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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Under the Redwoods, 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: Under the Redwoods
+
+Author: Bret Harte
+
+Release Date: May 18, 2006 [EBook #2555]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK UNDER THE REDWOODS ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Donald Lainson
+
+
+
+
+
+UNDER THE REDWOODS
+
+
+By Bret Harte
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+JIMMY'S BIG BROTHER FROM CALIFORNIA
+
+THE YOUNGEST MISS PIPER
+
+A WIDOW OF THE SANTA ANA VALLEY
+
+THE MERMAID OF LIGHTHOUSE POINT
+
+UNDER THE EAVES
+
+HOW REUBEN ALLEN "SAW LIFE" IN SAN FRANCISCO
+
+THREE VAGABONDS OF TRINIDAD
+
+A VISION OF THE FOUNTAIN
+
+A ROMANCE OF THE LINE
+
+BOHEMIAN DAYS IN SAN FRANCISCO
+
+
+
+
+
+UNDER THE REDWOODS
+
+
+
+
+JIMMY'S BIG BROTHER FROM CALIFORNIA
+
+
+As night crept up from the valley that stormy afternoon, Sawyer's
+Ledge was at first quite blotted out by wind and rain, but presently
+reappeared in little nebulous star-like points along the mountain side,
+as the straggling cabins of the settlement were one by one lit up by
+the miners returning from tunnel and claim. These stars were of varying
+brilliancy that evening, two notably so--one that eventually resolved
+itself into a many-candled illumination of a cabin of evident festivity;
+the other into a glimmering taper in the window of a silent one.
+They might have represented the extreme mutations of fortune in the
+settlement that night: the celebration of a strike by Robert Falloner, a
+lucky miner; and the sick-bed of Dick Lasham, an unlucky one.
+
+The latter was, however, not quite alone. He was ministered to by Daddy
+Folsom, a weak but emotional and aggressively hopeful neighbor, who was
+sitting beside the wooden bunk whereon the invalid lay. Yet there
+was something perfunctory in his attitude: his eyes were continually
+straying to the window, whence the illuminated Falloner festivities
+could be seen between the trees, and his ears were more intent on the
+songs and laughter that came faintly from the distance than on the
+feverish breathing and unintelligible moans of the sufferer.
+
+Nevertheless he looked troubled equally by the condition of his charge
+and by his own enforced absence from the revels. A more impatient moan
+from the sick man, however, brought a change to his abstracted face, and
+he turned to him with an exaggerated expression of sympathy.
+
+"In course! Lordy! I know jest what those pains are: kinder ez ef you
+was havin' a tooth pulled that had roots branchin' all over ye! My! I've
+jest had 'em so bad I couldn't keep from yellin'! That's hot rheumatics!
+Yes, sir, I oughter know! And" (confidentially) "the sing'ler thing
+about 'em is that they get worse jest as they're going off--sorter
+wringin' yer hand and punchin' ye in the back to say 'Good-by.' There!"
+he continued, as the man sank exhaustedly back on his rude pillow of
+flour-sacks. "There! didn't I tell ye? Ye'll be all right in a minit,
+and ez chipper ez a jay bird in the mornin'. Oh, don't tell me about
+rheumatics--I've bin thar! On'y mine was the cold kind--that hangs on
+longest--yours is the hot, that burns itself up in no time!"
+
+If the flushed face and bright eyes of Lasham were not enough to
+corroborate this symptom of high fever, the quick, wandering laugh he
+gave would have indicated the point of delirium. But the too optimistic
+Daddy Folsom referred this act to improvement, and went on cheerfully:
+"Yes, sir, you're better now, and"--here he assumed an air of cautious
+deliberation, extravagant, as all his assumptions were--"I ain't sayin'
+that--ef--you--was--to--rise--up" (very slowly) "and heave a blanket or
+two over your shoulders--jest by way o' caution, you know--and leanin'
+on me, kinder meander over to Bob Falloner's cabin and the boys, it
+wouldn't do you a heap o' good. Changes o' this kind is often prescribed
+by the faculty." Another moan from the sufferer, however, here
+apparently corrected Daddy's too favorable prognosis. "Oh, all right!
+Well, perhaps ye know best; and I'll jest run over to Bob's and say how
+as ye ain't comin', and will be back in a jiffy!"
+
+"The letter," said the sick man hurriedly, "the letter, the letter!"
+
+Daddy leaned suddenly over the bed. It was impossible for even his
+hopefulness to avoid the fact that Lasham was delirious. It was a strong
+factor in the case--one that would certainly justify his going over
+to Falloner's with the news. For the present moment, however, this
+aberration was to be accepted cheerfully and humored after Daddy's own
+fashion. "Of course--the letter, the letter," he said convincingly;
+"that's what the boys hev bin singin' jest now--
+
+     'Good-by, Charley; when you are away,
+     Write me a letter, love; send me a letter, love!'
+
+"That's what you heard, and a mighty purty song it is too, and kinder
+clings to you. It's wonderful how these things gets in your head."
+
+"The letter--write--send money--money--money, and the photograph--the
+photograph--photograph--money," continued the sick man, in the rapid
+reiteration of delirium.
+
+"In course you will--to-morrow--when the mail goes," returned Daddy
+soothingly; "plenty of them. Jest now you try to get a snooze, will ye?
+Hol' on!--take some o' this."
+
+There was an anodyne mixture on the rude shelf, which the doctor had
+left on his morning visit. Daddy had a comfortable belief that what
+would relieve pain would also check delirium, and he accordingly
+measured out a dose with a liberal margin to allow of waste by the
+patient in swallowing in his semi-conscious state. As he lay more quiet,
+muttering still, but now unintelligibly, Daddy, waiting for a more
+complete unconsciousness and the opportunity to slip away to Falloner's,
+cast his eyes around the cabin. He noticed now for the first time since
+his entrance that a crumpled envelope bearing a Western post-mark was
+lying at the foot of the bed. Daddy knew that the tri-weekly post had
+arrived an hour before he came, and that Lasham had evidently received a
+letter. Sure enough the letter itself was lying against the wall beside
+him. It was open. Daddy felt justified in reading it.
+
+It was curt and businesslike, stating that unless Lasham at once sent
+a remittance for the support of his brother and sister--two children in
+charge of the writer--they must find a home elsewhere. That the arrears
+were long standing, and the repeated promises of Lasham to send money
+had been unfulfilled. That the writer could stand it no longer. This
+would be his last communication unless the money were sent forthwith.
+
+It was by no means a novel or, under the circumstances, a shocking
+disclosure to Daddy. He had seen similar missives from daughters, and
+even wives, consequent on the varying fortunes of his neighbors; no one
+knew better than he the uncertainties of a miner's prospects, and
+yet the inevitable hopefulness that buoyed him up. He tossed it aside
+impatiently, when his eye caught a strip of paper he had overlooked
+lying upon the blanket near the envelope. It contained a few lines in
+an unformed boyish hand addressed to "my brother," and evidently slipped
+into the letter after it was written. By the uncertain candlelight Daddy
+read as follows:--
+
+
+Dear Brother, Rite to me and Cissy rite off. Why aint you done it? It's
+so long since you rote any. Mister Recketts ses you dont care any more.
+Wen you rite send your fotograff. Folks here ses I aint got no big
+bruther any way, as I disremember his looks, and cant say wots like him.
+Cissy's kryin' all along of it. I've got a hedake. William Walker make
+it ake by a blo. So no more at present from your loving little bruther
+Jim.
+
+
+The quick, hysteric laugh with which Daddy read this was quite
+consistent with his responsive, emotional nature; so, too, were the
+ready tears that sprang to his eyes. He put the candle down unsteadily,
+with a casual glance at the sick man. It was notable, however, that
+this look contained less sympathy for the ailing "big brother" than his
+emotion might have suggested. For Daddy was carried quite away by his
+own mental picture of the helpless children, and eager only to relate
+his impressions of the incident. He cast another glance at the invalid,
+thrust the papers into his pocket, and clapping on his hat slipped from
+the cabin and ran to the house of festivity. Yet it was characteristic
+of the man, and so engrossed was he by his one idea, that to the usual
+inquiries regarding his patient he answered, "he's all right," and
+plunged at once into the incident of the dunning letter, reserving--with
+the instinct of an emotional artist--the child's missive until the last.
+As he expected, the money demand was received with indignant criticisms
+of the writer.
+
+"That's just like 'em in the States," said Captain Fletcher; "darned if
+they don't believe we've only got to bore a hole in the ground and snake
+out a hundred dollars. Why, there's my wife--with a heap of hoss sense
+in everything else--is allus wonderin' why I can't rake in a cool fifty
+betwixt one steamer day and another."
+
+"That's nothin' to my old dad," interrupted Gus Houston, the "infant"
+of the camp, a bright-eyed young fellow of twenty; "why, he wrote to me
+yesterday that if I'd only pick up a single piece of gold every day and
+just put it aside, sayin' 'That's for popper and mommer,' and not fool
+it away--it would be all they'd ask of me."
+
+"That's so," added another; "these ignorant relations is just the ruin
+o' the mining industry. Bob Falloner hez bin lucky in his strike to-day,
+but he's a darned sight luckier in being without kith or kin that he
+knows of."
+
+Daddy waited until the momentary irritation had subsided, and then drew
+the other letter from his pocket. "That ain't all, boys," he began in a
+faltering voice, but gradually working himself up to a pitch of pathos;
+"just as I was thinking all them very things, I kinder noticed this yer
+poor little bit o' paper lyin' thar lonesome like and forgotten,
+and I--read it--and well--gentlemen--it just choked me right up!" He
+stopped, and his voice faltered.
+
+"Go slow, Daddy, go slow!" said an auditor smilingly. It was evident
+that Daddy's sympathetic weakness was well known.
+
+Daddy read the child's letter. But, unfortunately, what with his real
+emotion and the intoxication of an audience, he read it extravagantly,
+and interpolated a child's lisp (on no authority whatever), and a
+simulated infantile delivery, which, I fear, at first provoked the
+smiles rather than the tears of his audience. Nevertheless, at its
+conclusion the little note was handed round the party, and then there
+was a moment of thoughtful silence.
+
+"Tell you what it is, boys," said Fletcher, looking around the table,
+"we ought to be doin' suthin' for them kids right off! Did you," turning
+to Daddy, "say anythin' about this to Dick?"
+
+"Nary--why, he's clean off his head with fever--don't understand a
+word--and just babbles," returned Daddy, forgetful of his roseate
+diagnosis a moment ago, "and hasn't got a cent."
+
+"We must make up what we can amongst us afore the mail goes to-night,"
+said the "infant," feeling hurriedly in his pockets. "Come, ante up,
+gentlemen," he added, laying the contents of his buckskin purse upon the
+table.
+
+"Hold on, boys," said a quiet voice. It was their host Falloner, who had
+just risen and was slipping on his oilskin coat. "You've got enough to
+do, I reckon, to look after your own folks. I've none! Let this be my
+affair. I've got to go to the Express Office anyhow to see about my
+passage home, and I'll just get a draft for a hundred dollars for
+that old skeesicks--what's his blamed name? Oh, Ricketts"--he made a
+memorandum from the letter--"and I'll send it by express. Meantime, you
+fellows sit down there and write something--you know what--saying that
+Dick's hurt his hand and can't write--you know; but asked you to send
+a draft, which you're doing. Sabe? That's all! I'll skip over to the
+express now and get the draft off, and you can mail the letter an hour
+later. So put your dust back in your pockets and help yourselves to the
+whiskey while I'm gone." He clapped his hat on his head and disappeared.
+
+"There goes a white man, you bet!" said Fletcher admiringly, as the door
+closed behind their host. "Now, boys," he added, drawing a chair to the
+table, "let's get this yer letter off, and then go back to our game."
+
+Pens and ink were produced, and an animated discussion ensued as to
+the matter to be conveyed. Daddy's plea for an extended explanatory and
+sympathetic communication was overruled, and the letter was written to
+Ricketts on the simple lines suggested by Falloner.
+
+"But what about poor little Jim's letter? That ought to be answered,"
+said Daddy pathetically.
+
+"If Dick hurt his hand so he can't write to Ricketts, how in thunder is
+he goin' to write to Jim?" was the reply.
+
+"But suthin' oughter be said to the poor kid," urged Daddy piteously.
+
+"Well, write it yourself--you and Gus Houston make up somethin'
+together. I'm going to win some money," retorted Fletcher, returning
+to the card-table, where he was presently followed by all but Daddy and
+Houston.
+
+"Ye can't write it in Dick's name, because that little brother knows
+Dick's handwriting, even if he don't remember his face. See?" suggested
+Houston.
+
+"That's so," said Daddy dubiously; "but," he added, with elastic
+cheerfulness, "we can write that Dick 'says.' See?"
+
+"Your head's level, old man! Just you wade in on that."
+
+Daddy seized the pen and "waded in." Into somewhat deep and difficult
+water, I fancy, for some of it splashed into his eyes, and he sniffled
+once or twice as he wrote. "Suthin' like this," he said, after a
+pause:--
+
+
+DEAR LITTLE JIMMIE,--Your big brother havin' hurt his hand, wants me to
+tell you that otherways he is all hunky and A1. He says he don't forget
+you and little Cissy, you bet! and he's sendin' money to old Ricketts
+straight off. He says don't you and Cissy mind whether school keeps
+or not as long as big Brother Dick holds the lines. He says he'd have
+written before, but he's bin follerin' up a lead mighty close, and
+expects to strike it rich in a few days.
+
+
+"You ain't got no sabe about kids," said Daddy imperturbably; "they've
+got to be humored like sick folks. And they want everythin' big--they
+don't take no stock in things ez they are--even ef they hev 'em worse
+than they are. 'So,'" continued Daddy, reading to prevent further
+interruption, "'he says you're just to keep your eyes skinned lookin'
+out for him comin' home any time--day or night. All you've got to do is
+to sit up and wait. He might come and even snake you out of your beds!
+He might come with four white horses and a nigger driver, or he might
+come disguised as an ornary tramp. Only you've got to be keen on
+watchin'.' (Ye see," interrupted Daddy explanatorily, "that'll jest keep
+them kids lively.) 'He says Cissy's to stop cryin' right off, and if
+Willie Walker hits yer on the right cheek you just slug out with your
+left fist, 'cordin' to Scripter.' Gosh," ejaculated Daddy, stopping
+suddenly and gazing anxiously at Houston, "there's that blamed
+photograph--I clean forgot that."
+
+"And Dick hasn't got one in the shop, and never had," returned Houston
+emphatically. "Golly! that stumps us! Unless," he added, with diabolical
+thoughtfulness, "we take Bob's? The kids don't remember Dick's face, and
+Bob's about the same age. And it's a regular star picture--you bet! Bob
+had it taken in Sacramento--in all his war paint. See!" He indicated a
+photograph pinned against the wall--a really striking likeness which did
+full justice to Bob's long silken mustache and large, brown determined
+eyes. "I'll snake it off while they ain't lookin', and you jam it in
+the letter. Bob won't miss it, and we can fix it up with Dick after he's
+well, and send another."
+
+Daddy silently grasped the "infant's" hand, who presently secured the
+photograph without attracting attention from the card-players. It was
+promptly inclosed in the letter, addressed to Master James Lasham. The
+"infant" started with it to the post-office, and Daddy Folsom returned
+to Lasham's cabin to relieve the watcher that had been detached from
+Falloner's to take his place beside the sick man.
+
+Meanwhile the rain fell steadily and the shadows crept higher and higher
+up the mountain. Towards midnight the star points faded out one by one
+over Sawyer's Ledge even as they had come, with the difference that the
+illumination of Falloner's cabin was extinguished first, while the dim
+light of Lasham's increased in number. Later, two stars seemed to shoot
+from the centre of the ledge, trailing along the descent, until they
+were lost in the obscurity of the slope--the lights of the stage-coach
+to Sacramento carrying the mail and Robert Falloner. They met and passed
+two fainter lights toiling up the road--the buggy lights of the doctor,
+hastily summoned from Carterville to the bedside of the dying Dick
+Lasham.
+
+
+The slowing up of his train caused Bob Falloner to start from a half
+doze in a Western Pullman car. As he glanced from his window he could
+see that the blinding snowstorm which had followed him for the past six
+hours had at last hopelessly blocked the line. There was no prospect
+beyond the interminable snowy level, the whirling flakes, and the
+monotonous palisades of leafless trees seen through it to the distant
+banks of the Missouri. It was a prospect that the mountain-bred Falloner
+was beginning to loathe, and although it was scarcely six weeks since
+he left California, he was already looking back regretfully to the deep
+slopes and the free song of the serried ranks of pines.
+
+The intense cold had chilled his temperate blood, even as the rigors and
+conventions of Eastern life had checked his sincerity and spontaneous
+flow of animal spirits begotten in the frank intercourse and brotherhood
+of camps. He had just fled from the artificialities of the great
+Atlantic cities to seek out some Western farming lands in which he
+might put his capital and energies. The unlooked-for interruption of his
+progress by a long-forgotten climate only deepened his discontent. And
+now--that train was actually backing! It appeared they must return to
+the last station to wait for a snow-plough to clear the line. It was,
+explained the conductor, barely a mile from Shepherdstown, where there
+was a good hotel and a chance of breaking the journey for the night.
+
+Shepherdstown! The name touched some dim chord in Bob Falloner's memory
+and conscience--yet one that was vague. Then he suddenly remembered that
+before leaving New York he had received a letter from Houston informing
+him of Lasham's death, reminding him of his previous bounty, and begging
+him--if he went West--to break the news to the Lasham family. There was
+also some allusion to a joke about his (Bob's) photograph, which he had
+dismissed as unimportant, and even now could not remember clearly. For a
+few moments his conscience pricked him that he should have forgotten it
+all, but now he could make amends by this providential delay. It was not
+a task to his liking; in any other circumstances he would have written,
+but he would not shirk it now.
+
+Shepherdstown was on the main line of the Kansas Pacific Road, and as he
+alighted at its station, the big through trains from San Francisco
+swept out of the stormy distance and stopped also. He remembered, as he
+mingled with the passengers, hearing a childish voice ask if this was
+the Californian train. He remembered hearing the amused and patient
+reply of the station-master: "Yes, sonny--here she is again, and here's
+her passengers," as he got into the omnibus and drove to the hotel. Here
+he resolved to perform his disagreeable duty as quickly as possible,
+and on his way to his room stopped for a moment at the office to ask for
+Ricketts' address. The clerk, after a quick glance of curiosity at his
+new guest, gave it to him readily, with a somewhat familiar smile. It
+struck Falloner also as being odd that he had not been asked to write
+his name on the hotel register, but this was a saving of time he was not
+disposed to question, as he had already determined to make his visit to
+Ricketts at once, before dinner. It was still early evening.
+
+He was washing his hands in his bedroom when there came a light tap at
+his sitting-room door. Falloner quickly resumed his coat and entered the
+sitting-room as the porter ushered in a young lady holding a small boy
+by the hand. But, to Falloner's utter consternation, no sooner had the
+door closed on the servant than the boy, with a half-apologetic glance
+at the young lady, uttered a childish cry, broke from her, and calling,
+"Dick! Dick!" ran forward and leaped into Falloner's arms.
+
+The mere shock of the onset and his own amazement left Bob without
+breath for words. The boy, with arms convulsively clasping his body, was
+imprinting kisses on Bob's waistcoat in default of reaching his face.
+At last Falloner managed gently but firmly to free himself, and turned
+a half-appealing, half-embarrassed look upon the young lady, whose own
+face, however, suddenly flushed pink. To add to the confusion, the boy,
+in some reaction of instinct, suddenly ran back to her, frantically
+clutched at her skirts, and tried to bury his head in their folds.
+
+"He don't love me," he sobbed. "He don't care for me any more."
+
+The face of the young girl changed. It was a pretty face in its
+flushing; in the paleness and thoughtfulness that overcast it it was a
+striking face, and Bob's attention was for a moment distracted from
+the grotesqueness of the situation. Leaning over the boy she said in a
+caressing yet authoritative voice, "Run away for a moment, dear, until
+I call you," opening the door for him in a maternal way so inconsistent
+with the youthfulness of her figure that it struck him even in his
+confusion. There was something also in her dress and carriage that
+equally affected him: her garments were somewhat old-fashioned in style,
+yet of good material, with an odd incongruity to the climate and season.
+
+Under her rough outer cloak she wore a polka jacket and the thinnest of
+summer blouses; and her hat, though dark, was of rough straw, plainly
+trimmed. Nevertheless, these peculiarities were carried off with an air
+of breeding and self-possession that was unmistakable. It was possible
+that her cool self-possession might have been due to some instinctive
+antagonism, for as she came a step forward with coldly and
+clearly-opened gray eyes, he was vaguely conscious that she didn't like
+him. Nevertheless, her manner was formally polite, even, as he fancied,
+to the point of irony, as she began, in a voice that occasionally
+dropped into the lazy Southern intonation, and a speech that easily
+slipped at times into Southern dialect:--
+
+"I sent the child out of the room, as I could see that his advances
+were annoying to you, and a good deal, I reckon, because I knew your
+reception of them was still more painful to him. It is quite natural, I
+dare say, you should feel as you do, and I reckon consistent with your
+attitude towards him. But you must make some allowance for the depth of
+his feelings, and how he has looked forward to this meeting. When I
+tell you that ever since he received your last letter, he and his
+sister--until her illness kept her home--have gone every day when the
+Pacific train was due to the station to meet you; that they have taken
+literally as Gospel truth every word of your letter"--
+
+"My letter?" interrupted Falloner.
+
+The young girl's scarlet lip curled slightly. "I beg your pardon--I
+should have said the letter you dictated. Of course it wasn't in your
+handwriting--you had hurt your hand, you know," she added ironically.
+"At all events, they believed it all--that you were coming at any
+moment; they lived in that belief, and the poor things went to the
+station with your photograph in their hands so that they might be the
+first to recognize and greet you."
+
+"With my photograph?" interrupted Falloner again.
+
+The young girl's clear eyes darkened ominously. "I reckon," she said
+deliberately, as she slowly drew from her pocket the photograph Daddy
+Folsom had sent, "that that is your photograph. It certainly seems an
+excellent likeness," she added, regarding him with a slight suggestion
+of contemptuous triumph.
+
+In an instant the revelation of the whole mystery flashed upon him! The
+forgotten passage in Houston's letter about the stolen photograph stood
+clearly before him; the coincidence of his appearance in Shepherdstown,
+and the natural mistake of the children and their fair protector, were
+made perfectly plain. But with this relief and the certainty that he
+could confound her with an explanation came a certain mischievous desire
+to prolong the situation and increase his triumph. She certainly had not
+shown him any favor.
+
+"Have you got the letter also?" he asked quietly.
+
+She whisked it impatiently from her pocket and handed it to him. As he
+read Daddy's characteristic extravagance and recognized the familiar
+idiosyncrasies of his old companions, he was unable to restrain a smile.
+He raised his eyes, to meet with surprise the fair stranger's leveled
+eyebrows and brightly indignant eyes, in which, however, the rain was
+fast gathering with the lightning.
+
+"It may be amusing to you, and I reckon likely it was all a California
+joke," she said with slightly trembling lips; "I don't know No'thern
+gentlemen and their ways, and you seem to have forgotten our ways as you
+have your kindred. Perhaps all this may seem so funny to them: it may
+not seem funny to that boy who is now crying his heart out in the hall;
+it may not be very amusing to that poor Cissy in her sick-bed longing
+to see her brother. It may be so far from amusing to her, that I should
+hesitate to bring you there in her excited condition and subject her
+to the pain that you have caused him. But I have promised her; she is
+already expecting us, and the disappointment may be dangerous, and I
+can only implore you--for a few moments at least--to show a little more
+affection than you feel." As he made an impulsive, deprecating gesture,
+yet without changing his look of restrained amusement, she stopped him
+hopelessly. "Oh, of course, yes, yes, I know it is years since you have
+seen them; they have no right to expect more; only--only--feeling as you
+do," she burst impulsively, "why--oh, why did you come?"
+
+Here was Bob's chance. He turned to her politely; began gravely, "I
+simply came to"--when suddenly his face changed; he stopped as if struck
+by a blow. His cheek flushed, and then paled! Good God! What had he
+come for? To tell them that this brother they were longing for--living
+for--perhaps even dying for--was dead! In his crass stupidity, his
+wounded vanity over the scorn of the young girl, his anticipation of
+triumph, he had forgotten--totally forgotten--what that triumph meant!
+Perhaps if he had felt more keenly the death of Lasham the thought of it
+would have been uppermost in his mind; but Lasham was not his partner or
+associate, only a brother miner, and his single act of generosity was
+in the ordinary routine of camp life. If she could think him cold and
+heartless before, what would she think of him now? The absurdity of her
+mistake had vanished in the grim tragedy he had seemed to have cruelly
+prepared for her. The thought struck him so keenly that he stammered,
+faltered, and sank helplessly into a chair.
+
+The shock that he had received was so plain to her that her own
+indignation went out in the breath of it. Her lip quivered. "Don't you
+mind," she said hurriedly, dropping into her Southern speech; "I didn't
+go to hurt you, but I was just that mad with the thought of those
+pickaninnies, and the easy way you took it, that I clean forgot I'd no
+call to catechise you! And you don't know me from the Queen of Sheba.
+Well," she went on, still more rapidly, and in odd distinction to her
+previous formal slow Southern delivery, "I'm the daughter of Colonel
+Boutelle, of Bayou Sara, Louisiana; and his paw, and his paw before him,
+had a plantation there since the time of Adam, but he lost it and six
+hundred niggers during the Wah! We were pooh as pohverty--paw and maw
+and we four girls--and no more idea of work than a baby. But I had
+an education at the convent at New Orleans, and could play, and speak
+French, and I got a place as school-teacher here; I reckon the first
+Southern woman that has taught school in the No'th! Ricketts, who used
+to be our steward at Bayou Sara, told me about the pickaninnies, and how
+helpless they were, with only a brother who occasionally sent them money
+from California. I suppose I cottoned to the pooh little things at first
+because I knew what it was to be alone amongst strangers, Mr. Lasham; I
+used to teach them at odd times, and look after them, and go with them
+to the train to look for you. Perhaps Ricketts made me think you didn't
+care for them; perhaps I was wrong in thinking it was true, from the way
+you met Jimmy just now. But I've spoken my mind and you know why." She
+ceased and walked to the window.
+
+Falloner rose. The storm that had swept through him was over. The quick
+determination, resolute purpose, and infinite patience which had made
+him what he was were all there, and with it a conscientiousness which
+his selfish independence had hitherto kept dormant. He accepted the
+situation, not passively--it was not in his nature--but threw himself
+into it with all his energy.
+
+"You were quite right," he said, halting a moment beside her; "I don't
+blame you, and let me hope that later you may think me less to blame
+than you do now. Now, what's to be done? Clearly, I've first to make it
+right with Tommy--I mean Jimmy--and then we must make a straight dash
+over to the girl! Whoop!" Before she could understand from his face the
+strange change in his voice, he had dashed out of the room. In a moment
+he reappeared with the boy struggling in his arms. "Think of the little
+scamp not knowing his own brother!" he laughed, giving the boy a really
+affectionate, if slightly exaggerated hug, "and expecting me to open my
+arms to the first little boy who jumps into them! I've a great mind not
+to give him the present I fetched all the way from California. Wait
+a moment." He dashed into the bedroom, opened his valise--where he
+providentially remembered he had kept, with a miner's superstition, the
+first little nugget of gold he had ever found--seized the tiny bit of
+quartz of gold, and dashed out again to display it before Jimmy's eager
+eyes.
+
+If the heartiness, sympathy, and charming kindness of the man's whole
+manner and face convinced, even while it slightly startled, the young
+girl, it was still more effective with the boy. Children are quick
+to detect the false ring of affected emotion, and Bob's was so
+genuine--whatever its cause--that it might have easily passed for a
+fraternal expression with harder critics. The child trustfully nestled
+against him and would have grasped the gold, but the young man
+whisked it into his pocket. "Not until we've shown it to our little
+sister--where we're going now! I'm off to order a sleigh." He dashed
+out again to the office as if he found some relief in action, or, as
+it seemed to Miss Boutelle, to avoid embarrassing conversation. When he
+came back again he was carrying an immense bearskin from his luggage. He
+cast a critical look at the girl's unseasonable attire.
+
+"I shall wrap you and Jimmy in this--you know it's snowing frightfully."
+
+Miss Boutelle flushed a little. "I'm warm enough when walking," she
+said coldly. Bob glanced at her smart little French shoes, and
+thought otherwise. He said nothing, but hastily bundled his two guests
+downstairs and into the street. The whirlwind dance of the snow made the
+sleigh an indistinct bulk in the glittering darkness, and as the young
+girl for an instant stood dazedly still, Bob incontinently lifted her
+from her feet, deposited her in the vehicle, dropped Jimmy in her lap,
+and wrapped them both tightly in the bearskin. Her weight, which
+was scarcely more than a child's, struck him in that moment as being
+tantalizingly incongruous to the matronly severity of her manner and its
+strange effect upon him. He then jumped in himself, taking the direction
+from his companion, and drove off through the storm.
+
+The wind and darkness were not favorable to conversation, and only
+once did he break the silence. "Is there any one who would be likely to
+remember--me--where we are going?" he asked, in a lull of the storm.
+
+Miss Boutelle uncovered enough of her face to glance at him curiously.
+"Hardly! You know the children came here from the No'th after your
+mother's death, while you were in California."
+
+"Of course," returned Bob hurriedly; "I was only thinking--you know
+that some of my old friends might have called," and then collapsed into
+silence.
+
+After a pause a voice came icily, although under the furs: "Perhaps
+you'd prefer that your arrival be kept secret from the public? But they
+seem to have already recognized you at the hotel from your inquiry about
+Ricketts, and the photograph Jimmy had already shown them two weeks
+ago." Bob remembered the clerk's familiar manner and the omission to ask
+him to register. "But it need go no further, if you like," she added,
+with a slight return of her previous scorn.
+
+"I've no reason for keeping it secret," said Bob stoutly.
+
+No other words were exchanged until the sleigh drew up before a plain
+wooden house in the suburbs of the town. Bob could see at a glance that
+it represented the income of some careful artisan or small shopkeeper,
+and that it promised little for an invalid's luxurious comfort. They
+were ushered into a chilly sitting-room and Miss Boutelle ran upstairs
+with Jimmy to prepare the invalid for Bob's appearance. He noticed that
+a word dropped by the woman who opened the door made the young girl's
+face grave again, and paled the color that the storm had buffeted to
+her cheek. He noticed also that these plain surroundings seemed only
+to enhance her own superiority, and that the woman treated her with a
+deference in odd contrast to the ill-concealed disfavor with which she
+regarded him. Strangely enough, this latter fact was a relief to his
+conscience. It would have been terrible to have received their kindness
+under false pretenses; to take their just blame of the man he personated
+seemed to mitigate the deceit.
+
+The young girl rejoined him presently with troubled eyes. Cissy was
+worse, and only intermittently conscious, but had asked to see him. It
+was a short flight of stairs to the bedroom, but before he reached it
+Bob's heart beat faster than it had in any mountain climb. In one corner
+of the plainly furnished room stood a small truckle bed, and in it lay
+the invalid. It needed but a single glance at her flushed face in its
+aureole of yellow hair to recognize the likeness to Jimmy, although,
+added to that strange refinement produced by suffering, there was a
+spiritual exaltation in the child's look--possibly from delirium--that
+awed and frightened him; an awful feeling that he could not lie to this
+hopeless creature took possession of him, and his step faltered. But
+she lifted her small arms pathetically towards him as if she divined his
+trouble, and he sank on his knees beside her. With a tiny finger curled
+around his long mustache, she lay there silent. Her face was full of
+trustfulness, happiness, and consciousness--but she spoke no word.
+
+There was a pause, and Falloner, slightly lifting his head without
+disturbing that faintly clasping finger, beckoned Miss Boutelle to his
+side. "Can you drive?" he said, in a low voice.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Take my sleigh and get the best doctor in town to come here at once.
+Bring him with you if you can; if he can't come at once, drive home
+yourself. I will stay here."
+
+"But"--hesitated Miss Boutelle.
+
+"I will stay here," he repeated.
+
+The door closed on the young girl, and Falloner, still bending over the
+child, presently heard the sleigh-bells pass away in the storm. He still
+sat with his bent head, held by the tiny clasp of those thin fingers.
+But the child's eyes were fixed so intently upon him that Mrs. Ricketts
+leaned over the strangely-assorted pair and said--
+
+"It's your brother Dick, dearie. Don't you know him?"
+
+The child's lips moved faintly. "Dick's dead," she whispered.
+
+"She's wandering," said Mrs. Ricketts. "Speak to her." But Bob, with
+his eyes on the child's, lifted a protesting hand. The little sufferer's
+lips moved again. "It isn't Dick--it's the angel God sent to tell me."
+
+She spoke no more. And when Miss Boutelle returned with the doctor she
+was beyond the reach of finite voices. Falloner would have remained all
+night with them, but he could see that his presence in the contracted
+household was not desired. Even his offer to take Jimmy with him to the
+hotel was declined, and at midnight he returned alone.
+
+What his thoughts were that night may be easily imagined. Cissy's death
+had removed the only cause he had for concealing his real identity.
+There was nothing more to prevent his revealing all to Miss Boutelle and
+to offer to adopt the boy. But he reflected this could not be done until
+after the funeral, for it was only due to Cissy's memory that he should
+still keep up the role of Dick Lasham as chief mourner. If it seems
+strange that Bob did not at this crucial moment take Miss Boutelle into
+his confidence, I fear it was because he dreaded the personal effect
+of the deceit he had practiced upon her more than any ethical
+consideration; she had softened considerably in her attitude towards him
+that night; he was human, after all, and while he felt his conduct had
+been unselfish in the main, he dared not confess to himself how much her
+opinion had influenced him. He resolved that after the funeral he would
+continue his journey, and write to her, en route, a full explanation of
+his conduct, inclosing Daddy's letter as corroborative evidence. But on
+searching his letter-case he found that he had lost even that evidence,
+and he must trust solely at present to her faith in his improbable
+story.
+
+It seemed as if his greatest sacrifice was demanded at the funeral! For
+it could not be disguised that the neighbors were strongly prejudiced
+against him. Even the preacher improved the occasion to warn the
+congregation against the dangers of putting off duty until too late. And
+when Robert Falloner, pale, but self-restrained, left the church with
+Miss Boutelle, equally pale and reserved, on his arm, he could with
+difficulty restrain his fury at the passing of a significant smile
+across the faces of a few curious bystanders. "It was Amy Boutelle, that
+was the 'penitence' that fetched him, you bet!" he overheard, a barely
+concealed whisper; and the reply, "And it's a good thing she's made out
+of it too, for he's mighty rich!"
+
+At the church door he took her cold hand into his. "I am leaving
+to-morrow morning with Jimmy," he said, with a white face. "Good-by."
+
+"You are quite right; good-by," she replied as briefly, but with the
+faintest color. He wondered if she had heard it too.
+
+Whether she had heard it or not, she went home with Mrs. Ricketts
+in some righteous indignation, which found--after the young lady's
+habit--free expression. Whatever were Mr. Lasham's faults of omission it
+was most un-Christian to allude to them there, and an insult to the poor
+little dear's memory who had forgiven them. Were she in his shoes she
+would shake the dust of the town off her feet; and she hoped he would.
+She was a little softened on arriving to find Jimmy in tears. He had
+lost Dick's photograph--or Dick had forgotten to give it back at
+the hotel, for this was all he had in his pocket. And he produced a
+letter--the missing letter of Daddy, which by mistake Falloner
+had handed back instead of the photograph. Miss Boutelle saw the
+superscription and Californian postmark with a vague curiosity.
+
+"Did you look inside, dear? Perhaps it slipped in."
+
+Jimmy had not. Miss Boutelle did--and I grieve to say, ended by reading
+the whole letter.
+
+Bob Falloner had finished packing his things the next morning, and was
+waiting for Mr. Ricketts and Jimmy. But when a tap came at the door, he
+opened it to find Miss Boutelle standing there. "I have sent Jimmy into
+the bedroom," she said with a faint smile, "to look for the photograph
+which you gave him in mistake for this. I think for the present he
+prefers his brother's picture to this letter, which I have not explained
+to him or any one." She stopped, and raising her eyes to his, said
+gently: "I think it would have only been a part of your goodness to have
+trusted me, Mr. Falloner."
+
+"Then you will forgive me?" he said eagerly.
+
+She looked at him frankly, yet with a faint trace of coquetry that the
+angels might have pardoned. "Do you want me to say to you what Mrs.
+Ricketts says were the last words of poor Cissy?"
+
+A year later, when the darkness and rain were creeping up Sawyer's
+Ledge, and Houston and Daddy Folsom were sitting before their brushwood
+fire in the old Lasham cabin, the latter delivered himself oracularly.
+
+"It's a mighty queer thing, that news about Bob! It's not that he's
+married, for that might happen to any one; but this yer account in the
+paper of his wedding being attended by his 'little brother.' That gets
+me! To think all the while he was here he was lettin' on to us that he
+hadn't kith or kin! Well, sir, that accounts to me for one thing,--the
+sing'ler way he tumbled to that letter of poor Dick Lasham's little
+brother and sent him that draft! Don't ye see? It was a feller feelin'!
+Knew how it was himself! I reckon ye all thought I was kinder soft
+reading that letter o' Dick Lasham's little brother to him, but ye see
+what it did."
+
+
+
+
+THE YOUNGEST MISS PIPER
+
+
+I do not think that any of us who enjoyed the acquaintance of the Piper
+girls or the hospitality of Judge Piper, their father, ever cared for
+the youngest sister. Not on account of her extreme youth, for the eldest
+Miss Piper confessed to twenty-six--and the youth of the youngest sister
+was established solely, I think, by one big braid down her back. Neither
+was it because she was the plainest, for the beauty of the Piper girls
+was a recognized general distinction, and the youngest Miss Piper was
+not entirely devoid of the family charms. Nor was it from any lack of
+intelligence, nor from any defective social quality; for her precocity
+was astounding, and her good-humored frankness alarming. Neither do I
+think it could be said that a slight deafness, which might impart an
+embarrassing publicity to any statement--the reverse of our general
+feeling--that might be confided by any one to her private ear, was a
+sufficient reason; for it was pointed out that she always understood
+everything that Tom Sparrell told her in his ordinary tone of voice.
+Briefly, it was very possible that Delaware--the youngest Miss
+Piper--did not like us. Yet it was fondly believed by us that the other
+sisters failed to show that indifference to our existence shown by Miss
+Delaware, although the heartburnings, misunderstandings, jealousies,
+hopes and fears, and finally the chivalrous resignation with which we
+at last accepted the long foregone conclusion that they were not for
+us, and far beyond our reach, is not a part of this veracious chronicle.
+Enough that none of the flirtations of her elder sisters affected or
+were shared by the youngest Miss Piper. She moved in this heart-breaking
+atmosphere with sublime indifference, treating her sisters' affairs with
+what we considered rank simplicity or appalling frankness. Their few
+admirers who were weak enough to attempt to gain her mediation or
+confidence had reason to regret it.
+
+"It's no kind o' use givin' me goodies," she said to a helpless suitor
+of Louisiana Piper's who had offered to bring her some sweets, "for I
+ain't got no influence with Lu, and if I don't give 'em up to her when
+she hears of it, she'll nag me and hate you like pizen. Unless," she
+added thoughtfully, "it was wintergreen lozenges; Lu can't stand them,
+or anybody who eats them within a mile." It is needless to add that
+the miserable man, thus put upon his gallantry, was obliged in honor to
+provide Del with the wintergreen lozenges that kept him in disfavor
+and at a distance. Unfortunately, too, any predilection or pity for any
+particular suitor of her sister's was attended by even more disastrous
+consequences. It was reported that while acting as "gooseberry"--a role
+usually assigned to her--between Virginia Piper and an exceptionally
+timid young surveyor, during a ramble she conceived a rare sentiment of
+humanity towards the unhappy man. After once or twice lingering behind
+in the ostentatious picking of a wayside flower, or "running on ahead"
+to look at a mountain view, without any apparent effect on the shy and
+speechless youth, she decoyed him aside while her elder sister rambled
+indifferently and somewhat scornfully on. The youngest Miss Piper leaped
+upon the rail of a fence, and with the stalk of a thimbleberry in her
+mouth swung her small feet to and fro and surveyed him dispassionately.
