to their difficulties, the storm recommenced, and not +comprehending its real character and limit, they did not dare to attempt +to return the way they came. To go on, however, was impossible. In this +quandary they looked about them in vain for some other exit from the +gorge. The sides of that gigantic white furrow terminated in darkness. +Hemmed in from the world in all directions, it might have been their +tomb. + +But although THEY could see nothing beyond their prison walls, they +themselves were perfectly visible from the heights above them. And Jack +Tenbrook, quartz miner, who was sinking a tunnel in the rocky ledge of +shelf above the gorge, stepping out from his cabin at ten o'clock +to take a look at the weather before turning in, could observe quite +distinctly the outline of the black wagon, the floundering horses, and +the crouching figures by their side, scarcely larger than pygmies on the +white surface of the snow, six hundred feet below him. Jack had courage +and strength, and the good humor that accompanies them, but he +contented himself for a few moments with lazily observing the travelers' +discomfiture. He had taken in the situation with a glance; he would have +helped a brother miner or mountaineer, although he knew that it could +only have been drink or bravado that brought HIM into the gorge in a +snowstorm, but it was very evident that these were "greenhorns," or +eastern tourists, and it served their stupidity and arrogance right! He +remembered also how he, having once helped an Eastern visitor catch the +mustang that had "bucked" him, had been called "my man," and presented +with five dollars; he recalled how he had once spread the humble +resources of his cabin before some straying members of the San Francisco +party who were "opening" the new railroad, and heard the audible wonder +of a lady that a civilized being could live so "coarsely"? With these +recollections in his mind, he managed to survey the distant struggling +horses with a fine sense of humor, not unmixed with self-righteousness. +There was no real danger in the situation; it meant at the worst a delay +and a camping in the snow till morning, when he would go down to their +assistance. They had a spacious traveling equipage, and were, no doubt, +well supplied with furs, robes, and provisions for a several hours' +journey; his own pork barrel was quite empty, and his blankets worn. He +half smiled, extended his long arms in a decided yawn, and turned back +into his cabin to go to bed. Then he cast a final glance around the +interior. Everything was all right; his loaded rifle stood against the +wall; he had just raked ashes over the embers of his fire to keep it +intact till morning. Only one thing slightly troubled him; a grizzly +bear, two-thirds grown, but only half tamed, which had been given to him +by a young lady named "Miggles," when that charming and historic girl +had decided to accompany her paralytic lover to the San Francisco +hospital, was missing that evening. It had been its regular habit to +come to the door every night for some sweet biscuit or sugar before +going to its lair in the underbrush behind the cabin. Everybody knew it +along the length and breadth of Hemlock Ridge, as well as the fact +of its being a legacy from the fair exile. No rifle had ever yet been +raised against its lazy bulk or the stupid, small-eyed head and ruff +of circling hairs made more erect by its well-worn leather collar. +Consoling himself with the thought that the storm had probably delayed +its return, Jack took off his coat and threw it on his bunk. But from +thinking of the storm his thoughts naturally returned again to the +impeded travelers below him, and he half mechanically stepped out in his +shirt-sleeves for a final look at them. + +But here something occurred that changed his resolution entirely. He had +previously noticed only the three foreshortened, crawling figures +around the now stationary wagon bulk. They were now apparently making +arrangements to camp for the night. But another figure had been added +to the group, and as it stood perched upon a wagon seat laid on the snow +Jack could see that its outline was not bifurcated like the others. +But even that general suggestion was not needed! the little head, the +symmetrical curves visible even at that distance, were quite enough to +indicate that it was a woman! The easy smile faded from Jack's face, and +was succeeded by a look of concern and then of resignation. He had no +choice now; he MUST go! There was a woman there, and that settled it. +Yet he had arrived at this conclusion from no sense of gallantry, nor, +indeed, of chivalrous transport, but as a matter of simple duty to the +sex. He was giving up his sleep, was going down six hundred feet of +steep trail to offer his services during the rest of the night as much +as a matter of course as an Eastern man would have offered his seat in +an omnibus to a woman, and with as little expectation of return for his +courtesy. + +Having resumed his coat, with a bottle of whiskey thrust into its +pocket, he put on a pair of india-rubber boots reaching to his thighs, +and, catching the blanket from his bunk, started with an axe and shovel +on his shoulder on his downward journey. When the distance was half +completed he shouted to the travelers below; the cry was joyously +answered by the three men; he saw the fourth figure, now unmistakably +that of a slender youthful woman, in a cloak, helped back into the +wagon, as if deliverance was now sure and immediate. But Jack on +arriving speedily dissipated that illusive hope; they could only get +through the gorge by taking off the wheels of the wagon, placing +the axle on rude sledge-runners of split saplings, which, with their +assistance, he would fashion in a couple of hours at his cabin and bring +down to the gorge. The only other alternative would be for them to +come to his cabin and remain there while he went for assistance to the +nearest station, but that would take several hours and necessitate a +double journey for the sledge if he was lucky enough to find one. The +party quickly acquiesced in Jack's first suggestion. + +"Very well," said Jack, "then there's no time to be lost; unhitch your +horses and we'll dig a hole in that bank for them to stand in out of +the snow." This was speedily done. "Now," continued Jack, "you'll just +follow me up to my cabin; it's a pretty tough climb, but I'll want your +help to bring down the runners." + +Here the man who seemed to be the head of the party--of middle age and a +superior, professional type--for the first time hesitated. "I forgot +to say that there is a lady with us,--my daughter," he began, glancing +towards the wagon. + +"I reckoned as much," interrupted Jack simply, "and I allowed to carry +her up myself the roughest part of the way. She kin make herself warm +and comf'ble in the cabin until we've got the runners ready." + +"You hear what our friend says, Amy?" suggested the gentleman, +appealingly, to the closed leather curtains of the wagon. + +There was a pause. The curtain was suddenly drawn aside, and a charming +little head and shoulders, furred to the throat and topped with a +bewitching velvet cap, were thrust out. In the obscurity little could +be seen of the girl's features, but there was a certain willfulness and +impatience in her attitude. Being in the shadow, she had the advantage +of the others, particularly of Jack, as his figure was fully revealed in +the moonlight against the snowbank. Her eyes rested for a moment on his +high boots, his heavy mustache, so long as to mingle with the unkempt +locks which fell over his broad shoulders, on his huge red hands +streaked with black grease from the wagon wheels, and some blood, +stanched with snow, drawn from bruises in cutting out brambles in the +brush; on--more awful than all--a monstrous, shiny "specimen" gold ring +encircling one of his fingers,--on the whiskey bottle that shamelessly +bulged from his side pocket, and then--slowly dropped her dissatisfied +eyelids. + +"Why can't I stay HERE?" she said languidly. "It's quite nice and +comfortable." + +"Because we can't leave you alone, and we must go with this gentleman to +help him." + +Miss Amy let the tail of her eye again creep shudderingly over this +impossible Jack. "I thought the--the gentleman was going to help US," +she said dryly. + +"Nonsense, Amy, you don't understand," said her father impatiently. +"This gentleman is kind enough to offer to make some sledge-runners for +us at his cabin, and we must help him." + +"But I can stay here while you go. I'm not afraid." + +"Yes, but you're ALONE here, and something might happen." + +"Nothing could happen," interrupted Jack, quickly and cheerfully. He had +flushed at first, but he was now considering that the carrying of a lady +as expensively attired and apparently as delicate and particular as this +one might be somewhat difficult. "There's nothin' that would hurt ye +here," he continued, addressing the velvet cap and furred throat in the +darkness, "and if there was it couldn't get at ye, bein', so to +speak, in the same sort o' fix as you. So you're all right," he added +positively. + +Inconsistently enough, the young lady did not accept this as gratefully +as might have been imagined, but Jack did not see the slight flash of +her eye as, ignoring him, she replied markedly to her father, "I'd much +rather stop here, papa." + +"And," continued Jack, turning also to her father, "you can keep the +wagon and the whole gorge in sight from the trail all the way up. So you +can see that everything's all right. Why, I saw YOU from the first." +He stopped awkwardly, and added, "Come along; the sooner we're off the +quicker the job's over." + +"Pray don't delay the gentleman and--the job," said Miss Amy sweetly. + +Reassured by Jack's last suggestion, her father followed him with +the driver and the second man of the party, a youngish and somewhat +undistinctive individual, but to whose gallant anxieties Miss Amy +responded effusively. Nevertheless, the young lady had especially noted +Jack's confession that he had seen them when they first entered the +gorge. "And I suppose," she added to herself mentally, "that he +sat there with his boozing companions, laughing and jeering at our +struggles." + +But when the sound of her companions' voices died away, and their +figures were swallowed up in the darkness behind the snow, she +forgot all this, and much else that was mundane and frivolous, in the +impressive and majestic solitude which seemed to descend upon her from +the obscurity above. + +At first it was accompanied with a slight thrill of vague fear, but this +passed presently into that profound peace which the mountains alone can +give their lonely or perturbed children. It seemed to her that Nature +was never the same, on the great plains where men and cities always +loomed into such ridiculous proportions, as when the Great Mother raised +herself to comfort them with smiling hillsides, or encompassed them and +drew them closer in the loving arms of her mountains. The long white +canada stretched before her in a purity that did not seem of the earth; +the vague bulk of the mountains rose on either side of her in a mystery +that was not of this life. Yet it was not oppressive; neither was its +restfulness and quiet suggestive of obliviousness and slumber; on the +contrary, the highly rarefied air seemed to give additional keenness +to her senses; her hearing had become singularly acute; her eyesight +pierced the uttermost extremity of the gorge, lit by the full moon that +occasionally shone through slowly drifting clouds. Her nerves thrilled +with a delicious sense of freedom and a strange desire to run or climb. +It seemed to her, in her exalted fancy, that these solitudes should be +peopled only by a kingly race, and not by such gross and material churls +as this mountaineer who helped them. And, I grieve to say,--writing +of an idealist that WAS, and a heroine that IS to be,--she was getting +outrageously hungry. + +There were a few biscuits in her traveling-bag, and she remembered that +she had been presented with a small jar of California honey at San Jose. +This she took out and opened on the seat before her, and spreading the +honey on the biscuits, ate them with a keen schoolgirl relish and a +pleasant suggestion of a sylvan picnic in spite of the cold. It was all +very strange; quite an experience for her to speak of afterwards. People +would hardly believe that she had spent an hour or two, all alone, in a +deserted wagon in a mountain snow pass. It was an adventure such as +one reads of in the magazines. Only something was lacking which +the magazines always supplied,--something heroic, something done by +somebody. If that awful-looking mountaineer--that man with the long hair +and mustache, and that horrible gold ring,--why such a ring?--was only +different! But he was probably gorging beefsteak or venison with her +father and Mr. Waterhouse,--men were always such selfish creatures!--and +had quite forgotten all about her. It would have been only decent for +them to have brought her down something hot; biscuits and honey were +certainly cloying, and somehow didn't agree with the temperature. She +was really half starved! And much they cared! It would just serve them +right if something DID happen to her,--or SEEM to happen to her,--if +only to frighten them. And the pretty face that was turned up in the +moonlight wore a charming but decided pout. + +Good gracious, what was that? The horses were either struggling or +fighting in their snow shelters. Then one with a frightened neigh broke +from its halter and dashed into the road, only to be plunged snorting +and helpless into the drifts. Then the other followed. How silly! +Something had frightened them. Perhaps only a rabbit or a mole; horses +were such absurdly nervous creatures! However, it is just as well; +somebody would see them or hear them,--that neigh was quite human +and awful,--and they would hurry down to see what was the matter. SHE +couldn't be expected to get out and look after the horses in the snow. +Anyhow, she WOULDN'T! She was a good deal safer where she was; it might +have been rats or mice about that frightened them! Goodness! + +She was still watching with curious wonder the continued fright of the +animals, when suddenly she felt the wagon half bumped, half lifted from +behind. It was such a lazy, deliberate movement that for a moment she +thought it came from the party, who had returned noiselessly with the +runners. She scrambled over to the back seat, unbuttoned the leather +curtain, lifted it, but nothing was to be seen. Consequently, +with feminine quickness, she said, "I see you perfectly, Mr. +Waterhouse--don't be silly!" But at this moment there was another shock +to the wagon, and from beneath it arose what at first seemed to her to +be an uplifting of the drift itself, but, as the snow was shaken away +from its heavy bulk, proved to be the enormous head and shoulders of a +bear! + +Yet even then she was not WHOLLY frightened, for the snout that +confronted her had a feeble inoffensiveness; the small eyes were bright +with an eager, almost childish curiosity rather than a savage ardor, +and the whole attitude of the creature lifted upon its hind legs was +circus-like and ludicrous rather than aggressive. She was enabled to say +with some dignity, "Go away! Shoo!" and to wave her luncheon basket at +it with exemplary firmness. But here the creature laid one paw on the +back seat as if to steady itself, with the singular effect of collapsing +the whole side of the wagon, and then opened its mouth as if in some +sort of inarticulate reply. But the revelation of its red tongue, +its glistening teeth, and, above all, the hot, suggestive fume of its +breath, brought the first scream from the lips of Miss Amy. It was real +and convincing; the horses joined in it; the three screamed together! +The bear hesitated for an instant, then, catching sight of the honey-pot +on the front seat, which the shrinking-back of the young girl had +disclosed, he slowly reached forward his other paw and attempted to +grasp it. This exceedingly simple movement, however, at once doubled +up the front seat, sent the honey-pot a dozen feet into the air, and +dropped Miss Amy upon her knees in the bed of the wagon. The combined +mental and physical shock was too much for her; she instantly and +sincerely fainted; the last thing in her ears amidst this wreck of +matter being the "wheep" of a bullet and the sharp crack of a rifle. + +***** + +She recovered her consciousness in the flickering light of a fire of +bark, that played upon the rafters of a roof thatched with bark and upon +a floor of strewn and shredded bark. She even suspected she was lying +upon a mattress of bark underneath the heavy bearskin she could feel +and touch. She had a delicious sense of warmth, and, mingled with this +strange spicing of woodland freedom, even a sense of home protection. +And surely enough, looking around, she saw her father at her side. + +He briefly explained the situation. They had been at first attracted by +the cry of the frightened horses and their plunging, which they could +see distinctly, although they saw nothing else. "But, Mr. Tenbrook"-- + +"Mr. Who?" said Amy, staring at the rafters. + +"The owner of this cabin--the man who helped us--caught up his gun, and, +calling us to follow, ran like lightning down the trail. At first we +followed blindly, and unknowingly, for we could only see the struggling +horses, who, however, seemed to be ALONE, and the wagon from which you +did not seem to have stirred. Then, for the first time, my dear child, +we suddenly saw your danger. Imagine how we felt as that hideous brute +rose up in the road and began attacking the wagon. We called on Tenbrook +to fire, but for some inconceivable reason he did not, although he still +kept running at the top of his speed. Then we heard you shriek--" + +"I didn't shriek, papa; it was the horses." + +"My child, I knew your voice." + +"Well, it was only a VERY LITTLE scream--because I had tumbled." The +color was coming back rapidly to her pink cheeks. + +"And, then, at your scream, Tenbrook fired!--it was a wonderful shot for +the distance, so everybody says--and killed the bear, though Tenbrook +says it oughtn't to. I believe he wanted to capture the creature alive. +They've queer notions, those hunters. And then, as you were unconscious, +he brought you up here." + +"WHO brought me?" + +"Tenbrook; he's as strong as a horse. Slung you up on his shoulders like +a feather pillow." + +"Oh!" + +"And then, as the wagon required some repairing from the brute's attack, +we concluded to take it leisurely, and let you rest here for a while." + +"And where is--where are THEY?" + +"At work on the wagon. I determined to stay with you, though you are +perfectly safe here." + +"I suppose I ought--to thank--this man, papa?" + +"Most certainly, though of course, I have already done so. But he was +rather curt in reply. These half-savage men have such singular ideas. +He said the beast would never have attacked you except for the honey-pot +which it scented. That's absurd." + +"Then it's all my fault?" + +"Nonsense! How could YOU know?" + +"And I've made all this trouble. And frightened the horses. And spoilt +the wagon. And made the man run down and bring me up here when he didn't +want to!" + +"My dear child! Don't be idiotic! Amy! Well, really!" + +For the idiotic one was really wiping two large tears from her lovely +blue eyes. She subsided into an ominous silence, broken by a single +sniffle. "Try to go to sleep, dear; you've had quite a shock to your +nerves, added her father soothingly. She continued silent, but not +sleeping. + +"I smell coffee." + +"Yes, dear." + +"You've been having coffee, papa?" + +"We DID have some, I think," said the wretched man apologetically, +though why he could not determine. + +"Before I came up? while the bear was trying to eat me?" + +"No, after." + +"I've a horrid taste in my mouth. It's the honey. I'll never eat honey +again. Never!" + +"Perhaps it's the whiskey." + +"What?" + +"The whiskey. You were quite faint and chilled, you know. We gave you +some." + +"Out of--that--black--bottle?" + +"Yes." + +Another silence. + +"I'd like some coffee. I don't think he'd begrudge me that, if he did +save my life." + +"I dare say there's some left." Her father at once bestirred himself +and presently brought her some coffee in a tin cup. It was part of Miss +Amy's rapid convalescence, or equally of her debilitated condition, +that she made no comment on the vessel. She lay for some moments looking +curiously around the cabin; she had no doubt it had a worse look in the +daylight, but somehow the firelight brought out a wondrous luxury of +color in the bark floor and thatching. Besides, it was not "smelly," as +she feared it would be; on the contrary the spicy aroma of the woods +was always dominant. She remembered that it was this that always made a +greasy, oily picnic tolerable. She raised herself on her elbow, seeing +which her father continued confidently, "Perhaps, dear, if you sat up +for a few moments you might be strong enough presently to walk down with +me to the wagon. It would save time." + +Amy instantly lay down again. "I don't know what you can be thinking of, +papa. After this shock really I don't feel as if I could STAND alone, +much less WALK. But, of course," with pathetic resignation, "if you +and Mr. Waterhouse supported me, perhaps I might crawl a few steps at a +time." + +"Nonsense, Amy. Of course, this man Tenbrook will carry you down as he +brought you up. Only I thought,--but there are steps, they're coming +now. No!