+
+"Ye don't seem to be ketchin' on?" she said tentatively.
+
+The young man smiled feebly and interrogatively.
+
+"Don't seem to be either follering suit nor trumpin'," continued Del
+bluntly.
+
+"I suppose so--that is, I fear that Miss Virginia"--he stammered.
+
+"Speak up! I'm a little deaf. Say it again!" said Del, screwing up her
+eyes and eyebrows.
+
+The young man was obliged to admit in stentorian tones that his progress
+had been scarcely satisfactory.
+
+"You're goin' on too slow--that's it," said Del critically. "Why, when
+Captain Savage meandered along here with Jinny" (Virginia) "last
+week, afore we got as far as this he'd reeled off a heap of Byron and
+Jamieson" (Tennyson), "and sich; and only yesterday Jinny and Doctor
+Beveridge was blowin' thistletops to know which was a flirt all along
+the trail past the crossroads. Why, ye ain't picked ez much as a single
+berry for Jinny, let alone Lad's Love or Johnny Jumpups and Kissme's,
+and ye keep talkin' across me, you two, till I'm tired. Now look here,"
+she burst out with sudden decision, "Jinny's gone on ahead in a kind o'
+huff; but I reckon she's done that afore too, and you'll find her, jest
+as Spinner did, on the rise of the hill, sittin' on a pine stump and
+lookin' like this." (Here the youngest Miss Piper locked her
+fingers over her left knee, and drew it slightly up,--with a sublime
+indifference to the exposure of considerable small-ankled red
+stocking,--and with a far-off, plaintive stare, achieved a colorable
+imitation of her elder sister's probable attitude.) "Then you jest go up
+softly, like as you was a bear, and clap your hands on her eyes, and
+say in a disguised voice like this" (here Del turned on a high falsetto
+beyond any masculine compass), "'Who's who?' jest like in forfeits."
+
+"But she'll be sure to know me," said the surveyor timidly.
+
+"She won't," said Del in scornful skepticism.
+
+"I hardly think"--stammered the young man, with an awkward smile, "that
+I--in fact--she'll discover me--before I can get beside her."
+
+"Not if you go softly, for she'll be sittin' back to the road,
+so--gazing away, so"--the youngest Miss Piper again stared dreamily in
+the distance, "and you'll creep up just behind, like this."
+
+"But won't she be angry? I haven't known her long--that is--don't you
+see?" He stopped embarrassedly.
+
+"Can't hear a word you say," said Del, shaking her head decisively.
+"You've got my deaf ear. Speak louder, or come closer."
+
+But here the instruction suddenly ended, once and for all time! For
+whether the young man was seriously anxious to perfect himself; whether
+he was truly grateful to the young girl and tried to show it; whether he
+was emboldened by the childish appeal of the long brown distinguishing
+braid down her back, or whether he suddenly found something peculiarly
+provocative in the reddish brown eyes between their thickset hedge of
+lashes, and with the trim figure and piquant pose, and was seized with
+that hysteric desperation which sometimes attacks timidity itself, I
+cannot say! Enough that he suddenly put his arm around her waist and
+his lips to her soft satin cheek, peppered and salted as it was by
+sun-freckles and mountain air, and received a sound box on the ear for
+his pains. The incident was closed. He did not repeat the experiment on
+either sister. The disclosure of his rebuff seemed, however, to give a
+singular satisfaction to Red Gulch.
+
+While it may be gathered from this that the youngest Miss Piper was
+impervious to general masculine advances, it was not until later that
+Red Gulch was thrown into skeptical astonishment by the rumors that all
+this time she really had a lover! Allusion has been made to the charge
+that her deafness did not prevent her from perfectly understanding the
+ordinary tone of voice of a certain Mr. Thomas Sparrell.
+
+No undue significance was attached to this fact through the very
+insignificance and "impossibility" of that individual;--a lanky,
+red-haired youth, incapacitated for manual labor through lameness,--a
+clerk in a general store at the Cross Roads! He had never been the
+recipient of Judge Piper's hospitality; he had never visited the house
+even with parcels; apparently his only interviews with her or any of
+the family had been over the counter. To do him justice he certainly had
+never seemed to seek any nearer acquaintance; he was not at the church
+door when her sisters, beautiful in their Sunday gowns, filed into the
+aisle, with little Delaware bringing up the rear; he was not at the
+Democratic barbecue, that we attended without reference to our personal
+politics, and solely for the sake of Judge Piper and the girls; nor
+did he go to the Agricultural Fair Ball--open to all. His abstention we
+believed to be owing to his lameness; to a wholesome consciousness
+of his own social defects; or an inordinate passion for reading cheap
+scientific textbooks, which did not, however, add fluency nor conviction
+to his speech. Neither had he the abstraction of a student, for his
+accounts were kept with an accuracy which struck us, who dealt at the
+store, as ignobly practical, and even malignant. Possibly we might have
+expressed this opinion more strongly but for a certain rude vigor of
+repartee which he possessed, and a suggestion that he might have a
+temper on occasion. "Them red-haired chaps is like to be tetchy and
+to kinder see blood through their eyelashes," had been suggested by an
+observing customer.
+
+In short, little as we knew of the youngest Miss Piper, he was the last
+man we should have suspected her to select as an admirer. What we did
+know of their public relations, purely commercial ones, implied the
+reverse of any cordial understanding. The provisioning of the Piper
+household was entrusted to Del, with other practical odds and ends of
+housekeeping, not ornamental, and the following is said to be a truthful
+record of one of their overheard interviews at the store:--
+
+The youngest Miss Piper, entering, displacing a quantity of goods in the
+centre to make a sideways seat for herself, and looking around loftily
+as she took a memorandum-book and pencil from her pocket.
+
+"Ahem! If I ain't taking you away from your studies, Mr. Sparrell,
+maybe you'll be good enough to look here a minit;--but" (in affected
+politeness) "if I'm disturbing you I can come another time."
+
+Sparrell, placing the book he had been reading carefully under the
+counter, and advancing to Miss Delaware with a complete ignoring of her
+irony: "What can we do for you to-day, Miss Piper?"
+
+Miss Delaware, with great suavity of manner, examining her
+memorandum-book: "I suppose it wouldn't be shocking your delicate
+feelings too much to inform you that the canned lobster and oysters you
+sent us yesterday wasn't fit for hogs?"
+
+Sparrell (blandly): "They weren't intended for them, Miss Piper. If
+we had known you were having company over from Red Gulch to dinner, we
+might have provided something more suitable for them. We have a fair
+quality of oil-cake and corn-cobs in stock, at reduced figures. But the
+canned provisions were for your own family."
+
+Miss Delaware (secretly pleased at this sarcastic allusion to her
+sister's friends, but concealing her delight): "I admire to hear you
+talk that way, Mr. Sparrell; it's better than minstrels or a circus. I
+suppose you get it outer that book," indicating the concealed volume.
+"What do you call it?"
+
+Sparrell (politely): "The First Principles of Geology."
+
+Miss Delaware, leaning sideways and curling her little fingers around
+her pink ear: "Did you say the first principles of 'geology' or
+'politeness'? You know I am so deaf; but, of course, it couldn't be
+that."
+
+Sparrell (easily): "Oh no, you seem to have that in your hand"--pointing
+to Miss Delaware's memorandum-book--"you were quoting from it when you
+came in."
+
+Miss Delaware, after an affected silence of deep resignation: "Well!
+it's too bad folks can't just spend their lives listenin' to such
+elegant talk; I'd admire to do nothing else! But there's my family up at
+Cottonwood--and they must eat. They're that low that they expect me
+to waste my time getting food for 'em here, instead of drinking in the
+First Principles of the Grocery."
+
+"Geology," suggested Sparrell blandly. "The history of rock formation."
+
+"Geology," accepted Miss Delaware apologetically; "the history of rocks,
+which is so necessary for knowing just how much sand you can put in the
+sugar. So I reckon I'll leave my list here, and you can have the things
+toted to Cottonwood when you've got through with your First Principles."
+
+She tore out a list of her commissions from a page of her
+memorandum-book, leaped lightly from the counter, threw her brown braid
+from her left shoulder to its proper place down her back, shook out
+her skirts deliberately, and saying, "Thank you for a most improvin'
+afternoon, Mr. Sparrell," sailed demurely out of the store.
+
+A few auditors of this narrative thought it inconsistent that a daughter
+of Judge Piper and a sister of the angelic host should put up with a
+mere clerk's familiarity, but it was pointed out that "she gave him as
+good as he sent," and the story was generally credited. But certainly
+no one ever dreamed that it pointed to any more precious confidences
+between them.
+
+I think the secret burst upon the family, with other things, at the big
+picnic at Reservoir Canyon. This festivity had been arranged for weeks
+previously, and was undertaken chiefly by the "Red Gulch Contingent,"
+as we were called, as a slight return to the Piper family for their
+frequent hospitality. The Piper sisters were expected to bring nothing
+but their own personal graces and attend to the ministration of such
+viands and delicacies as the boys had profusely supplied.
+
+The site selected was Reservoir Canyon, a beautiful, triangular valley
+with very steep sides, one of which was crowned by the immense reservoir
+of the Pioneer Ditch Company. The sheer flanks of the canyon descended
+in furrowed lines of vines and clinging bushes, like folds of falling
+skirts, until they broke again into flounces of spangled shrubbery over
+a broad level carpet of monkshood, mariposas, lupines, poppies, and
+daisies. Tempered and secluded from the sun's rays by its lofty shadows,
+the delicious obscurity of the canyon was in sharp contrast to the
+fiery mountain trail that in the full glare of the noonday sky made
+its tortuous way down the hillside, like a stream of lava, to plunge
+suddenly into the valley and extinguish itself in its coolness as in a
+lake. The heavy odors of wild honeysuckle, syringa, and ceanothus that
+hung over it were lightened and freshened by the sharp spicing of pine
+and bay. The mountain breeze which sometimes shook the serrated tops of
+the large redwoods above with a chill from the remote snow peaks even in
+the heart of summer, never reached the little valley.
+
+It seemed an ideal place for a picnic. Everybody was therefore
+astonished to hear that an objection was suddenly raised to this perfect
+site. They were still more astonished to know that the objector was the
+youngest Miss Piper! Pressed to give her reasons, she had replied that
+the locality was dangerous; that the reservoir placed upon the mountain,
+notoriously old and worn out, had been rendered more unsafe by
+false economy in unskillful and hasty repairs to satisfy speculating
+stockbrokers, and that it had lately shown signs of leakage and sapping
+of its outer walls; that, in the event of an outbreak, the little
+triangular valley, from which there was no outlet, would be instantly
+flooded. Asked still more pressingly to give her authority for these
+details, she at first hesitated, and then gave the name of Tom Sparrell.
+
+The derision with which this statement was received by us all, as the
+opinion of a sedentary clerk, was quite natural and obvious, but not
+the anger which it excited in the breast of Judge Piper; for it was not
+generally known that the judge was the holder of a considerable number
+of shares in the Pioneer Ditch Company, and that large dividends had
+been lately kept up by a false economy of expenditure, to expedite a
+"sharp deal" in the stock, by which the judge and others could sell out
+of a failing company. Rather, it was believed, that the judge's anger
+was due only to the discovery of Sparrell's influence over his daughter
+and his interference with the social affairs of Cottonwood. It was said
+that there was a sharp scene between the youngest Miss Piper and the
+combined forces of the judge and the elder sisters, which ended in the
+former's resolute refusal to attend the picnic at all if that site was
+selected.
+
+As Delaware was known to be fearless even to the point of recklessness,
+and fond of gayety, her refusal only intensified the belief that she was
+merely "stickin' up for Sparrell's judgment" without any reference to
+her own personal safety or that of her sisters. The warning was laughed
+away; the opinion of Sparrell treated with ridicule as the dyspeptic and
+envious expression of an impractical man. It was pointed out that the
+reservoir had lasted a long time even in its alleged ruinous state; that
+only a miracle of coincidence could make it break down that particular
+afternoon of the picnic; that even if it did happen, there was no direct
+proof that it would seriously flood the valley, or at best add more than
+a spice of excitement to the affair. The "Red Gulch Contingent," who
+WOULD be there, was quite as capable of taking care of the ladies, in
+case of any accident, as any lame crank who wouldn't, but could only
+croak a warning to them from a distance. A few even wished something
+might happen that they might have an opportunity of showing their
+superior devotion; indeed, the prospect of carrying the half-submerged
+sisters, in a condition of helpless loveliness, in their arms to a place
+of safety was a fascinating possibility. The warning was conspicuously
+ineffective; everybody looked eagerly forward to the day and the
+unchanged locality; to the greatest hopefulness and anticipation was
+added the stirring of defiance, and when at last the appointed hour
+had arrived, the picnic party passed down the twisting mountain trail
+through the heat and glare in a fever of enthusiasm.
+
+It was a pretty sight to view this sparkling procession--the girls cool
+and radiant in their white, blue, and yellow muslins and flying ribbons,
+the "Contingent" in its cleanest ducks, and blue and red flannel shirts,
+the judge white-waistcoated and panama-hatted, with a new dignity
+borrowed from the previous circumstances, and three or four impressive
+Chinamen bringing up the rear with hampers--as it at last debouched into
+Reservoir Canyon.
+
+Here they dispersed themselves over the limited area, scarcely half an
+acre, with the freedom of escaped school children. They were secure in
+their woodland privacy. They were overlooked by no high road and
+its passing teams; they were safe from accidental intrusion from the
+settlement; indeed they went so far as to effect the exclusiveness of
+"clique." At first they amused themselves by casting humorously defiant
+eyes at the long low Ditch Reservoir, which peeped over the green wall
+of the ridge, six hundred feet above them; at times they even simulated
+an exaggerated terror of it, and one recognized humorist declaimed a
+grotesque appeal to its forbearance, with delightful local allusions.
+Others pretended to discover near a woodman's hut, among the belt of
+pines at the top of the descending trail, the peeping figure of the
+ridiculous and envious Sparrell. But all this was presently forgotten
+in the actual festivity. Small as was the range of the valley, it
+still allowed retreats during the dances for waiting couples among the
+convenient laurel and manzanita bushes which flounced the mountain side.
+After the dancing, old-fashioned children's games were revived with
+great laughter and half-hearted and coy protests from the ladies;
+notably one pastime known as "I'm a-pinin'," in which ingenious
+performance the victim was obliged to stand in the centre of a circle
+and publicly "pine" for a member of the opposite sex. Some hilarity was
+occasioned by the mischievous Miss "Georgy" Piper declaring, when it
+came to her turn, that she was "pinin'" for a look at the face of Tom
+Sparrell just now!
+
+In this local trifling two hours passed, until the party sat down to the
+long-looked for repast. It was here that the health of Judge Piper was
+neatly proposed by the editor of the "Argus." The judge responded with
+great dignity and some emotion. He reminded them that it had been his
+humble endeavor to promote harmony--that harmony so characteristic
+of American principles--in social as he had in political circles,
+and particularly among the strangely constituted yet purely American
+elements of frontier life. He accepted the present festivity with
+its overflowing hospitalities, not in recognition of himself--("yes!
+yes!")--nor of his family--(enthusiastic protests)--but of that American
+principle! If at one time it seemed probable that these festivities
+might be marred by the machinations of envy--(groans)--or that
+harmony interrupted by the importation of low-toned material
+interests--(groans)--he could say that, looking around him, he had never
+before felt--er--that--Here the judge stopped short, reeled slightly
+forward, caught at a camp-stool, recovered himself with an apologetic
+smile, and turned inquiringly to his neighbor.
+
+A light laugh--instantly suppressed--at what was at first supposed to
+be the effect of the "overflowing hospitality" upon the speaker himself,
+went around the male circle until it suddenly appeared that half a dozen
+others had started to their feet at the same time, with white faces, and
+that one of the ladies had screamed.
+
+"What is it?" everybody was asking with interrogatory smiles.
+
+It was Judge Piper who replied:--
+
+"A little shock of earthquake," he said blandly; "a mere thrill! I
+think," he added with a faint smile, "we may say that Nature herself has
+applauded our efforts in good old Californian fashion, and signified her
+assent. What are you saying, Fludder?"
+
+"I was thinking, sir," said Fludder deferentially, in a lower voice,
+"that if anything was wrong in the reservoir, this shock, you know,
+might"--
+
+He was interrupted by a faint crashing and crackling sound, and looking
+up, beheld a good-sized boulder, evidently detached from some greater
+height, strike the upland plateau at the left of the trail and bound
+into the fringe of forest beside it. A slight cloud of dust marked its
+course, and then lazily floated away in mid air. But it had been watched
+agitatedly, and it was evident that that singular loss of nervous
+balance which is apt to affect all those who go through the slightest
+earthquake experience was felt by all. But some sense of humor, however,
+remained.
+
+"Looks as if the water risks we took ain't goin' to cover earthquakes,"
+drawled Dick Frisney; "still that wasn't a bad shot, if we only knew
+what they were aiming at."
+
+"Do be quiet," said Virginia Piper, her cheeks pink with excitement.
+"Listen, can't you? What's that funny murmuring you hear now and then up
+there?"
+
+"It's only the snow-wind playin' with the pines on the summit. You girls
+won't allow anybody any fun but yourselves."
+
+But here a scream from "Georgy," who, assisted by Captain Fairfax, had
+mounted a camp-stool at the mouth of the valley, attracted everybody's
+attention. She was standing upright, with dilated eyes, staring at
+the top of the trail. "Look!" she said excitedly, "if the trail isn't
+moving!"
+
+Everybody faced in that direction. At the first glance it seemed indeed
+as if the trail was actually moving; wriggling and undulating its
+tortuous way down the mountain like a huge snake, only swollen to twice
+its usual size. But the second glance showed it to be no longer a trail
+but a channel of water, whose stream, lifted in a bore-like wall four or
+five feet high, was plunging down into the devoted valley.
+
+For an instant they were unable to comprehend even the nature of the
+catastrophe. The reservoir was directly over their heads; the bursting
+of its wall they had imagined would naturally bring down the water in a
+dozen trickling streams or falls over the cliff above them and along the
+flanks of the mountain. But that its suddenly liberated volume should
+overflow the upland beyond and then descend in a pent-up flood by their
+own trail and their only avenue of escape, had been beyond their wildest
+fancy.
+
+They met this smiting truth with that characteristic short laugh
+with which the American usually receives the blow of Fate or the
+unexpected--as if he recognized only the absurdity of the situation.
+Then they ran to the women, collected them together, and dragged them
+to vantages of fancied security among the bushes which flounced the long
+skirts of the mountain walls. But I leave this part of the description
+to the characteristic language of one of the party:--
+
+"When the flood struck us, it did not seem to take any stock of us in
+particular, but laid itself out to 'go for' that picnic for all it
+was worth! It wiped it off the face of the earth in about twenty-five
+seconds! It first made a clean break from stem to stern, carrying
+everything along with it. The first thing I saw was old Judge Piper,
+puttin' on his best licks to get away from a big can of strawberry ice
+cream that was trundling after him and trying to empty itself on his
+collar, whenever a bigger wave lifted it. He was followed by what was
+left of the brass band; the big drum just humpin' itself to keep
+abreast o' the ice cream, mixed up with camp-stools, music-stands, a few
+Chinamen, and then what they call in them big San Francisco processions
+'citizens generally.' The hull thing swept up the canyon inside o'
+thirty seconds. Then, what Captain Fairfax called 'the reflex action in
+the laws o' motion' happened, and darned if the hull blamed procession
+didn't sweep back again--this time all the heavy artillery, such as
+camp-kettles, lager beer kegs, bottles, glasses, and crockery that was
+left behind takin' the lead now, and Judge Piper and that ice cream can
+bringin' up the rear. As the jedge passed us the second time, we noticed
+that that ice cream can--hevin' swallowed water--was kinder losing its
+wind, and we encouraged the old man by shoutin' out, 'Five to one on
+him!' And then, you wouldn't believe what followed. Why, darn my skin,
+when that 'reflex' met the current at the other end, it just swirled
+around again in what Captain Fairfax called the 'centrifugal curve,' and
+just went round and round the canyon like ez when yer washin' the dirt
+out o' a prospectin' pan--every now and then washin' some one of the
+boys that was in it, like scum, up ag'in the banks.
+
+"We managed in this way to snake out the judge, jest ez he was sailin'
+round on the home stretch, passin' the quarter post two lengths ahead
+o' the can. A good deal o' the ice cream had washed away, but it took
+us ten minutes to shake the cracked ice and powdered salt out o' the
+old man's clothes, and warm him up again in the laurel bush where he
+was clinging. This sort o' 'Here we go round the mulberry bush' kep'
+on until most o' the humans was got out, and only the furniture o'
+the picnic was left in the race. Then it got kinder mixed up, and went
+sloshin' round here and there, ez the water kep' comin' down by the
+trail. Then Lulu Piper, what I was holdin' up all the time in a laurel
+bush, gets an idea, for all she was wet and draggled; and ez the things
+went bobbin' round, she calls out the figures o' a cotillon to 'em.
+'Two camp-stools forward.' 'Sashay and back to your places.' 'Change
+partners.' 'Hands all round.'
+
+"She was clear grit, you bet! And the joke caught on and the other
+girls jined in, and it kinder cheered 'em, for they was wantin' it. Then
+Fludder allowed to pacify 'em by sayin' he just figured up the size o'
+the reservoir and the size o' the canyon, and he kalkilated that the
+cube was about ekal, and the canyon couldn't flood any more. And then
+Lulu--who was peart as a jay and couldn't be fooled--speaks up and says,
+'What's the matter with the ditch, Dick?'
+
+"Lord! then we knew that she knew the worst; for of course all the water
+in the ditch itself--fifty miles of it!--was drainin' now into that
+reservoir and was bound to come down to the canyon."
+
+It was at this point that the situation became really desperate, for
+they had now crawled up the steep sides as far as the bushes afforded
+foothold, and the water was still rising. The chatter of the girls
+ceased, there were long silences, in which the men discussed the wildest
+plans, and proposed to tear their shirts into strips to make ropes to
+support the girls by sticks driven into the mountain side. It was in
+one of those intervals that the distinct strokes of a woodman's axe were
+heard high on the upland at the point where the trail descended to the
+canyon. Every ear was alert, but only those on one side of the canyon
+could get a fair view of the spot. This was the good fortune of Captain
+Fairfax and Georgy Piper, who had climbed to the highest bush on that
+side, and were now standing up, gazing excitedly in that direction.
+
+"Some one is cutting down a tree at the head of the trail," shouted
+Fairfax. The response and joyful explanation, "for a dam across the
+trail," was on everybody's lips at the same time.
+
+But the strokes of the axe were slow and painfully intermittent.
+Impatience burst out.
+
+"Yell to him to hurry up! Why haven't they brought two men?"
+
+"It's only one man," shouted the captain, "and he seems to be a cripple.
+By Jiminy!--it is--yes!--it's Tom Sparrell!"
+
+There was a dead silence. Then, I grieve to say, shame and its twin
+brother rage took possession of their weak humanity. Oh, yes! It was all
+of a piece! Why in the name of Folly hadn't he sent for an able-bodied
+man. Were they to be drowned through his cranky obstinacy?
+
+The blows still went on slowly. Presently, however, they seemed to
+alternate with other blows--but alas! they were slower, and if possible
+feebler!
+
+"Have they got another cripple to work?" roared the Contingent in one
+furious voice.
+
+"No--it's a woman--a little one--yes! a girl. Hello! Why, sure as you
+live, it's Delaware!"
+
+A spontaneous cheer burst from the Contingent, partly as a rebuke to
+Sparrell, I think, partly from some shame over their previous rage. He
+could take it as he liked.
+
+Still the blows went on distressingly slow. The girls were hoisted
+on the men's shoulders; the men were half submerged. Then there was a
+painful pause; then a crumbling crash. Another cheer went up from the
+canyon.
+
+"It's down! straight across the trail," shouted Fairfax, "and a part of
+the bank on the top of it."
+
+There was another moment of suspense. Would it hold or be carried away
+by the momentum of the flood? It held! In a few moments Fairfax again
+gave voice to the cheering news that the flow had stopped and the
+submerged trail was reappearing. In twenty minutes it was clear--a muddy
+river bed, but possible of ascent! Of course there was no diminution of
+the water in the canyon, which had no outlet, yet it now was possible
+for the party to swing from bush to bush along the mountain side until
+the foot of the trail--no longer an opposing one--was reached. There
+were some missteps and mishaps,--flounderings in the water, and some
+dangerous rescues,--but in half an hour the whole concourse stood
+upon the trail and commenced the ascent. It was a slow, difficult, and
+lugubrious procession--I fear not the best-tempered one, now that the
+stimulus of danger and chivalry was past. When they reached the dam made
+by the fallen tree, although they were obliged to make a long detour to
+avoid its steep sides, they could see how successfully it had diverted
+the current to a declivity on the other side.
+
+But strangely enough they were greeted by nothing else! Sparrell and
+the youngest Miss Piper were gone; and when they at last reached the
+highroad, they were astounded to hear from a passing teamster that no
+one in the settlement knew anything of the disaster!
+
+This was the last drop in their cup of bitterness! They who had expected
+that the settlement was waiting breathlessly for their rescue, who
+anticipated that they would be welcomed as heroes, were obliged to
+meet the ill-concealed amusement of passengers and friends at their
+dishevelled and bedraggled appearance, which suggested only the
+blundering mishaps of an ordinary summer outing! "Boatin' in the
+reservoir, and fell in?" "Playing at canal-boat in the Ditch?" were some
+of the cheerful hypotheses. The fleeting sense of gratitude they had
+felt for their deliverers was dissipated by the time they had reached
+their homes, and their rancor increased by the information that when the
+earthquake occurred Mr. Tom Sparrell and Miss Delaware were enjoying
+a "pasear" in the forest--he having a half-holiday by virtue of
+the festival--and that the earthquake had revived his fears of a
+catastrophe. The two had procured axes in the woodman's hut and did what
+they thought was necessary to relieve the situation of the picnickers.
+But the very modesty of this account of their own performance had the
+effect of belittling the catastrophe itself, and the picnickers' report
+of their exceeding peril was received with incredulous laughter.
+
+For the first time in the history of Red Gulch there was a serious
+division between the Piper family, supported by the Contingent, and the
+rest of the settlement. Tom Sparrell's warning was remembered by
+the latter, and the ingratitude of the picnickers to their rescuers
+commented upon; the actual calamity to the reservoir was more or less
+attributed to the imprudent and reckless contiguity of the revelers on
+that day, and there were not wanting those who referred the accident
+itself to the machinations of the scheming Ditch Director Piper!
+
+It was said that there was a stormy scene in the Piper household that
+evening. The judge had demanded that Delaware should break off her
+acquaintance with Sparrell, and she had refused; the judge had demanded
+of Sparrell's employer that he should discharge him, and had been met
+with the astounding information that Sparrell was already a silent
+partner in the concern. At this revelation Judge Piper was alarmed;
+while he might object to a clerk who could not support a wife, as a
+consistent democrat he could not oppose a fairly prosperous tradesman.
+A final appeal was made to Delaware; she was implored to consider the
+situation of her sisters, who had all made more ambitious marriages
+or were about to make them. Why should she now degrade the family by
+marrying a country storekeeper?
+
+It is said that here the youngest Miss Piper made a memorable reply, and
+a revelation the truth of which was never gainsaid:--
+
+"You all wanter know why I'm going to marry Tom Sparrell?" she queried,
+standing up and facing the whole family circle.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Why I prefer him to the hull caboodle that you girls have married or
+are going to marry?" she continued, meditatively biting the end of her
+braid.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Well, he's the only man of the whole lot that hasn't proposed to me
+first."
+
+It is presumed that Sparrell made good the omission, or that the family
+were glad to get rid of her, for they were married that autumn. And
+really a later comparison of the family records shows that while Captain
+Fairfax remained "Captain Fairfax," and the other sons-in-law did not
+advance proportionately in standing or riches, the lame storekeeper of
+Red Gulch became the Hon. Senator Tom Sparrell.
+
+
+
+
+A WIDOW OF THE SANTA ANA VALLEY
+
+
+The Widow Wade was standing at her bedroom window staring out, in that
+vague instinct which compels humanity in moments of doubt and perplexity
+to seek this change of observation or superior illumination. Not that
+Mrs. Wade's disturbance was of a serious character. She had passed the
+acute stage of widowhood by at least two years, and the slight redness
+of her soft eyelids as well as the droop of her pretty mouth were
+merely the recognized outward and visible signs of the grievously minded
+religious community in which she lived. The mourning she still wore
+was also partly in conformity with the sad-colored garments of
+her neighbors, and the necessities of the rainy season. She was in
+comfortable circumstances, the mistress of a large ranch in the valley,
+which had lately become more valuable by the extension of a wagon road
+through its centre. She was simply worrying whether she should go to
+a "sociable" ending with "a dance"--a daring innovation of some
+strangers--at the new hotel, or continue to eschew such follies, that
+were, according to local belief, unsuited to "a vale of tears."
+
+Indeed at this moment the prospect she gazed abstractedly upon seemed
+to justify that lugubrious description. The Santa Ana Valley--a long
+monotonous level--was dimly visible through moving curtains of rain or
+veils of mist, to the black mourning edge of the horizon, and had looked
+like that for months. The valley--in some remote epoch an arm of the San
+Francisco Bay--every rainy season seemed to be trying to revert to its
+original condition, and, long after the early spring had laid on its
+liberal color in strips, bands, and patches of blue and yellow, the
+blossoms of mustard and lupine glistened like wet paint. Nevertheless on
+that rich alluvial soil Nature's tears seemed only to fatten the
+widow's acres and increase her crops. Her neighbors, too, were equally
+prosperous. Yet for six months of the year the recognized expression
+of Santa Ana was one of sadness, and for the other six months--of
+resignation. Mrs. Wade had yielded early to this influence, as she had
+to others, in the weakness of her gentle nature, and partly as it was
+more becoming the singular tragedy that had made her a widow.
+
+The late Mr. Wade had been found dead with a bullet through his head in
+a secluded part of the road over Heavy Tree Hill in Sonora County. Near
+him lay two other bodies, one afterwards identified as John Stubbs, a
+resident of the Hill, and probably a traveling companion of Wade's,
+and the other a noted desperado and highwayman, still masked, as at the
+moment of the attack. Wade and his companion had probably sold their
+lives dearly, and against odds, for another mask was found on the
+ground, indicating that the attack was not single-handed, and as
+Wade's body had not yet been rifled, it was evident that the remaining
+highwayman had fled in haste. The hue and cry had been given by
+apparently the only one of the travelers who escaped, but as he was
+hastening to take the overland coach to the East at the time, his
+testimony could not be submitted to the coroner's deliberation. The
+facts, however, were sufficiently plain for a verdict of willful murder
+against the highwayman, although it was believed that the absent witness
+had basely deserted his companion and left him to his fate, or, as was
+suggested by others, that he might even have been an accomplice. It
+was this circumstance which protracted comment on the incident, and
+the sufferings of the widow, far beyond that rapid obliteration which
+usually overtook such affairs in the feverish haste of the early days.
+It caused her to remove to Santa Ana, where her old father had feebly
+ranched a "quarter section" in the valley. He survived her husband
+only a few months, leaving her the property, and once more in mourning.
+Perhaps this continuity of woe endeared her to a neighborhood where
+distinctive ravages of diphtheria or scarlet fever gave a kind of social
+preeminence to any household, and she was so sympathetically assisted by
+her neighbors in the management of the ranch that, from an unkempt
+and wasteful wilderness, it became paying property. The slim, willowy
+figure, soft red-lidded eyes, and deep crape of "Sister Wade" at church
+or prayer-meeting was grateful to the soul of these gloomy worshipers,
+and in time she herself found that the arm of these dyspeptics of mind
+and body was nevertheless strong and sustaining. Small wonder that she
+should hesitate to-night about plunging into inconsistent, even though
+trifling, frivolities.
+
+But apart from this superficial reason, there was another instinctive
+one deep down in the recesses of Mrs. Wade's timid heart which she had
+kept to herself, and indeed would have tearfully resented had it been
+offered by another. The late Mr. Wade had been, in fact, a singular
+example of this kind of frivolous existence carried to a man-like
+excess. Besides being a patron of amusements, Mr. Wade gambled, raced,
+and drank. He was often home late, and sometimes not at all. Not that
+this conduct was exceptional in the "roaring days" of Heavy Tree Hill,
+but it had given Mrs. Wade perhaps an undue preference for a less
+certain, even if a more serious life. His tragic death was, of course,
+a kind of martyrdom, which exalted him in the feminine mind to a saintly
+memory; yet Mrs. Wade was not without a certain relief in that. It
+was voiced, perhaps crudely, by the widow of Abner Drake in a visit of
+condolence to the tearful Mrs. Wade a few days after Wade's death. "It's
+a vale o' sorrow, Mrs. Wade," said the sympathizer, "but it has its ups
+and downs, and I recken ye'll be feelin' soon pretty much as I did about
+Abner when HE was took. It was mighty soothin' and comfortin' to feel
+that whatever might happen now, I always knew just whar Abner was
+passin' his nights." Poor slim Mrs. Wade had no disquieting sense of
+humor to interfere with her reception of this large truth, and she
+accepted it with a burst of reminiscent tears.
+
+A long volleying shower had just passed down the level landscape, and
+was followed by a rolling mist from the warm saturated soil like the
+smoke of the discharge. Through it she could see a faint lightening
+of the hidden sun, again darkening through a sudden onset of rain, and
+changing as with her conflicting doubts and resolutions. Thus gazing,
+she was vaguely conscious of an addition to the landscape in the shape
+of a man who was passing down the road with a pack on his back like
+the tramping "prospectors" she had often seen at Heavy Tree Hill. That
+memory apparently settled her vacillating mind; she determined she
+would NOT go to the dance. But as she was turning away from the window
+a second figure, a horseman, appeared in another direction by a
+cross-road, a shorter cut through her domain. This she had no difficulty
+in recognizing as one of the strangers who were getting up the dance.
+She had noticed him at church on the previous Sunday. As he passed the
+house he appeared to be gazing at it so earnestly that she drew back
+from the window lest she should be seen. And then, for no reason
+whatever, she changed her mind once more, and resolved to go to the
+dance. Gravely announcing this fact to the wife of her superintendent
+who kept house with her in her loneliness, she thought nothing more
+about it. She should go in her mourning, with perhaps the addition of a
+white collar and frill.
+
+It was evident, however, that Santa Ana thought a good deal more than
+she did of this new idea, which seemed a part of the innovation already
+begun by the building up of the new hotel. It was argued by some that
+as the new church and new schoolhouse had been opened by prayer, it was
+only natural that a lighter festivity should inaugurate the opening of
+the hotel. "I reckon that dancin' is about the next thing to travelin'
+for gettin' up an appetite for refreshments, and that's what the
+landlord is kalkilatin' to sarve," was the remark of a gloomy but
+practical citizen on the veranda of "The Valley Emporium." "That's so,"
+rejoined a bystander; "and I notice on that last box o' pills I got for
+chills the directions say that a little 'agreeable exercise'--not too
+violent--is a great assistance to the working o' the pills."
+
+"I reckon that that Mr. Brooks who's down here lookin' arter mill
+property, got up the dance. He's bin round town canvassin' all the women
+folks and drummin' up likely gals for it. They say he actooally sent an
+invite to the Widder Wade," remarked another lounger. "Gosh! he's got
+cheek!"
+
+"Well, gentlemen," said the proprietor judicially, "while we don't
+intend to hev any minin' camp fandangos or 'Frisco falals round Santa
+Any--(Santa Ana was proud of its simple agricultural virtues)--I ain't
+so hard-shelled as not to give new things a fair trial. And, after all,
+it's the women folk that has the say about it. Why, there's old Miss
+Ford sez she hasn't kicked a fut sence she left Mizoori, but wouldn't
+mind trying it agin. Ez to Brooks takin' that trouble--well, I suppose
+it's along o' his bein' HEALTHY!" He heaved a deep dyspeptic sigh, which
+was faintly echoed by the others. "Why, look at him now, ridin' round
+on that black hoss o' his, in the wet since daylight and not carin' for
+blind chills or rhumatiz!"
+
+He was looking at a serape-draped horseman, the one the widow had seen
+on the previous night, who was now cantering slowly up the street.
+Seeing the group on the veranda, he rode up, threw himself lightly from
+his saddle, and joined them. He was an alert, determined, good-looking
+fellow of about thirty-five, whose smooth, smiling face hardly commended
+itself to Santa Ana, though his eyes were distinctly sympathetic. He
+glanced at the depressed group around him and became ominously serious.
+
+"When did it happen?" he asked gravely.
+
+"What happen?" said the nearest bystander.
+
+"The Funeral, Flood, Fight, or Fire. Which of the four F's was it?"
+
+"What are ye talkin' about?" said the proprietor stiffly, scenting some
+dangerous humor.
+
+"YOU," said Brooks promptly. "You're all standing here, croaking like
+crows, this fine morning. I passed YOUR farm, Johnson, not an hour ago;
+the wheat just climbing out of the black adobe mud as thick as rows of
+pins on paper--what have YOU to grumble at? I saw YOUR stock, Briggs,
+over on Two-Mile Bottom, waddling along, fat as the adobe they were
+sticking in, their coats shining like fresh paint--what's the matter
+with YOU? And," turning to the proprietor, "there's YOUR shed, Saunders,
+over on the creek, just bursting with last year's grain that you know
+has gone up two hundred per cent. since you bought it at a bargain--what
+are YOU growling at? It's enough to provoke a fire or a famine to hear
+you groaning--and take care it don't, some day, as a lesson to you."
+
+All this was so perfectly true of the prosperous burghers that they
+could not for a moment reply. But Briggs had recourse to what he
+believed to be a retaliatory taunt.
+
+"I heard you've been askin' Widow Wade to come to your dance," he said,
+with a wink at the others. "Of course she said 'Yes.'"
+
+"Of course she did," returned Brooks coolly. "I've just got her note."
+
+"What?" ejaculated the three men together. "Mrs. Wade comin'?"
+
+"Certainly! Why shouldn't she? And it would do YOU good to come too,
+and shake the limp dampness out o' you," returned Brooks, as he quietly
+remounted his horse and cantered away.
+
+"Darned ef I don't think he's got his eye on the widder," said Johnson
+faintly.
+
+"Or the quarter section," added Briggs gloomily.
+
+For all that, the eventful evening came, with many lights in the
+staring, undraped windows of the hotel, coldly bright bunting on the
+still damp walls of the long dining-room, and a gentle downpour from the
+hidden skies above. A close carryall was especially selected to bring
+Mrs. Wade and her housekeeper. The widow arrived, looking a little
+slimmer than usual in her closely buttoned black dress, white collar and
+cuffs, very glistening in eye and in hair,--whose glossy black ringlets
+were perhaps more elaborately arranged than was her custom,--and with
+a faint coming and going of color, due perhaps to her agitation at this
+tentative reentering into worldly life, which was nevertheless quite
+virginal in effect. A vague solemnity pervaded the introductory
+proceedings, and a singular want of sociability was visible in the
+"sociable" part of the entertainment. People talked in whispers or with
+that grave precision which indicates good manners in rural communities;
+conversed painfully with other people whom they did not want to talk to
+rather than appear to be alone, or rushed aimlessly together like water
+drops, and then floated in broken, adherent masses over the floor. The
+widow became a helpless, religious centre of deacons and Sunday-school
+teachers, which Brooks, untiring, yet fruitless, in his attempt to
+produce gayety, tried in vain to break. To this gloom the untried
+dangers of the impending dance, duly prefigured by a lonely cottage
+piano and two violins in a desert of expanse, added a nervous
+chill. When at last the music struck up--somewhat hesitatingly and
+protestingly, from the circumstance that the player was the church
+organist, and fumbled mechanically for his stops, the attempt to make
+up a cotillon set was left to the heroic Brooks. Yet he barely escaped
+disaster when, in posing the couples, he incautiously begged them to
+look a little less as if they were waiting for the coffin to be borne
+down the aisle between them, and was rewarded by a burst of tears from
+Mrs. Johnson, who had lost a child two years before, and who had to
+be led away, while her place in the set was taken by another. Yet the
+cotillon passed off; a Spanish dance succeeded; "Moneymusk," with the
+Virginia Reel, put a slight intoxicating vibration into the air, and
+healthy youth at last asserted itself in a score of freckled but buxom
+girls in white muslin, with romping figures and laughter, at the lower
+end of the room. Still a rigid decorum reigned among the elder dancers,
+and the figures were called out in grave formality, as if, to Brooks's
+fancy, they were hymns given from the pulpit, until at the close of
+the set, in half-real, half-mock despair, he turned desperately to Mrs.
+Wade, his partner:--
+
+"Do you waltz?"
+
+Mrs. Wade hesitated. She HAD, before marriage, and was a good waltzer.
+"I do," she said timidly, "but do you think they"--
+
+But before the poor widow could formulate her fears as to the reception
+of "round dances," Brooks had darted to the piano, and the next moment
+she heard with a "fearful joy" the opening bars of a waltz. It was an
+old Julien waltz, fresh still in the fifties, daring, provocative
+to foot, swamping to intellect, arresting to judgment, irresistible,
+supreme! Before Mrs. Wade could protest, Brooks's arm had gathered up
+her slim figure, and with one quick backward sweep and swirl they were
+off! The floor was cleared for them in a sudden bewilderment of alarm--a
+suspense of burning curiosity. The widow's little feet tripped quickly,
+her long black skirt swung out; as she turned the corner there was
+not only a sudden revelation of her pretty ankles, but, what was more
+startling, a dazzling flash of frilled and laced petticoat, which
+at once convinced every woman in the room that the act had been
+premeditated for days! Yet even that criticism was presently forgotten
+in the pervading intoxication of the music and the movement. The younger
+people fell into it with wild rompings, whirlings, and clasping of hands
+and waists. And stranger than all, a corybantic enthusiasm seized upon
+the emotionally religious, and those priests and priestesses of Cybele
+who were famous for their frenzy and passion in camp-meeting devotions
+seemed to find an equal expression that night in the waltz. And when,
+flushed and panting, Mrs. Wade at last halted on the arm of her partner,
+they were nearly knocked over by the revolving Johnson and Mrs. Stubbs
+in a whirl of gloomy exultation! Deacons and Sunday-school teachers
+waltzed together until the long room shook, and the very bunting on
+the walls waved and fluttered with the gyrations of those religious
+dervishes. Nobody knew--nobody cared how long this frenzy lasted--it
+ceased only with the collapse of the musicians. Then, with much vague
+bewilderment, inward trepidation, awkward and incoherent partings,
+everybody went dazedly home; there was no other dancing after that--the
+waltz was the one event of the festival and of the history of Santa Ana.
+And later that night, when the timid Mrs. Wade, in the seclusion of her
+own room and the disrobing of her slim figure, glanced at her spotless
+frilled and laced petticoat lying on a chair, a faint smile--the first
+of her widowhood--curved the corners of her pretty mouth.
+
+A week of ominous silence regarding the festival succeeded in Santa
+Ana. The local paper gave the fullest particulars of the opening of the
+hotel, but contented itself with saying: "The entertainment concluded
+with a dance." Mr. Brooks, who felt himself compelled to call upon his
+late charming partner twice during the week, characteristically soothed
+her anxieties as to the result. "The fact of it is, Mrs. Wade, there's
+really nobody in particular to blame--and that's what gets them. They're
+all mixed up in it, deacons and Sunday-school teachers; and when
+old Johnson tried to be nasty the other evening and hoped you hadn't
+suffered from your exertions that night, I told him you hadn't quite
+recovered yet from the physical shock of having been run into by him and
+Mrs. Stubbs, but that, you being a lady, you didn't tell just how you
+felt at the exhibition he and she made of themselves. That shut him up."
+
+"But you shouldn't have said that," said Mrs. Wade with a frightened
+little smile.
+
+"No matter," returned Brooks cheerfully. "I'll take the blame of it with
+the others. You see they'll have to have a scapegoat--and I'm just the
+man, for I got up the dance! And as I'm going away, I suppose I shall
+bear off the sin with me into the wilderness."
+
+"You're going away?" repeated Mrs. Wade in more genuine concern.
+
+"Not for long," returned Brooks laughingly. "I came here to look up a
+mill site, and I've found it. Meantime I think I've opened their eyes."
+
+"You have opened mine," said the widow with timid frankness.
+
+They were soft pretty eyes when opened, in spite of their heavy red
+lids, and Mr. Brooks thought that Santa Ana would be no worse if they
+remained open. Possibly he looked it, for Mrs. Wade said hurriedly, "I
+mean--that is--I've been thinking that life needn't ALWAYS be as gloomy
+as we make it here. And even HERE, you know, Mr. Brooks, we have six
+months' sunshine--though we always forget it in the rainy season."
+
+"That's so," said Brooks cheerfully. "I once lost a heap of money
+through my own foolishness, and I've managed to forget it, and I even
+reckon to get it back again out of Santa Ana if my mill speculation
+holds good. So good-by, Mrs. Wade--but not for long." He shook her
+hand frankly and departed, leaving the widow conscious of a certain
+sympathetic confidence and a little grateful for--she knew not what.
+
+This feeling remained with her most of the afternoon, and even imparted
+a certain gayety to her spirits, to the extent of causing her to hum
+softly to herself; the air being oddly enough the Julien Waltz. And
+when, later in the day, the shadows were closing in with the rain,
+word was brought to her that a stranger wished to see her in the
+sitting-room, she carried a less mournful mind to this function of her
+existence. For Mrs. Wade was accustomed to give audience to traveling
+agents, tradesmen, working-hands and servants, as chatelaine of her
+ranch, and the occasion was not novel. Yet on entering the room, which
+she used partly as an office, she found some difficulty in classifying
+the stranger, who at first glance reminded her of the tramping miner
+she had seen that night from her window. He was rather incongruously
+dressed, some articles of his apparel being finer than others; he wore
+a diamond pin in a scarf folded over a rough "hickory" shirt; his light
+trousers were tucked in common mining boots that bore stains of travel
+and a suggestion that he had slept in his clothes. What she could see
+of his unshaven face in that uncertain light expressed a kind of dogged
+concentration, overlaid by an assumption of ease. He got up as she came
+in, and with a slight "How do, ma'am," shut the door behind her and
+glanced furtively around the room.
+
+"What I've got to say to ye, Mrs. Wade,--as I reckon you be,--is
+strictly private and confidential! Why, ye'll see afore I get through.
+But I thought I might just as well caution ye agin our being disturbed."
+
+Overcoming a slight instinct of repulsion, Mrs. Wade returned, "You can
+speak to me here; no one will interrupt you--unless I call them," she
+added with a little feminine caution.
+
+"And I reckon ye won't do that," he said with a grim smile. "You are the
+widow o' Pulaski Wade, late o' Heavy Tree Hill, I reckon?"
+
+"I am," said Mrs. Wade.
+
+"And your husband's buried up thar in the graveyard, with a monument
+over him setting forth his virtues ez a Christian and a square man and a
+high-minded citizen? And that he was foully murdered by highwaymen?"
+
+"Yes," said Mrs. Wade, "that is the inscription."
+
+"Well, ma'am, a bigger pack o' lies never was cut on stone!"
+
+Mrs. Wade rose, half in indignation, half in terror.
+
+"Keep your sittin'," said the stranger, with a warning wave of his
+hand. "Wait till I'm through, and then you call in the hull State o'
+Californy, ef ye want."
+
+The stranger's manner was so doggedly confident that Mrs. Wade sank
+back tremblingly in her chair. The man put his slouch hat on his knee,
+twirled it round once or twice, and then said with the same stubborn
+deliberation:--
+
+"The highwayman in that business was your husband--Pulaski Wade--and his
+gang, and he was killed by one o' the men he was robbin'. Ye see,
+ma'am, it used to be your husband's little game to rope in three or four
+strangers in a poker deal at Spanish Jim's saloon--I see you've heard o'
+the place," he interpolated as Mrs. Wade drew back suddenly--"and when
+he couldn't clean 'em out in that way, or they showed a little more
+money than they played, he'd lay for 'em with his gang in a lone part of
+the trail, and go through them like any road agent. That's what he did
+that night--and that's how he got killed."
+
+"How do you know this?" said Mrs. Wade, with quivering lips.
+
+"I was one o' the men he went through before he was killed. And I'd hev
+got my money back, but the rest o' the gang came up, and I got away jest
+in time to save my life and nothin' else. Ye might remember thar was one
+man got away and giv' the alarm, but he was goin' on to the States by
+the overland coach that night and couldn't stay to be a witness. I was
+that man. I had paid my passage through, and I couldn't lose THAT too
+with my other money, so I went."
+
+Mrs. Wade sat stunned. She remembered the missing witness, and how she
+had longed to see the man who was last with her husband; she
+remembered Spanish Jim's saloon--his well-known haunt; his frequent and
+unaccountable absences, the sudden influx of money which he always said
+he had won at cards; the diamond ring he had given her as the result of
+"a bet;" the forgotten recurrence of other robberies by a secret masked
+gang; a hundred other things that had worried her, instinctively,
+vaguely. She knew now, too, the meaning of the unrest that had driven
+her from Heavy Tree Hill--the strange unformulated fears that had
+haunted her even here. Yet with all this she felt, too, her present
+weakness--knew that this man had taken her at a disadvantage, that she
+ought to indignantly assert herself, deny everything, demand proof, and
+brand him a slanderer!
+
+"How did--you--know it was my husband?" she stammered.
+
+"His mask fell off in the fight; you know another mask was found--it
+was HIS. I saw him as plainly as I see him there!" he pointed to a
+daguerreotype of her husband which stood upon her desk.
+
+Mrs. Wade could only stare vacantly, hopelessly. After a pause the man
+continued in a less aggressive manner and more confidential tone, which,
+however, only increased her terror. "I ain't sayin' that YOU knowed
+anything about this, ma'am, and whatever other folks might say when THEY
+know of it, I'll allers say that you didn't."
+
+"What, then, did you come here for?" said the widow desperately.
+
+"What do I come here for?" repeated the man grimly, looking around the
+room; "what did I come to this yer comfortable home--this yer big ranch
+and to a rich woman like yourself for? Well, Mrs. Wade, I come to get
+the six hundred dollars your husband robbed me of, that's all! I ain't
+askin' more! I ain't askin' interest! I ain't askin' compensation for
+havin' to run for my life--and," again looking grimly round the walls,
+"I ain't askin' more than you will give--or is my rights."
+
+"But this house never was his; it was my father's," gasped Mrs. Wade;
+"you have no right"--
+
+"Mebbe 'yes' and mebbe 'no,' Mrs. Wade," interrupted the man, with
+a wave of his hat; "but how about them two checks to bearer for two
+hundred dollars each found among your husband's effects, and collected
+by your lawyer for you--MY CHECKS, Mrs. Wade?"
+
+A wave of dreadful recollection overwhelmed her. She remembered the
+checks found upon her husband's body, known only to her and her lawyer,
+believed to be gambling gains, and collected at once under his legal
+advice. Yet she made one more desperate effort in spite of the instinct
+that told her he was speaking the truth.
+
+"But you shall have to prove it--before witnesses."
+
+"Do you WANT me to prove it before witnesses?" said the man, coming
+nearer her. "Do you want to take my word and keep it between ourselves,
+or do you want to call in your superintendent and his men, and all
+Santy Any, to hear me prove your husband was a highwayman, thief, and
+murderer? Do you want to knock over that monument on Heavy Tree Hill,
+and upset your standing here among the deacons and elders? Do you want
+to do all this and be forced, even by your neighbors, to pay me in the
+end, as you will? Ef you do, call in your witnesses now and let's have
+it over. Mebbe it would look better ef I got the money out of YOUR
+FRIENDS than ye--a woman! P'raps you're right!"
+
+He made a step towards the door, but she stopped him.
+
+"No! no! wait! It's a large sum--I haven't it with me," she stammered,
+thoroughly beaten.
+
+"Ye kin get it."
+
+"Give me time!" she implored. "Look! I'll give you a hundred down
+now,--all I have here,--the rest another time!" She nervously opened a
+drawer of her desk and taking out a buckskin bag of gold thrust it in
+his hand. "There! go away now!" She lifted her thin hands despairingly
+to her head. "Go! do!"
+
+The man seemed struck by her manner. "I don't want to be hard on
+a woman," he said slowly. "I'll go now and come back again at nine
+to-night. You can git the money, or what's as good, a check to bearer,
+by then. And ef ye'll take my advice, you won't ask no advice from
+others, ef you want to keep your secret. Just now it's safe with me; I'm
+a square man, ef I seem to be a hard one." He made a gesture as if to
+take her hand, but as she drew shrinkingly away, he changed it to an
+awkward bow, and the next moment was gone.
+
+She started to her feet, but the unwonted strain upon her nerves and
+frail body had been greater than she knew. She made a step forward, felt
+the room whirl round her and then seem to collapse beneath her feet,
+and, clutching at her chair, sank back into it, fainting.
+
+How long she lay there she never knew. She was at last conscious of some
+one bending over her, and a voice--the voice of Mr. Brooks--in her ear,
+saying, "I beg your pardon; you seem ill. Shall I call some one?"
+
+"No!" she gasped, quickly recovering herself with an effort, and staring
+round her. "Where is--when did you come in?"
+
+"Only this moment. I was leaving tonight, sooner than I expected, and
+thought I'd say good-by. They told me that you had been engaged with a
+stranger, but he had just gone. I beg your pardon--I see you are ill. I
+won't detain you any longer."
+
+"No! no! don't go! I am better--better," she said feverishly. As she
+glanced at his strong and sympathetic face a wild idea seized her. He
+was a stranger here, an alien to these people, like herself. The advice
+that she dare not seek from others, from her half-estranged religious
+friends, from even her superintendent and his wife, dare she ask from
+him? Perhaps he saw this frightened doubt, this imploring appeal, in her
+eyes, for he said gently, "Is it anything I can do for you?"
+
+"Yes," she said, with the sudden desperation of weakness; "I want you to
+keep a secret."
+
+"Yours?--yes!" he said promptly.
+
+Whereat poor Mrs. Wade instantly burst into tears. Then, amidst her
+sobs, she told him of the stranger's visit, of his terrible accusations,
+of his demands, his expected return, and her own utter helplessness. To
+her terror, as she went on she saw a singular change in his kind face;
+he was following her with hard, eager intensity. She had half hoped,
+even through her fateful instincts, that he might have laughed, manlike,
+at her fears, or pooh-poohed the whole thing. But he did not. "You say
+he positively recognized your husband?" he repeated quickly.
+
+"Yes, yes!" sobbed the widow, "and knew that daguerreotype!" she pointed
+to the desk.
+
+Brooks turned quickly in that direction. Luckily his back was towards
+her, and she could not see his face, and the quick, startled look that
+came into his eyes. But when they again met hers, it was gone, and even
+their eager intensity had changed to a gentle commiseration. "You have
+only his word for it, Mrs. Wade," he said gently, "and in telling your
+secret to another, you have shorn the rascal of half his power over you.
+And he knew it. Now, dismiss the matter from your mind and leave it all
+to me. I will be here a few minutes before nine--AND ALONE IN THIS ROOM.
+Let your visitor be shown in here, and don't let us be disturbed. Don't
+be alarmed," he added with a faint twinkle in his eye, "there will be no
+fuss and no exposure!"
+
+
+It lacked a few minutes of nine when Mr. Brooks was ushered into the
+sitting-room. As soon as he was alone he quietly examined the door and
+the windows, and having satisfied himself, took his seat in a chair
+casually placed behind the door. Presently he heard the sound of voices
+and a heavy footstep in the passage. He lightly felt his waistcoat
+pocket--it contained a pretty little weapon of power and precision, with
+a barrel scarcely two inches long.
+
+The door opened, and the person outside entered the room. In an instant
+Brooks had shut the door and locked it behind him. The man turned
+fiercely, but was faced by Brooks quietly, with one finger calmly hooked
+in his waistcoat pocket. The man slightly recoiled from him--not as much
+from fear as from some vague stupefaction. "What's that for? What's your
+little game?" he said half contemptuously.
+
+"No game at all," returned Brooks coolly. "You came here to sell a
+secret. I don't propose to have it given away first to any listener."
+
+"YOU don't--who are YOU?"
+
+"That's a queer question to ask of the man you are trying to
+personate--but I don't wonder! You're doing it d----d badly."
+
+"Personate--YOU?" said the stranger, with staring eyes.
+
+"Yes, ME," said Brooks quietly. "I am the only man who escaped from the
+robbery that night at Heavy Tree Hill and who went home by the Overland
+Coach."
+
+The stranger stared, but recovered himself with a coarse laugh. "Oh,
+well! we're on the same lay, it appears! Both after the widow--afore we
+show up her husband."
+
+"Not exactly," said Brooks, with his eyes fixed intently on the
+stranger. "You are here to denounce a highwayman who is DEAD and escaped
+justice. I am here to denounce one who is LIVING!--Stop! drop your hand;
+it's no use. You thought you had to deal only with a woman to-night, and
+your revolver isn't quite handy enough. There! down!--down! So! That'll
+do."
+
+"You can't prove it," said the man hoarsely.
+
+"Fool! In your story to that woman you have given yourself away. There
+were but two travelers attacked by the highwaymen. One was killed--I am
+the other. Where do YOU come in? What witness can you be--except as
+the highwayman that you are? Who is left to identify Wade but--his
+accomplice!"
+
+The man's suddenly whitened face made his unshaven beard seem to bristle
+over his face like some wild animal's. "Well, ef you kalkilate to blow
+me, you've got to blow Wade and his widder too. Jest you remember that,"
+he said whiningly.
+
+"I've thought of that," said Brooks coolly, "and I calculate that to
+prevent it is worth about that hundred dollars you got from that
+poor woman--and no more! Now, sit down at that table, and write as I
+dictate."
+
+The man looked at him in wonder, but obeyed.
+
+"Write," said Brooks, "'I hereby certify that my accusations against the
+late Pulaski Wade of Heavy Tree Hill are erroneous and groundless, and
+the result of mistaken identity, especially in regard to any complicity
+of his in the robbery of John Stubbs, deceased, and Henry Brooks, at
+Heavy Tree Hill, on the night of the 13th August, 1854.'"
+
+The man looked up with a repulsive smile. "Who's the fool now, Cap'n?
+What's become of your hold on the widder, now?"
+
+"Write!" said Brooks fiercely.
+
+The sound of a pen hurriedly scratching paper followed this first
+outburst of the quiet Brooks.
+
+"Sign it," said Brooks.
+
+The man signed it.
+
+"Now go," said Brooks, unlocking the door, "but remember, if you should
+ever be inclined to revisit Santa Ana, you will find ME living here
+also."
+
+The man slunk out of the door and into the passage like a wild animal
+returning to the night and darkness. Brooks took up the paper, rejoined
+Mrs. Wade in the parlor, and laid it before her.
+
+"But," said the widow, trembling even in her joy, "do you--do you think
+he was REALLY mistaken?"
+
+"Positive," said Brooks coolly. "It's true, it's a mistake that has cost
+you a hundred dollars, but there are some mistakes that are worth that
+to be kept quiet."
+
+*****
+
+They were married a year later; but there is no record that in after
+years of conjugal relations with a weak, charming, but sometimes trying
+woman, Henry Brooks was ever tempted to tell her the whole truth of the
+robbery of Heavy Tree Hill.
+
+
+
+
+THE MERMAID OF LIGHTHOUSE POINT
+
+
+Some forty years ago, on the northern coast of California, near the
+Golden Gate, stood a lighthouse. Of a primitive class, since superseded
+by a building more in keeping with the growing magnitude of the adjacent
+port, it attracted little attention from the desolate shore, and, it was
+alleged, still less from the desolate sea beyond. A gray structure of
+timber, stone, and glass, it was buffeted and harried by the constant
+trade winds, baked by the unclouded six months' sun, lost for a few
+hours in the afternoon sea-fog, and laughed over by circling guillemots
+from the Farallones. It was kept by a recluse--a preoccupied man of
+scientific tastes, who, in shameless contrast to his fellow immigrants,
+had applied to the government for this scarcely lucrative position as a
+means of securing the seclusion he valued more than gold. Some believed
+that he was the victim of an early disappointment in love--a view
+charitably taken by those who also believed that the government would
+not have appointed "a crank" to a position of responsibility. Howbeit,
+he fulfilled his duties, and, with the assistance of an Indian, even
+cultivated a small patch of ground beside the lighthouse. His isolation
+was complete! There was little to attract wanderers here: the nearest
+mines were fifty miles away; the virgin forest on the mountains inland
+were penetrated only by sawmills and woodmen from the Bay settlements,
+equally remote. Although by the shore-line the lights of the great port
+were sometimes plainly visible, yet the solitude around him was
+peopled only by Indians,--a branch of the great northern tribe of
+"root-diggers,"--peaceful and simple in their habits, as yet
+undisturbed by the white man, nor stirred into antagonism by aggression.
+Civilization only touched him at stated intervals, and then by the more
+expeditious sea from the government boat that brought him supplies. But
+for his contiguity to the perpetual turmoil of wind and sea, he might
+have passed a restful Arcadian life in his surroundings; for even his
+solitude was sometimes haunted by this faint reminder of the great port
+hard by that pulsated with an equal unrest. Nevertheless, the sands
+before his door and the rocks behind him seemed to have been untrodden
+by any other white man's foot since their upheaval from the ocean. It
+was true that the little bay beside him was marked on the map as "Sir
+Francis Drake's Bay," tradition having located it as the spot where
+that ingenious pirate and empire-maker had once landed his vessels and
+scraped the barnacles from his adventurous keels. But of this Edgar
+Pomfrey--or "Captain Pomfrey," as he was called by virtue of his
+half-nautical office--had thought little.
+
+For the first six months he had thoroughly enjoyed his seclusion. In
+the company of his books, of which he had brought such a fair store
+that their shelves lined his snug corners to the exclusion of more
+comfortable furniture, he found his principal recreation. Even his
+unwonted manual labor, the trimming of his lamp and cleaning of his
+reflectors, and his personal housekeeping, in which his Indian help at
+times assisted, he found a novel and interesting occupation. For outdoor
+exercise, a ramble on the sands, a climb to the rocky upland, or a pull
+in the lighthouse boat, amply sufficed him. "Crank" as he was supposed
+to be, he was sane enough to guard against any of those early lapses
+into barbarism which marked the lives of some solitary gold-miners.
+His own taste, as well as the duty of his office, kept his person and
+habitation sweet and clean, and his habits regular. Even the little
+cultivated patch of ground on the lee side of the tower was symmetrical
+and well ordered. Thus the outward light of Captain Pomfrey shone forth
+over the wilderness of shore and wave, even like his beacon, whatever
+his inward illumination may have been.
+
+It was a bright summer morning, remarkable even in the monotonous
+excellence of the season, with a slight touch of warmth which the
+invincible Northwest Trades had not yet chilled. There was still a faint
+haze off the coast, as if last night's fog had been caught in the quick
+sunshine, and the shining sands were hot, but without the usual dazzling
+glare. A faint perfume from a quaint lilac-colored beach-flower, whose
+clustering heads dotted the sand like bits of blown spume, took the
+place of that smell of the sea which the odorless Pacific lacked. A few
+rocks, half a mile away, lifted themselves above the ebb tide at varying
+heights as they lay on the trough of the swell, were crested with foam
+by a striking surge, or cleanly erased in the full sweep of the sea.
+Beside, and partly upon one of the higher rocks, a singular object was
+moving.
+
+Pomfrey was interested but not startled. He had once or twice seen seals
+disporting on these rocks, and on one occasion a sea-lion,--an estray
+from the familiar rocks on the other side of the Golden Gate. But he
+ceased work in his garden patch, and coming to his house, exchanged
+his hoe for a telescope. When he got the mystery in focus he suddenly
+stopped and rubbed the object-glass with his handkerchief. But even when
+he applied the glass to his eye for a second time, he could scarcely
+believe his eyesight. For the object seemed to be a WOMAN, the lower
+part of her figure submerged in the sea, her long hair depending over
+her shoulders and waist. There was nothing in her attitude to suggest
+terror or that she was the victim of some accident. She moved slowly
+and complacently with the sea, and even--a more staggering
+suggestion--appeared to be combing out the strands of her long hair with
+her fingers. With her body half concealed she might have been a mermaid!
+
+He swept the foreshore and horizon with his glass; there was neither
+boat nor ship--nor anything that moved, except the long swell of the
+Pacific. She could have come only from the sea; for to reach the rocks
+by land she would have had to pass before the lighthouse, while the
+narrow strip of shore which curved northward beyond his range of view he
+knew was inhabited only by Indians. But the woman was unhesitatingly
+and appallingly WHITE, and her hair light even to a golden gleam in the
+sunshine.
+
+Pomfrey was a gentleman, and as such was amazed, dismayed, and cruelly
+embarrassed. If she was a simple bather from some vicinity hitherto
+unknown and unsuspected by him, it was clearly his business to shut up
+his glass and go back to his garden patch--although the propinquity of
+himself and the lighthouse must have been as plainly visible to her as
+she was to him. On the other hand, if she was the survivor of some wreck
+and in distress--or, as he even fancied from her reckless manner, bereft
+of her senses, his duty to rescue her was equally clear. In his dilemma
+he determined upon a compromise and ran to his boat. He would pull out
+to sea, pass between the rocks and the curving sand-spit, and examine
+the sands and sea more closely for signs of wreckage, or some overlooked
+waiting boat near the shore. He would be within hail if she needed him,
+or she could escape to her boat if she had one.
+
+In another moment his boat was lifting on the swell towards the rocks.
+He pulled quickly, occasionally turning to note that the strange figure,
+whose movements were quite discernible to the naked eye, was still
+there, but gazing more earnestly towards the nearest shore for any sign
+of life or occupation. In ten minutes he had reached the curve where the
+trend opened northward, and the long line of shore stretched before him.
+He swept it eagerly with a single searching glance. Sea and shore were
+empty. He turned quickly to the rock, scarcely a hundred yards on his
+beam. It was empty too! Forgetting his previous scruples, he pulled
+directly for it until his keel grated on its submerged base. There was
+nothing there but the rock, slippery with the yellow-green slime of
+seaweed and kelp--neither trace nor sign of the figure that had
+occupied it a moment ago. He pulled around it; there was no cleft or
+hiding-place. For an instant his heart leaped at the sight of something
+white, caught in a jagged tooth of the outlying reef, but it was only
+the bleached fragment of a bamboo orange-crate, cast from the deck of
+some South Sea trader, such as often strewed the beach. He lay off the
+rock, keeping way in the swell, and scrutinizing the glittering sea. At
+last he pulled back to the lighthouse, perplexed and discomfited.
+
+Was it simply a sporting seal, transformed by some trick of his vision?
+But he had seen it through his glass, and now remembered such details
+as the face and features framed in their contour of golden hair, and
+believed he could even have identified them. He examined the rock again
+with his glass, and was surprised to see how clearly it was outlined now
+in its barren loneliness. Yet he must have been mistaken. His scientific
+and accurate mind allowed of no errant fancy, and he had always sneered
+at the marvelous as the result of hasty or superficial observation. He
+was a little worried at this lapse of his healthy accuracy,--fearing
+that it might be the result of his seclusion and loneliness,--akin to
+the visions of the recluse and solitary. It was strange, too, that it
+should take the shape of a woman; for Edgar Pomfrey had a story--the
+usual old and foolish one.
+
+Then his thoughts took a lighter phase, and he turned to the memory of
+his books, and finally to the books themselves. From a shelf he picked
+out a volume of old voyages, and turned to a remembered passage: "In
+other seas doe abound marvells soche as Sea Spyders of the bigness of a
+pinnace, the wich they have been known to attack and destroy; Sea Vypers
+which reach to the top of a goodly maste, whereby they are able to draw
+marinners from the rigging by the suction of their breathes; and
+Devill Fyshe, which vomit fire by night which makyth the sea to shine
+prodigiously, and mermaydes. They are half fyshe and half mayde of grate
+Beauty, and have been seen of divers godly and creditable witnesses
+swymming beside rocks, hidden to their waist in the sea, combing of
+their hayres, to the help of whych they carry a small mirrore of the
+bigness of their fingers." Pomfrey laid the book aside with a faint
+smile. To even this credulity he might come!
+
+Nevertheless, he used the telescope again that day. But there was no
+repetition of the incident, and he was forced to believe that he had
+been the victim of some extraordinary illusion. The next morning,
+however, with his calmer judgment doubts began to visit him. There was
+no one of whom he could make inquiries but his Indian helper, and their
+conversation had usually been restricted to the language of signs or the
+use of a few words he had picked up. He contrived, however, to ask if
+there was a "waugee" (white) woman in the neighborhood. The Indian
+shook his head in surprise. There was no "waugee" nearer than the remote
+mountain-ridge to which he pointed. Pomfrey was obliged to be content
+with this. Even had his vocabulary been larger, he would as soon have
+thought of revealing the embarrassing secret of this woman, whom he
+believed to be of his own race, to a mere barbarian as he would of
+asking him to verify his own impressions by allowing him to look at her
+that morning. The next day, however, something happened which forced him
+to resume his inquiries. He was rowing around the curving spot when he
+saw a number of black objects on the northern sands moving in and out
+of the surf, which he presently made out as Indians. A nearer approach
+satisfied him that they were wading squaws and children gathering
+seaweed and shells. He would have pushed his acquaintance still nearer,
+but as his boat rounded the point, with one accord they all scuttled
+away like frightened sandpipers. Pomfrey, on his return, asked his
+Indian retainer if they could swim. "Oh, yes!" "As far as the rock?"
+"Yes." Yet Pomfrey was not satisfied. The color of his strange
+apparition remained unaccounted for, and it was not that of an Indian
+woman.
+
+Trifling events linger long in a monotonous existence, and it was nearly
+a week before Pomfrey gave up his daily telescopic inspection of the
+rock. Then he fell back upon his books again, and, oddly enough, upon
+another volume of voyages, and so chanced upon the account of Sir
+Francis Drake's occupation of the bay before him. He had always thought
+it strange that the great adventurer had left no trace or sign of
+his sojourn there; still stranger that he should have overlooked the
+presence of gold, known even to the Indians themselves, and have lost
+a discovery far beyond his wildest dreams and a treasure to which the
+cargoes of those Philippine galleons he had more or less successfully
+intercepted were trifles. Had the restless explorer been content to pace
+those dreary sands during three weeks of inactivity, with no thought of
+penetrating the inland forests behind the range, or of even entering the
+nobler bay beyond? Or was the location of the spot a mere tradition as
+wild and unsupported as the "marvells" of the other volume? Pomfrey had
+the skepticism of the scientific, inquiring mind.
+
+Two weeks had passed and he was returning from a long climb inland, when
+he stopped to rest in his descent to the sea. The panorama of the
+shore was before him, from its uttermost limit to the lighthouse on the
+northern point. The sun was still one hour high, it would take him
+about that time to reach home. But from this coign of vantage he could
+see--what he had not before observed--that what he had always believed
+was a little cove on the northern shore was really the estuary of a
+small stream which rose near him and eventually descended into the ocean
+at that point. He could also see that beside it was a long low erection
+of some kind, covered with thatched brush, which looked like a "barrow,"
+yet showed signs of habitation in the slight smoke that rose from it and
+drifted inland. It was not far out of his way, and he resolved to return
+in that direction. On his way down he once or twice heard the barking
+of an Indian dog, and knew that he must be in the vicinity of an
+encampment. A camp-fire, with the ashes yet warm, proved that he was on
+the trail of one of the nomadic tribes, but the declining sun warned
+him to hasten home to his duty. When he at last reached the estuary, he
+found that the building beside it was little else than a long hut, whose
+thatched and mud-plastered mound-like roof gave it the appearance of a
+cave. Its single opening and entrance abutted on the water's edge, and
+the smoke he had noticed rolled through this entrance from a smouldering
+fire within. Pomfrey had little difficulty in recognizing the purpose of
+this strange structure from the accounts he had heard from "loggers" of
+the Indian customs. The cave was a "sweat-house"--a calorific chamber
+in which the Indians closely shut themselves, naked, with a "smudge" or
+smouldering fire of leaves, until, perspiring and half suffocated, they
+rushed from the entrance and threw themselves into the water before it.
+The still smouldering fire told him that the house had been used that
+morning, and he made no doubt that the Indians were encamped near by. He
+would have liked to pursue his researches further, but he found he
+had already trespassed upon his remaining time, and he turned somewhat
+abruptly away--so abruptly, in fact, that a figure, which had evidently
+been cautiously following him at a distance, had not time to get away.
+His heart leaped with astonishment. It was the woman he had seen on the
+rock.
+
+Although her native dress now only disclosed her head and hands, there
+was no doubt about her color, and it was distinctly white, save for the
+tanning of exposure and a slight red ochre marking on her low forehead.
+And her hair, long and unkempt as it was, showed that he had not erred
+in his first impression of it. It was a tawny flaxen, with fainter
+bleachings where the sun had touched it most. Her eyes were of a clear
+Northern blue. Her dress, which was quite distinctive in that it was
+neither the cast off finery of civilization nor the cheap "government"
+flannels and calicoes usually worn by the Californian tribes, was purely
+native, and of fringed deerskin, and consisted of a long, loose shirt
+and leggings worked with bright feathers and colored shells. A necklace,
+also of shells and fancy pebbles, hung round her neck. She seemed to
+be a fully developed woman, in spite of the girlishness of her flowing
+hair, and notwithstanding the shapeless length of her gaberdine-like
+garment, taller than the ordinary squaw.
+
+Pomfrey saw all this in a single flash of perception, for the next
+instant she was gone, disappearing behind the sweat-house. He ran after
+her, catching sight of her again, half doubled up, in the characteristic
+Indian trot, dodging around rocks and low bushes as she fled along the
+banks of the stream. But for her distinguishing hair, she looked in her
+flight like an ordinary frightened squaw. This, which gave a sense of
+unmanliness and ridicule to his own pursuit of her, with the fact
+that his hour of duty was drawing near and he was still far from the
+lighthouse, checked him in full career, and he turned regretfully away.
+He had called after her at first, and she had not heeded him. What he
+would have said to her he did not know. He hastened home discomfited,
+even embarrassed--yet excited to a degree he had not deemed possible in
+himself.
+
+During the morning his thoughts were full of her. Theory after theory
+for her strange existence there he examined and dismissed. His first
+thought, that she was a white woman--some settler's wife--masquerading
+in Indian garb, he abandoned when he saw her moving; no white woman
+could imitate that Indian trot, nor would remember to attempt it if
+she were frightened. The idea that she was a captive white, held by
+the Indians, became ridiculous when he thought of the nearness of
+civilization and the peaceful, timid character of the "digger" tribes.
+That she was some unfortunate demented creature who had escaped from her
+keeper and wandered into the wilderness, a glance at her clear, frank,
+intelligent, curious eyes had contradicted. There was but one theory
+left--the most sensible and practical one--that she was the offspring
+of some white man and Indian squaw. Yet this he found, oddly enough, the
+least palatable to his fancy. And the few half-breeds he had seen were
+not at all like her.
+
+The next morning he had recourse to his Indian retainer, "Jim." With
+infinite difficulty, protraction, and not a little embarrassment, he
+finally made him understand that he had seen a "white squaw" near the
+"sweat-house," and that he wanted to know more about her. With equal
+difficulty Jim finally recognized the fact of the existence of such
+a person, but immediately afterwards shook his head in an emphatic
+negation. With greater difficulty and greater mortification Pomfrey
+presently ascertained that Jim's negative referred to a supposed
+abduction of the woman which he understood that his employer seriously
+contemplated. But he also learned that she was a real Indian, and that
+there were three or four others like her, male and female, in that
+vicinity; that from a "skeena mowitch" (little baby) they were all like
+that, and that their parents were of the same color, but never a white
+or "waugee" man or woman among them; that they were looked upon as a
+distinct and superior caste of Indians, and enjoyed certain privileges
+with the tribe; that they superstitiously avoided white men, of whom
+they had the greatest fear, and that they were protected in this by
+the other Indians; that it was marvelous and almost beyond belief that
+Pomfrey had been able to see one, for no other white man had, or was
+even aware of their existence.
+
+How much of this he actually understood, how much of it was lying and
+due to Jim's belief that he wished to abduct the fair stranger, Pomfrey
+was unable to determine. There was enough, however, to excite his
+curiosity strongly and occupy his mind to the exclusion of his
+books--save one. Among his smaller volumes he had found a travel book of
+the "Chinook Jargon," with a lexicon of many of the words commonly
+used by the Northern Pacific tribes. An hour or two's trial with the
+astonished Jim gave him an increased vocabulary and a new occupation.
+Each day the incongruous pair took a lesson from the lexicon. In a week
+Pomfrey felt he would be able to accost the mysterious stranger. But
+he did not again surprise her in any of his rambles, or even in a later
+visit to the sweat-house. He had learned from Jim that the house was
+only used by the "bucks," or males, and that her appearance there had
+been accidental. He recalled that he had had the impression that she had
+been stealthily following him, and the recollection gave him a pleasure
+he could not account for. But an incident presently occurred which gave
+him a new idea of her relations towards him.
+
+The difficulty of making Jim understand had hitherto prevented Pomfrey
+from intrusting him with the care of the lantern; but with the aid of
+the lexicon he had been able to make him comprehend its working, and
+under Pomfrey's personal guidance the Indian had once or twice lit the
+lamp and set its machinery in motion. It remained for him only to
+test Jim's unaided capacity, in case of his own absence or illness. It
+happened to be a warm, beautiful sunset, when the afternoon fog had for
+once delayed its invasion of the shore-line, that he left the lighthouse
+to Jim's undivided care, and reclining on a sand-dune still warm from
+the sun, lazily watched the result of Jim's first essay. As the twilight
+deepened, and the first flash of the lantern strove with the dying
+glories of the sun, Pomfrey presently became aware that he was not the
+only watcher. A little gray figure creeping on all fours suddenly glided
+out of the shadow of another sand-dune and then halted, falling back on
+its knees, gazing fixedly at the growing light. It was the woman he had
+seen. She was not a dozen yards away, and in her eagerness and utter
+absorption in the light had evidently overlooked him. He could see
+her face distinctly, her lips parted half in wonder, half with the
+breathless absorption of a devotee. A faint sense of disappointment came
+over him. It was not HIM she was watching, but the light! As it swelled
+out over the darkening gray sand she turned as if to watch its effect
+around her, and caught sight of Pomfrey. With a little startled cry--the
+first she had uttered--she darted away. He did not follow. A moment
+before, when he first saw her, an Indian salutation which he had
+learned from Jim had risen to his lips, but in the odd feeling which her
+fascination of the light had caused him he had not spoken. He watched
+her bent figure scuttling away like some frightened animal, with a
+critical consciousness that she was really scarce human, and went back
+to the lighthouse. He would not run after her again! Yet that evening he
+continued to think of her, and recalled her voice, which struck him now
+as having been at once melodious and childlike, and wished he had at
+least spoken, and perhaps elicited a reply.
+
+He did not, however, haunt the sweat-house near the river again. Yet he
+still continued his lessons with Jim, and in this way, perhaps, although
+quite unpremeditatedly, enlisted a humble ally. A week passed in which
+he had not alluded to her, when one morning, as he was returning from a
+row, Jim met him mysteriously on the beach.
+
+"S'pose him come slow, slow," said Jim gravely, airing his newly
+acquired English; "make no noise--plenty catchee Indian maiden." The
+last epithet was the polite lexicon equivalent of squaw.