--only HE." + +The sound of crackling in the underbrush was followed by a momentary +darkening of the open door of the cabin. It was the tall figure of the +mountaineer. But he did not even make the pretense of entering; standing +at the door he delivered his news to the interior generally. It was to +the effect that everything was ready, and the two other men were even +then harnessing the horses. Then he drew back into the darkness. + +"Papa," said Amy, in a sudden frightened voice, "I've lost my bracelet." + +"Haven't you dropped it somewhere there in the bunk?" asked her father. + +"No. It's on the floor of the wagon. I remember now it fell off when I +tumbled! And it will be trodden upon and crushed! Couldn't you run down, +ahead of me, and warn them, papa, dear? Mr. Tenbrook will have to go +so slowly with me." She tumbled out of the bunk with singular alacrity, +shook herself and her skirts into instantaneous gracefulness, and fitted +the velvet cap on her straying hair. Then she said hurriedly, "Run +quick, papa dear, and as you go, call him in and say I am quite ready." + +Thus adjured, the obedient parent disappeared in the darkness. With him +also disappeared Miss Amy's singular alacrity. Sitting down carefully +again on the edge of the bunk, she leaned against the post with a +certain indefinable languor that was as touching as it was graceful. I +need not tell any feminine readers that there was no dissimulation in +all this,--no coquetry, no ostentation,--and that the young girl was +perfectly sincere! But the masculine reader might like to know that the +simple fact was that, since she had regained consciousness, she had +been filled with remorse for her capricious and ungenerous rejection of +Tenbrook's proffered service. More than that, she felt she had periled +her life in that moment of folly, and that this man--this hero--had +saved her. For hero he was, even if he did not fulfill her ideal,--it +was only SHE that was not a heroine. Perhaps if he had been more like +what she wished she would have felt this less keenly; love leaves little +room for the exercise of moral ethics. So Miss Amy Forester, being a +good girl at bottom, and not exactly loving this man, felt towards him a +frank and tender consideration which a more romantic passion would have +shrunk from showing. Consequently, when Tenbrook entered a moment +later, he found Amy paler and more thoughtful, but, as he fancied, +much prettier than before, looking up at him with eyes of the sincerest +solicitude. + +Nevertheless, he remained standing near the door, as if indicating a +possible intrusion, his face wearing a look of lowering abstraction. It +struck her that this might be the effect of his long hair and general +uncouthness, and this only spurred her to a fuller recognition of his +other qualities. + +"I am afraid," she began, with a charming embarrassment, "that instead +of resting satisfied with your kindness in carrying me up here, I will +have to burden you again with my dreadful weakness, and ask you to carry +me down also. But all this seems so little after what you have just done +and for which I can never, NEVER hope to thank you!" She clasped her two +little hands together, holding her gloves between, and brought them down +upon her lap in a gesture as prettily helpless as it was unaffected. + +"I have done scarcely anything," he said, glancing away towards the +fire, "and--your father has thanked me." + +"You have saved my life!" + +"No! no!" he said quickly. "Not that! You were in no danger, except from +my rifle, had I missed." + +"I see," she said eagerly, with a little posthumous thrill at having +been after all a kind of heroine, "and it was a wonderful shot, for you +were so careful not to touch me." + +"Please don't say any more," he said, with a slight movement of half +awkwardness, half impatience. "It was a rough job, but it's over now." + +He stopped and chafed his red hands abstractedly together. She could see +that he had evidently just washed them--and the glaring ring was more in +evidence than ever. But the thought gave her an inspiration. + +"You'll at least let me shake hands with you!" she said, extending both +her own with childish frankness. + +"Hold on, Miss Forester," he said, with sudden desperation. "It ain't +the square thing! Look here! I can't play this thing on you!--I can't +let you play it on me any longer! You weren't in any danger,--you NEVER +were! That bear was only a half-wild thing I helped to ra'r myself! It's +taken sugar from my hand night after night at the door of this cabin +as it might have taken it from yours here if it was alive now. It slept +night after night in the brush, not fifty yards away. The morning's +never come yet--till now," he said hastily, to cover an odd break in +his voice, "when it didn't brush along the whole side of this cabin +to kinder wake me up and say 'So long,' afore it browsed away into the +canyon. Thar ain't a man along the whole Divide who didn't know it; +thar ain't a man along the whole Divide that would have drawn a bead or +pulled a trigger on it till now. It never had an enemy but the bees; it +never even knew why horses and cattle were frightened of it. It wasn't +much of a pet, you'd say, Miss Forester; it wasn't much to meet a lady's +eye; but we of the woods must take our friends where we find 'em and of +our own kind. It ain't no fault of yours, Miss, that you didn't know +it; it ain't no fault of yours what happened; but when it comes to your +THANKING me for it, why--it's--it's rather rough, you see--and gets me." +He stopped short as desperately and as abruptly as he had begun, and +stared blankly at the fire. + +A wave of pity and shame swept over the young girl and left its high +tide on her cheek. But even then it was closely followed by the feminine +instinct of defence and defiance. The REAL hero--the GENTLEMAN--she +reasoned bitterly, would have spared her all this knowledge. + +"But why," she said, with knitted brows, "why, if you knew it was so +precious and so harmless--why did you fire upon it?" + +"Because," he said almost fiercely, turning upon her, "because you +SCREAMED, and THEN I KNEW IT HAD FRIGHTENED YOU!" He stopped instantly +as she momentarily recoiled from him, but the very brusqueness of his +action had dislodged a tear from his dark eyes that fell warm on the +back of her hand, and seemed to blot out the indignity. "Listen, Miss," +he went on hurriedly, as if to cover up his momentary unmanliness. +"I knew the bear was missing to-night, and when I heard the horses +scurrying about I reckoned what was up. I knew no harm could come to +you, for the horses were unharnessed and away from the wagon. I pelted +down that trail ahead of them all like grim death, calkilatin' to get +there before the bear; they wouldn't have understood me; I was too high +up to call to the creature when he did come out, and I kinder hoped +you wouldn't see him. Even when he turned towards the wagon, I knew it +wasn't YOU he was after, but suthin' else, and I kinder hoped, Miss, +that you, being different and quicker-minded than the rest, would see +it too. All the while them folks were yellin' behind me to fire--as if +I didn't know my work. I was half-way down--and then you screamed! And +then I forgot everything,--everything but standing clear of hitting +you,--and I fired. I was that savage that I wanted to believe that he'd +gone mad, and would have touched you, till I got down there and found +the honey-pot lying alongside of him. But there,--it's all over now! +I wouldn't have let on a word to you only I couldn't bear to take YOUR +THANKS for it, and I couldn't bear to have you thinking me a brute +for dodgin' them." He stopped, walked to the fire, leaned against the +chimney under the shallow pretext of kicking the dull embers into +a blaze, which, however, had only the effect of revealing his two +glistening eyes as he turned back again and came towards her. "Well," +he said, with an ineffectual laugh, "it's all over now, it's all in the +day's work, I reckon,--and now, Miss, if you're ready, and will just +fix yourself your own way so as to ride easy, I'll carry you down." And +slightly bending his strong figure, he dropped on one knee beside her +with extended arms. + +Now it is one thing to be carried up a hill in temperate, unconscious +blood and practical business fashion by a tall, powerful man with +steadfast, glowering eyes, but quite another thing to be carried down +again by the same man, who has been crying, and when you are conscious +that you are going to cry too, and your tears may be apt to mingle. So +Miss Amy Forester said: "Oh, wait, please! Sit down a moment. Oh, Mr. +Tenbrook, I am so very, very sorry," and, clapping her hand to her eyes, +burst into tears. + +"Oh, please, please don't, Miss Forester," said Jack, sitting down on +the end of the bunk with frightened eyes, "please don't do that! It +ain't worth it. I'm only a brute to have said anything." + +"No, no! You are SO noble, SO forgiving!" sobbed Miss Forester, "and +I have made you go and kill the only thing you cared for, that was all +your own." + +"No, Miss,--not all my own, either,--and that makes it so rough. For it +was only left in trust with me by a friend. It was her only companion." + +"HER only companion?" echoed Miss Forester, sharply lifting her bowed +head. + +"Except," said Jack hurriedly, miscomprehending the emphasis with +masculine fatuity,--"except the dying man for whom she lived and +sacrificed her whole life. She gave me this ring, to always remind me of +my trust. I suppose," he added ruefully, looking down upon it, "it's no +use now. I'd better take it off." + +Then Amy eyed the monstrous object with angelic simplicity. "I certainly +should," she said with infinite sweetness; "it would only remind you of +your loss. But," she added, with a sudden, swift, imploring look of her +blue eyes, "if you could part with it to me, it would be such a reminder +and token of--of your forgiveness." + +Jack instantly handed it to her. "And now," he said, "let me carry you +down." + +"I think," she said hesitatingly, "that--I had better try to walk," and +she rose to her feet. + +"Then I shall know that you have not forgiven me," said Jack sadly. + +"But I have no right to trouble"-- + +Alas! she had no time to finish her polite objection, for the next +moment she felt herself lifted in the air, smelled the bark thatch +within an inch of her nose, saw the firelight vanish behind her, and +subsiding into his curved arms as in a hammock, the two passed forth +into the night together. + +"I can't find, your bracelet anywhere, Amy," said her father, when they +reached the wagon. + +"It was on the floor in the lint," said Amy reproachfully. "But, of +course, you never thought of that!" + +***** + +My pen halts with some diffidence between two conclusions to this +veracious chronicle. As they agree in result, though not in theory or +intention, I may venture to give them both. To one coming from the lips +of the charming heroine herself I naturally yield the precedence. "Oh, +the bear story! I don't really remember whether that was before I was +engaged to John or after. But I had known him for some time; father +introduced him at the Governor's ball at Sacramento. Let me see!