+
+Pomfrey, not entirely satisfied in his mind, nevertheless softly
+followed the noiselessly gliding Jim to the lighthouse. Here Jim
+cautiously opened the door, motioning Pomfrey to enter.
+
+The base of the tower was composed of two living rooms, a storeroom and
+oil-tank. As Pomfrey entered, Jim closed the door softly behind him.
+The abrupt transition from the glare of the sands and sun to the
+semi-darkness of the storeroom at first prevented him from seeing
+anything, but he was instantly distracted by a scurrying flutter and
+wild beating of the walls, as of a caged bird. In another moment
+he could make out the fair stranger, quivering with excitement,
+passionately dashing at the barred window, the walls, the locked door,
+and circling around the room in her desperate attempt to find an egress,
+like a captured seagull. Amazed, mystified, indignant with Jim, himself,
+and even his unfortunate captive, Pomfrey called to her in Chinook to
+stop, and going to the door, flung it wide open. She darted by him,
+raising her soft blue eyes for an instant in a swift, sidelong glance of
+half appeal, half-frightened admiration, and rushed out into the open.
+But here, to his surprise, she did not run away. On the contrary, she
+drew herself up with a dignity that seemed to increase her height, and
+walked majestically towards Jim, who at her unexpected exit had suddenly
+thrown himself upon the sand, in utterly abject terror and supplication.
+She approached him slowly, with one small hand uplifted in a menacing
+gesture. The man writhed and squirmed before her. Then she turned,
+caught sight of Pomfrey standing in the doorway, and walked quietly
+away. Amazed, yet gratified with this new assertion of herself, Pomfrey
+respectfully, but alas! incautiously, called after her. In an instant,
+at the sound of his voice, she dropped again into her slouching Indian
+trot and glided away over the sandhills.
+
+Pomfrey did not add any reproof of his own to the discomfiture of his
+Indian retainer. Neither did he attempt to inquire the secret of this
+savage girl's power over him. It was evident he had spoken truly when he
+told his master that she was of a superior caste. Pomfrey recalled her
+erect and indignant figure standing over the prostrate Jim, and was
+again perplexed and disappointed at her sudden lapse into the timid
+savage at the sound of his voice. Would not this well-meant but
+miserable trick of Jim's have the effect of increasing her unreasoning
+animal-like distrust of him? A few days later brought an unexpected
+answer to his question.
+
+It was the hottest hour of the day. He had been fishing off the reef
+of rocks where he had first seen her, and had taken in his line and was
+leisurely pulling for the lighthouse. Suddenly a little musical cry not
+unlike a bird's struck his ear. He lay on his oars and listened. It was
+repeated; but this time it was unmistakably recognizable as the voice of
+the Indian girl, although he had heard it but once. He turned eagerly
+to the rock, but it was empty; he pulled around it, but saw nothing.
+He looked towards the shore, and swung his boat in that direction,
+when again the cry was repeated with the faintest quaver of a laugh,
+apparently on the level of the sea before him. For the first time he
+looked down, and there on the crest of a wave not a dozen yards ahead,
+danced the yellow hair and laughing eyes of the girl. The frightened
+gravity of her look was gone, lost in the flash of her white teeth and
+quivering dimples as her dripping face rose above the sea. When their
+eyes met she dived again, but quickly reappeared on the other bow,
+swimming with lazy, easy strokes, her smiling head thrown back over
+her white shoulder, as if luring him to a race. If her smile was a
+revelation to him, still more so was this first touch of feminine
+coquetry in her attitude. He pulled eagerly towards her; with a few long
+overhand strokes she kept her distance, or, if he approached too near,
+she dived like a loon, coming up astern of him with the same childlike,
+mocking cry. In vain he pursued her, calling her to stop in her own
+tongue, and laughingly protested; she easily avoided his boat at every
+turn. Suddenly, when they were nearly abreast of the river estuary,
+she rose in the water, and, waving her little hands with a gesture of
+farewell, turned, and curving her back like a dolphin, leaped into the
+surging swell of the estuary bar and was lost in its foam. It would have
+been madness for him to have attempted to follow in his boat, and he
+saw that she knew it. He waited until her yellow crest appeared in the
+smoother water of the river, and then rowed back. In his excitement and
+preoccupation he had quite forgotten his long exposure to the sun
+during his active exercise, and that he was poorly equipped for the cold
+sea-fog which the heat had brought in earlier, and which now was quietly
+obliterating sea and shore. This made his progress slower and more
+difficult, and by the time he had reached the lighthouse he was chilled
+to the bone.
+
+The next morning he woke with a dull headache and great weariness, and
+it was with considerable difficulty that he could attend to his duties.
+At nightfall, feeling worse, he determined to transfer the care of the
+light to Jim, but was amazed to find that he had disappeared, and what
+was more ominous, a bottle of spirits which Pomfrey had taken from his
+locker the night before had disappeared too. Like all Indians, Jim's
+rudimentary knowledge of civilization included "fire-water;" he
+evidently had been tempted, had fallen, and was too ashamed or too drunk
+to face his master. Pomfrey, however, managed to get the light in order
+and working, and then, he scarcely knew how, betook himself to bed in
+a state of high fever. He turned from side to side racked by pain, with
+burning lips and pulses. Strange fancies beset him; he had noticed when
+he lit his light that a strange sail was looming off the estuary--a
+place where no sail had ever been seen or should be--and was relieved
+that the lighting of the tower might show the reckless or ignorant
+mariner his real bearings for the "Gate." At times he had heard voices
+above the familiar song of the surf, and tried to rise from his bed, but
+could not. Sometimes these voices were strange, outlandish, dissonant,
+in his own language, yet only partly intelligible; but through them
+always rang a single voice, musical, familiar, yet of a tongue not his
+own--hers! And then, out of his delirium--for such it proved afterwards
+to be--came a strange vision. He thought that he had just lit the light
+when, from some strange and unaccountable reason, it suddenly became dim
+and defied all his efforts to revive it. To add to his discomfiture,
+he could see quite plainly through the lantern a strange-looking vessel
+standing in from the sea. She was so clearly out of her course for the
+Gate that he knew she had not seen the light, and his limbs trembled
+with shame and terror as he tried in vain to rekindle the dying light.
+Yet to his surprise the strange ship kept steadily on, passing the
+dangerous reef of rocks, until she was actually in the waters of the
+bay. But stranger than all, swimming beneath her bows was the golden
+head and laughing face of the Indian girl, even as he had seen it the
+day before. A strange revulsion of feeling overtook him. Believing that
+she was luring the ship to its destruction, he ran out on the beach
+and strove to hail the vessel and warn it of its impending doom. But he
+could not speak--no sound came from his lips. And now his attention was
+absorbed by the ship itself. High-bowed and pooped, and curved like the
+crescent moon, it was the strangest craft that he had ever seen. Even
+as he gazed it glided on nearer and nearer, and at last beached itself
+noiselessly on the sands before his own feet. A score of figures
+as bizarre and outlandish as the ship itself now thronged its high
+forecastle--really a castle in shape and warlike purpose--and leaped
+from its ports. The common seamen were nearly naked to the waist; the
+officers looked more like soldiers than sailors. What struck him more
+strangely was that they were one and all seemingly unconscious of the
+existence of the lighthouse, sauntering up and down carelessly, as if on
+some uninhabited strand, and even talking--so far as he could understand
+their old bookish dialect--as if in some hitherto undiscovered land.
+Their ignorance of the geography of the whole coast, and even of the sea
+from which they came, actually aroused his critical indignation; their
+coarse and stupid allusions to the fair Indian swimmer as the "mermaid"
+that they had seen upon their bow made him more furious still. Yet
+he was helpless to express his contemptuous anger, or even make them
+conscious of his presence. Then an interval of incoherency and utter
+blankness followed. When he again took up the thread of his fancy
+the ship seemed to be lying on her beam ends on the sand; the strange
+arrangement of her upper deck and top-hamper, more like a dwelling than
+any ship he had ever seen, was fully exposed to view, while the seamen
+seemed to be at work with the rudest contrivances, calking and scraping
+her barnacled sides. He saw that phantom crew, when not working, at
+wassail and festivity; heard the shouts of drunken roisterers; saw the
+placing of a guard around some of the most uncontrollable, and later
+detected the stealthy escape of half a dozen sailors inland, amidst the
+fruitless volley fired upon them from obsolete blunderbusses. Then
+his strange vision transported him inland, where he saw these seamen
+following some Indian women. Suddenly one of them turned and ran
+frenziedly towards him as if seeking succor, closely pursued by one of
+the sailors. Pomfrey strove to reach her, struggled violently with the
+fearful apathy that seemed to hold his limbs, and then, as she uttered
+at last a little musical cry, burst his bonds and--awoke!
+
+As consciousness slowly struggled back to him, he could see the bare
+wooden-like walls of his sleeping-room, the locker, the one window
+bright with sunlight, the open door of the tank-room, and the little
+staircase to the tower. There was a strange smoky and herb-like smell in
+the room. He made an effort to rise, but as he did so a small sunburnt
+hand was laid gently yet restrainingly upon his shoulder, and he heard
+the same musical cry as before, but this time modulated to a girlish
+laugh. He raised his head faintly. Half squatting, half kneeling by his
+bed was the yellow-haired stranger.
+
+With the recollection of his vision still perplexing him, he said in a
+weak voice, "Who are you?"
+
+Her blue eyes met his own with quick intelligence and no trace of her
+former timidity. A soft, caressing light had taken its place. Pointing
+with her finger to her breast in a childlike gesture, she said,
+"Me--Olooya."
+
+"Olooya!" He remembered suddenly that Jim had always used that word in
+speaking of her, but until then he had always thought it was some Indian
+term for her distinct class.
+
+"Olooya," he repeated. Then, with difficulty attempting to use her own
+tongue, he asked, "When did you come here?"
+
+"Last night," she answered in the same tongue. "There was no witch-fire
+there," she continued, pointing to the tower; "when it came not, Olooya
+came! Olooya found white chief sick and alone. White chief could not get
+up! Olooya lit witch-fire for him."
+
+"You?" he repeated in astonishment. "I lit it myself."
+
+She looked at him pityingly, as if still recognizing his delirium,
+and shook her head. "White chief was sick--how can know? Olooya made
+witch-fire."
+
+He cast a hurried glance at his watch hanging on the wall beside him.
+It had RUN DOWN, although he had wound it the last thing before going to
+bed. He had evidently been lying there helpless beyond the twenty-four
+hours!
+
+He groaned and turned to rise, but she gently forced him down again, and
+gave him some herbal infusion, in which he recognized the taste of the
+Yerba Buena vine which grew by the river. Then she made him comprehend
+in her own tongue that Jim had been decoyed, while drunk, aboard a
+certain schooner lying off the shore at a spot where she had seen some
+men digging in the sands. She had not gone there, for she was afraid
+of the bad men, and a slight return of her former terror came into her
+changeful eyes. She knew how to light the witch-light; she reminded him
+she had been in the tower before.
+
+"You have saved my light, and perhaps my life," he said weakly, taking
+her hand.
+
+Possibly she did not understand him, for her only answer was a vague
+smile. But the next instant she started up, listening intently, and then
+with a frightened cry drew away her hand and suddenly dashed out of
+the building. In the midst of his amazement the door was darkened by a
+figure--a stranger dressed like an ordinary miner. Pausing a moment
+to look after the flying Olooya, the man turned and glanced around the
+room, and then with a coarse, familiar smile approached Pomfrey.
+
+"Hope I ain't disturbin' ye, but I allowed I'd just be neighborly and
+drop in--seein' as this is gov'nment property, and me and my pardners,
+as American citizens and tax-payers, helps to support it. We're coastin'
+from Trinidad down here and prospectin' along the beach for gold in the
+sand. Ye seem to hev a mighty soft berth of it here--nothing to do--and
+lots of purty half-breeds hangin' round!"
+
+The man's effrontery was too much for Pomfrey's self-control, weakened
+by illness. "It IS government property," he answered hotly, "and you
+have no more right to intrude upon it than you have to decoy away my
+servant, a government employee, during my illness, and jeopardize that
+property."
+
+The unexpectedness of this attack, and the sudden revelation of the fact
+of Pomfrey's illness in his flushed face and hollow voice apparently
+frightened and confused the stranger. He stammered a surly excuse,
+backed out of the doorway, and disappeared. An hour later Jim appeared,
+crestfallen, remorseful, and extravagantly penitent. Pomfrey was too
+weak for reproaches or inquiry, and he was thinking only of Olooya.
+
+She did not return. His recovery in that keen air, aided, as he
+sometimes thought, by the herbs she had given him, was almost as rapid
+as his illness. The miners did not again intrude upon the lighthouse nor
+trouble his seclusion. When he was able to sun himself on the sands, he
+could see them in the distance at work on the beach. He reflected that
+she would not come back while they were there, and was reconciled.
+But one morning Jim appeared, awkward and embarrassed, leading another
+Indian, whom he introduced as Olooya's brother. Pomfrey's suspicions
+were aroused. Except that the stranger had something of the girl's
+superiority of manner, there was no likeness whatever to his fair-haired
+acquaintance. But a fury of indignation was added to his suspicions when
+he learned the amazing purport of their visit. It was nothing less than
+an offer from the alleged brother to SELL his sister to Pomfrey for
+forty dollars and a jug of whiskey! Unfortunately, Pomfrey's temper once
+more got the better of his judgment. With a scathing exposition of the
+laws under which the Indian and white man equally lived, and the legal
+punishment of kidnaping, he swept what he believed was the impostor from
+his presence. He was scarcely alone again before he remembered that his
+imprudence might affect the girl's future access to him, but it was too
+late now.
+
+Still he clung to the belief that he should see her when the prospectors
+had departed, and he hailed with delight the breaking up of the camp
+near the "sweat-house" and the disappearance of the schooner. It seemed
+that their gold-seeking was unsuccessful; but Pomfrey was struck, on
+visiting the locality, to find that in their excavations in the sand at
+the estuary they had uncovered the decaying timbers of a ship's small
+boat of some ancient and obsolete construction. This made him think
+of his strange dream, with a vague sense of warning which he could not
+shake off, and on his return to the lighthouse he took from his shelves
+a copy of the old voyages to see how far his fancy had been affected
+by his reading. In the account of Drake's visit to the coast he found a
+footnote which he had overlooked before, and which ran as follows: "The
+Admiral seems to have lost several of his crew by desertion, who were
+supposed to have perished miserably by starvation in the inhospitable
+interior or by the hands of savages. But later voyagers have suggested
+that the deserters married Indian wives, and there is a legend that a
+hundred years later a singular race of half-breeds, bearing unmistakable
+Anglo-Saxon characteristics, was found in that locality." Pomfrey fell
+into a reverie of strange hypotheses and fancies. He resolved that,
+when he again saw Olooya, he would question her; her terror of these men
+might be simply racial or some hereditary transmission.
+
+But his intention was never fulfilled. For when days and weeks had
+elapsed, and he had vainly haunted the river estuary and the rocky
+reef before the lighthouse without a sign of her, he overcame his
+pride sufficiently to question Jim. The man looked at him with dull
+astonishment.
+
+"Olooya gone," he said.
+
+"Gone!--where?"
+
+The Indian made a gesture to seaward which seemed to encompass the whole
+Pacific.
+
+"How? With whom?" repeated his angry yet half-frightened master.
+
+"With white man in ship. You say YOU no want Olooya--forty dollars too
+much. White man give fifty dollars--takee Olooya all same."
+
+
+
+
+UNDER THE EAVES
+
+
+The assistant editor of the San Francisco "Daily Informer" was going
+home. So much of his time was spent in the office of the "Informer" that
+no one ever cared to know where he passed those six hours of sleep which
+presumably suggested a domicile. His business appointments outside the
+office were generally kept at the restaurant where he breakfasted and
+dined, or of evenings in the lobbies of theatres or the anterooms of
+public meetings. Yet he had a home and an interval of seclusion of which
+he was jealously mindful, and it was to this he was going to-night at
+his usual hour.
+
+His room was in a new building on one of the larger and busier
+thoroughfares. The lower floor was occupied by a bank, but as it was
+closed before he came home, and not yet opened when he left, it did not
+disturb his domestic sensibilities. The same may be said of the next
+floor, which was devoted to stockbrokers' and companies offices, and was
+equally tomb-like and silent when he passed; the floor above that was a
+desert of empty rooms, which echoed to his footsteps night and morning,
+with here and there an oasis in the green sign of a mining secretary's
+office, with, however, the desolating announcement that it would only
+be "open for transfers from two to four on Saturdays." The top floor
+had been frankly abandoned in an unfinished state by the builder, whose
+ambition had "o'erleaped itself" in that sanguine era of the city's
+growth. There was a smell of plaster and the first coat of paint about
+it still, but the whole front of the building was occupied by a long
+room with odd "bull's-eye" windows looking out through the heavy
+ornamentations of the cornice over the adjacent roofs.
+
+It had been originally intended for a club-room, but after the ill
+fortune which attended the letting of the floor below, and possibly
+because the earthquake-fearing San Franciscans had their doubts of
+successful hilarity at the top of so tall a building, it remained
+unfinished, with the two smaller rooms at its side. Its incomplete and
+lonely grandeur had once struck the editor during a visit of inspection,
+and the landlord, whom he knew, had offered to make it habitable for him
+at a nominal rent. It had a lavatory with a marble basin and a tap of
+cold water. The offer was a novel one, but he accepted it, and fitted up
+the apartment with some cheap second-hand furniture, quite inconsistent
+with the carved mantels and decorations, and made a fair sitting-room
+and bedroom of it. Here, on a Sunday, when its stillness was
+intensified, and even a passing footstep on the pavement fifty feet
+below was quite startling, he would sit and work by one of the quaint
+open windows. In the rainy season, through the filmed panes he sometimes
+caught a glimpse of the distant, white-capped bay, but never of the
+street below him.
+
+The lights were out, but, groping his way up to the first landing, he
+took from a cup-boarded niche in the wall his candlestick and matches
+and continued the ascent to his room. The humble candlelight flickered
+on the ostentatious gold letters displayed on the ground-glass doors
+of opulent companies which he knew were famous, and rooms where
+millionaires met in secret conclave, but the contrast awakened only his
+sense of humor. Yet he was always relieved after he had reached his own
+floor. Possibly its incompleteness and inchoate condition made it seem
+less lonely than the desolation of the finished and furnished rooms
+below, and it was only this recollection of past human occupancy that
+was depressing.
+
+He opened his door, lit the solitary gas jet that only half illuminated
+the long room, and, it being already past midnight, began to undress
+himself. This process presently brought him to that corner of his room
+where his bed stood, when he suddenly stopped, and his sleepy yawn
+changed to a gape of surprise. For, lying in the bed, its head upon
+the pillow, and its rigid arms accurately stretched down over the
+turned-back sheet, was a child's doll! It was a small doll--a banged and
+battered doll, that had seen service, but it had evidently been "tucked
+in" with maternal tenderness, and lay there with its staring eyes turned
+to the ceiling, the very genius of insomnia!
+
+His first start of surprise was followed by a natural resentment of
+what might have been an impertinent intrusion on his privacy by some
+practical-joking adult, for he knew there was no child in the house.
+
+His room was kept in order by the wife of the night watchman employed
+by the bank, and no one else had a right of access to it. But the woman
+might have brought a child there and not noticed its disposal of its
+plaything. He smiled. It might have been worse! It might have been a
+real baby!
+
+The idea tickled him with a promise of future "copy"--of a story with
+farcical complications, or even a dramatic ending, in which the baby,
+adopted by him, should turn out to be somebody's stolen offspring. He
+lifted the little image that had suggested these fancies, carefully laid
+it on his table, went to bed, and presently forgot it all in slumber.
+
+In the morning his good-humor and interest in it revived to the extent
+of writing on a slip of paper, "Good-morning! Thank you--I've slept very
+well," putting the slip in the doll's jointed arms, and leaving it in a
+sitting posture outside his door when he left his room. When he returned
+late at night it was gone.
+
+But it so chanced that, a few days later, owing to press of work on the
+"Informer," he was obliged to forego his usual Sunday holiday out of
+town, and that morning found him, while the bells were ringing for
+church, in his room with a pile of manuscript and proof before him.
+For these were troublous days in San Francisco; the great Vigilance
+Committee of '56 was in session, and the offices of the daily papers
+were thronged with eager seekers of news. Such affairs, indeed, were not
+in the functions of the assistant editor, nor exactly to his taste; he
+was neither a partisan of the so-called Law and Order Party, nor yet
+an enthusiastic admirer of the citizen Revolutionists known as the
+Vigilance Committee, both extremes being incompatible with his habits of
+thought. Consequently he was not displeased at this opportunity of doing
+his work away from the office and the "heady talk" of controversy.
+
+He worked on until the bells ceased and a more than Sabbath stillness
+fell upon the streets. So quiet was it that once or twice the
+conversation of passing pedestrians floated up and into his window, as
+of voices at his elbow.
+
+Presently he heard the sound of a child's voice singing in subdued tone,
+as if fearful of being overheard. This time he laid aside his pen--it
+certainly was no delusion! The sound did not come from the open
+window, but from some space on a level with his room. Yet there was no
+contiguous building as high.
+
+He rose and tried to open his door softly, but it creaked, and the
+singing instantly ceased. There was nothing before him but the bare,
+empty hall, with its lathed and plastered partitions, and the two
+smaller rooms, unfinished like his own, on either side of him. Their
+doors were shut; the one at his right hand was locked, the other yielded
+to his touch.
+
+For the first moment he saw only the bare walls of the apparently empty
+room. But a second glance showed him two children--a boy of seven and
+a girl of five--sitting on the floor, which was further littered by
+a mattress, pillow, and blanket. There was a cheap tray on one of the
+trunks containing two soiled plates and cups and fragments of a meal.
+But there was neither a chair nor table nor any other article of
+furniture in the room. Yet he was struck by the fact that, in spite of
+this poverty of surrounding, the children were decently dressed, and the
+few scattered pieces of luggage in quality bespoke a superior condition.
+
+The children met his astonished stare with an equal wonder and, he
+fancied, some little fright. The boy's lips trembled a little as he said
+apologetically--
+
+"I told Jinny not to sing. But she didn't make MUCH noise."
+
+"Mamma said I could play with my dolly. But I fordot and singed," said
+the little girl penitently.
+
+"Where's your mamma?" asked the young man. The fancy of their being
+near relatives of the night watchman had vanished at the sound of their
+voices.
+
+"Dorn out," said the girl.
+
+"When did she go out?"
+
+"Last night."
+
+"Were you all alone here last night?"
+
+"Yes!"
+
+Perhaps they saw the look of indignation and pity in the editor's face,
+for the boy said quickly--
+
+"She don't go out EVERY night; last night she went to"--
+
+He stopped suddenly, and both children looked at each other with a half
+laugh and half cry, and then repeated in hopeless unison, "She's dorn
+out."
+
+"When is she coming back again?"
+
+"To-night. But we won't make any more noise."
+
+"Who brings you your food?" continued the editor, looking at the tray.
+
+"Woberts."
+
+Evidently Roberts, the night watchman! The editor felt relieved; here
+was a clue to some explanation. He instantly sat down on the floor
+between them.
+
+"So that was the dolly that slept in my bed," he said gayly, taking it
+up.
+
+God gives helplessness a wonderful intuition of its friends. The
+children looked up at the face of their grown-up companion, giggled, and
+then burst into a shrill fit of laughter. He felt that it was the first
+one they had really indulged in for many days. Nevertheless he said,
+"Hush!" confidentially; why he scarcely knew, except to intimate to them
+that he had taken in their situation thoroughly. "Make no noise," he
+added softly, "and come into my big room."
+
+They hung back, however, with frightened yet longing eyes. "Mamma said
+we mussent do out of this room," said the girl.
+
+"Not ALONE," responded the editor quickly, "but with ME, you know;
+that's different."
+
+The logic sufficed them, poor as it was. Their hands slid quite
+naturally into his. But at the door he stopped, and motioning to the
+locked door of the other room, asked:--
+
+"And is that mamma's room, too?"
+
+Their little hands slipped from his and they were silent. Presently the
+boy, as if acted upon by some occult influence of the girl, said in a
+half whisper, "Yes."
+
+The editor did not question further, but led them into his room. Here
+they lost the slight restraint they had shown, and began, child fashion,
+to become questioners themselves.
+
+In a few moments they were in possession of his name, his business, the
+kind of restaurant he frequented, where he went when he left his room
+all day, the meaning of those funny slips of paper, and the written
+manuscripts, and why he was so quiet. But any attempt of his to
+retaliate by counter questions was met by a sudden reserve so
+unchildlike and painful to him--as it was evidently to themselves--that
+he desisted, wisely postponing his inquiries until he could meet
+Roberts.
+
+He was glad when they fell to playing games with each other quite
+naturally, yet not entirely forgetting his propinquity, as their
+occasional furtive glances at his movements showed him. He, too, became
+presently absorbed in his work, until it was finished and it was time
+for him to take it to the office of the "Informer." The wild idea seized
+him of also taking the children afterwards for a holiday to the Mission
+Dolores, but he prudently remembered that even this negligent mother of
+theirs might have some rights over her offspring that he was bound to
+respect.
+
+He took leave of them gayly, suggesting that the doll be replaced in his
+bed while he was away, and even assisted in "tucking it up." But during
+the afternoon the recollection of these lonely playfellows in the
+deserted house obtruded itself upon his work and the talk of his
+companions. Sunday night was his busiest night, and he could not,
+therefore, hope to get away in time to assure himself of their mother's
+return.
+
+It was nearly two in the morning when he returned to his room. He paused
+for a moment on the threshold to listen for any sound from the adjoining
+room. But all was hushed.
+
+His intention of speaking to the night watchman was, however,
+anticipated the next morning by that guardian himself. A tap upon his
+door while he was dressing caused him to open it somewhat hurriedly
+in the hope of finding one of the children there, but he met only the
+embarrassed face of Roberts. Inviting him into the room, the editor
+continued dressing. Carefully closing the door behind him, the man
+began, with evident hesitation,--
+
+"I oughter hev told ye suthin' afore, Mr. Breeze; but I kalkilated, so
+to speak, that you wouldn't be bothered one way or another, and so ye
+hadn't any call to know that there was folks here"--
+
+"Oh, I see," interrupted Breeze cheerfully; "you're speaking of the
+family next door--the landlord's new tenants."
+
+"They ain't exactly THAT," said Roberts, still with embarrassment. "The
+fact is--ye see--the thing points THIS way: they ain't no right to be
+here, and it's as much as my place is worth if it leaks out that they
+are."
+
+Mr. Breeze suspended his collar-buttoning, and stared at Roberts.
+
+"You see, sir, they're mighty poor, and they've nowhere else to go--and
+I reckoned to take 'em in here for a spell and say nothing about it."
+
+"But the landlord wouldn't object, surely? I'll speak to him myself,"
+said Breeze impulsively.
+
+"Oh, no; don't!" said Roberts in alarm; "he wouldn't like it. You see,
+Mr. Breeze, it's just this way: the mother, she's a born lady, and did
+my old woman a good turn in old times when the family was rich; but now
+she's obliged--just to support herself, you know--to take up with what
+she gets, and she acts in the bally in the theatre, you see, and hez
+to come in late o' nights. In them cheap boarding-houses, you know, the
+folks looks down upon her for that, and won't hev her, and in the cheap
+hotels the men are--you know--a darned sight wuss, and that's how I took
+her and her kids in here, where no one knows 'em."
+
+"I see," nodded the editor sympathetically; "and very good it was of
+you, my man."
+
+Roberts looked still more confused, and stammered with a forced laugh,
+"And--so--I'm just keeping her on here, unbeknownst, until her husband
+gets"--He stopped suddenly.
+
+"So she has a husband living, then?" said Breeze in surprise.
+
+"In the mines, yes--in the mines!" repeated Roberts with a monotonous
+deliberation quite distinct from his previous hesitation, "and she's
+only waitin' until he gets money enough--to--to take her away." He
+stopped and breathed hard.
+
+"But couldn't you--couldn't WE--get her some more furniture? There's
+nothing in that room, you know, not a chair or table; and unless the
+other room is better furnished"--
+
+"Eh? Oh, yes!" said Roberts quickly, yet still with a certain
+embarrassment; "of course THAT'S better furnished, and she's quite
+satisfied, and so are the kids, with anything. And now, Mr. Breeze, I
+reckon you'll say nothin' o' this, and you'll never go back on me?"
+
+"My dear Mr. Roberts," said the editor gravely, "from this moment I am
+not only blind, but deaf to the fact that ANYBODY occupies this floor
+but myself."
+
+"I knew you was white all through, Mr. Breeze," said the night watchman,
+grasping the young man's hand with a grip of iron, "and I telled my wife
+so. I sez, 'Jest you let me tell him EVERYTHIN',' but she"--He stopped
+again and became confused.
+
+"And she was quite right, I dare say," said Breeze, with a laugh; "and I
+do not want to know anything. And that poor woman must never know that
+I ever knew anything, either. But you may tell your wife that when
+the mother is away she can bring the little ones in here whenever she
+likes."
+
+"Thank ye--thank ye, sir!--and I'll just run down and tell the old woman
+now, and won't intrude upon your dressin' any longer."
+
+He grasped Breeze's hand again, went out and closed the door behind
+him. It might have been the editor's fancy, but he thought there was a
+certain interval of silence outside the door before the night watchman's
+heavy tread was heard along the hall again.
+
+For several evenings after this Mr. Breeze paid some attention to the
+ballet in his usual round of the theatres. Although he had never seen
+his fair neighbor, he had a vague idea that he might recognize her
+through some likeness to her children. But in vain. In the opulent
+charms of certain nymphs, and in the angular austerities of others,
+he failed equally to discern any of those refinements which might have
+distinguished the "born lady" of Roberts's story, or which he himself
+had seen in her children.
+
+These he did not meet again during the week, as his duties kept him
+late at the office; but from certain signs in his room he knew that Mrs.
+Roberts had availed herself of his invitation to bring them in with her,
+and he regularly found "Jinny's" doll tucked up in his bed at night, and
+he as regularly disposed of it outside his door in the morning, with a
+few sweets, like an offering, tucked under its rigid arms.
+
+But another circumstance touched him more delicately; his room
+was arranged with greater care than before, and with an occasional
+exhibition of taste that certainly had not distinguished Mrs. Roberts's
+previous ministrations. One evening on his return he found a small
+bouquet of inexpensive flowers in a glass on his writing-table. He loved
+flowers too well not to detect that they were quite fresh, and could
+have been put there only an hour or two before he arrived.
+
+The next evening was Saturday, and, as he usually left the office
+earlier on that day, it occurred to him, as he walked home, that it was
+about the time his fair neighbor would be leaving the theatre, and that
+it was possible he might meet her.
+
+At the front door, however, he found Roberts, who returned his greeting
+with a certain awkwardness which struck him as singular. When he reached
+the niche on the landing he found his candle was gone, but he proceeded
+on, groping his way up the stairs, with an odd conviction that both
+these incidents pointed to the fact that the woman had just returned or
+was expected.
+
+He had also a strange feeling--which may have been owing to the
+darkness--that some one was hidden on the landing or on the stairs where
+he would pass. This was further accented by a faint odor of patchouli,
+as, with his hand on the rail, he turned the corner of the third
+landing, and he was convinced that if he had put out his other hand it
+would have come in contact with his mysterious neighbor. But a certain
+instinct of respect for her secret, which she was even now guarding in
+the darkness, withheld him, and he passed on quickly to his own floor.
+
+Here it was lighter; the moon shot a beam of silver across the passage
+from an unshuttered window as he passed. He reached his room door,
+entered, but instead of lighting the gas and shutting the door, stood
+with it half open, listening in the darkness.
+
+His suspicions were verified; there was a slight rustling noise, and
+a figure which had evidently followed him appeared at the end of the
+passage. It was that of a woman habited in a grayish dress and cloak of
+the same color; but as she passed across the band of moonlight he had
+a distinct view of her anxious, worried face. It was a face no longer
+young; it was worn with illness, but still replete with a delicacy and
+faded beauty so inconsistent with her avowed profession that he felt a
+sudden pang of pain and doubt. The next moment she had vanished in her
+room, leaving the same faint perfume behind her. He closed his door
+softly, lit the gas, and sat down in a state of perplexity. That swift
+glimpse of her face and figure had made her story improbable to the
+point of absurdity, or possibly to the extreme of pathos!
+
+It seemed incredible that a woman of that quality should be forced to
+accept a vocation at once so low, so distasteful, and so unremunerative.
+With her evident antecedents, had she no friends but this common Western
+night watchman of a bank? Had Roberts deceived him? Was his whole story
+a fabrication, and was there some complicity between the two? What was
+it? He knit his brows.
+
+Mr. Breeze had that overpowering knowledge of the world which only comes
+with the experience of twenty-five, and to this he superadded the active
+imagination of a newspaper man. A plot to rob the bank? These mysterious
+absences, that luggage which he doubted not was empty and intended for
+spoil! But why encumber herself with the two children? Here his common
+sense and instinct of the ludicrous returned and he smiled.
+
+But he could not believe in the ballet dancer! He wondered, indeed, how
+any manager could have accepted the grim satire of that pale, worried
+face among the fairies, that sad refinement amid their vacant smiles and
+rouged checks. And then, growing sad again, he comforted himself with
+the reflection that at least the children were not alone that night, and
+so went to sleep.
+
+For some days he had no further meeting with his neighbors. The
+disturbed state of the city--for the Vigilance Committee were still in
+session--obliged the daily press to issue "extras," and his work at the
+office increased.
+
+It was not until Sunday again that he was able to be at home. Needless
+to say that his solitary little companions were duly installed there,
+while he sat at work with his proofs on the table before him.
+
+The stillness of the empty house was only broken by the habitually
+subdued voices of the children at their play, when suddenly the harsh
+stroke of a distant bell came through the open window. But it was no
+Sabbath bell, and Mr. Breeze knew it. It was the tocsin of the Vigilance
+Committee, summoning the members to assemble at their quarters for
+a capture, a trial, or an execution of some wrongdoer. To him it was
+equally a summons to the office--to distasteful news and excitement.
+
+He threw his proofs aside in disgust, laid down his pen, seized his hat,
+and paused a moment to look round for his playmates. But they were gone!
+He went into the hall, looked into the open door of their room, but they
+were not there. He tried the door of the second room, but it was locked.
+
+Satisfied that they had stolen downstairs in their eagerness to
+know what the bell meant, he hurried down also, met Roberts in the
+passage,--a singularly unusual circumstance at that hour,--called to him
+to look after the runaways, and hurried to his office.
+
+Here he found the staff collected, excitedly discussing the news. One
+of the Vigilance Committee prisoners, a notorious bully and ruffian,
+detained as a criminal and a witness, had committed suicide in his
+cell. Fortunately this was all reportorial work, and the services of Mr.
+Breeze were not required. He hurried back, relieved, to his room.
+
+When he reached his landing, breathlessly, he heard the same quick
+rustle he had heard that memorable evening, and was quite satisfied that
+he saw a figure glide swiftly out of the open door of his room. It was
+no doubt his neighbor, who had been seeking her children, and as he
+heard their voices as he passed, his uneasiness and suspicions were
+removed.
+
+He sat down again to his scattered papers and proofs, finished his work,
+and took it to the office on his way to dinner. He returned early, in
+the hope that he might meet his neighbor again, and had quite settled
+his mind that he was justified in offering a civil "Good-evening" to
+her, in spite of his previous respectful ignoring of her presence. She
+must certainly have become aware by this time of his attention to
+her children and consideration for herself, and could not mistake his
+motives. But he was disappointed, although he came up softly; he found
+the floor in darkness and silence on his return, and he had to be
+content with lighting his gas and settling down to work again.
+
+A near church clock had struck ten when he was startled by the sound of
+an unfamiliar and uncertain step in the hall, followed by a tap at his
+door. Breeze jumped to his feet, and was astonished to find Dick, the
+"printer's devil," standing on the threshold with a roll of proofs in
+his hand.
+
+"How did you get here?" he asked testily.
+
+"They told me at the restaurant they reckoned you lived yere, and the
+night watchman at the door headed me straight up. When he knew whar I
+kem from he wanted to know what the news was, but I told him he'd better
+buy an extra and see."
+
+"Well, what did you come for?" said the editor impatiently.
+
+"The foreman said it was important, and he wanted to know afore he went
+to press ef this yer correction was YOURS?"
+
+He went to the table, unrolled the proofs, and, taking out the slip,
+pointed to a marked paragraph. "The foreman says the reporter who
+brought the news allows he got it straight first-hand! But ef you've
+corrected it, he reckons you know best."
+
+Breeze saw at a glance that the paragraph alluded to was not of his own
+writing, but one of several news items furnished by reporters. These
+had been "set up" in the same "galley," and consequently appeared in the
+same proof-slip. He was about to say curtly that neither the matter nor
+the correction was his, when something odd in the correction of the item
+struck him. It read as follows:--
+
+"It appears that the notorious 'Jim Bodine,' who is in hiding and
+badly wanted by the Vigilance Committee, has been tempted lately into
+a renewal of his old recklessness. He was seen in Sacramento Street the
+other night by two separate witnesses, one of whom followed him, but he
+escaped in some friendly doorway."
+
+The words "in Sacramento Street" were stricken out and replaced by the
+correction "on the Saucelito shore," and the words "friendly doorway"
+were changed to "friendly dinghy." The correction was not his, nor the
+handwriting, which was further disguised by being an imitation of print.
+A strange idea seized him.
+
+"Has any one seen these proofs since I left them at the office?"
+
+"No, only the foreman, sir."
+
+He remembered that he had left the proofs lying openly on his table
+when he was called to the office at the stroke of the alarm bell; he
+remembered the figure he saw gliding from his room on his return. She
+had been there alone with the proofs; she only could have tampered with
+them.
+
+The evident object of the correction was to direct the public attention
+from Sacramento Street to Saucelito, as the probable whereabouts of this
+"Jimmy Bodine." The street below was Sacramento Street, the "friendly
+doorway" might have been their own.
+
+That she had some knowledge of this Bodine was not more improbable than
+the ballet story. Her strange absences, the mystery surrounding her, all
+seemed to testify that she had some connection--perhaps only an innocent
+one--with these desperate people whom the Vigilance Committee were
+hunting down. Her attempt to save the man was, after all, no more
+illegal than their attempt to capture him. True, she might have trusted
+him, Breeze, without this tampering with his papers; yet perhaps she
+thought he was certain to discover it--and it was only a silent appeal
+to his mercy. The corrections were ingenious and natural--it was the act
+of an intelligent, quick-witted woman.
+
+Mr. Breeze was prompt in acting upon his intuition, whether right or
+wrong. He took up his pen, wrote on the margin of the proof, "Print as
+corrected," said to the boy carelessly, "The corrections are all right,"
+and dismissed him quickly.
+
+The corrected paragraph which appeared in the "Informer" the next
+morning seemed to attract little public attention, the greater
+excitement being the suicide of the imprisoned bully and the effect it
+might have upon the prosecution of other suspected parties, against whom
+the dead man had been expected to bear witness.
+
+Mr. Breeze was unable to obtain any information regarding the desperado
+Bodine's associates and relations; his correction of the paragraph had
+made the other members of the staff believe he had secret and superior
+information regarding the fugitive, and he thus was estopped from
+asking questions. But he felt himself justified now in demanding fuller
+information from Roberts at the earliest opportunity.
+
+For this purpose he came home earlier that night, hoping to find the
+night watchman still on his first beat in the lower halls. But he was
+disappointed. He was amazed, however, on reaching his own landing, to
+find the passage piled with new luggage, some of that ruder type of
+rolled blanket and knapsack known as a "miner's kit." He was still more
+surprised to hear men's voices and the sound of laughter proceeding
+from the room that was always locked. A sudden sense of uneasiness and
+disgust, he knew not why, came over him.
+
+He passed quickly into his room, shut the door sharply, and lit the gas.
+But he presently heard the door of the locked room open, a man's voice,
+slightly elevated by liquor and opposition, saying, "I know what's due
+from one gen'leman to 'nother"--a querulous, objecting voice saying,
+"Hole on! not now," and a fainter feminine protest, all of which were
+followed by a rap on his door.
+
+Breeze opened it to two strangers, one of whom lurched forward
+unsteadily with outstretched hand. He had a handsome face and figure,
+and a certain consciousness of it even in the abandon of liquor; he
+had an aggressive treacherousness of eye which his potations had not
+subdued. He grasped Breeze's hand tightly, but dropped it the next
+moment perfunctorily as he glanced round the room.
+
+"I told them I was bound to come in," he said, without looking at
+Breeze, "and say 'Howdy!' to the man that's bin a pal to my women folks
+and the kids--and acted white all through! I said to Mame, 'I reckon HE
+knows who I am, and that I kin be high-toned to them that's high-toned;
+kin return shake for shake and shot for shot!' Aye! that's me! So I was
+bound to come in like a gen'leman, sir, and here I am!"
+
+He threw himself in an unproffered chair and stared at Breeze.
+
+"I'm afraid," said Breeze dryly, "that, nevertheless, I never knew who
+you were, and that even now I am ignorant whom I am addressing."
+
+"That's just it," said the second man, with a querulous protest, which
+did not, however, conceal his admiring vassalage to his friend; "that's
+what I'm allus telling Jim. 'Jim,' I says, 'how is folks to know you're
+the man that shot Kernel Baxter, and dropped three o' them Mariposa
+Vigilants? They didn't see you do it! They just look at your fancy style
+and them mustaches of yours, and allow ye might be death on the girls,
+but they don't know ye! An' this man yere--he's a scribe in them
+papers--writes what the boss editor tells him, and lives up yere on the
+roof, 'longside yer wife and the children--what's he knowin' about YOU?'
+Jim's all right enough," he continued, in easy confidence to Breeze,
+"but he's too fresh 'bout himself."
+
+Mr. James Bodine accepted this tribute and criticism of his henchman
+with a complacent laugh, which was not, however, without a certain
+contempt for the speaker and the man spoken to. His bold, selfish eyes
+wandered round the room as if in search of some other amusement than his
+companions offered.
+
+"I reckon this is the room which that hound of a landlord, Rakes,
+allowed he'd fix up for our poker club--the club that Dan Simmons and
+me got up, with a few other sports. It was to be a slap-up affair, right
+under the roof, where there was no chance of the police raiding us. But
+the cur weakened when the Vigilants started out to make war on any game
+a gen'leman might hev that wasn't in their gummy-bag, salt pork trade.
+Well, it's gettin' a long time between drinks, gen'lemen, ain't it?" He
+looked round him significantly.
+
+Only the thought of the woman and her children in the next room, and
+the shame that he believed she was enduring, enabled Breeze to keep his
+temper or even a show of civility.
+
+"I'm afraid," he said quietly, "that you'll find very little here to
+remind you of the club--not even the whiskey; for I use the room only as
+a bedroom, and as I am a workingman, and come in late and go out early,
+I have never found it available for hospitality, even to my intimate
+friends. I am very glad, however, that the little leisure I have had in
+it has enabled me to make the floor less lonely for your children."
+
+Mr. Bodine got up with an affected yawn, turned an embarrassed yet
+darkening eye on Breeze, and lunged unsteadily to the door. "And as I
+only happened in to do the reg'lar thing between high-toned gen'lemen,
+I reckon we kin say 'Quits.'" He gave a coarse laugh, said "So long,"
+nodded, stumbled into the passage, and thence into the other room.
+
+His companion watched him pass out with a relieved yet protecting air,
+and then, closing the door softly, drew nearer to Breeze, and said in
+husky confidence,--
+
+"Ye ain't seein' him at his best, mister! He's bin drinkin' too much,
+and this yer news has upset him."
+
+"What news?" asked Breeze.
+
+"This yer suicide o' Irish Jack!"
+
+"Was he his friend?"
+
+"Friend?" ejaculated the man, horrified at the mere suggestion. "Not
+much! Why, Irish Jack was the only man that could hev hung Jim! Now he's
+dead, in course the Vigilants ain't got no proof agin Jim. Jim wants to
+face it out now an' stay here, but his wife and me don't see it noways!
+So we are taking advantage o' the lull agin him to get him off down the
+coast this very night. That's why he's been off his head drinkin'. Ye
+see, when a man has been for weeks hidin'--part o' the time in that
+room and part o' the time on the wharf, where them Vigilants has been
+watchin' every ship that left in order to ketch him, he's inclined to
+celebrate his chance o' getting away"--
+
+"Part of the time in that room?" interrupted Breeze quickly.
+
+"Sartin! Don't ye see? He allus kem in as you went out--sabe!--and got
+away before you kem back, his wife all the time just a-hoverin' between
+the two places, and keeping watch for him. It was killin' to her, you
+see, for she wasn't brought up to it, whiles Jim didn't keer--had two
+revolvers and kalkilated to kill a dozen Vigilants afore he dropped. But
+that's over now, and when I've got him safe on that 'plunger' down at
+the wharf to-night, and put him aboard the schooner that's lying off the
+Heads, he's all right agin."
+
+"And Roberts knew all this and was one of his friends?" asked Breeze.
+
+"Roberts knew it, and Roberts's wife used to be a kind of servant
+to Jim's wife in the South, when she was a girl, but I don't know ez
+Roberts is his FRIEND!"
+
+"He certainly has shown himself one," said Breeze.
+
+"Ye-e-s," said the stranger meditatively, "ye-e-s." He stopped, opened
+the door softly, and peeped out, and then closed it again softly. "It's
+sing'lar, Mr. Breeze," he went on in a sudden yet embarrassed burst
+of confidence, "that Jim thar--a man thet can shoot straight, and hez
+frequent; a man thet knows every skin game goin'--that THET man Jim,"
+very slowly, "hezn't really--got--any friends--'cept me--and his wife."
+
+"Indeed?" said Mr. Breeze dryly.
+
+"Sure! Why, you yourself didn't cotton to him--I could see THET."
+
+Mr. Breeze felt himself redden slightly, and looked curiously at the
+man. This vulgar parasite, whom he had set down as a worshiper of sham
+heroes, undoubtedly did not look like an associate of Bodine's, and had
+a certain seriousness that demanded respect. As he looked closer into
+his wide, round face, seamed with small-pox, he fancied he saw even in
+its fatuous imbecility something of that haunting devotion he had seen
+on the refined features of the wife. He said more gently,--
+
+"But one friend like you would seem to be enough."
+
+"I ain't what I uster be, Mr. Breeze," said the man meditatively,
+"and mebbe ye don't know who I am. I'm Abe Shuckster, of Shuckster's
+Ranch--one of the biggest in Petalumy. I was a rich man until a year
+ago, when Jim got inter trouble. What with mortgages and interest,
+payin' up Jim's friends and buying off some ez was set agin him, thar
+ain't much left, and when I've settled that bill for the schooner lying
+off the Heads there I reckon I'm about played out. But I've allus a
+shanty at Petalumy, and mebbe when things is froze over and Jim gets
+back--you'll come and see him--for you ain't seen him at his best."
+
+"I suppose his wife and children go with him?" said Breeze.
+
+"No! He's agin it, and wants them to come later. But that's all right,
+for you see she kin go back to their own house at the Mission, now that
+the Vigilants are givin' up shadderin' it. So long, Mr. Breeze! We're
+startin' afore daylight. Sorry you didn't see Jim in condition."
+
+He grasped Breeze's hand warmly and slipped out of the door softly. For
+an instant Mr. Breeze felt inclined to follow him into the room and make
+a kinder adieu to the pair, but the reflection that he might embarrass
+the wife, who, it would seem, had purposely avoided accompanying her
+husband when he entered, withheld him. And for the last few minutes he
+had been doubtful if he had any right to pose as her friend. Beside the
+devotion of the man who had just left him, his own scant kindness to her
+children seemed ridiculous.
+
+He went to bed, but tossed uneasily until he fancied he heard stealthy
+footsteps outside his door and in the passage. Even then he thought of
+getting up, dressing, and going out to bid farewell to the fugitives.
+But even while he was thinking of it he fell asleep and did not wake
+until the sun was shining in at his windows.
+
+He sprang to his feet, threw on his dressing-gown, and peered into the
+passage. Everything was silent. He stepped outside--the light streamed
+into the hall from the open doors and windows of both rooms--the floor
+was empty; not a trace of the former occupants remained. He was turning
+back when his eye fell upon the battered wooden doll set upright against
+his doorjamb, holding stiffly in its jointed arms a bit of paper folded
+like a note. Opening it, he found a few lines written in pencil.
+
+
+God bless you for your kindness to us, and try to forgive me for
+touching your papers. But I thought that you would detect it, know WHY I
+did it, and then help us, as you did! Good-by!
+
+MAMIE BODINE.
+
+
+Mr. Breeze laid down the paper with a slight accession of color, as if
+its purport had been ironical. How little had he done compared to the
+devotion of this delicate woman or the sacrifices of that rough friend!
+How deserted looked this nest under the eaves, which had so long borne
+its burden of guilt, innocence, shame, and suffering! For many days
+afterwards he avoided it except at night, and even then he often found
+himself lying awake to listen to the lost voices of the children.
+
+But one evening, a fortnight later, he came upon Roberts in the hall.
+"Well," said Breeze, with abrupt directness, "did he get away?"
+
+Roberts started, uttered an oath which it is possible the Recording
+Angel passed to his credit, and said, "Yes, HE got away all right!"
+
+"Why, hasn't his wife joined him?"
+
+"No. Never, in this world, I reckon; and if anywhere in the next, I
+don't want to go there!" said Roberts furiously.
+
+"Is he dead?"
+
+"Dead? That kind don't die!"
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+Roberts's lips writhed, and then, with a strong effort, he said with
+deliberate distinctness, "I mean--that the hound went off with another
+woman--that--was--in--that schooner, and left that fool Shuckster adrift
+in the plunger."
+
+"And the wife and children?"
+
+"Shuckster sold his shanty at Petaluma to pay their passage to the
+States. Good-night!"
+
+
+
+
+HOW REUBEN ALLEN "SAW LIFE" IN SAN FRANCISCO
+
+
+The junior partner of the firm of Sparlow & Kane, "Druggists and
+Apothecaries," of San Francisco, was gazing meditatively out of the
+corner of the window of their little shop in Dupont Street. He could see
+the dimly lit perspective of the narrow thoroughfare fade off into the
+level sand wastes of Market Street on the one side, and plunge into the
+half-excavated bulk of Telegraph Hill on the other. He could see the
+glow and hear the rumble of Montgomery Street--the great central avenue
+farther down the hill. Above the housetops was spread the warm blanket
+of sea-fog under which the city was regularly laid to sleep every
+summer night to the cool lullaby of the Northwest Trades. It was already
+half-past eleven; footsteps on the wooden pavement were getting rarer
+and more remote; the last cart had rumbled by; the shutters were up
+along the street; the glare of his own red and blue jars was the only
+beacon left to guide the wayfarers. Ordinarily he would have been going
+home at this hour, when his partner, who occupied the surgery and a
+small bedroom at the rear of the shop, always returned to relieve him.
+That night, however, a professional visit would detain the "Doctor"
+until half-past twelve. There was still an hour to wait. He felt drowsy;
+the mysterious incense of the shop, that combined essence of drugs,
+spice, scented soap, and orris root--which always reminded him of the
+Arabian Nights--was affecting him. He yawned, and then, turning away,
+passed behind the counter, took down a jar labeled "Glycyrr. Glabra,"
+selected a piece of Spanish licorice, and meditatively sucked it.
+Not receiving from it that diversion and sustenance he apparently was
+seeking, he also visited, in an equally familiar manner, a jar marked
+"Jujubes," and returned ruminatingly to his previous position.
+
+If I have not in this incident sufficiently established the youthfulness
+of the junior partner, I may add briefly that he was just nineteen, that
+he had early joined the emigration to California, and after one or two
+previous light-hearted essays at other occupations, for which he was
+singularly unfitted, he had saved enough to embark on his present
+venture, still less suited to his temperament. In those adventurous days
+trades and vocations were not always filled by trained workmen; it was
+extremely probable that the experienced chemist was already making his
+success as a gold-miner, with a lawyer and a physician for his partners,
+and Mr. Kane's inexperienced position was by no means a novel one. A
+slight knowledge of Latin as a written language, an American schoolboy's
+acquaintance with chemistry and natural philosophy, were deemed
+sufficient by his partner, a regular physician, for practical
+cooperation in the vending of drugs and putting up of prescriptions. He
+knew the difference between acids and alkalies and the peculiar results
+which attended their incautious combination. But he was excessively
+deliberate, painstaking, and cautious. The legend which adorned the desk
+at the counter, "Physicians' prescriptions carefully prepared," was more
+than usually true as regarded the adverb. There was no danger of his
+poisoning anybody through haste or carelessness, but it was possible
+that an urgent "case" might have succumbed to the disease while he was
+putting up the remedy. Nor was his caution entirely passive. In those
+days the "heroic" practice of medicine was in keeping with the abnormal
+development of the country; there were "record" doses of calomel
+and quinine, and he had once or twice incurred the fury of local
+practitioners by sending back their prescriptions with a modest query.
+
+The far-off clatter of carriage wheels presently arrested his attention;
+looking down the street, he could see the lights of a hackney carriage
+advancing towards him. They had already flashed upon the open crossing
+a block beyond before his vague curiosity changed into an active
+instinctive presentiment that they were coming to the shop. He withdrew
+to a more becoming and dignified position behind the counter as the
+carriage drew up with a jerk before the door.
+
+The driver rolled from his box and opened the carriage door to a woman
+whom he assisted, between some hysterical exclamations on her part and
+some equally incoherent explanations of his own, into the shop. Kane saw
+at a glance that both were under the influence of liquor, and one, the
+woman, was disheveled and bleeding about the head. Yet she was elegantly
+dressed and evidently en fete, with one or two "tricolor" knots and
+ribbons mingled with her finery. Her golden hair, matted and darkened
+with blood, had partly escaped from her French bonnet and hung heavily
+over her shoulders. The driver, who was supporting her roughly, and with
+a familiarity that was part of the incongruous spectacle, was the first
+to speak.
+
+"Madame le Blank! ye know! Got cut about the head down at the fete
+at South Park! Tried to dance upon the table, and rolled over on some
+champagne bottles. See? Wants plastering up!"
+
+"Ah brute! Hog! Nozzing of ze kine! Why will you lie? I dance! Ze
+cowards, fools, traitors zere upset ze table and I fall. I am cut! Ah,
+my God, how I am cut!"
+
+She stopped suddenly and lapsed heavily against the counter. At which
+Kane hurried around to support her into the surgery with the one
+fixed idea in his bewildered mind of getting her out of the shop,
+and, suggestively, into the domain and under the responsibility of his
+partner. The hackman, apparently relieved and washing his hands of any
+further complicity in the matter, nodded and smiled, and saying, "I
+reckon I'll wait outside, pardner," retreated incontinently to his
+vehicle. To add to Kane's half-ludicrous embarrassment the fair
+patient herself slightly resisted his support, accused the hackman of
+"abandoning her," and demanded if Kane knew "zee reason of zees affair,"
+yet she presently lapsed again into the large reclining-chair which
+he had wheeled forward, with open mouth, half-shut eyes, and a strange
+Pierrette mask of face, combined of the pallor of faintness and chalk,
+and the rouge of paint and blood. At which Kane's cautiousness again
+embarrassed him. A little brandy from the bottle labeled "Vini Galli"
+seemed to be indicated, but his inexperience could not determine if her
+relaxation was from bloodlessness or the reacting depression of alcohol.
+In this dilemma he chose a medium course, with aromatic spirits of
+ammonia, and mixing a diluted quantity in a measuring-glass, poured
+it between her white lips. A start, a struggle, a cough--a volley
+of imprecatory French, and the knocking of the glass from his
+hand followed--but she came to! He quickly sponged her head of the
+half-coagulated blood, and removed a few fragments of glass from a long
+laceration of the scalp. The shock of the cold water and the appearance
+of the ensanguined basin frightened her into a momentary passivity. But
+when Kane found it necessary to cut her hair in the region of the wound
+in order to apply the adhesive plaster, she again endeavored to rise and
+grasp the scissors.
+
+"You'll bleed to death if you're not quiet," said the young man with
+dogged gravity.
+
+Something in his manner impressed her into silence again. He cut whole
+locks away ruthlessly; he was determined to draw the edges of the wound
+together with the strip of plaster and stop the bleeding--if he cropped
+the whole head. His excessive caution for her physical condition did
+not extend to her superficial adornment. Her yellow tresses lay on the
+floor, her neck and shoulders were saturated with water from the sponge
+which he continually applied, until the heated strips of plaster had
+closed the wound almost hermetically. She whimpered, tears ran down her
+cheeks; but so long as it was not blood the young man was satisfied.
+
+In the midst of it he heard the shop door open, and presently the sound
+of rapping on the counter. Another customer!
+
+Mr. Kane called out, "Wait a moment," and continued his ministrations.
+After a pause the rapping recommenced. Kane was just securing the last
+strip of plaster and preserved a preoccupied silence. Then the door flew
+open abruptly and a figure appeared impatiently on the threshold. It was
+that of a miner recently returned from the gold diggings--so recently
+that he evidently had not had time to change his clothes at his adjacent
+hotel, and stood there in his high boots, duck trousers, and flannel
+shirt, over which his coat was slung like a hussar's jacket from his
+shoulder. Kane would have uttered an indignant protest at the intrusion,
+had not the intruder himself as quickly recoiled with an astonishment
+and contrition that was beyond the effect of any reproval. He literally
+gasped at the spectacle before him. A handsomely dressed woman reclining
+in a chair; lace and jewelry and ribbons depending from her saturated
+shoulders; tresses of golden hair filling her lap and lying on the
+floor; a pail of ruddy water and a sponge at her feet, and a pale
+young man bending over her head with a spirit lamp and strips of yellow
+plaster!
+
+"'Scuse me, pard! I was just dropping in; don't you hurry! I kin wait,"
+he stammered, falling back, and then the door closed abruptly behind
+him.
+
+Kane gathered up the shorn locks, wiped the face and neck of his patient
+with a clean towel and his own handkerchief, threw her gorgeous opera
+cloak over her shoulders, and assisted her to rise. She did so, weakly
+but obediently; she was evidently stunned and cowed in some mysterious
+way by his material attitude, perhaps, or her sudden realization of her
+position; at least the contrast between her aggressive entrance into
+the shop and her subdued preparation for her departure was so remarkable
+that it affected even Kane's preoccupation.
+
+"There," he said, slightly relaxing his severe demeanor with an
+encouraging smile, "I think this will do; we've stopped the bleeding. It
+will probably smart a little as the plaster sets closer. I can send my
+partner, Dr. Sparlow, to you in the morning."
+
+She looked at him curiously and with a strange smile. "And zees Doctor
+Sparrlow--eez he like you, M'sieu?"
+
+"He is older, and very well known," said the young man seriously. "I can
+safely recommend him."
+
+"Ah," she repeated, with a pensive smile which made Kane think her quite
+pretty. "Ah--he ez older--your Doctor Sparrlow--but YOU are strong,
+M'sieu."
+
+"And," said Kane vaguely, "he will tell you what to do."
+
+"Ah," she repeated again softly, with the same smile, "he will tell me
+what to do if I shall not know myself. Dat ez good."
+
+Kane had already wrapped her shorn locks in a piece of spotless white
+paper and tied it up with narrow white ribbon in the dainty fashion dear
+to druggists' clerks. As he handed it to her she felt in her pocket and
+produced a handful of gold.
+
+"What shall I pay for zees, M'sieu?"
+
+Kane reddened a little--solely because of his slow arithmetical
+faculties. Adhesive plaster was cheap--he would like to have charged
+proportionately for the exact amount he had used; but the division was
+beyond him! And he lacked the trader's instinct.
+
+"Twenty-five cents, I think," he hazarded briefly.
+
+She started, but smiled again. "Twenty-five cents for all zees--ze
+medicine, ze strips for ze head, ze hair cut"--she glanced at the paper
+parcel he had given her--"it is only twenty-five cents?"
+
+"That's all."
+
+He selected from her outstretched palm, with some difficulty, the
+exact amount, the smallest coin it held. She again looked at him
+curiously--half confusedly--and moved slowly into the shop. The miner,
+who was still there, retreated as before with a gaspingly apologetic
+gesture--even flattening himself against the window to give her sweeping
+silk flounces freer passage. As she passed into the street with a
+"Merci, M'sieu, good a'night," and the hackman started from the vehicle
+to receive her, the miner drew a long breath, and bringing his fist down
+upon the counter, ejaculated,--
+
+"B'gosh! She's a stunner!"
+
+Kane, a good deal relieved at her departure and the success of his
+ministration, smiled benignly.
+
+The stranger again stared after the retreating carriage, looked around
+the shop, and even into the deserted surgery, and approached the
+counter confidentially. "Look yer, pardner. I kem straight from St. Jo,
+Mizzorri, to Gold Hill--whar I've got a claim--and I reckon this is the
+first time I ever struck San Francisker. I ain't up to towny ways nohow,
+and I allow that mebbe I'm rather green. So we'll let that pass! Now
+look yer!" he added, leaning over the counter with still deeper and even
+mysterious confidence, "I suppose this yer kind o' thing is the regular
+go here, eh? nothin' new to YOU! in course no! But to me, pard, it's
+just fetchin' me! Lifts me clear outer my boots every time! Why, when I
+popped into that thar room, and saw that lady--all gold, furbelows,
+and spangles--at twelve o'clock at night, sittin' in that cheer and you
+a-cuttin' her h'r and swabbin' her head o' blood, and kinder prospectin'
+for 'indications,' so to speak, and doin' it so kam and indifferent
+like, I sez to myself, 'Rube, Rube,' sez I, 'this yer's life! city life!
+San Francisker life! and b'gosh, you've dropped into it! Now, pard, look
+yar! don't you answer, ye know, ef it ain't square and above board for
+me to know; I ain't askin' you to give the show away, ye know, in the
+matter of high-toned ladies like that, but" (very mysteriously, and
+sinking his voice to the lowest confidential pitch, as he put his
+hand to his ear as if to catch the hushed reply), "what mout hev bin
+happening, pard?"
+
+Considerably amused at the man's simplicity, Kane replied
+good-humoredly: "Danced among some champagne bottles on a table at a
+party, fell and got cut by glass."
+
+The stranger nodded his head slowly and approvingly as he repeated with
+infinite deliberateness: "Danced on champagne bottles, champagne! you
+said, pard? at a pahty! Yes!" (musingly and approvingly). "I reckon
+that's about the gait they take. SHE'D do it."
+
+"Is there anything I can do for you? sorry to have kept you waiting,"
+said Kane, glancing at the clock.
+
+"O ME! Lord! ye needn't mind me. Why, I should wait for anythin' o' the
+like o' that, and be just proud to do it! And ye see, I sorter helped
+myself while you war busy."
+
+"Helped yourself?" said Kane in astonishment.
+
+"Yes, outer that bottle." He pointed to the ammonia bottle, which still
+stood on the counter. "It seemed to be handy and popular."
+
+"Man! you might have poisoned yourself."
+
+The stranger paused a moment at the idea. "So I mout, I reckon," he said
+musingly, "that's so! pizined myself jest ez you was lookin' arter that
+high-toned case, and kinder bothered you! It's like me!"
+
+"I mean it required diluting; you ought to have taken it in water," said
+Kane.
+
+"I reckon! It DID sorter h'ist me over to the door for a little fresh
+air at first! seemed rayther scaldy to the lips. But wot of it that GOT
+THAR," he put his hand gravely to his stomach, "did me pow'ful good."
+
+"What was the matter with you?" asked Kane.
+
+"Well, ye see, pard" (confidentially again), "I reckon it's suthin'
+along o' my heart. Times it gets to poundin' away like a quartz stamp,
+and then it stops suddent like, and kinder leaves ME out too."
+
+Kane looked at him more attentively. He was a strong, powerfully built
+man with a complexion that betrayed nothing more serious than
+the effects of mining cookery. It was evidently a common case of
+indigestion.
+
+"I don't say it would not have done you some good if properly
+administered," he replied. "If you like I'll put up a diluted quantity
+and directions?"
+
+"That's me, every time, pardner!" said the stranger with an accent of
+relief. "And look yer, don't you stop at that! Ye just put me up some
+samples like of anythin' you think mout be likely to hit. I'll go in for
+a fair show, and then meander in every now and then, betwixt times, to
+let you know. Ye don't mind my drifting in here, do ye? It's about ez
+likely a place ez I struck since I've left the Sacramento boat, and my
+hotel, just round the corner. Ye just sample me a bit o' everythin';
+don't mind the expense. I'll take YOUR word for it. The way you--a
+young fellow--jest stuck to your work in thar, cool and kam as a
+woodpecker--not minding how high-toned she was--nor the jewelery and
+spangles she had on--jest got me! I sez to myself, 'Rube,' sez I,
+'whatever's wrong o' YOUR insides, you jest stick to that feller to set
+ye right.'"
+
+The junior partner's face reddened as he turned to his shelves
+ostensibly for consultation. Conscious of his inexperience, the homely
+praise of even this ignorant man was not ungrateful. He felt, too,
+that his treatment of the Frenchwoman, though successful, might not be
+considered remunerative from a business point of view by his partner. He
+accordingly acted upon the suggestion of the stranger and put up two or
+three specifics for dyspepsia. They were received with grateful alacrity
+and the casual display of considerable gold in the stranger's pocket in
+the process of payment. He was evidently a successful miner.
+
+After bestowing the bottles carefully about his person, he again
+leaned confidentially towards Kane. "I reckon of course you know this
+high-toned lady, being in the way of seein' that kind o' folks. I
+suppose you won't mind telling me, ez a stranger. But" (he added
+hastily, with a deprecatory wave of his hand), "perhaps ye would."
+
+Mr. Kane, in fact, had hesitated. He knew vaguely and by report that
+Madame le Blanc was the proprietress of a famous restaurant, over which
+she had rooms where private gambling was carried on to a great extent.
+It was also alleged that she was protected by a famous gambler and a
+somewhat notorious bully. Mr. Kane's caution suggested that he had no
+right to expose the reputation of his chance customer. He was silent.
+
+The stranger's face became intensely sympathetic and apologetic. "I
+see!--not another word, pard! It ain't the square thing to be givin'
+her away, and I oughtn't to hev asked. Well--so long! I reckon I'll jest
+drift back to the hotel. I ain't been in San Francisker mor' 'n three
+hours, and I calkilate, pard, that I've jest seen about ez square a
+sample of high-toned life as fellers ez haz bin here a year. Well,
+hastermanyanner--ez the Greasers say. I'll be droppin' in to-morrow. My
+name's Reuben Allen o' Mariposa. I know yours; it's on the sign, and it
+ain't Sparlow."
+
+He cast another lingering glance around the shop, as if loath to leave
+it, and then slowly sauntered out of the door, pausing in the street a
+moment, in the glare of the red light, before he faded into darkness.
+Without knowing exactly why, Kane had an instinct that the stranger knew
+no one in San Francisco, and after leaving the shop was going into utter
+silence and obscurity.
+
+A few moments later Dr. Sparlow returned to relieve his wearied partner.
+A pushing, active man, he listened impatiently to Kane's account of his
+youthful practice with Madame le Blanc, without, however, dwelling much
+on his methods. "You ought to have charged her more," the elder said
+decisively. "She'd have paid it. She only came here because she was
+ashamed to go to a big shop in Montgomery Street--and she won't come
+again."
+
+"But she wants you to see her to-morrow," urged Kane, "and I told her
+you would!"
+
+"You say it was only a superficial cut?" queried the doctor, "and
+you closed it? Umph! what can she want to see ME for?" He paid more
+attention, however, to the case of the stranger, Allen. "When he comes
+here again, manage to let me see him." Mr. Kane promised, yet for some
+indefinable reason he went home that night not quite as well satisfied
+with himself.
+
+He was much more concerned the next morning when, after relieving the
+doctor for his regular morning visits, he was startled an hour later
+by the abrupt return of that gentleman. His face was marked by some
+excitement and anxiety, which nevertheless struggled with that sense
+of the ludicrous which Californians in those days imported into most
+situations of perplexity or catastrophe. Putting his hands deeply into
+his trousers pockets, he confronted his youthful partner behind the
+counter.
+
+"How much did you charge that French-woman?" he said gravely.
+
+"Twenty-five cents," said Kane timidly.
+
+"Well, I'd give it back and add two hundred and fifty dollars if she had
+never entered the shop."
+
+"What's the matter?"
+
+"Her head will be--and a mass of it, in a day, I reckon! Why, man, you
+put enough plaster on it to clothe and paper the dome of the Capitol!
+You drew her scalp together so that she couldn't shut her eyes without
+climbing up the bed-post! You mowed her hair off so that she'll have to
+wear a wig for the next two years--and handed it to her in a beau-ti-ful
+sealed package! They talk of suing me and killing you out of hand."
+
+"She was bleeding a great deal and looked faint," said the junior
+partner; "I thought I ought to stop that."
+
+"And you did--by thunder! Though it might have been better business
+for the shop if I'd found her a crumbling ruin here, than lathed and
+plastered in this fashion, over there! However," he added, with a laugh,
+seeing an angry light in his junior partner's eye, "SHE don't seem to
+mind it--the cursing all comes from THEM. SHE rather likes your style
+and praises it--that's what gets me! Did you talk to her much," he
+added, looking critically at his partner.
+
+"I only told her to sit still or she'd bleed to death," said Kane
+curtly.
+
+"Humph!--she jabbered something about your being 'strong' and knowing
+just how to handle her. Well, it can't be helped now. I think I came in
+time for the worst of it and have drawn their fire. Don't do it again.
+The next time a woman with a cut head and long hair tackles you, fill
+up her scalp with lint and tannin, and pack her off to some of the big
+shops and make THEM pick it out." And with a good-humored nod he started
+off to finish his interrupted visits.
+
+With a vague sense of remorse, and yet a consciousness of some injustice
+done him, Mr. Kane resumed his occupation with filters and funnels, and
+mortars and triturations. He was so gloomily preoccupied that he did
+not, as usual, glance out of the window, or he would have observed the
+mining stranger of the previous night before it. It was not until the
+man's bowed shoulders blocked the light of the doorway that he looked up
+and recognized him. Kane was in no mood to welcome his appearance. His
+presence, too, actively recalled the last night's adventure of which he
+was a witness--albeit a sympathizing one. Kane shrank from the illusions
+which he felt he would be sure to make. And with his present ill luck,
+he was by no means sure that his ministrations even to HIM had been any
+more successful than they had been to the Frenchwoman. But a glance
+at his good-humored face and kindling eyes removed that suspicion.
+Nevertheless, he felt somewhat embarrassed and impatient, and perhaps
+could not entirely conceal it. He forgot that the rudest natures are
+sometimes the most delicately sensitive to slights, and the stranger had
+noticed his manner and began apologetically.
+
+"I allowed I'd just drop in anyway to tell ye that these thar pills you
+giv' me did me a heap o' good so far--though mebbe it's only fair to
+give the others a show too, which I'm reckoning to do." He paused, and
+then in a submissive confidence went on: "But first I wanted to hev you
+excuse me for havin' asked all them questions about that high-toned lady
+last night, when it warn't none of my business. I am a darned fool."
+
+Mr. Kane instantly saw that it was no use to keep up his attitude of
+secrecy, or impose upon the ignorant, simple man, and said hurriedly:
+"Oh no. The lady is very well known. She is the proprietress of a
+restaurant down the street--a house open to everybody. Her name is
+Madame le Blanc; you may have heard of her before?"
+
+To his surprise the man exhibited no diminution of interest nor change
+of sentiment at this intelligence. "Then," he said slowly, "I reckon I
+might get to see her again. Ye see, Mr. Kane, I rather took a fancy to
+her general style and gait--arter seein' her in that fix last night. It
+was rather like them play pictures on the stage. Ye don't think she'd
+make any fuss to seein' a rough old 'forty-niner' like me?"
+
+"Hardly," said Kane, "but there might be some objection from her
+gentlemen friends," he added, with a smile,--"Jack Lane, a gambler, who
+keeps a faro bank in her rooms, and Jimmy O'Ryan, a prize-fighter, who
+is one of her 'chuckers out.'"
+
+His further relation of Madame le Blanc's entourage apparently gave the
+miner no concern. He looked at Kane, nodded, and repeated slowly
+and appreciatively: "Yes, keeps a gamblin' and faro bank and a
+prize-fighter--I reckon that might be about her gait and style too. And
+you say she lives"--
+
+He stopped, for at this moment a man entered the shop quickly, shut the
+door behind him, and turned the key in the lock. It was done so quickly
+that Kane instinctively felt that the man had been loitering in the
+vicinity and had approached from the side street. A single glance at the
+intruder's face and figure showed him that it was the bully of whom
+he had just spoken. He had seen that square, brutal face once before,
+confronting the police in a riot, and had not forgotten it. But today,
+with the flush of liquor on it, it had an impatient awkwardness and
+confused embarrassment that he could not account for. He did not
+comprehend that the genuine bully is seldom deliberate of attack, and
+is obliged--in common with many of the combative lower animals--to lash
+himself into a previous fury of provocation. This probably saved him, as
+perhaps some instinctive feeling that he was in no immediate danger kept
+him cool. He remained standing quietly behind the counter. Allen glanced
+around carelessly, looking at the shelves.
+
+The silence of the two men apparently increased the ruffian's rage and
+embarrassment. Suddenly he leaped into the air with a whoop and
+clumsily executed a negro double shuffle on the floor, which jarred the
+glasses--yet was otherwise so singularly ineffective and void of purpose
+that he stopped in the midst of it and had to content himself with
+glaring at Kane.
+
+"Well," said Kane quietly, "what does all this mean? What do you want
+here?"
+
+"What does it mean?" repeated the bully, finding his voice in a high
+falsetto, designed to imitate Kane's. "It means I'm going to play merry
+h-ll with this shop! It means I'm goin' to clean it out and the blank
+hair-cuttin' blank that keeps it. What do I want here? Well--what I want
+I intend to help myself to, and all h-ll can't stop me! And" (working
+himself to the striking point) "who the blank are you to ask me?" He
+sprang towards the counter, but at the same moment Allen seemed to
+slip almost imperceptibly and noiselessly between them, and Kane found
+himself confronted only by the miner's broad back.
+
+"Hol' yer hosses, stranger," said Allen slowly, as the ruffian suddenly
+collided with his impassive figure. "I'm a sick man comin' in yer for
+medicine. I've got somethin' wrong with my heart, and goin's on like
+this yer kinder sets it to thumpin'."
+
+"Blank you and your blank heart!" screamed the bully, turning in a fury
+of amazement and contempt at this impotent interruption. "Who"--but his
+voice stopped. Allen's powerful right arm had passed over his head and
+shoulders like a steel hoop, and pinioned his elbows against his sides.
+Held rigidly upright, he attempted to kick, but Allen's right leg here
+advanced, and firmly held his lower limbs against the counter that shook
+to his struggles and blasphemous outcries. Allen turned quietly to Kane,
+and, with a gesture of his unemployed arm, said confidentially:
+
+"Would ye mind passing me down that ar Romantic Spirits of Ammonyer ye
+gave me last night?"
+
+Kane caught the idea, and handed him the bottle.
+
+"Thar," said Allen, taking out the stopper and holding the pungent
+spirit against the bully's dilated nostrils and vociferous mouth, "thar,
+smell that, and taste it, it will do ye good; it was powerful kammin' to
+ME last night."
+
+The ruffian gasped, coughed, choked, but his blaspheming voice died away
+in a suffocating hiccough.
+
+"Thar," continued Allen, as his now subdued captive relaxed his
+struggling, "ye 'r' better, and so am I. It's quieter here now, and ye
+ain't affectin' my heart so bad. A little fresh air will make us both
+all right." He turned again to Kane in his former subdued confidential
+manner.
+
+"Would ye mind openin' that door?"
+
+Kane flew to the door, unlocked it, and held it wide open. The bully
+again began to struggle, but a second inhalation of the hartshorn
+quelled him, and enabled his captor to drag him to the door. As they
+emerged upon the sidewalk, the bully, with a final desperate struggle,
+freed his arm and grasped his pistol at his hip-pocket, but at the same
+moment Allen deliberately caught his hand, and with a powerful side
+throw cast him on the pavement, retaining the weapon in his own hand.
+"I've one of my own," he said to the prostrate man, "but I reckon I'll
+keep this yer too, until you're better."
+
+The crowd that had collected quickly, recognizing the notorious and
+discomfited bully, were not of a class to offer him any sympathy, and he
+slunk away followed by their jeers. Allen returned quietly to the
+shop. Kane was profuse in his thanks, and yet oppressed with his simple
+friend's fatuous admiration for a woman who could keep such ruffians in
+her employ. "You know who that man was, I suppose?" he said.
+
+"I reckon it was that 'er prize-fighter belongin' to that high-toned
+lady," returned Allen simply. "But he don't know anything about
+RASTLIN', b'gosh; only that I was afraid o' bringin' on that heart
+trouble, I mout hev hurt him bad."
+
+"They think"--hesitated Kane, "that--I--was rough in my treatment
+of that woman and maliciously cut off her hair. This attack was
+revenge--or"--he hesitated still more, as he remembered Dr. Sparlow's
+indication of the woman's feeling--"or that bully's idea of revenge."
+
+"I see," nodded Allen, opening his small sympathetic eyes on Kane with
+an exasperating air of secrecy--"just jealousy."
+
+Kane reddened in sheer hopelessness of explanation. "No; it was earning
+his wages, as he thought."
+
+"Never ye mind, pard," said Allen confidentially. "I'll set 'em
+both right. Ye see, this sorter gives me a show to call at that thar
+restaurant and give HIM back his six-shooter, and set her on the right
+trail for you. Why, Lordy! I was here when you was fixin' her--I'm
+testimony o' the way you did it--and she'll remember me. I'll sorter
+waltz round thar this afternoon. But I reckon I won't be keepin' YOU
+from your work any longer. And look yar!--I say, pard!--this is seein'
+life in 'Frisco--ain't it? Gosh! I've had more high times in this very
+shop in two days, than I've had in two years of St. Jo. So long, Mr.
+Kane!" He waved his hand, lounged slowly out of the shop, gave a parting
+glance up the street, passed the window, and was gone.
+
+The next day being a half-holiday for Kane, he did not reach the shop
+until afternoon. "Your mining friend Allen has been here," said Doctor
+Sparlow. "I took the liberty of introducing myself, and induced him to
+let me carefully examine him. He was a little shy, and I am sorry for
+it, as I fear he has some serious organic trouble with his heart and
+ought to have a more thorough examination." Seeing Kane's unaffected
+concern, he added, "You might influence him to do so. He's a good fellow
+and ought to take some care of himself. By the way, he told me to tell
+you that he'd seen Madame le Blanc and made it all right about you. He
+seems to be quite infatuated with the woman."
+
+"I'm sorry he ever saw her," said Kane bitterly.
+
+"Well, his seeing her seems to have saved the shop from being smashed
+up, and you from getting a punched head," returned the Doctor with a
+laugh. "He's no fool--yet it's a freak of human nature that a simple
+hayseed like that--a man who's lived in the backwoods all his life, is
+likely to be the first to tumble before a pot of French rouge like her."
+
+Indeed, in a couple of weeks, there was no further doubt of Mr. Reuben
+Allen's infatuation. He dropped into the shop frequently on his way to
+and from the restaurant, where he now regularly took his meals; he spent
+his evenings in gambling in its private room. Yet Kane was by no means
+sure that he was losing his money there unfairly, or that he was used
+as a pigeon by the proprietress and her friends. The bully O'Ryan was
+turned away; Sparlow grimly suggested that Allen had simply taken his
+place, but Kane ingeniously retorted that the Doctor was only piqued
+because Allen had evaded his professional treatment. Certainly the
+patient had never consented to another examination, although he
+repeatedly and gravely bought medicines, and was a generous customer.