--I +think it was in the winter of '56. Yes! it was very amusing; I always +used to charge John with having trained that bear to attack our carriage +so that he might come in as a hero! Oh, of course, there are a hundred +absurd stories about him,--they used to say that he lived all alone in +a cabin like a savage, and all that sort of thing, and was a friend of +a dubious woman in the locality, whom the common people made a heroine +of,--Miggles, or Wiggles, or some such preposterous name. But look +at John there; can you conceive it?" The listener, glancing at a very +handsome, clean-shaven fellow, faultlessly attired, could not conceive +such an absurdity. So I therefore simply give the opinion of Joshua +Bixley, Superintendent of the Long Divide Tunnel Company, for what it is +worth: "I never took much stock in that bear story, and its captivating +old Forester's daughter. Old Forester knew a thing or two, and when he +was out here consolidating tunnels, he found out that Jack Tenbrook was +about headed for the big lead, and brought him out and introduced him +to Amy. You see, Jack, clear grit as he was, was mighty rough style, and +about as simple as they make 'em, and they had to get up something to +account for that girl's taking a shine to him. But they seem to be happy +enough--and what are you going to do about it?" + +And I transfer this philosophic query to the reader. + + + +THE YOUNGEST PROSPECTOR IN CALAVERAS + + +He was scarcely eight when it was believed that he could have reasonably +laid claim to the above title. But he never did. He was a small boy, +intensely freckled to the roots of his tawny hair, with even a suspicion +of it in his almond-shaped but somewhat full eyes, which were the +greenish hue of a ripe gooseberry. All this was very unlike his parents, +from whom he diverged in resemblance in that fashion so often seen in +the Southwest of America, as if the youth of the boundless West had +struck a new note of independence and originality, overriding all +conservative and established rules of heredity. Something of this +was also shown in a singular and remarkable reticence and firmness of +purpose, quite unlike his family or schoolfellows. His mother was +the wife of a teamster, who had apparently once "dumped" his family, +consisting of a boy and two girls, on the roadside at Burnt Spring, +with the canvas roof of his wagon to cover them, while he proceeded to +deliver other freight, not so exclusively his own, at other stations +along the road, returning to them on distant and separate occasions with +slight additions to their stock, habitation, and furniture. In this way +the canvas roof was finally shingled and the hut enlarged, and, under +the quickening of a smiling California sky and the forcing of a teeming +California soil, the chance-sown seed took root and became known as +Medliker's Ranch, or "Medliker's," with its bursting garden patch and +its three sheds or "lean-to's." + +The girls helped their mother in a childish, imitative way; the boy, +John Bunyan, after a more desultory and original fashion--when he was +not "going to" or ostensibly "coming from" school, for he was seldom +actually there. Something of this fear was in the mind of Mrs. Medliker +one morning as she looked up from the kettle she was scrubbing, with +premonition of "more worriting," to behold the Reverend Mr. Staples, the +local minister, hale John Bunyan Medliker into the shanty with one hand. +Letting Johnny go, he placed his back against the door and wiped his +face with a red handkerchief. Johnny dropped into a chair, furtively +glancing at the arm by which Mr. Staples had dragged him, and feeling it +with the other hand to see if it was really longer. + +"I've been requested by the schoolmaster," said the Rev. Mr. Staples, +putting his handkerchief back into his broad felt hat with a gasping +smile, "to bring our young friend before you for a matter of counsel and +discipline. I have done so, Sister Medliker, with some difficulty,"--he +looked down at John Bunyan, who again felt his arm and was satisfied +that it WAS longer--"but we must do our dooty, even with difficulty +to ourselves, and, perhaps, to others. Our young friend, John Bunyan, +stands on a giddy height--on slippery places, and," continued Mr. +Staples, with a lofty disregard to consecutive metaphor, "his feet +are taking fast hold of destruction." Here the child drew a breath of +relief, possibly at the prospect of being on firm ground of any kind +at last; but Sister Medliker, to whom the Staples style of exordium had +only a Sabbath significance, turned to her offspring abruptly:-- + +"And what's these yer doin's now, John? and me a slavin' to send ye to +school?" + +Thus appealed to, Johnny looked for a reply at his feet, at his arm, and +at the kettle. Then he said: "I ain't done nothin', but he"--indicating +Staples--"hez been nigh onter pullin' off my arm." + +"It's now almost a week ago," continued Mr. Staples, waving aside the +interruption with a smile of painful Christian tolerance, "or perhaps +ten days--I won't be too sure--that the schoolmaster discovered +that Johnny had in his possession two or three flakes of fine river +gold--each of the value of half a dollar, or perhaps sixty-two and one +half cents. On being questioned where he got them he refused to say; +although subsequently he alleged that he had 'found' them. It being a +single instance, he was given the benefit of the doubt, and nothing more +was said about it. But a few days after he was found trying to pass off, +at Mr. Smith's store, two other flakes of a different size, and a small +nugget of the value of four or five dollars. At this point I was called +in; he repeated to me, I grieve to say, the same untruthfulness, and +when I suggested to him the obvious fact that he had taken it from one +of the miner's sluice boxes and committed the grievous sin of theft, +he wickedly denied it--so that we are prevented from carrying out the +Christian command of restoring it even ONE fold, instead of four or five +fold as the Mosaic Law might have required. We were, alas! unable to +ascertain anything from the miners themselves, though I grieve to say +they one and all agreed that their 'take' that week was not at all what +they had expected. I even went so far as to admit the possibility of his +own statement, and besought him at least to show me where he had found +it. He at first refused with great stubbornness of temper, but later +consented to accompany me privately this afternoon to the spot." Mr. +Staples paused, and sinking his voice gloomily, and with his eyes fixed +upon Johnny, continued slowly: "When I state that, after several times +trying to evade me on the way, he finally led me to the top of Bald +Hill, where there is not a scrap of soil, and not the slightest +indication, and still persisted that he found it THERE, you will +understand, Sister Medliker, the incorrigibility of his conduct, and +how he has added the sin of 'false witness' to his breaking the Eighth +Commandment. But I leave him to your Christian discipline! Let us hope +that if, through his stiff-necked obduracy, he has haply escaped the +vengeance of man's law, he will not escape the rod of the domestic +tabernacle." + +"Ye kin leave him to me," said Mrs. Medliker, in her anxiety to get rid +of the parson, assuming a confidence she was far from feeling. + +"So be it, Sister Medliker," said Staples, drawing a long, satisfactory +breath; "and let us trust that when you have rastled with his flesh +and spirit, you will bring us joyful tidings to Wednesday's Mother's +Meeting." + +He clapped his soft hat on his head, cast another glance at the wicked +Johnny, opened the door with his hand behind him, and backed himself +into the road. + +"Now, Johnny," said Mrs. Medliker, setting her lips together as the door +closed, "look me right in the face, and say where you stole that gold." + +But Johnny evidently did not think that his mother's face at that moment +offered any moral support, for he did not look at her; but, after gazing +at the kettle, said slowly, "I didn't steal no gold." + +"Then," said Mrs. Medliker triumphantly, "if ye didn't steal it, you'd +say right off HOW ye got it." + +Children are often better logicians than their elders. To John Bunyan +the stealing of gold and the mere refusal to say where he got it were +two distinct and separate things; that the negation of the second +proposition meant the affirmation of the first he could not accept. But +then children are also imitative, and fearful of the older intellect. It +struck Johnny that his mother might be right, and that to her it really +meant the same thing. So, after a moment's silence he replied more +confidently, "I suppose I stoled it." + +But he was utterly unprepared for the darkening change in his mother's +face, and her furious accents. "You stole it?--you STOLE it, you limb! +And you sit there and brazenly tell me! Who did you steal it from? Tell +me quick, afore I wring it out of you!" + +Completely astounded and bewildered at this new turn of affairs, Johnny +again fell back upon the dreadful truth, and gasped, "I don't know." + +"You don't know, you devil! Did you take it from Frazer's?" + +"No." + +"From the Simmons Brothers?" + +"No." + +"From the Blazing Star Company?" + +"No." + +"From a store?" + +"No." + +"Then, in created goodness!--WHERE did you get it?" + +Johnny raised his brown-gooseberry eyes for a single instant to his +mother's and said, "I found it." + +Mrs. Medliker gasped again and stared hopelessly at the ceiling. Yet she +was conscious of a certain relief. After all, it was POSSIBLE that he +had found it--liar as he undoubtedly was. + +"Then why don't you say where, you awful child?" + +"Don't want to!" + +Johnny would have liked to add that he saw no reason why he should tell. +Other people who found gold were not obliged to tell. There was Jim +Brody, who had struck a lead and kept the locality secret. Nobody forced +him to tell. Nobody called him a thief; nobody had dragged him about by +the arm until he showed it. Why was it wrong that a little boy should +find gold? It wasn't agin the Commandments. Mr. Staples had never got up +and said, "Thou shalt not find gold!" His mother had never made him pray +not to find it! The schoolmaster had never read him awful stories of +boys who found gold and never said anything about it, and so came to a +horrid end. All this crowded his small boy's mind, and, crowding, choked +his small boy's utterance. + +"You jest wait till your father comes home," said Mrs. Medliker, "and +he'll see whether you 'want to' or not. And now get yourself off to bed +and stay there." + +Johnny knew that his father--whose teams had increased to five wagons, +and whose route extended forty miles further--was not due for a week, +and that the catastrophe was yet remote. His present punishment he had +expected. He went into the adjoining bedroom, which he occupied with +his sister, and began to undress. He lingered for some time over one +stocking, and finally cautiously removed from it a small piece of flake +gold which he had kept concealed all day under his big toe, to the +great discomfort of that member. But this was only a small, ordinary +self-martyrdom of boyhood. He scratched a boyish hieroglyphic on the +metal, and when his mother's back was turned scraped a small hole in the +adobe wall, inserted the gold in it, and covered it up with a plaster +made of the moistened debris. It was safe--so was his secret--for it +need not, perhaps, be stated here that Johnny HAD told the truth and HAD +honestly found the gold! But where?--yes, that was his own secret! And +now, Johnny, with the instinct of all young animals, dismissed the whole +subject from his mind, and, reclining comfortably upon his arm, fell +into an interesting study of the habits of the red ant as exemplified in +a crack of the adobe wall, and with the aid of a burnt match succeeded +in diverting for the rest of the afternoon the attention of a whole +laborious colony. + +The next morning, however, brought trouble to him in the curiosity of +his sisters, heightened by their belief that he could at any moment be +taken off to prison--which was their understanding of their mother's +story. I grieve to say that to them this invested him with a certain +romantic heroism, from the gratification of which the hero himself was +not exempt. Nevertheless, he successfully evaded their questioning, and +on broader impersonal grounds. As girls, it was none of their business! +He wasn't a-going to tell them HIS secrets! And what did they know about +gold, anyway? They couldn't tell it from brass! The attitude of his +mother was, however, still perplexing. She was no longer actively +indignant, but treated him with a mysterious reserve that was the +more appalling. The fact was that she no longer believed in his +theft,--indeed, she had never seriously accepted it,--but his strange +reticence and secretiveness piqued her curiosity, and even made her a +little afraid of him. The capacity for keeping a secret she believed was +manlike, and reminded her--for no reason in the world--of Jim Medliker, +her husband, whom she feared. Well, she would let them fight it out +between them. More than that, she was finally obliged to sink her +reserve in employing him in the necessary "chores" for the house, and +he was sent on an errand to the country store at the cross-roads. But he +first extracted his gold-flake from the wall, and put it in his pocket. + +On arriving at the store, it was plain even to his boyish perceptions +that the minister had circulated his miserable story. Two or three of +the customers spoke to each other in a whisper, and looked at him. More +than that, when he began his homeward journey he saw that two of the +loungers were evidently following him. Half in timidity and half in +boyish mischief he once or twice strayed from the direct road, and +snatched a fearful joy in observing their equal divergence. As he passed +Mr. Staples's house he saw that reverend gentleman sneak out of his +back gate, and, without seeing the two others, join in the inquisitorial +procession. But the events of the past day had had their quickening +effect upon Johnny's intellect. A brilliantly wicked thought struck him. +As he was passing a perfectly bare spot on the road he managed, without +being noticed, to cast his glittering flake of gold on the sterile +ground at the other side of the road, where the minister's path would +lie. Then, at a point where the road turned, he concealed himself in the +brush. The Reverend Mr. Staples hurried forward as he lost sight of +the boy in the sweep of the road, but halted suddenly. Johnny's heart +leaped. The minister looked around him, stooped, picked up the piece +of gold, thrust it hurriedly in his waistcoat pocket, and continued his +way. When he reached the turn of the road, before passing it, he availed +himself of his solitude to pause and again examine the treasure, and +again return it to his pocket. But, to Johnny's surprise, he here +turned back, walked quickly to the spot where he had found it, carefully +examined the locality, kicking the loose soil and stones around with his +feet until he had apparently satisfied himself that there was no more, +and no gold-bearing indications in the soil. At this moment, however, +the two other inquisitors came in sight, and Mr. Staples turned +quickly and hurried on. Before he had passed the brush where Johnny was +concealed, the two men overtook him and exchanged greetings. They both +spoke of "Johnny" and his crime; of having followed him with a view of +finding out where he went to procure his gold, and of his having again +evaded them. Mr. Staples agreed with their purpose, but, to Johnny's +intense astonishment, SAID NOTHING ABOUT HIS OWN FIND! When they had +passed on, the boy slipped from his place of concealment and followed +them at a distance until his own house came in view. Here the two men +diverged, but the minister continued on towards the other "store" and +post-office on the main road. + +He would have told his mother what he had seen, and his surprise that +the minister had not spoken of finding the gold to the other men, but +he was checked, first by his mother's attitude towards him, which was +clearly the same as the minister's, and, second, by the knowledge +that she would have condemned his dropping the gold in the minister's +path,--though he knew not WHY,--or asked his reason for it, which he was +equally sure he could not formulate, though he also knew not why. But +that evening, as he was returning from the spring with water, he heard +the minister's voice in the kitchen. It had been a day of surprises and +revelations to Johnny, but the climax seemed to be reached as he entered +the room; and he now stood transfixed and open-mouthed as he heard Mr. +Staples say:-- + +"It's all very well, Sister Medliker, to comfort your heart with vain +hopes and delusions. A mother's leanin's is the soul's deceivin's,--and +yer leanin' on a broken reed. If the boy truly found that gold he'd have +come to ye and said: 'Behold, mother, I have found gold in the highways +and byways; rejoice and be exceedin' glad!' and hev poured it inter yer +lap. Yes," continued Mr. Staples aggressively to the boy, as he saw him +stagger back with his pail in hand, "yes, sir, THAT would have been the +course of a Christian child!" + +For a moment Johnny felt the blood boiling in his ears, and a thousand +words seemed crowding in his throat. "Then"--he gasped and choked. +"Then"--he began again, and stopped with the suffocation of indignation. + +But Mr. Staples saw in his agitation only an awakened conscience, and, +nudging Mrs. Medliker, leaned eagerly forward for a reply. "Then," he +repeated, with suave encouragement, "go on, Johnny! Speak it out!" + +"Then," said Johnny, in a high, shrill falsetto that startled them, +"then wot for did YOU pick up that piece o' gold in the road this +arternoon, and say nothin' of it to the men who followed ye? Ye did; +I seed yer! And ye didn't say nothin' of it to anybody; and ye ain't +sayin' nothin' of it now ter maw! and ye've got it in yer vest! And it's +mine, and I dropped it! Gimme it." + +Astonishment, confusion, and rage swelled and empurpled Staples' face. +It was HIS turn to gasp for breath. Yet in the same moment he made +an angry dash at the boy. But Mrs. Medliker interfered. This was an +entirely new feature in the case. Great is the power of gold. A single +glance at the minister's confusion had convinced her that Johnny's +accusation was true, and it was Johnny's MONEY--constructively +HERS--that the minister was concealing. His mere possession of that gold +had more effect in straightening out her loose logic than any sense of +hypocrisy. + +"You leave the boy be, Brother Staples," said Mrs. Medliker sharply. "I +reckon wot's his is hisn, spite of whar he got it." + +Mr. Staples saw his mistake, and smiled painfully as he fumbled in his +waistcoat pocket. "I believe I DID pick up something," he said, "that +may or may not have been gold, but I have dropped it again or thrown +it away; and really it is of little concern in our moral lesson. For we +have only HIS word that it was really his! How do we KNOW it?" + +"Cos it has my marks on it," said Johnny quickly; "it had a criss-cross +I scratched on it. I kin tell it good enuf." + +Mr. Staples turned suddenly pale and rose. "Of course," he said to Mrs. +Medliker with painful dignity, "if you set so much value upon a mere +worldly trifle, I will endeavor to find it. It may be in my other +pocket." He backed out of the door in his usual fashion, but instantly +went over to the post-office, where, as he afterwards alleged, he had +changed the ore for coin in a moment of inadvertence. But Johnny's +hieroglyphics were found on it, and in some mysterious way the story got +about. It had two effects that Johnny did not dream of. It had forced +his mother into an attitude of complicity with him; it had raised up for +him a single friend. Jake Stielitzer, quartz miner, had declared that +Burnt Spring was "playing it low down" on Johnny! That if they really +believed that the boy took gold from their sluice boxes, it was their +duty to watch their CLAIMS and not the boy. That it was only their +excuse for "snooping" after him, and they only wanted to find his +"strike," which was as much his as their claims were their own! All +this with great proficiency of epithet, but also a still more recognized +proficiency with the revolver, which made the former respected. + +"That's the real nigger in the fence, Johnny," said Jake, twirling his +huge mustache, "and they only want to know where your lead is,--and +don't yer tell 'em! Let 'em bile over with waitin' first, and that'll +put the fire out. Does yer pop know?" + +"No," said Johnny. + +"Nor yer mar?" + +"No." + +Jake whistled. "Then it's only YOU, yourself?" + +Johnny nodded violently, and his brown eyes glistened. + +"It's a heap of information to be packed away in a chap of your size, +Johnny. Makes you feel kinder crowded inside, eh? MUST keep it to +yourself, eh?" + +"Have to," said Johnny with a gasp that was a little like a sigh. + +It caused Jake to look at him attentively. "See here, Johnny," he said, +"now ef ye wanted to tell somebody about it,--somebody as was a friend +of yours,--ME, f'r instance?" + +Johnny slowly withdrew the freckled, warty little hand that had been +resting confidingly in Jake's and gently sidled away from him. Jake +burst into a loud laugh. + +"All right, Johnny boy," he said with a hearty slap upon the boy's back, +"keep yer head shut ef yer wanter! Only ef anybody else comes bummin' +round ye, like this, jest turn him over TO ME, and I'll lift him outer +his boots!" + +Jake kept his word, and his distance thereafter. Indeed, it was after +this first and last conversation with him that the influence of his +powerful protection was so strong that all active criticisms of Johnny +ceased, and only a respectful surveillance of his movements lingered in +the settlement. I do not know that this was altogether distasteful to +the child; it would have been strange, indeed, if he had not felt +at times exalted by this mysterious influence that he seemed to +have acquired over his fellow creatures. If he were merely hunting +blackberries in the brush, he was always sure, sooner or later, to find +a ready hand offered to help and accompany him; if he trapped a squirrel +or tracked down a wild bees' hoard, he generally found a smiling face +watching him. Prospectors sometimes stopped him with: "Well, Johnny, as +a chipper and far-minded boy, now WHAR would YOU advise us to dig?" I +grieve to say that Johnny was not above giving his advice,--and that it +was invariably of not the smallest use to the recipient. + +And so the days passed. Mr. Medliker's absence was protracted, and +the hour of retribution and punishment still seemed far away. The +blackberries ripened and dried upon the hillside, and the squirrels +had gathered their hoards; the bees no longer came and went through +the thicket, but Johnny was still in daily mysterious possession of +his grains of gold! And then one day--after the fate of all heroic +humanity--his secret was imperilled by the blandishments and +machinations of the all-powerful sex. + +Florry Fraser was a little playmate of Johnny's. Why, with his doubts of +his elder sister's intelligence and integrity, he should have selected a +child two years younger, and of singular simplicity, was, like his other +secret, his own. What SHE saw in him to attract her was equally strange; +possibly it may have been his brown-gooseberry eyes or his warts; but +she was quite content to trot after him, like a young squaw, carrying +his "bow-arrow," or his "trap," supremely satisfied to share his +woodland knowledge or his scanter confidences. For nobody who knew +Johnny suspected that she was privy to his great secret. Howbeit, +wherever his ragged straw hat, thatched with his tawny hair, was +detected in the brush, the little nankeen sunbonnet of Florry was sure +to be discerned not far behind. For two weeks they had not seen each +other. A fell disease, nurtured in ignorance, dirt, and carelessness, +was