+Once or twice Kane thought it his duty to caution Allen against his new
+friends and enlighten him as to Madame le Blanc's reputation, but his
+suggestions were received with a good-humored submission that was either
+the effect of unbelief or of perfect resignation to the fact, and he
+desisted. One morning Dr. Sparlow said cheerfully:--
+
+"Would you like to hear the last thing about your friend and the
+Frenchwoman? The boys can't account for her singling out a fellow like
+that for her friend, so they say that the night that she cut herself at
+the fete and dropped in here for assistance, she found nobody here but
+Allen--a chance customer! That it was HE who cut off her hair and bound
+up her wounds in that sincere fashion, and she believed he had saved her
+life." The Doctor grinned maliciously as he added: "And as that's the
+way history is written you see your reputation is safe."
+
+It may have been a month later that San Francisco was thrown into a
+paroxysm of horror and indignation over the assassination of a prominent
+citizen and official in the gambling-rooms of Madame le Blanc, at the
+hands of a notorious gambler. The gambler had escaped, but in one
+of those rare spasms of vengeful morality which sometimes overtakes
+communities who have too long winked at and suffered the existence of
+evil, the fair proprietress and her whole entourage were arrested and
+haled before the coroner's jury at the inquest. The greatest excitement
+prevailed; it was said that if the jury failed in their duty,
+the Vigilance Committee had arranged for the destruction of the
+establishment and the deportation of its inmates. The crowd that had
+collected around the building was reinforced by Kane and Dr. Sparlow,
+who had closed their shop in the next block to attend. When Kane had
+fought his way into the building and the temporary court, held in the
+splendidly furnished gambling saloon, whose gilded mirrors reflected the
+eager faces of the crowd, the Chief of Police was giving his testimony
+in a formal official manner, impressive only for its relentless
+and impassive revelation of the character and antecedents of the
+proprietress. The house had been long under the espionage of the police;
+Madame le Blanc had a dozen aliases; she was "wanted" in New Orleans,
+in New York, in Havana! It was in HER house that Dyer, the bank clerk,
+committed suicide; it was there that Colonel Hooley was set upon by her
+bully, O'Ryan; it was she--Kane heard with reddening cheeks--who defied
+the police with riotous conduct at a fete two months ago. As he coolly
+recited the counts of this shameful indictment, Kane looked eagerly
+around for Allen, whom he knew had been arrested as a witness. How would
+HE take this terrible disclosure? He was sitting with the others, his
+arm thrown over the back of his chair, and his good-humored face turned
+towards the woman, in his old confidential attitude. SHE, gorgeously
+dressed, painted, but unblushing, was cool, collected, and cynical.
+
+The Coroner next called the only witness of the actual tragedy, "Reuben
+Allen." The man did not move nor change his position. The summons was
+repeated; a policeman touched him on the shoulder. There was a pause,
+and the officer announced: "He has fainted, your Honor!"
+
+"Is there a physician present?" asked the Coroner.
+
+Sparlow edged his way quickly to the front. "I'm a medical man," he said
+to the Coroner, as he passed quickly to the still, upright, immovable
+figure and knelt beside it with his head upon his heart. There was an
+awed silence as, after a pause, he rose slowly to his feet.
+
+"The witness is a patient, your Honor, whom I examined some weeks ago
+and found suffering from valvular disease of the heart. He is dead."
+
+
+
+
+THREE VAGABONDS OF TRINIDAD
+
+
+"Oh! it's you, is it?" said the Editor.
+
+The Chinese boy to whom the colloquialism was addressed answered
+literally, after his habit:--
+
+"Allee same Li Tee; me no changee. Me no ollee China boy."
+
+"That's so," said the Editor with an air of conviction. "I don't suppose
+there's another imp like you in all Trinidad County. Well, next time
+don't scratch outside there like a gopher, but come in."
+
+"Lass time," suggested Li Tee blandly, "me tap tappee. You no like tap
+tappee. You say, alle same dam woodpeckel."
+
+It was quite true--the highly sylvan surroundings of the Trinidad
+"Sentinel" office--a little clearing in a pine forest--and its attendant
+fauna, made these signals confusing. An accurate imitation of a
+woodpecker was also one of Li Tee's accomplishments.
+
+The Editor without replying finished the note he was writing; at which
+Li Tee, as if struck by some coincident recollection, lifted up his long
+sleeve, which served him as a pocket, and carelessly shook out a letter
+on the table like a conjuring trick. The Editor, with a reproachful
+glance at him, opened it. It was only the ordinary request of an
+agricultural subscriber--one Johnson--that the Editor would "notice" a
+giant radish grown by the subscriber and sent by the bearer.
+
+"Where's the radish, Li Tee?" said the Editor suspiciously.
+
+"No hab got. Ask Mellikan boy."
+
+"What?"
+
+Here Li Tee condescended to explain that on passing the schoolhouse he
+had been set upon by the schoolboys, and that in the struggle the big
+radish--being, like most such monstrosities of the quick Californian
+soil, merely a mass of organized water--was "mashed" over the head of
+some of his assailants. The Editor, painfully aware of these regular
+persecutions of his errand boy, and perhaps realizing that a radish
+which could not be used as a bludgeon was not of a sustaining nature,
+forebore any reproof. "But I cannot notice what I haven't seen, Li Tee,"
+he said good-humoredly.
+
+"S'pose you lie--allee same as Johnson," suggested Li with equal
+cheerfulness. "He foolee you with lotten stuff--you foolee Mellikan man,
+allee same."
+
+The Editor preserved a dignified silence until he had addressed his
+letter. "Take this to Mrs. Martin," he said, handing it to the boy; "and
+mind you keep clear of the schoolhouse. Don't go by the Flat either if
+the men are at work, and don't, if you value your skin, pass Flanigan's
+shanty, where you set off those firecrackers and nearly burnt him out
+the other day. Look out for Barker's dog at the crossing, and keep
+off the main road if the tunnel men are coming over the hill." Then
+remembering that he had virtually closed all the ordinary approaches to
+Mrs. Martin's house, he added, "Better go round by the woods, where you
+won't meet ANY ONE."
+
+The boy darted off through the open door, and the Editor stood for a
+moment looking regretfully after him. He liked his little protege ever
+since that unfortunate child--a waif from a Chinese wash-house--was
+impounded by some indignant miners for bringing home a highly imperfect
+and insufficient washing, and kept as hostage for a more proper
+return of the garments. Unfortunately, another gang of miners, equally
+aggrieved, had at the same time looted the wash-house and driven off the
+occupants, so that Li Tee remained unclaimed. For a few weeks he
+became a sporting appendage of the miners' camp; the stolid butt
+of good-humored practical jokes, the victim alternately of careless
+indifference or of extravagant generosity. He received kicks and
+half-dollars intermittently, and pocketed both with stoical fortitude.
+But under this treatment he presently lost the docility and frugality
+which was part of his inheritance, and began to put his small wits
+against his tormentors, until they grew tired of their own mischief and
+his. But they knew not what to do with him. His pretty nankeen-yellow
+skin debarred him from the white "public school," while, although as
+a heathen he might have reasonably claimed attention from the
+Sabbath-school, the parents who cheerfully gave their contributions to
+the heathen ABROAD, objected to him as a companion of their children in
+the church at home. At this juncture the Editor offered to take him
+into his printing office as a "devil." For a while he seemed to be
+endeavoring, in his old literal way, to act up to that title. He inked
+everything but the press. He scratched Chinese characters of an abusive
+import on "leads," printed them, and stuck them about the office; he put
+"punk" in the foreman's pipe, and had been seen to swallow small type
+merely as a diabolical recreation. As a messenger he was fleet of foot,
+but uncertain of delivery. Some time previously the Editor had enlisted
+the sympathies of Mrs. Martin, the good-natured wife of a farmer, to
+take him in her household on trial, but on the third day Li Tee had
+run away. Yet the Editor had not despaired, and it was to urge her to a
+second attempt that he dispatched that letter.
+
+He was still gazing abstractedly into the depths of the wood when he was
+conscious of a slight movement--but no sound--in a clump of hazel near
+him, and a stealthy figure glided from it. He at once recognized it as
+"Jim," a well-known drunken Indian vagrant of the settlement--tied
+to its civilization by the single link of "fire water," for which he
+forsook equally the Reservation where it was forbidden and his own camps
+where it was unknown. Unconscious of his silent observer, he dropped
+upon all fours, with his ear and nose alternately to the ground like
+some tracking animal. Then having satisfied himself, he rose, and
+bending forward in a dogged trot, made a straight line for the woods.
+He was followed a few seconds later by his dog--a slinking, rough,
+wolf-like brute, whose superior instinct, however, made him detect the
+silent presence of some alien humanity in the person of the Editor, and
+to recognize it with a yelp of habit, anticipatory of the stone that he
+knew was always thrown at him.
+
+"That's cute," said a voice, "but it's just what I expected all along."
+
+The Editor turned quickly. His foreman was standing behind him, and had
+evidently noticed the whole incident.
+
+"It's what I allus said," continued the man. "That boy and that Injin
+are thick as thieves. Ye can't see one without the other--and they've
+got their little tricks and signals by which they follow each other.
+T'other day when you was kalkilatin' Li Tee was doin' your errands I
+tracked him out on the marsh, just by followin' that ornery,
+pizenous dog o' Jim's. There was the whole caboodle of 'em--including
+Jim--campin' out, and eatin' raw fish that Jim had ketched, and green
+stuff they had both sneaked outer Johnson's garden. Mrs. Martin may TAKE
+him, but she won't keep him long while Jim's round. What makes Li foller
+that blamed old Injin soaker, and what makes Jim, who, at least, is a
+'Merican, take up with a furrin' heathen, just gets me."
+
+The Editor did not reply. He had heard something of this before. Yet,
+after all, why should not these equal outcasts of civilization cling
+together!
+
+*****
+
+Li Tee's stay with Mrs. Martin was brief. His departure was hastened by
+an untoward event--apparently ushered in, as in the case of other
+great calamities, by a mysterious portent in the sky. One morning an
+extraordinary bird of enormous dimensions was seen approaching from the
+horizon, and eventually began to hover over the devoted town. Careful
+scrutiny of this ominous fowl, however, revealed the fact that it was a
+monstrous Chinese kite, in the shape of a flying dragon. The spectacle
+imparted considerable liveliness to the community, which, however,
+presently changed to some concern and indignation. It appeared that
+the kite was secretly constructed by Li Tee in a secluded part of Mrs.
+Martin's clearing, but when it was first tried by him he found that
+through some error of design it required a tail of unusual proportions.
+This he hurriedly supplied by the first means he found--Mrs. Martin's
+clothes-line, with part of the weekly wash depending from it. This fact
+was not at first noticed by the ordinary sightseer, although the tail
+seemed peculiar--yet, perhaps, not more peculiar than a dragon's tail
+ought to be. But when the actual theft was discovered and reported
+through the town, a vivacious interest was created, and spy-glasses were
+used to identify the various articles of apparel still hanging on that
+ravished clothes-line. These garments, in the course of their slow
+disengagement from the clothes-pins through the gyrations of the kite,
+impartially distributed themselves over the town--one of Mrs. Martin's
+stockings falling upon the veranda of the Polka Saloon, and the other
+being afterwards discovered on the belfry of the First Methodist
+Church--to the scandal of the congregation. It would have been well if
+the result of Li Tee's invention had ended here. Alas! the kite-flyer
+and his accomplice, "Injin Jim," were tracked by means of the kite's
+tell-tale cord to a lonely part of the marsh and rudely dispossessed of
+their charge by Deacon Hornblower and a constable. Unfortunately,
+the captors overlooked the fact that the kite-flyers had taken the
+precaution of making a "half-turn" of the stout cord around a log to
+ease the tremendous pull of the kite--whose power the captors had not
+reckoned upon--and the Deacon incautiously substituted his own body for
+the log. A singular spectacle is said to have then presented itself to
+the on-lookers. The Deacon was seen to be running wildly by leaps and
+bounds over the marsh after the kite, closely followed by the constable
+in equally wild efforts to restrain him by tugging at the end of the
+line. The extraordinary race continued to the town until the constable
+fell, losing his hold of the line. This seemed to impart a singular
+specific levity to the Deacon, who, to the astonishment of everybody,
+incontinently sailed up into a tree! When he was succored and cut down
+from the demoniac kite, he was found to have sustained a dislocation
+of the shoulder, and the constable was severely shaken. By that one
+infelicitous stroke the two outcasts made an enemy of the Law and the
+Gospel as represented in Trinidad County. It is to be feared also that
+the ordinary emotional instinct of a frontier community, to which they
+were now simply abandoned, was as little to be trusted. In this dilemma
+they disappeared from the town the next day--no one knew where. A
+pale blue smoke rising from a lonely island in the bay for some days
+afterwards suggested their possible refuge. But nobody greatly cared.
+The sympathetic mediation of the Editor was characteristically opposed
+by Mr. Parkin Skinner, a prominent citizen:--
+
+"It's all very well for you to talk sentiment about niggers, Chinamen,
+and Injins, and you fellers can laugh about the Deacon being snatched
+up to heaven like Elijah in that blamed Chinese chariot of a kite--but
+I kin tell you, gentlemen, that this is a white man's country! Yes, sir,
+you can't get over it! The nigger of every description--yeller,
+brown, or black, call him 'Chinese,' 'Injin,' or 'Kanaka,' or what
+you like--hez to clar off of God's footstool when the Anglo-Saxon gets
+started! It stands to reason that they can't live alongside o' printin'
+presses, M'Cormick's reapers, and the Bible! Yes, sir! the Bible; and
+Deacon Hornblower kin prove it to you. It's our manifest destiny to clar
+them out--that's what we was put here for--and it's just the work we've
+got to do!"
+
+I have ventured to quote Mr. Skinner's stirring remarks to show that
+probably Jim and Li Tee ran away only in anticipation of a possible
+lynching, and to prove that advanced sentiments of this high and
+ennobling nature really obtained forty years ago in an ordinary American
+frontier town which did not then dream of Expansion and Empire!
+
+Howbeit, Mr. Skinner did not make allowance for mere human nature.
+One morning Master Bob Skinner, his son, aged twelve, evaded the
+schoolhouse, and started in an old Indian "dug-out" to invade the
+island of the miserable refugees. His purpose was not clearly defined
+to himself, but was to be modified by circumstances. He would either
+capture Li Tee and Jim, or join them in their lawless existence. He
+had prepared himself for either event by surreptitiously borrowing
+his father's gun. He also carried victuals, having heard that Jim ate
+grasshoppers and Li Tee rats, and misdoubting his own capacity for
+either diet. He paddled slowly, well in shore, to be secure from
+observation at home, and then struck out boldly in his leaky canoe for
+the island--a tufted, tussocky shred of the marshy promontory torn off
+in some tidal storm. It was a lovely day, the bay being barely ruffled
+by the afternoon "trades;" but as he neared the island he came upon the
+swell from the bar and the thunders of the distant Pacific, and grew a
+little frightened. The canoe, losing way, fell into the trough of the
+swell, shipping salt water, still more alarming to the prairie-bred boy.
+Forgetting his plan of a stealthy invasion, he shouted lustily as the
+helpless and water-logged boat began to drift past the island; at which
+a lithe figure emerged from the reeds, threw off a tattered blanket, and
+slipped noiselessly, like some animal, into the water. It was Jim, who,
+half wading, half swimming, brought the canoe and boy ashore. Master
+Skinner at once gave up the idea of invasion, and concluded to join the
+refugees.
+
+This was easy in his defenceless state, and his manifest delight in
+their rude encampment and gypsy life, although he had been one of Li
+Tee's oppressors in the past. But that stolid pagan had a philosophical
+indifference which might have passed for Christian forgiveness, and
+Jim's native reticence seemed like assent. And, possibly, in the minds
+of these two vagabonds there might have been a natural sympathy for this
+other truant from civilization, and some delicate flattery in the fact
+that Master Skinner was not driven out, but came of his own accord.
+Howbeit, they fished together, gathered cranberries on the marsh, shot
+a wild duck and two plovers, and when Master Skinner assisted in the
+cooking of their fish in a conical basket sunk in the ground, filled
+with water, heated by rolling red-hot stones from their drift-wood fire
+into the buried basket, the boy's felicity was supreme. And what an
+afternoon! To lie, after this feast, on their bellies in the grass,
+replete like animals, hidden from everything but the sunshine above
+them; so quiet that gray clouds of sandpipers settled fearlessly around
+them, and a shining brown muskrat slipped from the ooze within a few
+feet of their faces--was to feel themselves a part of the wild life in
+earth and sky. Not that their own predatory instincts were hushed by
+this divine peace; that intermitting black spot upon the water, declared
+by the Indian to be a seal, the stealthy glide of a yellow fox in the
+ambush of a callow brood of mallards, the momentary straying of an elk
+from the upland upon the borders of the marsh, awoke their tingling
+nerves to the happy but fruitless chase. And when night came, too soon,
+and they pigged together around the warm ashes of their camp-fire, under
+the low lodge poles of their wigwam of dried mud, reeds, and driftwood,
+with the combined odors of fish, wood-smoke, and the warm salt breath of
+the marsh in their nostrils, they slept contentedly. The distant lights
+of the settlement went out one by one, the stars came out, very large
+and very silent, to take their places. The barking of a dog on the
+nearest point was followed by another farther inland. But Jim's dog,
+curled at the feet of his master, did not reply. What had HE to do with
+civilization?
+
+The morning brought some fear of consequences to Master Skinner, but no
+abatement of his resolve not to return. But here he was oddly combated
+by Li Tee. "S'pose you go back allee same. You tellee fam'lee canoe go
+topside down--you plentee swimee to bush. Allee night in bush. Housee
+big way off--how can get? Sabe?"
+
+"And I'll leave the gun, and tell Dad that when the canoe upset the gun
+got drowned," said the boy eagerly.
+
+Li Tee nodded.
+
+"And come again Saturday, and bring more powder and shot and a bottle
+for Jim," said Master Skinner excitedly.
+
+"Good!" grunted the Indian.
+
+Then they ferried the boy over to the peninsula, and set him on a trail
+across the marshes, known only to themselves, which would bring him
+home. And when the Editor the next morning chronicled among his news,
+"Adrift on the Bay--A Schoolboy's Miraculous Escape," he knew as little
+what part his missing Chinese errand boy had taken in it as the rest of
+his readers.
+
+Meantime the two outcasts returned to their island camp. It may have
+occurred to them that a little of the sunlight had gone from it with
+Bob; for they were in a dull, stupid way fascinated by the little white
+tyrant who had broken bread with them. He had been delightfully selfish
+and frankly brutal to them, as only a schoolboy could be, with the
+addition of the consciousness of his superior race. Yet they each
+longed for his return, although he was seldom mentioned in their scanty
+conversation--carried on in monosyllables, each in his own language, or
+with some common English word, or more often restricted solely to signs.
+By a delicate flattery, when they did speak of him it was in what they
+considered to be his own language.
+
+"Boston boy, plenty like catchee HIM," Jim would say, pointing to a
+distant swan. Or Li Tee, hunting a striped water snake from the reeds,
+would utter stolidly, "Melikan boy no likee snake." Yet the next two
+days brought some trouble and physical discomfort to them. Bob
+had consumed, or wasted, all their provisions--and, still more
+unfortunately, his righteous visit, his gun, and his superabundant
+animal spirits had frightened away the game, which their habitual quiet
+and taciturnity had beguiled into trustfulness. They were half starved,
+but they did not blame him. It would come all right when he returned.
+They counted the days, Jim with secret notches on the long pole, Li Tee
+with a string of copper "cash" he always kept with him. The eventful
+day came at last,--a warm autumn day, patched with inland fog like blue
+smoke and smooth, tranquil, open surfaces of wood and sea; but to their
+waiting, confident eyes the boy came not out of either. They kept a
+stolid silence all that day until night fell, when Jim said, "Mebbe
+Boston boy go dead." Li Tee nodded. It did not seem possible to these
+two heathens that anything else could prevent the Christian child from
+keeping his word.
+
+After that, by the aid of the canoe, they went much on the marsh,
+hunting apart, but often meeting on the trail which Bob had taken, with
+grunts of mutual surprise. These suppressed feelings, never made known
+by word or gesture, at last must have found vicarious outlet in the
+taciturn dog, who so far forgot his usual discretion as to once or twice
+seat himself on the water's edge and indulge in a fit of howling. It had
+been a custom of Jim's on certain days to retire to some secluded place,
+where, folded in his blanket, with his back against a tree, he remained
+motionless for hours. In the settlement this had been usually referred
+to the after effects of drink, known as the "horrors," but Jim had
+explained it by saying it was "when his heart was bad." And now it
+seemed, by these gloomy abstractions, that "his heart was bad" very
+often. And then the long withheld rains came one night on the wings of
+a fierce southwester, beating down their frail lodge and scattering
+it abroad, quenching their camp-fire, and rolling up the bay until it
+invaded their reedy island and hissed in their ears. It drove the game
+from Jim's gun; it tore the net and scattered the bait of Li Tee, the
+fisherman. Cold and half starved in heart and body, but more dogged and
+silent than ever, they crept out in their canoe into the storm-tossed
+bay, barely escaping with their miserable lives to the marshy peninsula.
+Here, on their enemy's ground, skulking in the rushes, or lying close
+behind tussocks, they at last reached the fringe of forest below the
+settlement. Here, too, sorely pressed by hunger, and doggedly reckless
+of consequences, they forgot their caution, and a flight of teal fell to
+Jim's gun on the very outskirts of the settlement.
+
+It was a fatal shot, whose echoes awoke the forces of civilization
+against them. For it was heard by a logger in his hut near the
+marsh, who, looking out, had seen Jim pass. A careless, good-natured
+frontiersman, he might have kept the outcasts' mere presence to himself;
+but there was that damning shot! An Indian with a gun! That weapon,
+contraband of law, with dire fines and penalties to whoso sold or gave
+it to him! A thing to be looked into--some one to be punished! An Indian
+with a weapon that made him the equal of the white! Who was safe?
+He hurried to town to lay his information before the constable, but,
+meeting Mr. Skinner, imparted the news to him. The latter pooh-poohed
+the constable, who he alleged had not yet discovered the whereabouts
+of Jim, and suggested that a few armed citizens should make the chase
+themselves. The fact was that Mr. Skinner, never quite satisfied in his
+mind with his son's account of the loss of the gun, had put two and
+two together, and was by no means inclined to have his own gun possibly
+identified by the legal authority. Moreover, he went home and at once
+attacked Master Bob with such vigor and so highly colored a description
+of the crime he had committed, and the penalties attached to it, that
+Bob confessed. More than that, I grieve to say that Bob lied. The Indian
+had "stoled his gun," and threatened his life if he divulged the theft.
+He told how he was ruthlessly put ashore, and compelled to take a trail
+only known to them to reach his home. In two hours it was reported
+throughout the settlement that the infamous Jim had added robbery with
+violence to his illegal possession of the weapon. The secret of the
+island and the trail over the marsh was told only to a few.
+
+Meantime it had fared hard with the fugitives. Their nearness to
+the settlement prevented them from lighting a fire, which might have
+revealed their hiding-place, and they crept together, shivering all
+night in a clump of hazel. Scared thence by passing but unsuspecting
+wayfarers wandering off the trail, they lay part of the next day and
+night amid some tussocks of salt grass, blown on by the cold sea-breeze;
+chilled, but securely hidden from sight. Indeed, thanks to some
+mysterious power they had of utter immobility, it was wonderful how they
+could efface themselves, through quiet and the simplest environment. The
+lee side of a straggling vine in the meadow, or even the thin ridge
+of cast-up drift on the shore, behind which they would lie for hours
+motionless, was a sufficient barrier against prying eyes. In this
+occupation they no longer talked together, but followed each other with
+the blind instinct of animals--yet always unerringly, as if conscious
+of each other's plans. Strangely enough, it was the REAL animal
+alone--their nameless dog--who now betrayed impatience and a certain
+human infirmity of temper. The concealment they were resigned to, the
+sufferings they mutely accepted, he alone resented! When certain scents
+or sounds, imperceptible to their senses, were blown across their
+path, he would, with bristling back, snarl himself into guttural and
+strangulated fury. Yet, in their apathy, even this would have passed
+them unnoticed, but that on the second night he disappeared suddenly,
+returning after two hours' absence with bloody jaws--replete, but still
+slinking and snappish. It was only in the morning that, creeping on
+their hands and knees through the stubble, they came upon the torn and
+mangled carcass of a sheep. The two men looked at each other without
+speaking--they knew what this act of rapine meant to themselves. It
+meant a fresh hue and cry after them--it meant that their starving
+companion had helped to draw the net closer round them. The Indian
+grunted, Li Tee smiled vacantly; but with their knives and fingers they
+finished what the dog had begun, and became equally culpable. But that
+they were heathens, they could not have achieved a delicate ethical
+responsibility in a more Christian-like way.
+
+Yet the rice-fed Li Tee suffered most in their privations. His habitual
+apathy increased with a certain physical lethargy which Jim could not
+understand. When they were apart he sometimes found Li Tee stretched
+on his back with an odd stare in his eyes, and once, at a distance, he
+thought he saw a vague thin vapor drift from where the Chinese boy was
+lying and vanish as he approached. When he tried to arouse him there
+was a weak drawl in his voice and a drug-like odor in his breath. Jim
+dragged him to a more substantial shelter, a thicket of alder. It was
+dangerously near the frequented road, but a vague idea had sprung up in
+Jim's now troubled mind that, equal vagabonds though they were, Li Tee
+had more claims upon civilization, through those of his own race who
+were permitted to live among the white men, and were not hunted to
+"reservations" and confined there like Jim's people. If Li Tee was "heap
+sick," other Chinamen might find and nurse him. As for Li Tee, he had
+lately said, in a more lucid interval: "Me go dead--allee samee Mellikan
+boy. You go dead too--allee samee," and then lay down again with
+a glassy stare in his eyes. Far from being frightened at this, Jim
+attributed his condition to some enchantment that Li Tee had evoked from
+one of his gods--just as he himself had seen "medicine-men" of his own
+tribe fall into strange trances, and was glad that the boy no longer
+suffered. The day advanced, and Li Tee still slept. Jim could hear the
+church bells ringing; he knew it was Sunday--the day on which he was
+hustled from the main street by the constable; the day on which the
+shops were closed, and the drinking saloons open only at the back door.
+The day whereon no man worked--and for that reason, though he knew it
+not, the day selected by the ingenious Mr. Skinner and a few friends as
+especially fitting and convenient for a chase of the fugitives. The bell
+brought no suggestion of this--though the dog snapped under his breath
+and stiffened his spine. And then he heard another sound, far off and
+vague, yet one that brought a flash into his murky eye, that lit up the
+heaviness of his Hebraic face, and even showed a slight color in his
+high cheek-bones. He lay down on the ground, and listened with suspended
+breath. He heard it now distinctly. It was the Boston boy calling, and
+the word he was calling was "Jim."
+
+Then the fire dropped out of his eyes as he turned with his usual
+stolidity to where Li Tee was lying. Him he shook, saying briefly:
+"Boston boy come back!" But there was no reply, the dead body rolled
+over inertly under his hand; the head fell back, and the jaw dropped
+under the pinched yellow face. The Indian gazed at him slowly, and then
+gravely turned again in the direction of the voice. Yet his dull mind
+was perplexed, for, blended with that voice were other sounds like the
+tread of clumsily stealthy feet. But again the voice called "Jim!" and
+raising his hands to his lips he gave a low whoop in reply. This
+was followed by silence, when suddenly he heard the voice--the boy's
+voice--once again, this time very near him, saying eagerly:--
+
+"There he is!"
+
+Then the Indian knew all. His face, however, did not change as he took
+up his gun, and a man stepped out of the thicket into the trail:--
+
+"Drop that gun, you d----d Injin."
+
+The Indian did not move.
+
+"Drop it, I say!"
+
+The Indian remained erect and motionless.
+
+A rifle shot broke from the thicket. At first it seemed to have missed
+the Indian, and the man who had spoken cocked his own rifle. But the
+next moment the tall figure of Jim collapsed where he stood into a mere
+blanketed heap.
+
+The man who had fired the shot walked towards the heap with the easy air
+of a conqueror. But suddenly there arose before him an awful phantom,
+the incarnation of savagery--a creature of blazing eyeballs, flashing
+tusks, and hot carnivorous breath. He had barely time to cry out "A
+wolf!" before its jaws met in his throat, and they rolled together on
+the ground.
+
+But it was no wolf--as a second shot proved--only Jim's slinking dog;
+the only one of the outcasts who at that supreme moment had gone back to
+his original nature.
+
+
+
+
+A VISION OF THE FOUNTAIN
+
+
+Mr. Jackson Potter halted before the little cottage, half shop, half
+hostelry, opposite the great gates of Domesday Park, where tickets of
+admission to that venerable domain were sold. Here Mr. Potter revealed
+his nationality as a Western American, not only in his accent, but in
+a certain half-humorous, half-practical questioning of the
+ticket-seller--as that quasi-official stamped his ticket--which was
+nevertheless delivered with such unfailing good-humor, and such frank
+suggestiveness of the perfect equality of the ticket-seller and the
+well-dressed stranger that, far from producing any irritation, it
+attracted the pleased attention not only of the official, but his wife
+and daughter and a customer. Possibly the good looks of the stranger had
+something to do with it. Jackson Potter was a singularly handsome young
+fellow, with one of those ideal faces and figures sometimes seen in
+Western frontier villages, attributable to no ancestor, but evolved
+possibly from novels and books devoured by ancestresses in the long
+solitary winter evenings of their lonely cabins on the frontier. A
+beardless, classical head, covered by short flocculent blonde curls,
+poised on a shapely neck and shoulders, was more Greek in outline
+than suggestive of any ordinary American type. Finally, after having
+thoroughly amused his small audience, he lifted his straw hat to the
+"ladies," and lounged out across the road to the gateway. Here he
+paused, consulting his guide-book, and read aloud: "St. John's
+gateway. This massive structure, according to Leland, was built
+in"--murmured--"never mind when; we'll pass St. John," marked the page
+with his pencil, and tendering his ticket to the gate-keeper, heard,
+with some satisfaction, that, as there were no other visitors just
+then, and as the cicerone only accompanied PARTIES, he would be left to
+himself, and at once plunged into a by-path.
+
+It was that loveliest of rare creations--a hot summer day in England,
+with all the dampness of that sea-blown isle wrung out of it, exhaled
+in the quivering blue vault overhead, or passing as dim wraiths in the
+distant wood, and all the long-matured growth of that great old garden
+vivified and made resplendent by the fervid sun. The ashes of dead and
+gone harvests, even the dust of those who had for ages wrought in it,
+turned again and again through incessant cultivation, seemed to move
+and live once more in that present sunshine. All color appeared to be
+deepened and mellowed, until even the very shadows of the trees were as
+velvety as the sward they fell upon. The prairie-bred Potter, accustomed
+to the youthful caprices and extravagances of his own virgin soil, could
+not help feeling the influence of the ripe restraints of this.
+
+As he glanced through the leaves across green sunlit spaces to the
+ivy-clad ruins of Domesday Abbey, which seemed itself a growth of
+the very soil, he murmured to himself: "Things had been made mighty
+comfortable for folks here, you bet!" Forgotten books he had read as a
+boy, scraps of school histories, or rarer novels, came back to him as he
+walked along, and peopled the solitude about him with their heroes.
+
+Nevertheless, it was unmistakably hot--a heat homelike in its intensity,
+yet of a different effect, throwing him into languid reverie rather than
+filling his veins with fire. Secure in his seclusion in the leafy chase,
+he took off his jacket and rambled on in his shirt sleeves. Through the
+opening he presently saw the abbey again, with the restored wing where
+the noble owner lived for two or three weeks in the year, but now given
+over to the prevailing solitude. And then, issuing from the chase, he
+came upon a broad, moss-grown terrace. Before him stretched a tangled
+and luxuriant wilderness of shrubs and flowers, darkened by cypress and
+cedars of Lebanon; its dun depths illuminated by dazzling white statues,
+vases, trellises, and paved paths, choked and lost in the trailing
+growths of years of abandonment and forgetfulness. He consulted his
+guide-book again. It was the "old Italian garden," constructed under the
+design of a famous Italian gardener by the third duke; but its studied
+formality being displeasing to his successor, it was allowed to fall
+into picturesque decay and negligent profusion, which were not, however,
+disturbed by later descendants,--a fact deplored by the artistic writer
+of the guide-book, who mournfully called attention to the rare beauty of
+the marble statues, urns, and fountains, ruined by neglect, although one
+or two of the rarer objects had been removed to Deep Dene Lodge, another
+seat of the present duke.
+
+It is needless to say that Mr. Potter conceived at once a humorous
+opposition to the artistic enthusiasm of the critic, and, plunging
+into the garden, took a mischievous delight in its wildness and the
+victorious struggle of nature with the formality of art. At every step
+through the tangled labyrinth he could see where precision and order
+had been invaded, and even the rigid masonry broken or upheaved by the
+rebellious force. Yet here and there the two powers had combined to
+offer an example of beauty neither could have effected alone. A passion
+vine had overrun and enclasped a vase with a perfect symmetry no
+sculptor could have achieved. A heavy balustrade was made ethereal with
+a delicate fretwork of vegetation between its balusters like lace. Here,
+however, the lap and gurgle of water fell gratefully upon the ear of
+the perspiring and thirsty Mr. Potter, and turned his attention to more
+material things. Following the sound, he presently came upon an enormous
+oblong marble basin containing three time-worn fountains with grouped
+figures. The pipes were empty, silent, and choked with reeds and water
+plants, but the great basin itself was filled with water from some
+invisible source.
+
+A terraced walk occupied one side of the long parallelogram; at
+intervals and along the opposite bank, half shadowed by willows, tinted
+marble figures of tritons, fauns, and dryads arose half hidden in the
+reeds. They were more or less mutilated by time, and here and there only
+the empty, moss-covered plinths that had once supported them could be
+seen. But they were so lifelike in their subdued color in the shade that
+he was for a moment startled.
+
+The water looked deliciously cool. An audacious thought struck him. He
+was alone, and the place was a secluded one. He knew there were no other
+visitors; the marble basin was quite hidden from the rest of the garden,
+and approached only from the path by which he had come, and whose entire
+view he commanded. He quietly and deliberately undressed himself under
+the willows, and unhesitatingly plunged into the basin. The water was
+four or five feet deep, and its extreme length afforded an excellent
+swimming bath, despite the water-lilies and a few aquatic plants that
+mottled its clear surface, or the sedge that clung to the bases of the
+statues. He disported for some moments in the delicious element, and
+then seated himself upon one of the half-submerged plinths, almost
+hidden by reeds, that had once upheld a river god. Here, lazily resting
+himself upon his elbow, half his body still below the water, his
+quick ear was suddenly startled by a rustling noise and the sound of
+footsteps. For a moment he was inclined to doubt his senses; he could
+see only the empty path before him and the deserted terrace. But the
+sound became more distinct, and to his great uneasiness appeared to
+come from the OTHER side of the fringe of willows, where there was
+undoubtedly a path to the fountain which he had overlooked. His clothes
+were under those willows, but he was at least twenty yards from the bank
+and an equal distance from the terrace. He was about to slip beneath the
+water when, to his crowning horror, before he could do so, a young girl
+slowly appeared from the hidden willow path full upon the terrace. She
+was walking leisurely with a parasol over her head and a book in her
+hand. Even in his intense consternation her whole figure--a charming
+one in its white dress, sailor hat, and tan shoes--was imprinted on his
+memory as she instinctively halted to look upon the fountain, evidently
+an unexpected surprise to her.
+
+A sudden idea flashed upon him. She was at least sixty yards away;
+he was half hidden in the reeds and well in the long shadows of the
+willows. If he remained perfectly motionless she might overlook him at
+that distance, or take him for one of the statues. He remembered also
+that as he was resting on his elbow, his half-submerged body lying on
+the plinth below water, he was somewhat in the attitude of one of the
+river gods. And there was no other escape. If he dived he might not be
+able to keep under water as long as she remained, and any movement
+he knew would betray him. He stiffened himself and scarcely breathed.
+Luckily for him his attitude had been a natural one and easy to keep.
+It was well, too, for she was evidently in no hurry and walked slowly,
+stopping from time to time to admire the basin and its figures. Suddenly
+he was instinctively aware that she was looking towards him and even
+changing her position, moving her pretty head and shading her eyes
+with her hand as if for a better view. He remained motionless, scarcely
+daring to breathe. Yet there was something so innocently frank and
+undisturbed in her observation, that he knew as instinctively that she
+suspected nothing, and took him for a half-submerged statue. He breathed
+more freely. But presently she stopped, glanced around her, and, keeping
+her eyes fixed in his direction, began to walk backwards slowly until
+she reached a stone balustrade behind her. On this she leaped, and,
+sitting down, opened in her lap the sketch-book she was carrying, and,
+taking out a pencil, to his horror began to sketch!
+
+For a wild moment he recurred to his first idea of diving and swimming
+at all hazards to the bank, but the conviction that now his slightest
+movement must be detected held him motionless. He must save her the
+mortification of knowing she was sketching a living man, if he died
+for it. She sketched rapidly but fixedly and absorbedly, evidently
+forgetting all else in her work. From time to time she held out her
+sketch before her to compare it with her subject. Yet the seconds seemed
+minutes and the minutes hours. Suddenly, to his great relief, a distant
+voice was heard calling "Lottie." It was a woman's voice; by its accent
+it also seemed to him an American one.
+
+The young girl made a slight movement of impatience, but did not look
+up, and her pencil moved still more rapidly. Again the voice called,
+this time nearer. The young girl's pencil fairly flew over the paper,
+as, still without looking up, she lifted a pretty voice and answered
+back, "Y-e-e-s!"
+
+It struck him that her accent was also that of a compatriot.
+
+"Where on earth are you?" continued the first voice, which now appeared
+to come from the other side of the willows on the path by which the
+young girl had approached. "Here, aunty," replied the girl, closing her
+sketch-book with a snap and starting to her feet.
+
+A stout woman, fashionably dressed, made her appearance from the willow
+path.
+
+"What have you been doing all this while?" she said querulously. "Not
+sketching, I hope," she added, with a suspicious glance at the book.
+"You know your professor expressly forbade you to do so in your
+holidays."
+
+The young girl shrugged her shoulders. "I've been looking at the
+fountains," she replied evasively.
+
+"And horrid looking pagan things they are, too," said the elder woman,
+turning from them disgustedly, without vouchsafing a second glance.
+"Come. If we expect to do the abbey, we must hurry up, or we won't catch
+the train. Your uncle is waiting for us at the top of the garden."
+
+And, to Potter's intense relief, she grasped the young girl's arm and
+hurried her away, their figures the next moment vanishing in the tangled
+shrubbery.
+
+Potter lost no time in plunging with his cramped limbs into the water
+and regaining the other side. Here he quickly half dried himself with
+some sun-warmed leaves and baked mosses, hurried on his clothes, and
+hastened off in the opposite direction to the path taken by them, yet
+with such circuitous skill and speed that he reached the great gateway
+without encountering anybody. A brisk walk brought him to the station
+in time to catch a stopping train, and in half an hour he was speeding
+miles away from Domesday Park and his half-forgotten episode.
+
+*****
+
+Meantime the two ladies continued on their way to the abbey. "I don't
+see why I mayn't sketch things I see about me," said the young lady
+impatiently. "Of course, I understand that I must go through the
+rudimentary drudgery of my art and study from casts, and learn
+perspective, and all that; but I can't see what's the difference between
+working in a stuffy studio over a hand or arm that I know is only a
+STUDY, and sketching a full or half length in the open air with the
+wonderful illusion of light and shade and distance--and grouping and
+combining them all--that one knows and feels makes a picture. The real
+picture one makes is already in one's self."
+
+"For goodness' sake, Lottie, don't go on again with your usual
+absurdities. Since you are bent on being an artist, and your Popper
+has consented and put you under the most expensive master in Paris, the
+least you can do is to follow the rules. And I dare say he only wanted
+you to 'sink the shop' in company. It's such horrid bad form for you
+artistic people to be always dragging out your sketch-books. What would
+you say if your Popper came over here, and began to examine every lady's
+dress in society to see what material it was, just because he was a big
+dry-goods dealer in America?"