striking right and left through the valleys of the foothills, +and Florry, whose sister had just recovered from an attack, had been +sequestered with her. But one morning, as Johnny was bringing his wood +from the stack behind the house, he saw, to his intense delight, a +picket of the road fence slipped aside by a small red hand, and a moment +after Florry squeezed herself through the narrow opening. Her round +cheeks were slightly flushed, and there was a scrap of red flannel +around her plump throat that heightened the whiteness of her skin. + +"My!" said Johnny, with half-real, half-affected admiration, "how +splendiferous!" + +"Sore froat," said Florry, in a whisper, trying to insert her two chubby +fingers between the bandage and her chin. "I mussent go outer the garden +patch! I mussent play in the woods, for I'll be seed! I mussent stay +long, for they'll ketch me outer bed!" + +"Outer bed?" repeated Johnny, with intense admiration, as he perceived +for the first time that Florry was in a flannel nightgown, with bare +legs and feet. + +"Ess." + +Whereupon these two delightful imps chuckled and wagged their heads with +a sincere enjoyment that this mere world could not give! Johnny slipped +off his shoes and stockings and hurriedly put them on the infant Florry, +securing them from falling off with a thick cord. This added to their +enjoyment. + +"We can play cubby house in the stone heap," whispered Florry. + +"Hol' on till I tote in this wood," said Johnny. "You hide till I come +back." + +Johnny swiftly delivered his load with an alacrity he had never shown +before. Then they played "cubby house"--not fifty feet from the cabin, +with a hushed but guilty satisfaction. But presently it palled. Their +domain was too circumscribed for variety. "Robinson Crusoe up the tree" +was impossible, as being visible from the house windows. Johnny was at +his wits' end. Florry was fretful and fastidious. Then a great thought +struck him and left him cold. "If I show you a show, you won't tell?" he +said suddenly. + +"No." + +"Wish yer-ma-die?" + +"Ess." + +"Got any penny?" + +"No." + +"Got any slate pencil?" + +"No." + +"Ain't got any pins nor nuthin'? You kin go in for a pin." + +But Florry had none of childhood's fluctuating currency with her, +having, so to speak, no pockets. + +"Well," said Johnny, brightening up, "ye kin go in for luv." + +The child clipped him with her small arms and smiled, and, Johnny +leading the way, they crept on all fours through the thick ferns until +they paused before a deep fissure in the soil half overgrown with +bramble. In its depths they could hear the monotonous trickle of water. +It was really the source of the spring that afterwards reappeared fifty +yards nearer the road, and trickled into an unfailing pool known as the +Burnt Spring, from the brown color of the surrounding bracken. It +was the water supply of the ranch, and the reason for Mr. Medliker's +original selection of that site. Johnny lingered for an instant, looked +carefully around, and then lowered himself into the fissure. A moment +later he reached up his arms to Florry, lowered her also, and both +disappeared from view. Yet from time to time their voices came faintly +from below--with the gurgle of water--as of festive gnomes at play. + +At the end of ten minutes they reappeared, a little muddy, a little +bedraggled, but flushed and happy. There were two pink spots on Florry's +cheeks, and she clasped something tightly in her little red fist. + +"There," said Johnny, when they were seated in the straw again, "now +mind you don't tell." + +But here suddenly Florry's lips began to quiver, and she gave vent to a +small howl of anguish. + +"You ain't bit by a trant'ler nor nuthin'?" said Johnny anxiously. "Hush +up!" + +"N--o--o! But"-- + +"But what?" said Johnny. + +"Mar said I MUST tell! Mar said I was to fin' out where you get the +truly gold! Mar said I was to get you to take me," howled Florry, in an +agony of remorse. + +Johnny gasped. "You Injin!" he began. + +"But I won't--Johnny!" said Florry, clutching his leg frantically. "I +won't and I sha'n't! I ain't no Injin!" + +Then, between her sobs, she told him how her mother and Mr. Staples had +said that she was to ask Johnny the next time they met to take her where +they found the "truly gold," and she was to remember where it was and +to tell them. And they were going to give her a new dolly and a hunk of +gingerbread. "But I won't--and I sha'n't!" she said passionately. She +was quite pale again. + +Johnny was convinced, but thoughtful. "Tell 'em," he said hoarsely, +"tell 'em a big whopper! They won't know no better. They'll never guess +where." And he briefly recounted the wild-goose chase he had given the +minister. + +"And get the dolly and the cake," said Florry, her eyes shining through +her tears. + +"In course," said Johnny. "They'll get the dolly back, but you kin have +eated the cake first." They looked at each other, and their eyes danced +together over this heaven-sent inspiration. Then Johnny took off her +shoes and stockings, rubbed her cold feet with his dirty handkerchief, +and said: "Now you trot over to your mar!" + +He helped her through the loose picket of the fence and was turning away +when her faint voice again called him. + +"Johnny!" + +He turned back; she was standing on the other side of the fence holding +out her arms to him. He went to her with shining eyes, lifted her up, +and from her hot but loving little lips took a fatal kiss. + +For only an hour later Mrs. Fraser found Florry in her bed, tossing with +a high fever and a light head. She was talking of "Johnny" and "gold," +and had a flake of the metal in her tiny fist. When Mr. Staples was sent +for, and with the mother and father, hung anxiously above her bed, to +their eager questioning they could only find out that Florry had been to +a high mountain, ever so far away, and on the top of it there was gold +lying around, and a shining figure was giving it away to the people. + +"And who were the people, Florry dear," said Mr. Staples persuasively; +"anybody ye know here?" + +"They woz angels," said Florry, with a frightened glance over her +shoulder. + +I grieve to say that Mr. Staples did not look as pleased at the +celestial vision as he might have, and poor Mrs. Fraser probably saw +that in her child's face which drove other things from her mind. Yet Mr. +Staples persisted:-- + +"And who led you to this beautiful mountain? Was it Johnny?" + +"No." + +"Who then?" + +Florry opened her eyes on the speaker. "I fink it was Dod," she said, +and closed them again. + +But here Dr. Duchesne hurried in, and after a single glance at the child +hustled Mr. Staples from the room. For there were grave complications +that puzzled him, Florry seemed easier and quieter under his kindly +voice and touch, but did not speak again,--and so, slowly sinking, +passed away that night in a dreamless sleep. This was followed by a mad +panic at Burnt Spring the next day, and Mrs. Medliker fled with her two +girls to Sacramento, leaving Johnny, ostensibly strong and active, to +keep house until his father's return. But Mr. Medliker's return was +again delayed, and in the epidemic, which had now taken a fast hold of +the settlement, Johnny's secret--and indeed the boy himself--was quite +forgotten. It was only on Mr. Medliker's arrival it was known that he +had been lying dangerously ill, alone, in the abandoned house. In his +strange reticence and firmness of purpose he had kept his sufferings to +himself,--as he had his other secret,--and they were revealed only in +the wasted, hollow figure that feebly opened the door to his father. + +On which intelligence Mr. Staples was, as usual, promptly on the spot +with his story of Johnny's secret to the father, and his usual eager +questioning to the fast-sinking boy. "And now, Johnny," he said, leaning +over the bed, "tell us ALL. There is One from whom no secrets are hid. +Remember, too, that dear Florry, who is now with the angels, has already +confessed." + +Perhaps it was because Johnny, even at that moment, hated the man; +perhaps it was because at that moment he loved and believed in Florry, +or perhaps it was only that because at that moment he was nearer the +greater Truth than his questioner, but he said, in a husky voice, "You +lie!" + +Staples drew back with a flushed face, but lips that writhed in a +pained and still persistent eagerness. "But, Johnny, at least tell us +where--wh--wow--wow." + +I am obliged to admit that these undignified accents came from Mr. +Staples' own lips, and were due to the sudden pressure of Mr. Medliker's +arm around his throat. The teamster was irascible and prompt through +much mule-driving, and his arm was, from the same reason, strong and +sinewy. Mr. Staples felt himself garroted and dragged from the room, +and only came to under the stars outside, with the hoarse voice of Mr. +Medliker in his ears:-- + +"You're a minister of the gospel, I know, but ef ye say another word to +my Johnny, I'll knock the gospel stuffin' out of ye. Ye hear me! I'VE +DRIVEN MULES AFORE!" + +He then strode back into the room. "Ye needn't answer, Johnny, he's +gone." + +But so, too, had Johnny, for he never answered the question in this +world, nor, please God, was he required to in the next. He lay still and +dead. The community was scandalized the next day when Mr. Medliker sent +for a minister from Sacramento to officiate at his child's funeral, in +place of Mr. Staples, and then the subject was dropped. + +***** + +But the influence of Johnny's hidden treasure still remained as a +superstition in the locality. Prospecting parties were continually made +up to discover the unknown claim, but always from evidence and data +altogether apocryphal. It was even alleged that a miner had one night +seen the little figures of Johnny and Florry walking over the hilltop, +hand in hand, but that they had vanished among the stars at the very +moment he thought he had discovered their secret. And then it was +forgotten; the prosperous Mr. Medliker, now the proprietor of a +stage-coach route, moved away to Sacramento; Medliker's Ranch became a +station for changing horses, and, as the new railway in time superseded +even that, sank into a blacksmith's shop on the outskirts of the new +town of Burnt Spring. And then one day, six years after, news fell as a +bolt from the blue! + +It was thus recorded in the county paper: "A piece of rare good fortune, +involving, it is said, the development of a lead of extraordinary +value, has lately fallen to the lot of Mr. John Silsbee, the popular +blacksmith, on the site of the old Medliker Ranch. In clearing out the +failing water-course known as Burnt Spring, Mr. Silsbee came upon a rich +ledge or pocket at the actual source of the spring,--a fissure in the +ground a few rods from the road. The present yield has been estimated +to be from eight to ten thousand dollars. But the event is considered +as one of the most remarkable instances of the vagaries of 'prospecting' +ever known, as this valuable 'pot-hole' existed undisturbed for EIGHT +YEARS not FIFTY YARDS from the old cabin that was in former times the +residence of J. Medliker, Esq., and the station of the Pioneer Stage +Company, and was utterly unknown and unsuspected by the previous +inhabitants! Verily truth is stranger than fiction!" + + + + +A TALE OF THREE TRUANTS + + +The schoolmaster at Hemlock Hill was troubled that morning. Three of his +boys were