+
+The young girl, accustomed to her aunt's extravagances, made no reply.
+But that night she consulted her sketch, and was so far convinced of her
+own instincts, and the profound impression the fountain had made upon
+her, that she was enabled to secretly finish her interrupted sketch from
+memory. For Miss Charlotte Forrest was a born artist, and in no mere
+caprice had persuaded her father to let her adopt the profession, and
+accepted the drudgery of a novitiate. She looked earnestly upon this
+first real work of her hand and found it good! Still, it was but a
+pencil sketch, and wanted the vivification of color.
+
+When she returned to Paris she began--still secretly--a larger study in
+oils. She worked upon it in her own room every moment she could spare
+from her studio practice, unknown to her professor. It absorbed her
+existence; she grew thin and pale. When it was finished, and only then,
+she showed it tremblingly to her master. He stood silent, in profound
+astonishment. The easel before him showed a foreground of tangled
+luxuriance, from which stretched a sheet of water like a darkened
+mirror, while through parted reeds on its glossy surface arose the
+half-submerged figure of a river god, exquisite in contour, yet whose
+delicate outlines were almost a vision by the crowning illusion of
+light, shadow, and atmosphere.
+
+"It is a beautiful copy, mademoiselle, and I forgive you breaking my
+rules," he said, drawing a long breath. "But I cannot now recall the
+original picture."
+
+"It's no copy of a picture, professor," said the young girl timidly, and
+she disclosed her secret. "It was the only perfect statue there," she
+added diffidently; "but I think it wanted--something."
+
+"True," said the professor abstractedly. "Where the elbow rests there
+should be a half-inverted urn flowing with water; but the drawing of
+that shoulder is so perfect--as is YOUR study of it--that one guesses
+the missing forearm one cannot see, which clasped it. Beautiful!
+beautiful!"
+
+Suddenly he stopped, and turned his eyes almost searchingly on hers.
+
+"You say you have never drawn from the human model, mademoiselle?"
+
+"Never," said the young girl innocently.
+
+"True," murmured the professor again. "These are the classic ideal
+measurements. There are no limbs like those now. Yet it is wonderful!
+And this gem, you say, is in England?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Good! I am going there in a few days. I shall make a pilgrimage to see
+it. Until then, mademoiselle, I beg you to break as many of my rules as
+you like."
+
+Three weeks later she found the professor one morning standing before
+her picture in her private studio. "You have returned from England," she
+said joyfully.
+
+"I have," said the professor gravely.
+
+"You have seen the original subject?" she said timidly.
+
+"I have NOT. I have not seen it, mademoiselle," he said, gazing at
+her mildly through his glasses, "because it does not exist, and never
+existed."
+
+The young girl turned pale.
+
+"Listen. I have go to England. I arrive at the Park of Domesday. I
+penetrate the beautiful, wild garden. I approach the fountain. I see
+the wonderful water, the exquisite light and shade, the lilies, the
+mysterious reeds--beautiful, yet not as beautiful as you have made it,
+mademoiselle, but no statue--no river god! I demand it of the concierge.
+He knows of it absolutely nothing. I transport myself to the noble
+proprietor, Monsieur le Duc, at a distant chateau where he has collected
+the ruined marbles. It is not there."
+
+"Yet I saw it," said the young girl earnestly, yet with a troubled face.
+"O professor," she burst out appealingly, "what do you think it was?"
+
+"I think, mademoiselle," said the professor gravely, "that you created
+it. Believe me, it is a function of genius! More, it is a proof, a
+necessity! You saw the beautiful lake, the ruined fountain, the soft
+shadows, the empty plinth, curtained by reeds. You yourself say you feel
+there was 'something wanting.' Unconsciously you yourself supplied it.
+All that you had ever dreamt of mythology, all that you had ever seen
+of statuary, thronged upon you at that supreme moment, and, evolved from
+your own fancy, the river god was born. It is your own, chere enfant, as
+much the offspring of your genius as the exquisite atmosphere you have
+caught, the charm of light and shadow that you have brought away. Accept
+my felicitations. You have little more to learn of me."
+
+As he bowed himself out and descended the stairs he shrugged his
+shoulders slightly. "She is an adorable genius," he murmured. "Yet she
+is also a woman. Being a woman, naturally she has a lover--this river
+god! Why not?"
+
+The extraordinary success of Miss Forrest's picture and the
+instantaneous recognition of her merit as an artist, apart from her
+novel subject, perhaps went further to remove her uneasiness than any
+serious conviction of the professor's theory. Nevertheless, it appealed
+to her poetic and mystic imagination, and although other subjects from
+her brush met with equally phenomenal success, and she was able in a
+year to return to America with a reputation assured beyond criticism,
+she never entirely forgot the strange incident connected with her
+initial effort.
+
+And by degrees a singular change came over her. Rich, famous, and
+attractive, she began to experience a sentimental and romantic
+interest in that episode. Once, when reproached by her friends for her
+indifference to her admirers, she had half laughingly replied that she
+had once found her "ideal," but never would again. Yet the jest had
+scarcely passed her lips before she became pale and silent. With this
+change came also a desire to re-purchase the picture, which she had
+sold in her early success to a speculative American picture-dealer. On
+inquiry she found, alas! that it had been sold only a day or two before
+to a Chicago gentleman, of the name of Potter, who had taken a fancy to
+it.
+
+Miss Forrest curled her pretty lip, but, nothing daunted, resolved
+to effect her purpose, and sought the purchaser at his hotel. She was
+ushered into a private drawing-room, where, on a handsome easel, stood
+the newly acquired purchase. Mr. Potter was out, "but would return in a
+moment."
+
+Miss Forrest was relieved, for, alone and undisturbed, she could now let
+her full soul go out to her romantic creation. As she stood there, she
+felt the glamour of the old English garden come back to her, the play of
+light and shadow, the silent pool, the godlike face and bust, with its
+cast-down, meditative eyes, seen through the parted reeds. She clasped
+her hands silently before her. Should she never see it again as then?
+
+"Pray don't let me disturb you; but won't you take a seat?"
+
+Miss Forrest turned sharply round. Then she started, uttered a
+frightened little cry, and fainted away.
+
+Mr. Potter was touched, but a master of himself. As she came to, he
+said quietly: "I came upon you suddenly--as you stood entranced by this
+picture--just as I did when I first saw it. That's why I bought it.
+Are you any relative of the Miss Forrest who painted it?" he continued,
+quietly looking at her card, which he held in his hand.
+
+Miss Forrest recovered herself sufficiently to reply, and stated her
+business with some dignity.
+
+"Ah," said Mr. Potter, "THAT is another question. You see, the picture
+has a special value to me, as I once saw an old-fashioned garden like
+that in England. But that chap there,--I beg your pardon, I mean that
+figure,--I fancy, is your own creation, entirely. However, I'll think
+over your proposition, and if you will allow me I'll call and see you
+about it."
+
+Mr. Potter did call--not once, but many times--and showed quite a
+remarkable interest in Miss Forrest's art. The question of the sale of
+the picture, however, remained in abeyance. A few weeks later, after a
+longer call than usual, Mr. Potter said:--
+
+"Don't you think the best thing we can do is to make a kind of
+compromise, and let us own the picture together?"
+
+And they did.
+
+
+
+
+A ROMANCE OF THE LINE
+
+
+As the train moved slowly out of the station, the Writer of Stories
+looked up wearily from the illustrated pages of the magazines and
+weeklies on his lap to the illustrated advertisements on the walls of
+the station sliding past his carriage windows. It was getting to be
+monotonous. For a while he had been hopefully interested in the bustle
+of the departing trains, and looked up from his comfortable and early
+invested position to the later comers with that sense of superiority
+common to travelers; had watched the conventional leave-takings--always
+feebly prolonged to the uneasiness of both parties--and contrasted it
+with the impassive business promptitude of the railway officials; but
+it was the old experience repeated. Falling back on the illustrated
+advertisements again, he wondered if their perpetual recurrence at every
+station would not at last bring to the tired traveler the loathing of
+satiety; whether the passenger in railway carriages, continually offered
+Somebody's oats, inks, washing blue, candles, and soap, apparently as
+a necessary equipment for a few hours' journey, would not there and
+thereafter forever ignore the use of these articles, or recoil from that
+particular quality. Or, as an unbiased observer, he wondered if, on
+the other hand, impressible passengers, after passing three or four
+stations, had ever leaped from the train and refused to proceed further
+until they were supplied with one or more of those articles. Had he ever
+known any one who confided to him in a moment of expansiveness that he
+had dated his use of Somebody's soap to an advertisement persistently
+borne upon him through the medium of a railway carriage window?
+No! Would he not have connected that man with that other certifying
+individual who always appends a name and address singularly obscure and
+unconvincing, yet who, at some supreme moment, recommends Somebody's
+pills to a dying friend,--afflicted with a similar address,--which
+restore him to life and undying obscurity. Yet these pictorial and
+literary appeals must have a potency independent of the wares they
+advertise, or they wouldn't be there.
+
+Perhaps he was the more sensitive to this monotony as he was just then
+seeking change and novelty in order to write a new story. He was not
+looking for material,--his subjects were usually the same,--he was
+merely hoping for that relaxation and diversion which should freshen and
+fit him for later concentration. Still, he had often heard of the odd
+circumstances to which his craft were sometimes indebted for suggestion.
+The invasion of an eccentric-looking individual--probably an innocent
+tradesman into a railway carriage had given the hint for "A Night with
+a Lunatic;" a nervously excited and belated passenger had once
+unconsciously sat for an escaped forger; the picking up of a forgotten
+novel in the rack, with passages marked in pencil, had afforded the plot
+of a love story; or the germ of a romance had been found in an obscure
+news paragraph which, under less listless moments, would have
+passed unread. On the other hand, he recalled these inconvenient and
+inconsistent moments from which the so-called "inspiration" sprang, the
+utter incongruity of time and place in some brilliant conception, and
+wondered if sheer vacuity of mind were really so favorable.
+
+Going back to his magazine again, he began to get mildly interested in
+a story. Turning the page, however, he was confronted by a pictorial
+advertising leaflet inserted between the pages, yet so artistic in
+character that it might have been easily mistaken for an illustration of
+the story he was reading, and perhaps was not more remote or obscure in
+reference than many he had known. But the next moment he recognized
+with despair that it was only a smaller copy of one he had seen on the
+hoarding at the last station. He threw the leaflet aside, but the flavor
+of the story was gone. The peerless detergent of the advertisement had
+erased it from the tablets of his memory. He leaned back in his seat
+again, and lazily watched the flying suburbs. Here were the usual
+promising open spaces and patches of green, quickly succeeded again by
+solid blocks of houses whose rear windows gave directly upon the line,
+yet seldom showed an inquisitive face--even of a wondering child. It was
+a strange revelation of the depressing effects of familiarity. Expresses
+might thunder by, goods trains drag their slow length along, shunting
+trains pipe all day beneath their windows, but the tenants heeded them
+not. Here, too, was the junction, with its labyrinthine interlacing of
+tracks that dazed the tired brain; the overburdened telegraph posts,
+that looked as if they really could not stand another wire; the long
+lines of empty, homeless, and deserted trains in sidings that had seen
+better days; the idle trains, with staring vacant windows, which were
+eventually seized by a pert engine hissing, "Come along, will you?"
+and departed with a discontented grunt from every individual carriage
+coupling; the racing trains, that suddenly appeared parallel with one's
+carriage windows, begot false hopes of a challenge of speed, and then,
+without warning, drew contemptuously and, superciliously away; the swift
+eclipse of everything in a tunneled bridge; the long, slithering passage
+of an "up" express, and then the flash of a station, incoherent and
+unintelligible with pictorial advertisements again.
+
+He closed his eyes to concentrate his thought, and by degrees a pleasant
+languor stole over him. The train had by this time attained that rate of
+speed which gave it a slight swing and roll on curves and switches
+not unlike the rocking of a cradle. Once or twice he opened his eyes
+sleepily upon the waltzing trees in the double planes of distance, and
+again closed them. Then, in one of these slight oscillations, he
+felt himself ridiculously slipping into slumber, and awoke with some
+indignation. Another station was passed, in which process the pictorial
+advertisements on the hoardings and the pictures in his lap seemed to
+have become jumbled up, confused, and to dance before him, and then
+suddenly and strangely, without warning, the train stopped short--at
+ANOTHER station. And then he arose, and--what five minutes before he
+never conceived of doing--gathered his papers and slipped from the
+carriage to the platform. When I say "he" I mean, of course, the
+Writer of Stories; yet the man who slipped out was half his age and a
+different-looking person.
+
+*****
+
+The change from the motion of the train--for it seemed that he had been
+traveling several hours--to the firmer platform for a moment bewildered
+him. The station looked strange, and he fancied it lacked a certain kind
+of distinctness. But that quality was also noticeable in the porters and
+loungers on the platform. He thought it singular, until it seemed to him
+that they were not characteristic, nor in any way important or necessary
+to the business he had in hand. Then, with an effort, he tried to
+remember himself and his purpose, and made his way through the station
+to the open road beyond. A van, bearing the inscription, "Removals to
+Town and Country," stood before him and blocked his way, but a dogcart
+was in waiting, and a grizzled groom, who held the reins, touched his
+hat respectfully. Although still dazed by his journey and uncertain of
+himself, he seemed to recognize in the man that distinctive character
+which was wanting in the others. The correctness of his surmise was
+revealed a few moments later, when, after he had taken his seat beside
+him, and they were rattling out of the village street, the man turned
+towards him and said:--
+
+"Tha'll know Sir Jarge?"
+
+"I do not," said the young man.
+
+"Ay! but theer's many as cooms here as doan't, for all they cooms.
+Tha'll say it ill becooms mea as war man and boy in Sir Jarge's sarvice
+for fifty year, to say owt agen him, but I'm here to do it, or they
+couldn't foolfil their business. Tha wast to ax me questions about Sir
+Jarge and the Grange, and I wor to answer soa as to make tha think
+thar was suthing wrong wi' un. Howbut I may save tha time and tell thea
+downroight that Sir Jarge forged his uncle's will, and so gotten the
+Grange. That 'ee keeps his niece in mortal fear o' he. That tha'll be
+put in haunted chamber wi' a boggle."
+
+"I think," said the young man hesitatingly, "that there must be some
+mistake. I do not know any Sir George, and I am NOT going to the
+Grange."
+
+"Eay! Then thee aren't the 'ero sent down from London by the story
+writer?"
+
+"Not by THAT one," said the young man diffidently.
+
+The old man's face changed. It was no mere figure of speech: it actually
+was ANOTHER face that looked down upon the traveler.
+
+"Then mayhap your honor will be bespoken at the Angel's Inn," he said,
+with an entirely distinct and older dialect, "and a finer hostel for a
+young gentleman of your condition ye'll not find on this side of Oxford.
+A fair chamber, looking to the sun; sheets smelling of lavender from
+Dame Margery's own store, and, for the matter of that, spread by the
+fair hands of Maudlin, her daughter--the best favored lass that ever
+danced under a Maypole. Ha! have at ye there, young sir! Not to speak of
+the October ale of old Gregory, her father--ay, nor the rare Hollands,
+that never paid excise duties to the king."
+
+"I'm afraid," said the young traveler timidly, "there's over a century
+between us. There's really some mistake."
+
+"What?" said the groom, "ye are NOT the young spark who is to marry
+Mistress Amy at the Hall, yet makes a pother and mess of it all by a
+duel with Sir Roger de Cadgerly, the wicked baronet, for his over-free
+discourse with our fair Maudlin this very eve? Ye are NOT the traveler
+whose post-chaise is now at the Falcon? Ye are not he that was bespoken
+by the story writer in London?"
+
+"I don't think I am," said the young man apologetically. "Indeed, as I
+am feeling far from well, I think I'll get out and walk."
+
+He got down--the vehicle and driver vanished in the distance. It did not
+surprise him. "I must collect my thoughts," he said. He did so. Possibly
+the collection was not large, for presently he said, with a sigh of
+relief:--
+
+"I see it all now! My name is Paul Bunker. I am of the young branch of
+an old Quaker family, rich and respected in the country, and I am on a
+visit to my ancestral home. But I have lived since a child in America,
+and am alien to the traditions and customs of the old country, and even
+of the seat to which my fathers belong. I have brought with me from the
+far West many peculiarities of speech and thought that may startle my
+kinsfolk. But I certainly shall not address my uncle as 'Hoss!' nor
+shall I say 'guess' oftener than is necessary."
+
+Much brightened and refreshed by his settled identity, he had time,
+as he walked briskly along, to notice the scenery, which was certainly
+varied and conflicting in character, and quite inconsistent with his
+preconceived notions of an English landscape. On his right, a lake of
+the brightest cobalt blue stretched before a many-towered and terraced
+town, which was relieved by a background of luxuriant foliage and
+emerald-green mountains; on his left arose a rugged mountain, which he
+was surprised to see was snow-capped, albeit a tunnel was observable
+midway of its height, and a train just issuing from it. Almost
+regretting that he had not continued on his journey, as he was fully
+sensible that it was in some way connected with the railway he had
+quitted, presently his attention was directed to the gateway of a
+handsome park, whose mansion was faintly seen in the distance. Hurrying
+towards him, down the avenue of limes, was a strange figure. It was that
+of a man of middle age; clad in Quaker garb, yet with an extravagance
+of cut and detail which seemed antiquated even for England. He had
+evidently seen the young man approaching, and his face was beaming with
+welcome. If Paul had doubted that it was his uncle, the first words he
+spoke would have reassured him.
+
+"Welcome to Hawthorn Hall," said the figure, grasping his hand heartily,
+"but thee will excuse me if I do not tarry with thee long at present,
+for I am hastening, even now, with some nourishing and sustaining food
+for Giles Hayward, a farm laborer." He pointed to a package he was
+carrying. "But thee will find thy cousins Jane and Dorcas Bunker taking
+tea in the summer-house. Go to them! Nay--positively--I may not linger,
+but will return to thee quickly." And, to Paul's astonishment, he
+trotted away on his sturdy, respectable legs, still beaming and carrying
+his package in his hand.
+
+"Well, I'll be dog-goned! but the old man ain't going to be left, you
+bet!" he ejaculated, suddenly remembering his dialect. "He'll get there,
+whether school keeps or not!" Then, reflecting that no one heard him, he
+added simply, "He certainly was not over civil towards the nephew he
+has never seen before. And those girls--whom I don't know! How very
+awkward!"
+
+Nevertheless, he continued his way up the avenue towards the mansion.
+The park was beautifully kept. Remembering the native wildness and
+virgin seclusion of the Western forest, he could not help contrasting it
+with the conservative gardening of this pretty woodland, every rood
+of which had been patrolled by keepers and rangers, and preserved and
+fostered hundreds of years before he was born, until warmed for human
+occupancy. At times the avenue was crossed by grass drives, where
+the original woodland had been displaced, not by the exigency of a
+"clearing" for tillage, as in his own West, but for the leisurely
+pleasure of the owner. Then, a few hundred yards from the house
+itself,--a quaint Jacobean mansion,--he came to an open space where the
+sylvan landscape had yielded to floral cultivation, and so fell upon a
+charming summer-house, or arbor, embowered with roses. It must have
+been the one of which his uncle had spoken, for there, to his wondering
+admiration, sat two little maids before a rustic table, drinking tea
+demurely, yes, with all the evident delight of a childish escapade from
+their elders. While in the picturesque quaintness of their attire
+there was still a formal suggestion of the sect to which their father
+belonged, their summer frocks--differing in color, yet each of the same
+subdued tint--were alike in cut and fashion, and short enough to show
+their dainty feet in prim slippers and silken hose that matched their
+frocks. As the afternoon sun glanced through the leaves upon their pink
+cheeks, tied up in quaint hats by ribbons under their chins, they made a
+charming picture. At least Paul thought so as he advanced towards them,
+hat in hand. They looked up at his approach, but again cast down their
+eyes with demure shyness; yet he fancied that they first exchanged
+glances with each other, full of mischievous intelligence.
+
+"I am your cousin Paul," he said smilingly, "though I am afraid I am
+introducing myself almost as briefly as your father just now excused
+himself to me. He told me I would find you here, but he himself was
+hastening on a Samaritan mission."
+
+"With a box in his hand?" said the girls simultaneously, exchanging
+glances with each other again.
+
+"With a box containing some restorative, I think," responded Paul, a
+little wonderingly.
+
+"Restorative! So THAT'S what he calls it now, is it?" said one of the
+girls saucily. "Well, no one knows what's in the box, though he always
+carries it with him. Thee never sees him without it"--
+
+"And a roll of paper," suggested the other girl.
+
+"Yes, a roll of paper--but one never knows what it is!" said the
+first speaker. "It's very strange. But no matter now, Paul. Welcome to
+Hawthorn Hall. I am Jane Bunker, and this is Dorcas." She stopped,
+and then, looking down demurely, added, "Thee may kiss us both, cousin
+Paul."
+
+The young man did not wait for a second invitation, but gently touched
+his lips to their soft young cheeks.
+
+"Thee does not speak like an American, Paul. Is thee really and truly
+one?" continued Jane.
+
+Paul remembered that he had forgotten his dialect, but it was too late
+now.
+
+"I am really and truly one, and your own cousin, and I hope you will
+find me a very dear"--
+
+"Oh!" said Dorcas, starting up primly. "You must really allow me to
+withdraw." To the young man's astonishment, she seized her parasol, and,
+with a youthful affectation of dignity, glided from the summer-house and
+was lost among the trees.
+
+"Thy declaration to me was rather sudden," said Jane quietly, in answer
+to his look of surprise, "and Dorcas is peculiarly sensitive and less
+like the 'world's people' than I am. And it was just a little cruel,
+considering that she has loved thee secretly all these years, followed
+thy fortunes in America with breathless eagerness, thrilled at thy
+narrow escapes, and wept at thy privations."
+
+"But she has never seen me before!" said the astounded Paul.
+
+"And thee had never seen me before, and yet thee has dared to propose to
+me five minutes after thee arrived, and in her presence."
+
+"But, my dear girl!" expostulated Paul.
+
+"Stand off!" she said, rapidly opening her parasol and interposing
+it between them. "Another step nearer--ay, even another word of
+endearment--and I shall be compelled--nay, forced," she added in a lower
+voice, "to remove this parasol, lest it should be crushed and ruined!"
+
+"I see," he said gloomily, "you have been reading novels; but so have
+I, and the same ones! Nevertheless, I intended only to tell you that I
+hoped you would always find me a kind friend."
+
+She shut her parasol up with a snap. "And I only intended to tell thee
+that my heart was given to another."
+
+"You INTENDED--and now?"
+
+"Is it the 'kind friend' who asks?"
+
+"If it were not?"
+
+"Really?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Ah!"
+
+"Oh!"
+
+"But thee loves another?" she said, toying with her cup.
+
+He attempted to toy with his, but broke it. A man lacks delicacy in this
+kind of persiflage. "You mean I am loved by another," he said bluntly.
+
+"You dare to say that!" she said, flashing, in spite of her prim
+demeanor.
+
+"No, but YOU did just now! You said your sister loved me!"
+
+"Did I?" she said dreamily. "Dear! dear! That's the trouble of trying to
+talk like Mr. Blank's delightful dialogues. One gets so mixed!"
+
+"Yet you will be a sister to me?" he said. "'Tis an old American joke,
+but 'twill serve."
+
+There was a long silence.
+
+"Had thee not better go to sister Dorcas? She is playing with the cows,"
+said Jane plaintively.
+
+"You forget," he returned gravely, "that, on page 27 of the novel we
+have both read, at this point he is supposed to kiss her."
+
+She had forgotten, but they both remembered in time. At this moment a
+scream came faintly from the distance. They both started, and rose.
+
+"It is sister Dorcas," said Jane, sitting down again and pouring out
+another cup of tea. "I have always told her that one of those Swiss cows
+would hook her."
+
+Paul stared at her with a strange revulsion of feeling. "I could
+save Dorcas," he muttered to himself, "in less time than it takes to
+describe." He paused, however, as he reflected that this would depend
+entirely upon the methods of the writer of this description. "I could
+rescue her! I have only to take the first clothes-line that I find,
+and with that knowledge and skill with the lasso which I learned in the
+wilds of America, I could stop the charge of the most furious ruminant.
+I will!" and without another word he turned and rushed off in the
+direction of the sound.
+
+*****
+
+He had not gone a hundred yards before he paused, a little bewildered.
+To the left could still be seen the cobalt lake with the terraced
+background; to the right the rugged mountains. He chose the latter.
+Luckily for him a cottager's garden lay in his path, and from a line
+supported by a single pole depended the homely linen of the cottager. To
+tear these garments from the line was the work of a moment (although
+it represented the whole week's washing), and hastily coiling the rope
+dexterously in his hand, he sped onward. Already panting with exertion
+and excitement, a few roods farther he was confronted with a spectacle
+that left him breathless.
+
+A woman--young, robust, yet gracefully formed--was running ahead of him,
+driving before her with an open parasol an animal which he instantly
+recognized as one of that simple yet treacherous species most feared by
+the sex--known as the "Moo Cow."
+
+For a moment he was appalled by the spectacle. But it was only for a
+moment! Recalling his manhood and her weakness, he stopped, and bracing
+his foot against a stone, with a graceful flourish of his lasso around
+his head, threw it in the air. It uncoiled slowly, sped forward with
+unerring precision, and missed! With the single cry of "Saved!" the fair
+stranger sank fainting in his arms! He held her closely until the color
+came back to her pale face. Then he quietly disentangled the lasso from
+his legs.
+
+"Where am I?" she said faintly.
+
+"In the same place," he replied, slowly but firmly. "But," he added,
+"you have changed!"
+
+She had, indeed, even to her dress. It was now of a vivid brick red, and
+so much longer in the skirt that it seemed to make her taller. Only her
+hat remained the same.
+
+"Yes," she said, in a low, reflective voice and a disregard of her
+previous dialect, as she gazed up in his eyes with an eloquent lucidity,
+"I have changed, Paul! I feel myself changing at those words you uttered
+to Jane. There are moments in a woman's life that man knows nothing
+of; moments bitter and cruel, sweet and merciful, that change her whole
+being; moments in which the simple girl becomes a worldly woman; moments
+in which the slow procession of her years is never noted--except by
+another woman! Moments that change her outlook on the world and her
+relations to it--and her husband's relations! Moments when the maid
+becomes a wife, the wife a widow, the widow a re-married woman, by a
+simple, swift illumination of the fancy. Moments when, wrought upon by
+a single word--a look--an emphasis and rising inflection, all logical
+sequence is cast away, processes are lost--inductions lead nowhere.
+Moments when the inharmonious becomes harmonious, the indiscreet
+discreet, the inefficient efficient, and the inevitable evitable. I
+mean," she corrected herself hurriedly--"You know what I mean! If you
+have not felt it you have read it!"
+
+"I have," he said thoughtfully. "We have both read it in the same novel.
+She is a fine writer."
+
+"Ye-e-s." She hesitated with that slight resentment of praise of another
+woman so delightful in her sex. "But you have forgotten the Moo Cow!"
+and she pointed to where the distracted animal was careering across the
+lawn towards the garden.
+
+"You are right," he said, "the incident is not yet closed. Let us pursue
+it."
+
+They both pursued it. Discarding the useless lasso, he had recourse to a
+few well-aimed epithets. The infuriated animal swerved and made directly
+towards a small fountain in the centre of the garden. In attempting to
+clear it, it fell directly into the deep cup-like basin and remained
+helplessly fixed, with its fore-legs projecting uneasily beyond the rim.
+
+"Let us leave it there," she said, "and forget it--and all that has
+gone before. Believe me," she added, with a faint sigh, "it is best. Our
+paths diverge from this moment. I go to the summer-house, and you go to
+the Hall, where my father is expecting you." He would have detained her
+a moment longer, but she glided away and was gone.
+
+Left to himself again, that slight sense of bewilderment which had
+clouded his mind for the last hour began to clear away; his singular
+encounter with the girls strangely enough affected him less strongly
+than his brief and unsatisfactory interview with his uncle. For, after
+all, he was his host, and upon him depended his stay at Hawthorn Hall.
+The mysterious and slighting allusions of his cousins to the old man's
+eccentricities also piqued his curiosity. Why had they sneered at his
+description of the contents of the package he carried--and what did
+it really contain? He did not reflect that it was none of his
+business,--people in his situation seldom do,--and he eagerly hurried
+towards the Hall. But he found in his preoccupation he had taken the
+wrong turning in the path, and that he was now close to the wall which
+bounded and overlooked the highway. Here a singular spectacle presented
+itself. A cyclist covered with dust was seated in the middle of the
+road, trying to restore circulation to his bruised and injured leg by
+chafing it with his hands, while beside him lay his damaged bicycle. He
+had evidently met with an accident. In an instant Paul had climbed the
+wall and was at his side.
+
+"Can I offer you any assistance?" he asked eagerly.
+
+"Thanks--no! I've come a beastly cropper over something or other on
+this road, and I'm only bruised, though the machine has suffered worse,"
+replied the stranger, in a fresh, cheery voice. He was a good-looking
+fellow of about Paul's own age, and the young American's heart went out
+towards him.
+
+"How did it happen?" asked Paul.
+
+"That's what puzzles me," said the stranger. "I was getting out of
+the way of a queer old chap in the road, and I ran over something that
+seemed only an old scroll of paper; but the shock was so great that
+I was thrown, and I fancy I was for a few moments unconscious. Yet I
+cannot see any other obstruction in the road, and there's only that bit
+of paper." He pointed to the paper,--a half-crushed roll of ordinary
+foolscap, showing the mark of the bicycle upon it.
+
+A strange idea came into Paul's mind. He picked up the paper and
+examined it closely. Besides the mark already indicated, it showed two
+sharp creases about nine inches long, and another exactly at the point
+of the impact of the bicycle. Taking a folded two-foot rule from
+his pocket, he carefully measured these parallel creases and made an
+exhaustive geometrical calculation with his pencil on the paper. The
+stranger watched him with awed and admiring interest. Rising, he again
+carefully examined the road, and was finally rewarded by the discovery
+of a sharp indentation in the dust, which, on measurement and comparison
+with the creases in the paper and the calculations he had just made,
+proved to be identical.
+
+"There was a solid body in that paper," said Paul quietly; "a
+parallelogram exactly nine inches long and three wide."
+
+"I say! you're wonderfully clever, don't you know," said the stranger,
+with unaffected wonder. "I see it all--a brick."
+
+Paul smiled gently and shook his head. "That is the hasty inference of
+an inexperienced observer. You will observe at the point of impact of
+your wheel the parallel crease is CURVED, as from the yielding of the
+resisting substances, and not BROKEN, as it would be by the crumbling of
+a brick."
+
+"I say, you're awfully detective, don't you know! just like that
+fellow--what's his name?" said the stranger admiringly.
+
+The words recalled Paul to himself. Why was he acting like a detective?
+and what was he seeking to discover? Nevertheless, he felt impelled
+to continue. "And that queer old chap whom you met--why didn't he help
+you?"
+
+"Because I passed him before I ran into the--the parallelogram, and I
+suppose he didn't know what happened behind him?"
+
+"Did he have anything in his hand?"
+
+"Can't say."
+
+"And you say you were unconscious afterwards?"
+
+"Yes!"
+
+"Long enough for the culprit to remove the principal evidence of his
+crime?"
+
+"Come! I say, really you are--you know you are!"
+
+"Have you any secret enemy?"
+
+"No."
+
+"And you don't know Mr. Bunker, the man who owns this vast estate?"
+
+"Not at all. I'm from Upper Tooting."
+
+"Good afternoon," said Paul abruptly, and turned away.
+
+It struck him afterwards that his action might have seemed uncivil, and
+even inhuman, to the bruised cyclist, who could hardly walk. But it was
+getting late, and he was still far from the Hall, which, oddly enough,
+seemed to be no longer visible from the road. He wandered on for some
+time, half convinced that he had passed the lodge gates, yet hoping to
+find some other entrance to the domain. Dusk was falling; the rounded
+outlines of the park trees beyond the wall were solid masses of shadow.
+The full moon, presently rising, restored them again to symmetry, and at
+last he, to his relief, came upon the massive gateway. Two lions ramped
+in stone on the side pillars. He thought it strange that he had not
+noticed the gateway on his previous entrance, but he remembered that he
+was fully preoccupied with the advancing figure of his uncle. In a few
+minutes the Hall itself appeared, and here again he was surprised that
+he had overlooked before its noble proportions and picturesque outline.
+Its broad terraces, dazzlingly white in the moonlight; its long line of
+mullioned windows, suffused with a warm red glow from within, made it
+look like part of a wintry landscape--and suggested a Christmas card.
+The venerable ivy that hid the ravages time had made in its walls looked
+like black carving. His heart swelled with strange emotions as he gazed
+at his ancestral hall. How many of his blood had lived and died there;
+how many had gone forth from that great porch to distant lands! He tried
+to think of his father--a little child--peeping between the balustrades
+of that terrace. He tried to think of it, and perhaps would have
+succeeded had it not occurred to him that it was a known fact that his
+uncle had bought the estate and house of an impoverished nobleman only
+the year before. Yet--he could not tell why--he seemed to feel higher
+and nobler for that trial.
+
+The terrace was deserted, and so quiet that as he ascended to it his
+footsteps seemed to echo from the walls. When he reached the portals,
+the great oaken door swung noiselessly on its hinges--opened by some
+unseen but waiting servitor--and admitted him to a lofty hall, dark
+with hangings and family portraits, but warmed by a red carpet the whole
+length of its stone floor. For a moment he waited for the servant to
+show him to the drawing-room or his uncle's study. But no one appeared.
+Believing this to be a part of the characteristic simplicity of the
+Quaker household, he boldly entered the first door, and found himself in
+a brilliantly lit and perfectly empty drawing-room. The same experience
+met him with the other rooms on that floor--the dining-room displaying
+an already set, exquisitely furnished and decorated table, with chairs
+for twenty guests! He mechanically ascended the wide oaken staircase
+that led to the corridor of bedrooms above a central salon. Here he
+found only the same solitude. Bedroom doors yielded to his touch, only
+to show the same brilliantly lit vacancy. He presently came upon one
+room which seemed to give unmistakable signs of HIS OWN occupancy.
+Surely there stood his own dressing-case on the table! and his own
+evening clothes carefully laid out on another, as if fresh from a
+valet's hands. He stepped hastily into the corridor--there was no one
+there; he rang the bell--there was no response! But he noticed that
+there was a jug of hot water in his basin, and he began dressing
+mechanically.
+
+There was little doubt that he was in a haunted house, but this did not
+particularly disturb him. Indeed, he found himself wondering if it could
+be logically called a haunted house--unless he himself was haunting it,
+for there seemed to be no other there. Perhaps the apparitions would
+come later, when he was dressed. Clearly it was not his uncle's
+house--and yet, as he had never been inside his uncle's house, he
+reflected that he ought not to be positive.
+
+He finished dressing and sat down in an armchair with a kind of
+thoughtful expectancy. But presently his curiosity became impatient of
+the silence and mystery, and he ventured once more to explore the house.
+Opening his bedroom door, he found himself again upon the deserted
+corridor, but this time he could distinctly hear a buzz of voices from
+the drawing-room below. Assured that he was near a solution of the
+mystery, he rapidly descended the broad staircase and made his way to
+the open door of the drawing-room. But although the sound of voices
+increased as he advanced, when he entered the room, to his utter
+astonishment, it was as empty as before.
+
+Yet, in spite of his bewilderment and confusion, he was able to
+follow one of the voices, which, in its peculiar distinctness and
+half-perfunctory tone, he concluded must belong to the host of the
+invisible assembly.
+
+"Ah," said the voice, greeting some unseen visitor, "so glad you have
+come. Afraid your engagements just now would keep you away." Then the
+voice dropped to a lower and more confidential tone. "You must take down
+Lady Dartman, but you will have Miss Morecamp--a clever girl--on the
+other side of you. Ah, Sir George! So good of you to come. All well at
+the Priory? So glad to hear it." (Lower and more confidentially.) "You
+know Mrs. Monkston. You'll sit by her. A little cut up by her husband
+losing his seat. Try to amuse her."
+
+Emboldened by desperation, Paul turned in the direction of the voice.
+"I am Paul Bunker," he said hesitatingly. "I'm afraid you'll think me
+intrusive, but I was looking for my uncle, and"--
+
+"Intrusive, my dear boy! The son of my near neighbor in the country
+intrusive? Really, now, I like that! Grace!" (the voice turned in
+another direction) "here is the American nephew of our neighbor Bunker
+at Widdlestone, who thinks he is 'a stranger.'"
+
+"We all knew of your expected arrival at Widdlestone--it was so good
+of you to waive ceremony and join us," said a well-bred feminine voice,
+which Paul at once assumed to belong to the hostess. "But I must find
+some one for your dinner partner. Mary" (here her voice was likewise
+turned away), "this is Mr. Bunker, the nephew of an old friend and
+neighbor in Upshire;" (the voice again turned to him), "you will take
+Miss Morecamp in. My dear" (once again averted), "I must find some one
+else to console poor dear Lord Billingtree with." Here the hostess's
+voice was drowned by fresh arrivals.
+
+Bewildered and confused as he was, standing in this empty desert of
+a drawing-room, yet encompassed on every side by human voices, so
+marvelous was the power of suggestion, he seemed to almost feel the
+impact of the invisible crowd. He was trying desperately to realize his
+situation when a singularly fascinating voice at his elbow unexpectedly
+assisted him. It was evidently his dinner partner.
+
+"I suppose you must be tired after your journey. When did you arrive?"
+
+"Only a few hours ago," said Paul.
+
+"And I dare say you haven't slept since you arrived. One doesn't on the
+passage, you know; the twenty hours pass so quickly, and the experience
+is so exciting--to US at least. But I suppose as an American you are
+used to it."
+
+Paul gasped. He had passively accepted the bodiless conversation,
+because it was at least intelligible! But NOW! Was he going mad?
+
+She evidently noticed his silence. "Never mind," she continued, "you
+can tell me all about it at dinner. Do you know I always think that
+this sort of thing--what we're doing now,--this ridiculous formality
+of reception,--which I suppose is after all only a concession to our
+English force of habit,--is absurd! We ought to pass, as it were,
+directly from our houses to the dinner-table. It saves time."
+
+"Yes--no--that is--I'm afraid I don't follow you," stammered Paul.
+
+There was a slight pout in her voice as she replied: "No matter now--we
+must follow them--for our host is moving off with Lady Billingtree, and
+it's our turn now."
+
+So great was the illusion that he found himself mechanically offering
+his arm as he moved through the empty room towards the door. Then he
+descended the staircase without another word, preceded, however, by
+the sound of his host's voice. Following this as a blind man might, he
+entered the dining-room, which to his discomfiture was as empty as the
+salon above. Still following the host's voice, he dropped into a chair
+before the empty table, wondering what variation of the Barmecide feast
+was in store for him. Yet the hum of voices from the vacant chairs
+around the board so strongly impressed him that he could almost believe
+that he was actually at dinner.
+
+"Are you seated?" asked the charming voice at his side.
+
+"Yes," a little wonderingly, as his was the only seat visibly occupied.
+
+"I am so glad that this silly ceremony is over. By the way, where are
+you?"
+
+Paul would have liked to answer, "Lord only knows!" but he reflected
+that it might not sound polite. "Where am I?" he feebly repeated.
+
+"Yes; where are you dining?"
+
+It seemed a cool question under the circumstances, but he answered
+promptly,--
+
+"With you."
+
+"Of course," said the charming voice; "but where are you eating your
+dinner?"
+
+Considering that he was not eating anything, Paul thought this cooler
+still. But he answered briefly, "In Upshire."
+
+"Oh! At your uncle's?"
+
+"No," said Paul bluntly; "in the next house."
+
+"Why, that's Sir William's--our host's--and he and his family are here
+in London. You are joking."