missing. This was not only a notable deficit in a roll-call of +twenty, but the absentees were his three most original and distinctive +scholars. He had received no preliminary warning or excuse. Nor could he +attribute their absence to any common local detention or difficulty of +travel. They lived widely apart and in different directions. Neither +were they generally known as "chums," or comrades, who might have +entered into an unhallowed combination to "play hookey." + +He looked at the vacant places before him with a concern which his other +scholars little shared, having, after their first lively curiosity, not +unmixed with some envy of the derelicts, apparently forgotten them. He +missed the cropped head and inquisitive glances of Jackson Tribbs on +the third bench, the red hair and brown eyes of Providence Smith in +the corner, and there was a blank space in the first bench where Julian +Fleming, a lanky giant of seventeen, had sat. Still, it would not do +to show his concern openly, and, as became a man who was at least three +years the senior of the eldest, Julian Fleming, he reflected that they +were "only boys," and that their friends were probably ignorant of the +good he was doing them, and so dismissed the subject. Nevertheless, it +struck him as wonderful how the little world beneath him got on without +them. Hanky Rogers, bully, who had been kept in wholesome check by +Julian Fleming, was lively and exuberant, and his conduct was quietly +accepted by the whole school; Johnny Stebbins, Tribbs's bosom friend, +consorted openly with Tribbs's particular enemy; some of the girls +were singularly gay and conceited. It was evident that some superior +masculine oppression had been removed. + +He was particularly struck by this last fact, when, the next morning, +no news coming of the absentees, he was impelled to question his flock +somewhat precisely concerning them. There was the usual shy silence +which follows a general inquiry from the teacher's desk; the children +looked at one another, giggled nervously, and said nothing. + +"Can you give me any idea as to what might have kept them away?" said +the master. + +Hanky Rogers looked quickly around, began, "Playin' hook--" in a loud +voice, but stopped suddenly without finishing the word, and became +inaudible. The master saw fit to ignore him. + +"Bee-huntin'," said Annie Roker vivaciously. + +"Who is?" asked the master. + +"Provy Smith, of course. Allers bee-huntin'. Gets lots o' honey. Got two +full combs in his desk last week. He's awful on bees and honey. Ain't +he, Jinny?" This in a high voice to her sister. + +The younger Miss Roker, thus appealed to, was heard to murmur that of +all the sneakin' bee-hunters she had ever seed, Provy Smith was the +worst. "And squirrels--for nuts," she added. + +The master became attentive,--a clue seemed probable here. "Would Tribbs +and Fleming be likely to go with him?" he asked. + +A significant silence followed. The master felt that the children +recognized a doubt of this, knowing the boys were not "chums;" +possibly they also recognized something incriminating to them, and with +characteristic freemasonry looked at one another and were dumb. + +He asked no further questions, but, when school was dismissed, mounted +his horse and started for the dwelling of the nearest culprit, Jackson +Tribbs, four miles distant. He had often admired the endurance of the +boy, who had accomplished the distance, including the usual meanderings +of a country youth, twice a day, on foot, in all weathers, with no +diminution of spirits or energy. He was still more surprised when he +found it a mountain road, and that the house lay well up on the ascent +of the pass. Autumn was visible only in a few flaming sumacs set +among the climbing pines, and here, in a little clearing to the right, +appeared the dwelling he was seeking. + +"Tribbses," or "Tribbs's Run," was devoted to the work of cutting +down the pines midway on a long regularly sloping mountain-side, which +allowed the trunks, after they were trimmed and cut into suitable +lengths, to be slid down through rude runs, or artificial channels, into +the valley below, where they were collected by teams and conveyed to the +nearest mills. The business was simple in the extreme, and was carried +on by Tribbs senior, two men with saws and axes, and the natural laws of +gravitation. The house was a long log cabin; several sheds roofed with +bark or canvas seemed consistent with the still lingering summer and the +heated odors of the pines, but were strangely incongruous to those white +patches on the table-land and the white tongue stretching from the ridge +to the valley. But the master was familiar with those Sierran contrasts, +and as he had never ascended the trail before, it might be only the +usual prospect of the dwellers there. At this moment Mr. Tribbs appeared +from the cabin, with his axe on his shoulder. Nodding carelessly to the +master, he was moving away, when the latter stopped him. + +"Is Jackson here?" he asked. + +"No," said the father, half impatiently, still moving on. "Hain't seen +him since yesterday." + +"Nor has he been at school," said the master, "either yesterday or +to-day." + +Mr. Tribbs looked puzzled and grieved. "Now I reckoned you had kep' him +in for some devilment of his'n, or lessons." + +"Not ALL NIGHT!" said the master, somewhat indignant at this presumption +of his arbitrary functions. + +"Humph!" said Mr. Tribbs. "Mariar!" Mrs. Tribbs made her appearance in +the doorway. "The schoolmaster allows that Jackson ain't bin to school +at all." Then, turning to the master, he added, "Thar! you settle it +between ye," and quietly walked away. + +Mrs. Tribbs looked by no means satisfied with or interested in the +proposed tete-a-tete. "Hev ye looked in the bresh" (i. e., brush or +underwood) "for him?" she said querulously. + +"No," said the master, "I came here first. There are two other boys +missing,--Providence Smith and Julian Fleming. Did either of them"-- + +But Mrs. Tribbs had interrupted him with a gesture of impatient relief. +"Oh, that's all, is it? Playin' hookey together, in course. 'Scuse me, +I must go back to my bakin'." She turned away, but stopped suddenly, +touched, as the master fondly believed, by some tardy maternal +solicitude. But she only said: "When he DOES come back, you just give +him a whalin', will ye?" and vanished into her kitchen. + +The master rode away, half ashamed of his foolish concern for the +derelicts. But he determined to try Smith's father, who owned a small +rancho lower down on a spur of the same ridge. But the spur was really +nearer Hemlock Hill, and could have been reached more directly by a road +from there. He, however, kept along the ridge, and after half an hour's +ride was convinced that Jackson Tribbs could have communicated with +Provy Smith without coming nearer Hemlock Hill, and this revived his +former belief that they were together. He found the paternal Smith +engaged in hoeing potatoes in a stony field. The look of languid +curiosity with which he had regarded the approach of the master changed +to one of equally languid aggression as he learned the object of his +visit. + +"Wot are ye comin' to ME for? I ain't runnin' your school," he said +slowly and aggressively. "I started Providence all right for it mornin' +afore last, since when I never set eyes on him. That lets ME out. My +business, young feller, is lookin' arter the ranch. Yours, I reckon, is +lookin' arter your scholars." + +"I thought it my business to tell you your son was absent from school," +said the master coldly, turning away. "If you are satisfied, I have +nothing more to say." Nevertheless, for the moment he was so startled +by this remarkable theory of his own responsibility in the case that +he quite accepted the father's callousness,--or rather it seemed to him +that his unfortunate charges more than ever needed his protection. There +was still the chance of his hearing some news from Julian Fleming's +father; he lived at some distance, in the valley on the opposite side +of Hemlock Hill; and thither the master made his way. Luckily he had not +gone far before he met Mr. Fleming, who was a teamster, en route. Like +the fathers of the other truants, he was also engaged in his vocation. +But, unlike the others, Fleming senior was jovial and talkative. He +pulled up his long team promptly, received the master's news with amused +interest, and an invitation to spirituous refreshment from a demijohn in +his wagon. + +"Me and the ole woman kind o' spekilated that Jule might hev been over +with Aunt Marthy; but don't you worry, Mr. Schoolmaster. They're limbs, +every one o' them, but they'll fetch up somewhere, all square! Just +you put two fingers o' that corn juice inside ye, and let 'em slide. Ye +didn't hear what the 'lekshun news was when ye was at Smith's, did ye?" + +The master had not inquired. He confessed he had been worried about the +boys. He had even thought that Julian might have met with an accident. + +Mr. Fleming wiped his mouth, with a humorous affectation of concern. +"Met with an ACCIDENT? Yes, I reckon not ONE accident, but TWO of 'em. +These yer accidents Jule's met with had two legs, and were mighty lively +accidents, you bet, and took him off with 'em; or mebbe they had four +legs, and he's huntin' 'em yet. Accidents! Now I never thought o' that! +Well, when you come across him and THEM ACCIDENTS, you just whale 'em, +all three! And ye won't take another drink? Well, so long, then! Gee +up!" He rolled away, with a laugh, in the heavy dust kicked up by his +plunging mules, and the master made his way back to the schoolhouse. His +quest for that day was ended. + +But the next morning he was both astounded and relieved, at the +assembling of school, to find the three truants back in their places. +His urgent questioning of them brought only the one and same response +from each: "Got lost on the ridge." He further gathered that they had +slept out for two nights, and were together all the time, but nothing +further, and no details were given. The master was puzzled. They +evidently expected punishment; that was no doubt also the wish of their +parents; but if their story was true, it was a serious question if he +ought to inflict it. There was no means of testing their statement; +there was equally none by which he could controvert it. It was evident +that the whole school accepted it without doubt; whether they were in +possession of details gained from the truants themselves which they +had withheld from him, or whether from some larger complicity with the +culprits, he could not say. He told them gravely that he should withhold +equally their punishment and their pardon until he could satisfy himself +of their veracity, and that there had been no premeditation in their +act. They seemed relieved, but here, again, he could not tell whether +it sprang from confidence in their own integrity or merely from youthful +hopefulness that delayed retribution never arrived! + +It was a month before their secret was fully disclosed. It was slowly +evolved from corroborating circumstances, but always with a shy +reluctance from the boys themselves, and a surprise that any one should +think it of importance. It was gathered partly from details picked up at +recess or on the playground, from the voluntary testimony of teamsters +and packers, from a record in the county newspaper, but always shaping +itself into a consecutive and harmonious narrative. + +It was a story so replete with marvelous escape and adventure that the +master hesitated to accept it in its entirety until after it had +long become a familiar history, and was even forgotten by the actors +themselves. And even now he transcribes it more from the circumstances +that surrounded it than from a hope that the story will be believed. + + +WHAT HAPPENED + +Master Provy Smith had started out that eventful morning with the +intention of fighting Master Jackson Tribbs for the "Kingship" of +Table Ridge--a trifling territory of ten leagues square--Tribbs having +infringed on his boundaries and claimed absolute sovereignty over +the whole mountain range. Julian Fleming was present as referee and +bottle-holder. The battle ground selected was the highest part of the +ridge. The hour was six o'clock, which would allow them time to reach +school before its opening, with all traces of their conflict removed. +The air was crisp and cold,--a trifle colder than usual,--and there was +a singular thickening of the sun's rays on the ridge, which made the +distant peaks indistinct and ghostlike. However, the two combatants +stripped "to the buff," and Fleming patronizingly took position at the +"corner," leaning upon a rifle, which, by reason of his superior years, +and the wilderness he was obliged to traverse in going to school, his +father had lent him to carry. It was that day a providential weapon. + +Suddenly, Fleming uttered the word, "Sho!" The two combatants paused in +their first "squaring off" to see, to their surprise, that their referee +had faced round, with his gun in his hand, and was staring in another +direction. + +"B'ar!" shouted the three voices together. A huge bear, followed by its +cubs, was seen stumbling awkwardly away to the right, making for the +timber below. In an instant the boys had hurried into their jackets +again, and the glory of fight was forgotten in the fever of the chase. +Why should they pound each other when there was something to really +KILL? They started in instant pursuit, Julian leading. + +But the wind was now keen and bitter in their faces, and that peculiar +thickening of the air which they had noticed had become first a dark +blue and then a whitening pall, in which the bear was lost. They still +kept on. Suddenly Julian felt himself struck between the eyes by what +seemed a snowball, and his companions were as quickly spattered by gouts +of monstrous clinging snowflakes. Others as quickly followed--it was +not snowing, it was snowballing. They at first laughed, affecting +to retaliate with these whirling, flying masses shaken like clinging +feathers from a pillow; but in a few seconds they were covered from head +to foot by snow, their limbs impeded or pinioned against them by its +weight, their breath gone. They stopped blindly, breathlessly. Then, +with a common instinct, they turned back. But the next moment they heard +Julian cry, "Look out!" Coming towards them out of the storm was +the bear, who had evidently turned back by the same instinct. An +ungovernable instinct seized the younger boys, and they fled. But Julian +stopped with leveled rifle. The bear stopped too, with sullen, staring +eyes. But the eyes that glanced along the rifle were young, true, and +steady. Julian fired. The hot smoke was swept back by the gale into his +face, but the bear turned and disappeared in the storm again. Julian ran +on to where his companions had halted at the report, a little ashamed of +their cowardice. "Keep on that way!" he shouted hoarsely. "No use tryin' +to go where the b'ar couldn't. Keep on!" + +"Keep on--whar? There ain't no trail--no nuthin'!" said Jackson +querulously, to hold down a rising fear. It was true. The trail had long +since disappeared; even their footprints of a moment before were filled +up by the piling snow; they were isolated in this stony upland, high in +air, without a rock or tree to guide them across its vast white level. +They were bitterly cold and benumbed. The stimulus of the storm and +chase had passed, but Julian kept driving them before him, himself +driven along by the furious blast, yet trying to keep some vague +course along the waste. So an hour passed. Then the wind seemed to have +changed, or else they had traveled in a circle--they knew not which, but +the snow was in their faces now. But, worst of all, the snow had changed +too; it no longer fell in huge blue flakes, but in millions of stinging +gray granules. Julian's face grew hard and his eyes bright. He knew it +was no longer a snow-squall, but a lasting storm. He stopped; the boys +tumbled against him. He looked at them with a strange smile. + +"Hev you two made up?" he said. + +"No--o!" + +"Make up, then." + +"What?" + +"Shake hands." + +They clasped each other's red, benumbed fingers and laughed, albeit a +little frightened at Julian. "Go on!" he said, curtly. + +They went on dazedly, stupidly, for another hour. + +Suddenly Provy Smith's keen eyes sparkled. He pointed to a singular +irregular mound of snow before them, plainly seen above the dreary +level. Julian ran to it with a cry, and began wildly digging. "I knew I +hit him," he cried, as he brushed the snow from a huge and hairy leg. +It was the bear--dead, but not yet cold. He had succumbed with his huge +back to the blast, the snow piling a bulwark behind him, where it had +slowly roofed him in. The half-frozen lads threw themselves fearlessly +against his furry coat and crept between his legs, nestling themselves +beneath his still warm body with screams of joy. The snow they had +thrown back increased the bulwark, and drifting over it, in a few +moments inclosed them in a thin shell of snow. Thoroughly exhausted, +after a few grunts of satisfaction, a deep sleep fell upon them, from +which they were awakened only by the pangs of hunger. Alas! their +dinners--the school dinners--had been left on the inglorious +battlefield. Nevertheless, they talked of eating the bear if it came to +the worst. They would have tried it even then, but they were far above +the belt of timber; they had matches--what boy has not?--but no WOOD. +Still, they were reassured, and even delighted, with this prospect, and +so fell asleep again, stewing with the dead bear in the half-impervious +snow, and woke up in the morning ravenous, yet to see the sun shining in +their faces through the melted snow, and for Jackson Tribbs to quickly +discover, four miles away as the crow flies, the cabin of his father +among the flaming sumacs. + +They started up in the glare of the sun, which at first almost blinded +them. They then discovered that they were in a depression of the +table-land that sloped before them to a deep gully in the mountainside, +which again dropped into the canyon below. The trail they had lost, they +now remembered, must be near this edge. But it was still hidden, and +in seeking it there was danger of some fatal misstep in the treacherous +snow. Nevertheless, they sallied out bravely, although they would fain +have stopped to skin the bear, but Julian's mandate was peremptory. They +spread themselves along the ridge, at times scraping the loose snow away +in their search for the lost trail. + +Suddenly they all slipped and fell, but rose again quickly, laughing. +Then they slipped and fell again, but this time with the startling +consciousness that it was not THEY who had slipped, but THE SNOW! As +they regained their feet they could plainly see now that a large crack +on the white field, some twenty feet in width, extended between them and +the carcass of the bear, showing the glistening rock below. Again +they were thrown down with a sharp shock. Jackson Tribbs, who had been +showing a strange excitement, suddenly gave a cry of warning. "Lie flat, +fellers! but keep a-crawlin' and jumpin'. We're goin' down a slide!" And +the next moment they were sliding and tossing, apparently with the whole +snow-field, down towards the gullied precipice. + +What happened after this, and how long it lasted, they never knew. +For, hurried along with increasing momentum, but always mechanically +clutching at the snow, and bounding from it as they swept on, they +sometimes lost breath, and even consciousness. At times they were half +suffocated in rolling masses of drift, and again free and skimming over +its arrested surface, but always falling, as it seemed to them, almost +perpendicularly. In one of these shocks they seemed to be going through +a thicket of underbrush; but Provy Smith knew that they were the tops of +pine-trees. At last there was one shock longer and lasting, followed by +a deepening thunder below them. The avalanche had struck a ledge in the +mountain side, and precipitated its lower part into the valley. + +Then everything was still, until Provy heard Julian's voice calling. He +answered, but there was no response from Tribbs. Had he gone over +into the valley? They set up a despairing shout! A voice--a smothered +one--that might be his, came apparently from the snow beneath them. They +shouted again; the voice, vague and hollow, responded, but it was now +surely his. + +"Where are you?" screamed Provy. + +"Down the chimbley." + +There was a black square of adobe sticking out of the snow near them. +They ran to it. There was a hole. They peered down, but could see +nothing at first but a faint glimmer. + +"Come down, fellows! It ain't far!" said Tribbs's voice. + +"Wot yer got there?" asked Julian cautiously. + +"Suthin' to eat." + +That was enough. In another instant Julian and Provy went down the +chimney. What was a matter of fifteen feet after a thousand? Tribbs had +already lit a candle by which they could see that they were in the cabin +of some tunnel-man at work on the ridge. He had probably been in the +tunnel when the avalanche fell, and escaped, though his cabin was +buried. The three discoverers helped themselves to his larder. They +laughed and ate as at a picnic, played cards, pretended it was a +robber's cave, and finally, wrapping themselves in the miner's blankets, +slept soundly, knowing where they were, and confident also that they +could find the trail early the next morning. They did so, and without +going to their homes came directly to school--having been absent about +fifty hours. They were in high spirits, except for the thought +of approaching punishment, never dreaming to evade it by anything +miraculous in their adventures. + + +Such was briefly their story. Its truth was corroborated by the +discovery of the bear's carcass, by the testimony of the tunnel-man, who +found his larder mysteriously ransacked in his buried cabin, and, above +all, by the long white tongue that for many months hung from the ledge +into the valley. Nobody thought the lanky Julian a hero,--least of all +himself. Nobody suspected that Jackson Tribbs's treatment of a "slide" +had been gathered from experiments in his father's "runs"--and he was +glad they did not. The master's pardon obtained, the three truants cared +little for the opinion of Hemlock Hill. They knew THEMSELVES, that was +enough. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Tales of Trail and Town, by Bret Harte + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TALES OF TRAIL AND TOWN *** + +***** This file should be named 2550.txt or 2550.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/2/5/5/2550/ + +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. 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