+
+"Listen!" said Paul desperately. Then in a voice unconsciously lowered
+he hurriedly told her where he was--how he came there--the empty
+house--the viewless company! To his surprise the only response was a
+musical little laugh. But the next moment her voice rose higher with an
+unmistakable concern in it, apparently addressing their invisible host.
+
+"Oh, Sir William, only think how dreadful. Here's poor Mr. Bunker, alone
+in an empty house, which he has mistaken for his uncle's--and without
+any dinner!"
+
+"Really; dear, dear! How provoking! But how does he happen to be WITH
+US? James, how is this?"
+
+"If you please, Sir William," said a servant's respectful voice,
+"Widdlestone is in the circuit and is switched on with the others. We
+heard that a gentleman's luggage had arrived at Widdlestone, and we
+telegraphed for the rooms to be made ready, thinking we'd have her
+ladyship's orders later."
+
+A single gleam of intelligence flashed upon Paul. His luggage--yes, had
+been sent from the station to the wrong house, and he had unwittingly
+followed. But these voices! whence did they come? And where was the
+actual dinner at which his host was presiding? It clearly was not at
+this empty table.
+
+"See that he has everything he wants at once," said Sir William; "there
+must be some one there." Then his voice turned in the direction of
+Paul again, and he said laughingly, "Possess your soul and appetite in
+patience for a moment, Mr. Bunker; you will be only a course behind us.
+But we are lucky in having your company--even at your own discomfort."
+
+Still more bewildered, Paul turned to his invisible partner. "May I ask
+where YOU are dining?"
+
+"Certainly; at home in Curzon Street," returned the pretty voice. "It
+was raining so, I did not go out."
+
+"And--Lord Billington?" faltered Paul.
+
+"Oh, he's in Scotland--at his own place."
+
+"Then, in fact, nobody is dining here at all," said Paul desperately.
+
+There was a slight pause, and then the voice responded, with a touch of
+startled suggestion in it: "Good heavens, Mr. Bunker! Is it possible you
+don't know we're dining by telephone?"
+
+"By what?"
+
+"Telephone. Yes. We're a telephonic dinner-party. We are dining in our
+own houses; but, being all friends, we're switched on to each other,
+and converse exactly as we would at table. It saves a great trouble and
+expense, for any one of us can give the party, and the poorest can equal
+the most extravagant. People who are obliged to diet can partake of
+their own slops at home, and yet mingle with the gourmets without
+awkwardness or the necessity of apology. We are spared the spectacle, at
+least, of those who eat and drink too much. We can switch off a bore at
+once. We can retire when we are fatigued, without leaving a blank space
+before the others. And all this without saying anything of the higher
+spiritual and intellectual effect--freed from material grossness of
+appetite and show--which the dinner party thus attains. But you are
+surely joking! You, an American, and not know it! Why, it comes from
+Boston. Haven't you read that book, 'Jumping a Century'? It's by an
+American."
+
+A strange illumination came upon Paul. Where had he heard something like
+this before? But at the same moment his thoughts were diverted by the
+material entrance of a footman, bearing a silver salver with his dinner.
+It was part of his singular experience that the visible entrance of this
+real, commonplace mortal--the only one he had seen--in the midst of this
+voiceless solitude was distinctly unreal, and had all the effect of an
+apparition. He distrusted it and the dishes before him. But his lively
+partner's voice was now addressing an unseen occupant of the next chair.
+Had she got tired of his ignorance, or was it feminine tact to enable
+him to eat something? He accepted the latter hypothesis, and tried to
+eat. But he felt himself following the fascinating voice in all the
+charm of its youthful and spiritual inflections. Taking advantage of its
+momentary silence, he said gently,--
+
+"I confess my ignorance, and am willing to admit all you claim for this
+wonderful invention. But do you think it compensates for the loss of the
+individual person? Take my own case--if you will not think me personal.
+I have never had the pleasure of seeing you; do you believe that I
+am content with only that suggestion of your personality which the
+satisfaction of hearing your voice affords me?"
+
+There was a pause, and then a very mischievous ring in the voice
+that replied: "It certainly is a personal question, and it is another
+blessing of this invention that you'll never know whether I am blushing
+or not; but I forgive you, for I never before spoke to any one I had
+never seen--and I suppose it's confusion. But do you really think you
+would know me--the REAL one--any better? It is the real person who
+thinks and speaks, not the outward semblance that we see, which
+very often unfairly either attracts or repels us? We can always SHOW
+ourselves at our best, but we must, at last, reveal our true colors
+through our thoughts and speech. Isn't it better to begin with the real
+thing first?"
+
+"I hope, at least, to have the privilege of judging by myself," said
+Paul gallantly. "You will not be so cruel as not to let me see you
+elsewhere, otherwise I shall feel as if I were in some dream, and will
+certainly be opposed to your preference for realities."
+
+"I am not certain if the dream would not be more interesting to you,"
+said the voice laughingly. "But I think your hostess is already saying
+'good-by.' You know everybody goes at once at this kind of party; the
+ladies don't retire first, and the gentlemen join them afterwards. In
+another moment we'll ALL be switched off; but Sir William wants me to
+tell you that his coachman will drive you to your uncle's, unless
+you prefer to try and make yourself comfortable for the night here.
+Good-by!"
+
+The voices around him seemed to grow fainter, and then utterly cease.
+The lights suddenly leaped up, went out, and left him in complete
+darkness. He attempted to rise, but in doing so overset the dishes
+before him, which slid to the floor. A cold air seemed to blow across
+his feet. The "good-by" was still ringing in his ears as he straightened
+himself to find he was in his railway carriage, whose door had just been
+opened for a young lady who was entering the compartment from a wayside
+station. "Good-by," she repeated to the friend who was seeing her off.
+The Writer of Stories hurriedly straightened himself, gathered up the
+magazines and papers that had fallen from his lap, and glanced at the
+station walls. The old illustrations glanced back at him! He looked at
+his watch; he had been asleep just ten minutes!
+
+
+
+
+BOHEMIAN DAYS IN SAN FRANCISCO
+
+
+It is but just to the respectable memory of San Francisco that in these
+vagrant recollections I should deprecate at once any suggestion that the
+levity of my title described its dominant tone at any period of my early
+experiences. On the contrary, it was a singular fact that while the
+rest of California was swayed by an easy, careless unconventionalism, or
+swept over by waves of emotion and sentiment, San Francisco preserved
+an intensely material and practical attitude, and even a certain austere
+morality. I do not, of course, allude to the brief days of '49, when it
+was a straggling beach of huts and stranded hulks, but to the earlier
+stages of its development into the metropolis of California. Its first
+tottering steps in that direction were marked by a distinct gravity and
+decorum. Even during the period when the revolver settled small private
+difficulties, and Vigilance Committees adjudicated larger public ones,
+an unmistakable seriousness and respectability was the ruling sign of
+its governing class. It was not improbable that under the reign of the
+Committee the lawless and vicious class were more appalled by the moral
+spectacle of several thousand black-coated, serious-minded business men
+in embattled procession than by mere force of arms, and one "suspect"--a
+prize-fighter--is known to have committed suicide in his cell after
+confrontation with his grave and passionless shopkeeping judges. Even
+that peculiar quality of Californian humor which was apt to mitigate
+the extravagances of the revolver and the uncertainties of poker had no
+place in the decorous and responsible utterance of San Francisco. The
+press was sober, materialistic, practical--when it was not severely
+admonitory of existing evil; the few smaller papers that indulged in
+levity were considered libelous and improper. Fancy was displaced by
+heavy articles on the revenues of the State and inducements to the
+investment of capital. Local news was under an implied censorship which
+suppressed anything that might tend to discourage timid or cautious
+capital. Episodes of romantic lawlessness or pathetic incidents of
+mining life were carefully edited--with the comment that these things
+belonged to the past, and that life and property were now "as safe in
+San Francisco as in New York or London."
+
+Wonder-loving visitors in quest of scenes characteristic of the
+civilization were coldly snubbed with this assurance. Fires, floods, and
+even seismic convulsions were subjected to a like grimly materialistic
+optimism. I have a vivid recollection of a ponderous editorial on one
+of the severer earthquakes, in which it was asserted that only the
+UNEXPECTEDNESS of the onset prevented San Francisco from meeting it in
+a way that would be deterrent of all future attacks. The unconsciousness
+of the humor was only equaled by the gravity with which it was
+received by the whole business community. Strangely enough, this grave
+materialism flourished side by side with--and was even sustained by--a
+narrow religious strictness more characteristic of the Pilgrim Fathers
+of a past century than the Western pioneers of the present. San
+Francisco was early a city of churches and church organizations to which
+the leading men and merchants belonged. The lax Sundays of the dying
+Spanish race seemed only to provoke a revival of the rigors of the
+Puritan Sabbath. With the Spaniard and his Sunday afternoon bullfight
+scarcely an hour distant, the San Francisco pulpit thundered against
+Sunday picnics. One of the popular preachers, declaiming upon the
+practice of Sunday dinner-giving, averred that when he saw a guest in
+his best Sunday clothes standing shamelessly upon the doorstep of his
+host, he felt like seizing him by the shoulder and dragging him from
+that threshold of perdition.
+
+Against the actual heathen the feeling was even stronger, and reached
+its climax one Sunday when a Chinaman was stoned to death by a crowd of
+children returning from Sunday-school. I am offering these examples
+with no ethical purpose, but merely to indicate a singular contradictory
+condition which I do not think writers of early Californian history have
+fairly recorded. It is not my province to suggest any theory for
+these appalling exceptions to the usual good-humored lawlessness and
+extravagance of the rest of the State. They may have been essential
+agencies to the growth and evolution of the city. They were undoubtedly
+sincere. The impressions I propose to give of certain scenes and
+incidents of my early experience must, therefore, be taken as purely
+personal and Bohemian, and their selection as equally individual and
+vagrant. I am writing of what interested me at the time, though not
+perhaps of what was more generally characteristic of San Francisco.
+
+I had been there a week--an idle week, spent in listless outlook for
+employment; a full week in my eager absorption of the strange life
+around me and a photographic sensitiveness to certain scenes and
+incidents of those days, which start out of my memory to-day as freshly
+as the day they impressed me.
+
+One of these recollections is of "steamer night," as it was called,--the
+night of "steamer day,"--preceding the departure of the mail steamship
+with the mails for "home." Indeed, at that time San Francisco may be
+said to have lived from steamer day to steamer day; bills were made due
+on that day, interest computed to that period, and accounts settled.
+The next day was the turning of a new leaf: another essay to fortune,
+another inspiration of energy. So recognized was the fact that even
+ordinary changes of condition, social and domestic, were put aside until
+AFTER steamer day. "I'll see what I can do after next steamer day" was
+the common cautious or hopeful formula. It was the "Saturday night" of
+many a wage-earner--and to him a night of festivity. The thoroughfares
+were animated and crowded; the saloons and theatres full. I can recall
+myself at such times wandering along the City Front, as the business
+part of San Francisco was then known. Here the lights were burning all
+night, the first streaks of dawn finding the merchants still at their
+counting-house desks. I remember the dim lines of warehouses lining the
+insecure wharves of rotten piles, half filled in--that had ceased to
+be wharves, but had not yet become streets,--their treacherous yawning
+depths, with the uncertain gleam of tarlike mud below, at times still
+vocal with the lap and gurgle of the tide. I remember the weird stories
+of disappearing men found afterward imbedded in the ooze in which they
+had fallen and gasped their life away. I remember the two or three
+ships, still left standing where they were beached a year or two before,
+built in between warehouses, their bows projecting into the roadway.
+There was the dignity of the sea and its boundless freedom in their
+beautiful curves, which the abutting houses could not destroy, and even
+something of the sea's loneliness in the far-spaced ports and cabin
+windows lit up by the lamps of the prosaic landsmen who plied their
+trades behind them. One of these ships, transformed into a hotel,
+retained its name, the Niantic, and part of its characteristic interior
+unchanged. I remember these ships' old tenants--the rats--who had
+increased and multiplied to such an extent that at night they fearlessly
+crossed the wayfarer's path at every turn, and even invaded the gilded
+saloons of Montgomery Street. In the Niantic their pit-a-pat was met
+on every staircase, and it was said that sometimes in an excess of
+sociability they accompanied the traveler to his room. In the early
+"cloth-and-papered" houses--so called because the ceilings were not
+plastered, but simply covered by stretched and whitewashed cloth--their
+scamperings were plainly indicated in zigzag movements of the sagging
+cloth, or they became actually visible by finally dropping through the
+holes they had worn in it! I remember the house whose foundations were
+made of boxes of plug tobacco--part of a jettisoned cargo--used instead
+of more expensive lumber; and the adjacent warehouse where the trunks of
+the early and forgotten "forty-niners" were stored, and--never claimed
+by their dead or missing owners--were finally sold at auction. I
+remember the strong breath of the sea over all, and the constant onset
+of the trade winds which helped to disinfect the deposit of dirt and
+grime, decay and wreckage, which were stirred up in the later evolutions
+of the city.
+
+Or I recall, with the same sense of youthful satisfaction and unabated
+wonder, my wanderings through the Spanish Quarter, where three centuries
+of quaint customs, speech, and dress were still preserved; where the
+proverbs of Sancho Panza were still spoken in the language of Cervantes,
+and the high-flown illusions of the La Manchian knight still a part
+of the Spanish Californian hidalgo's dream. I recall the more modern
+"Greaser," or Mexican--his index finger steeped in cigarette stains;
+his velvet jacket and his crimson sash; the many-flounced skirt and lace
+manta of his women, and their caressing intonations--the one musical
+utterance of the whole hard-voiced city. I suppose I had a boy's
+digestion and bluntness of taste in those days, for the combined odor of
+tobacco, burned paper, and garlic, which marked that melodious breath,
+did not affect me.
+
+Perhaps from my Puritan training I experienced a more fearful joy in the
+gambling saloons. They were the largest and most comfortable, even as
+they were the most expensively decorated rooms in San Francisco. Here
+again the gravity and decorum which I have already alluded to were
+present at that earlier period--though perhaps from concentration of
+another kind. People staked and lost their last dollar with a calm
+solemnity and a resignation that was almost Christian. The oaths,
+exclamations, and feverish interruptions which often characterized more
+dignified assemblies were absent here. There was no room for the lesser
+vices; there was little or no drunkenness; the gaudily dressed and
+painted women who presided over the wheels of fortune or performed on
+the harp and piano attracted no attention from those ascetic players.
+The man who had won ten thousand dollars and the man who had lost
+everything rose from the table with equal silence and imperturbability.
+I never witnessed any tragic sequel to those losses; I never heard of
+any suicide on account of them. Neither can I recall any quarrel or
+murder directly attributable to this kind of gambling. It must be
+remembered that these public games were chiefly rouge et noir, monte,
+faro, or roulette, in which the antagonist was Fate, Chance, Method, or
+the impersonal "bank," which was supposed to represent them all; there
+was no individual opposition or rivalry; nobody challenged the decision
+of the "croupier," or dealer.
+
+I remember a conversation at the door of one saloon which was as
+characteristic for its brevity as it was a type of the prevailing
+stoicism. "Hello!" said a departing miner, as he recognized a brother
+miner coming in, "when did you come down?" "This morning," was the
+reply. "Made a strike on the bar?" suggested the first speaker. "You
+bet!" said the other, and passed in. I chanced an hour later to be at
+the same place as they met again--their relative positions changed.
+"Hello! Whar now?" said the incomer. "Back to the bar." "Cleaned out?"
+"You bet!" Not a word more explained a common situation.
+
+My first youthful experience at those tables was an accidental one.
+I was watching roulette one evening, intensely absorbed in the mere
+movement of the players. Either they were so preoccupied with the game,
+or I was really older looking than my actual years, but a bystander laid
+his hand familiarly on my shoulder, and said, as to an ordinary habitue,
+"Ef you're not chippin' in yourself, pardner, s'pose you give ME a
+show." Now I honestly believe that up to that moment I had no intention,
+nor even a desire, to try my own fortune. But in the embarrassment of
+the sudden address I put my hand in my pocket, drew out a coin, and laid
+it, with an attempt at carelessness, but a vivid consciousness that I
+was blushing, upon a vacant number. To my horror I saw that I had
+put down a large coin--the bulk of my possessions! I did not flinch,
+however; I think any boy who reads this will understand my feeling; it
+was not only my coin but my manhood at stake. I gazed with a miserable
+show of indifference at the players, at the chandelier--anywhere but at
+the dreadful ball spinning round the wheel. There was a pause; the game
+was declared, the rake rattled up and down, but still I did not look at
+the table. Indeed, in my inexperience of the game and my embarrassment,
+I doubt if I should have known if I had won or not. I had made up my
+mind that I should lose, but I must do so like a man, and, above all,
+without giving the least suspicion that I was a greenhorn. I even
+affected to be listening to the music. The wheel spun again; the game
+was declared, the rake was busy, but I did not move. At last the man
+I had displaced touched me on the arm and whispered, "Better make a
+straddle and divide your stake this time." I did not understand him, but
+as I saw he was looking at the board, I was obliged to look, too. I drew
+back dazed and bewildered! Where my coin had lain a moment before was a
+glittering heap of gold.
+
+My stake had doubled, quadrupled, and doubled again. I did not know how
+much then---I do not know now--it may have been not more than three or
+four hundred dollars--but it dazzled and frightened me. "Make your
+game, gentlemen," said the croupier monotonously. I thought he looked
+at me--indeed, everybody seemed to be looking at me--and my companion
+repeated his warning. But here I must again appeal to the boyish reader
+in defense of my idiotic obstinacy. To have taken advice would have
+shown my youth. I shook my head--I could not trust my voice. I smiled,
+but with a sinking heart, and let my stake remain. The ball again sped
+round the wheel, and stopped. There was a pause. The croupier indolently
+advanced his rake and swept my whole pile with others into the bank!
+I had lost it all. Perhaps it may be difficult for me to explain why I
+actually felt relieved, and even to some extent triumphant, but I seemed
+to have asserted my grown-up independence--possibly at the cost of
+reducing the number of my meals for days; but what of that! I was a man!
+I wish I could say that it was a lesson to me. I am afraid it was not.
+It was true that I did not gamble again, but then I had no especial
+desire to--and there was no temptation. I am afraid it was an incident
+without a moral. Yet it had one touch characteristic of the period which
+I like to remember. The man who had spoken to me, I think, suddenly
+realized, at the moment of my disastrous coup, the fact of my extreme
+youth. He moved toward the banker, and leaning over him whispered a few
+words. The banker looked up, half impatiently, half kindly--his hand
+straying tentatively toward the pile of coin. I instinctively knew what
+he meant, and, summoning my determination, met his eyes with all the
+indifference I could assume, and walked away.
+
+I had at that period a small room at the top of a house owned by a
+distant relation--a second or third cousin, I think. He was a man of
+independent and original character, had a Ulyssean experience of men and
+cities, and an old English name of which he was proud. While in London
+he had procured from the Heralds' College his family arms, whose
+crest was stamped upon a quantity of plate he had brought with him to
+California. The plate, together with an exceptionally good cook, which
+he had also brought, and his own epicurean tastes, he utilized in the
+usual practical Californian fashion by starting a rather expensive
+half-club, half-restaurant in the lower part of the building--which he
+ruled somewhat autocratically, as became his crest. The restaurant was
+too expensive for me to patronize, but I saw many of its frequenters as
+well as those who had rooms at the club. They were men of very
+distinct personality; a few celebrated, and nearly all notorious. They
+represented a Bohemianism--if such it could be called--less innocent
+than my later experiences. I remember, however, one handsome young
+fellow whom I used to meet occasionally on the staircase, who captured
+my youthful fancy. I met him only at midday, as he did not rise till
+late, and this fact, with a certain scrupulous elegance and neatness in
+his dress, ought to have made me suspect that he was a gambler. In my
+inexperience it only invested him with a certain romantic mystery.
+
+One morning as I was going out to my very early breakfast at a cheap
+Italian cafe on Long Wharf, I was surprised to find him also descending
+the staircase. He was scrupulously dressed even at that early hour,
+but I was struck by the fact that he was all in black, and his slight
+figure, buttoned to the throat in a tightly fitting frock coat, gave, I
+fancied, a singular melancholy to his pale Southern face. Nevertheless,
+he greeted me with more than his usual serene cordiality, and I
+remembered that he looked up with a half-puzzled, half-amused expression
+at the rosy morning sky as he walked a few steps with me down the
+deserted street. I could not help saying that I was astonished to
+see him up so early, and he admitted that it was a break in his usual
+habits, but added with a smiling significance I afterwards remembered
+that it was "an even chance if he did it again." As we neared the street
+corner a man in a buggy drove up impatiently. In spite of the driver's
+evident haste, my handsome acquaintance got in leisurely, and, lifting
+his glossy hat to me with a pleasant smile, was driven away. I have
+a very lasting recollection of his face and figure as the buggy
+disappeared down the empty street. I never saw him again. It was not
+until a week later that I knew that an hour after he left me that
+morning he was lying dead in a little hollow behind the Mission
+Dolores--shot through the heart in a duel for which he had risen so
+early.
+
+I recall another incident of that period, equally characteristic, but
+happily less tragic in sequel. I was in the restaurant one morning
+talking to my cousin when a man entered hastily and said something to
+him in a hurried whisper. My cousin contracted his eyebrows and uttered
+a suppressed oath. Then with a gesture of warning to the man he crossed
+the room quietly to a table where a regular habitue of the restaurant
+was lazily finishing his breakfast. A large silver coffee-pot with a
+stiff wooden handle stood on the table before him. My cousin leaned over
+the guest familiarly and apparently made some hospitable inquiry as
+to his wants, with his hand resting lightly on the coffee-pot handle.
+Then--possibly because, my curiosity having been excited, I was watching
+him more intently than the others--I saw what probably no one else
+saw--that he deliberately upset the coffee-pot and its contents over
+the guest's shirt and waistcoat. As the victim sprang up with
+an exclamation, my cousin overwhelmed him with apologies for his
+carelessness, and, with protestations of sorrow for the accident,
+actually insisted upon dragging the man upstairs into his own private
+room, where he furnished him with a shirt and waistcoat of his own. The
+side door had scarcely closed upon them, and I was still lost in wonder
+at what I had seen, when a man entered from the street. He was one of
+the desperate set I have already spoken of, and thoroughly well known to
+those present. He cast a glance around the room, nodded to one or two of
+the guests, and then walked to a side table and took up a newspaper. I
+was conscious at once that a singular constraint had come over the other
+guests--a nervous awkwardness that at last seemed to make itself known
+to the man himself, who, after an affected yawn or two, laid down the
+paper and walked out.
+
+"That was a mighty close call," said one of the guests with a sigh of
+relief.
+
+"You bet! And that coffee-pot spill was the luckiest kind of accident
+for Peters," returned another.
+
+"For both," added the first speaker, "for Peters was armed too, and
+would have seen him come in!"
+
+A word or two explained all. Peters and the last comer had quarreled
+a day or two before, and had separated with the intention to "shoot
+on sight," that is, wherever they met,--a form of duel common to those
+days. The accidental meeting in the restaurant would have been the
+occasion, with the usual sanguinary consequence, but for the word
+of warning given to my cousin by a passer-by who knew that Peters'
+antagonist was coming to the restaurant to look at the papers. Had
+my cousin repeated the warning to Peters himself he would only have
+prepared him for the conflict--which he would not have shirked--and so
+precipitated the affray.
+
+The ruse of upsetting the coffee-pot, which everybody but myself thought
+an accident, was to get him out of the room before the other entered. I
+was too young then to venture to intrude upon my cousin's secrets, but
+two or three years afterwards I taxed him with the trick and he admitted
+it regretfully. I believe that a strict interpretation of the "code"
+would have condemned his act as unsportsmanlike, if not UNFAIR!
+
+I recall another incident connected with the building equally
+characteristic of the period. The United States Branch Mint stood very
+near it, and its tall, factory-like chimneys overshadowed my cousin's
+roof. Some scandal had arisen from an alleged leakage of gold in the
+manipulation of that metal during the various processes of smelting
+and refining. One of the excuses offered was the volatilization of the
+precious metal and its escape through the draft of the tall chimneys.
+All San Francisco laughed at this explanation until it learned that a
+corroboration of the theory had been established by an assay of the dust
+and grime of the roofs in the vicinity of the Mint. These had yielded
+distinct traces of gold. San Francisco stopped laughing, and that
+portion of it which had roofs in the neighborhood at once began
+prospecting. Claims were staked out on these airy placers, and my
+cousin's roof, being the very next one to the chimney, and presumably
+"in the lead," was disposed of to a speculative company for a
+considerable sum. I remember my cousin telling me the story--for the
+occurrence was quite recent--and taking me with him to the roof to
+explain it, but I am afraid I was more attracted by the mystery of the
+closely guarded building, and the strangely tinted smoke which arose
+from this temple where money was actually being "made," than by anything
+else. Nor did I dream as I stood there--a very lanky, open-mouthed
+youth--that only three or four years later I should be the secretary of
+its superintendent. In my more adventurous ambition I am afraid I would
+have accepted the suggestion half-heartedly. Merely to have helped to
+stamp the gold which other people had adventurously found was by no
+means a part of my youthful dreams.
+
+At the time of these earlier impressions the Chinese had not yet become
+the recognized factors in the domestic and business economy of the city
+which they had come to be when I returned from the mines three years
+later. Yet they were even then a more remarkable and picturesque
+contrast to the bustling, breathless, and brand-new life of San
+Francisco than the Spaniard. The latter seldom flaunted his faded
+dignity in the principal thoroughfares. "John" was to be met everywhere.
+It was a common thing to see a long file of sampan coolies carrying
+their baskets slung between them, on poles, jostling a modern,
+well-dressed crowd in Montgomery Street, or to get a whiff of their
+burned punk in the side streets; while the road leading to their
+temporary burial-ground at Lone Mountain was littered with slips of
+colored paper scattered from their funerals. They brought an atmosphere
+of the Arabian Nights into the hard, modern civilization; their
+shops--not always confined at that time to a Chinese quarter--were
+replicas of the bazaars of Canton and Peking, with their quaint display
+of little dishes on which tidbits of food delicacies were exposed for
+sale, all of the dimensions and unreality of a doll's kitchen or a
+child's housekeeping.
+
+They were a revelation to the Eastern immigrant, whose preconceived
+ideas of them were borrowed from the ballet or pantomime; they did not
+wear scalloped drawers and hats with jingling bells on their points, nor
+did I ever see them dance with their forefingers vertically extended.
+They were always neatly dressed, even the commonest of coolies, and
+their festive dresses were marvels. As traders they were grave and
+patient; as servants they were sad and civil, and all were singularly
+infantine in their natural simplicity. The living representatives of the
+oldest civilization in the world, they seemed like children. Yet they
+kept their beliefs and sympathies to themselves, never fraternizing with
+the fanqui, or foreign devil, or losing their singular racial qualities.
+They indulged in their own peculiar habits; of their social and inner
+life, San Francisco knew but little and cared less. Even at this early
+period, and before I came to know them more intimately, I remember
+an incident of their daring fidelity to their own customs that was
+accidentally revealed to me. I had become acquainted with a Chinese
+youth of about my own age, as I imagined,--although from mere outward
+appearance it was generally impossible to judge of a Chinaman's age
+between the limits of seventeen and forty years,--and he had, in a burst
+of confidence, taken me to see some characteristic sights in a Chinese
+warehouse within a stone's throw of the Plaza. I was struck by the
+singular circumstance that while the warehouse was an erection of wood
+in the ordinary hasty Californian style, there were certain brick and
+stone divisions in its interior, like small rooms or closets, evidently
+added by the Chinamen tenants. My companion stopped before a long, very
+narrow entrance, a mere longitudinal slit in the brick wall, and with a
+wink of infantine deviltry motioned me to look inside. I did so, and saw
+a room, really a cell, of fair height but scarcely six feet square,
+and barely able to contain a rude, slanting couch of stone covered with
+matting, on which lay, at a painful angle, a richly dressed Chinaman.
+A single glance at his dull, staring, abstracted eyes and half-opened
+mouth showed me he was in an opium trance. This was not in itself a
+novel sight, and I was moving away when I was suddenly startled by the
+appearance of his hands, which were stretched helplessly before him on
+his body, and at first sight seemed to be in a kind of wicker cage.
+
+I then saw that his finger-nails were seven or eight inches long, and
+were supported by bamboo splints. Indeed, they were no longer human
+nails, but twisted and distorted quills, giving him the appearance
+of having gigantic claws. "Velly big Chinaman," whispered my cheerful
+friend; "first-chop man--high classee--no can washee--no can eat--no
+dlinke, no catchee him own glub allee same nothee man--China boy must
+catchee glub for him, allee time! Oh, him first-chop man--you bettee!"
+
+I had heard of this singular custom of indicating caste before, and
+was amazed and disgusted, but I was not prepared for what followed. My
+companion, evidently thinking he had impressed me, grew more reckless
+as showman, and saying to me, "Now me showee you one funny thing--heap
+makee you laugh," led me hurriedly across a little courtyard swarming
+with chickens and rabbits, when he stopped before another inclosure.
+Suddenly brushing past an astonished Chinaman who seemed to be standing
+guard, he thrust me into the inclosure in front of a most extraordinary
+object. It was a Chinaman, wearing a huge, square, wooden frame fastened
+around his neck like a collar, and fitting so tightly and rigidly that
+the flesh rose in puffy weals around his cheeks. He was chained to a
+post, although it was as impossible for him to have escaped with his
+wooden cage through the narrow doorway as it was for him to lie down
+and rest in it. Yet I am bound to say that his eyes and face expressed
+nothing but apathy, and there was no appeal to the sympathy of the
+stranger. My companion said hurriedly,--
+
+"Velly bad man; stealee heap from Chinamen," and then, apparently
+alarmed at his own indiscreet intrusion, hustled me away as quickly as
+possible amid a shrill cackling of protestation from a few of his own
+countrymen who had joined the one who was keeping guard. In another
+moment we were in the street again--scarce a step from the Plaza, in the
+full light of Western civilization--not a stone's throw from the courts
+of justice.
+
+My companion took to his heels and left me standing there bewildered
+and indignant. I could not rest until I had told my story, but without
+betraying my companion, to an elder acquaintance, who laid the
+facts before the police authorities. I had expected to be closely
+cross-examined--to be doubted--to be disbelieved. To my surprise, I was
+told that the police had already cognizance of similar cases of illegal
+and barbarous punishments, but that the victims themselves refused to
+testify against their countrymen--and it was impossible to convict or
+even to identify them. "A white man can't tell one Chinese from another,
+and there are always a dozen of 'em ready to swear that the man you've
+got isn't the one." I was startled to reflect that I, too, could not
+have conscientiously sworn to either jailor or the tortured prisoner--or
+perhaps even to my cheerful companion. The police, on some pretext, made
+a raid upon the premises a day or two afterwards, but without result.
+I wondered if they had caught sight of the high-class, first-chop
+individual, with the helplessly outstretched fingers, as that story I
+had kept to myself.
+
+But these barbaric vestiges in John Chinaman's habits did not affect his
+relations with the San Franciscans. He was singularly peaceful, docile,
+and harmless as a servant, and, with rare exceptions, honest and
+temperate. If he sometimes matched cunning with cunning, it was the
+flattery of imitation. He did most of the menial work of San Francisco,
+and did it cleanly. Except that he exhaled a peculiar druglike odor, he
+was not personally offensive in domestic contact, and by virtue of being
+the recognized laundryman of the whole community his own blouses were
+always freshly washed and ironed. His conversational reserve arose, not
+from his having to deal with an unfamiliar language,--for he had picked
+up a picturesque and varied vocabulary with ease,--but from his natural
+temperament. He was devoid of curiosity, and utterly unimpressed by
+anything but the purely business concerns of those he served. Domestic
+secrets were safe with him; his indifference to your thoughts, actions,
+and feelings had all the contempt which his three thousand years of
+history and his innate belief in your inferiority seemed to justify. He
+was blind and deaf in your household because you didn't interest him
+in the least. It was said that a gentleman, who wished to test his
+impassiveness, arranged with his wife to come home one day and, in the
+hearing of his Chinese waiter who was more than usually intelligent--to
+disclose with well-simulated emotion the details of a murder he had just
+committed. He did so. The Chinaman heard it without a sign of horror
+or attention even to the lifting of an eyelid, but continued his duties
+unconcerned. Unfortunately, the gentleman, in order to increase the
+horror of the situation, added that now there was nothing left for him
+but to cut his throat. At this John quietly left the room. The gentleman
+was delighted at the success of his ruse until the door reopened and
+John reappeared with his master's razor, which he quietly slipped--as
+if it had been a forgotten fork--beside his master's plate, and calmly
+resumed his serving. I have always considered this story to be quite as
+improbable as it was inartistic, from its tacit admission of a certain
+interest on the part of the Chinaman. I never knew one who would have
+been sufficiently concerned to go for the razor.
+
+His taciturnity and reticence may have been confounded with rudeness of
+address, although he was always civil enough. "I see you have listened
+to me and done exactly what I told you," said a lady, commending some
+performance of her servant after a previous lengthy lecture; "that's
+very nice." "Yes," said John calmly, "you talkee allee time; talkee
+allee too much." "I always find Ling very polite," said another
+lady, speaking of her cook, "but I wish he did not always say to me,
+'Goodnight, John,' in a high falsetto voice." She had not recognized the
+fact that he was simply repeating her own salutation with his marvelous
+instinct of relentless imitation, even as to voice. I hesitate to record
+the endless stories of his misapplication of that faculty which were
+then current, from the one of the laundryman who removed the buttons
+from the shirts that were sent to him to wash that they might agree with
+the condition of the one offered him as a pattern for "doing up," to
+that of the unfortunate employer who, while showing John how to handle
+valuable china carefully, had the misfortune to drop a plate himself--an
+accident which was followed by the prompt breaking of another by the
+neophyte, with the addition of "Oh, hellee!" in humble imitation of his
+master.
+
+I have spoken of his general cleanliness; I am reminded of one or two
+exceptions, which I think, however, were errors of zeal. His manner of
+sprinkling clothes in preparing them for ironing was peculiar. He would
+fill his mouth with perfectly pure water from a glass beside him, and
+then, by one dexterous movement of his lips in a prolonged expiration,
+squirt the water in an almost invisible misty shower on the article
+before him. Shocking as this was at first to the sensibilities of many
+American employers, it was finally accepted, and even commended. It was
+some time after this that the mistress of a household, admiring the deft
+way in which her cook had spread a white sauce on certain dishes, was
+cheerfully informed that the method was "allee same."
+
+His recreations at that time were chiefly gambling, for the Chinese
+theatre wherein the latter produced his plays (which lasted for several
+months and comprised the events of a whole dynasty) was not yet built.
+But he had one or two companies of jugglers who occasionally performed
+also at American theatres. I remember a singular incident which attended
+the debut of a newly arrived company. It seemed that the company had
+been taken on their Chinese reputation solely, and there had been no
+previous rehearsal before the American stage manager. The theatre was
+filled with an audience of decorous and respectable San Franciscans of
+both sexes. It was suddenly emptied in the middle of the performance;
+the curtain came down with an alarmed and blushing manager apologizing
+to deserted benches, and the show abruptly terminated. Exactly WHAT
+had happened never appeared in the public papers, nor in the published
+apology of the manager. It afforded a few days' mirth for wicked San
+Francisco, and it was epigrammatically summed up in the remark that "no
+woman could be found in San Francisco who was at that performance, and
+no man who was not." Yet it was alleged even by John's worst detractors
+that he was innocent of any intended offense. Equally innocent, but
+perhaps more morally instructive, was an incident that brought his
+career as a singularly successful physician to a disastrous close.
+An ordinary native Chinese doctor, practicing entirely among his own
+countrymen, was reputed to have made extraordinary cures with two
+or three American patients. With no other advertising than this, and
+apparently no other inducement offered to the public than what their
+curiosity suggested, he was presently besieged by hopeful and eager
+sufferers. Hundreds of patients were turned away from his crowded doors.
+Two interpreters sat, day and night, translating the ills of ailing
+San Francisco to this medical oracle, and dispensing his
+prescriptions--usually small powders--in exchange for current coin. In
+vain the regular practitioners pointed out that the Chinese possessed
+no superior medical knowledge, and that their religion, which proscribed
+dissection and autopsies, naturally limited their understanding of the
+body into which they put their drugs. Finally they prevailed upon an
+eminent Chinese authority to give them a list of the remedies generally
+used in the Chinese pharmacopoeia, and this was privately circulated.
+For obvious reasons I may not repeat it here. But it was summed
+up--again after the usual Californian epigrammatic style--by the remark
+that "whatever were the comparative merits of Chinese and American
+practice, a simple perusal of the list would prove that the Chinese were
+capable of producing the most powerful emetic known." The craze subsided
+in a single day; the interpreters and their oracle vanished; the Chinese
+doctors' signs, which had multiplied, disappeared, and San Francisco
+awoke cured of its madness, at the cost of some thousand dollars.
+
+My Bohemian wanderings were confined to the limits of the city, for the
+very good reason that there was little elsewhere to go. San Francisco
+was then bounded on one side by the monotonously restless waters of the
+bay, and on the other by a stretch of equally restless and monotonously
+shifting sand dunes as far as the Pacific shore. Two roads penetrated
+this waste: one to Lone Mountain--the cemetery; the other to the Cliff
+House--happily described as "an eight-mile drive with a cocktail at
+the end of it." Nor was the humor entirely confined to this felicitous
+description. The Cliff House itself, half restaurant, half drinking
+saloon, fronting the ocean and the Seal Rock, where disporting seals
+were the chief object of interest, had its own peculiar symbol. The
+decanters, wine-glasses, and tumblers at the bar were all engraved
+in old English script with the legal initials "L. S." (Locus
+Sigilli),--"the place of the seal."
+
+On the other hand, Lone Mountain, a dreary promontory giving upon the
+Golden Gate and its striking sunsets, had little to soften its weird
+suggestiveness. As the common goal of the successful and unsuccessful,
+the carved and lettered shaft of the man who had made a name, and the
+staring blank headboard of the man who had none, climbed the sandy
+slopes together. I have seen the funerals of the respectable citizen who
+had died peacefully in his bed, and the notorious desperado who had
+died "with his boots on," followed by an equally impressive cortege of
+sorrowing friends, and often the self-same priest. But more awful than
+its barren loneliness was the utter absence of peacefulness and rest
+in this dismal promontory. By some wicked irony of its situation and
+climate it was the personification of unrest and change. The incessant
+trade winds carried its loose sands hither and thither, uncovering the
+decaying coffins of early pioneers, to bury the wreaths and flowers,
+laid on a grave of to-day, under their obliterating waves. No tree to
+shade them from the glaring sky above could live in those winds, no
+turf would lie there to resist the encroaching sand below. The dead
+were harried and hustled even in their graves by the persistent sun, the
+unremitting wind, and the unceasing sea. The departing mourner saw the
+contour of the very mountain itself change with the shifting dunes as
+he passed, and his last look beyond rested on the hurrying, eager waves
+forever hastening to the Golden Gate.
+
+If I were asked to say what one thing impressed me as the dominant and
+characteristic note of San Francisco, I should say it was this untiring
+presence of sun and wind and sea. They typified, even if they were not,
+as I sometimes fancied, the actual incentive to the fierce, restless
+life of the city. I could not think of San Francisco without the trade
+winds; I could not imagine its strange, incongruous, multigenerous
+procession marching to any other music. They were always there in my
+youthful recollections; they were there in my more youthful dreams of
+the past as the mysterious vientes generales that blew the Philippine
+galleons home.
+
+For six months they blew from the northwest, for six months from the
+southwest, with unvarying persistency. They were there every morning,
+glittering in the equally persistent sunlight, to chase the San
+Franciscan from his slumber; they were there at midday, to stir his
+pulses with their beat; they were there again at night, to hurry him
+through the bleak and flaring gas-lit streets to bed. They left their
+mark on every windward street or fence or gable, on the outlying sand
+dunes; they lashed the slow coasters home, and hurried them to sea
+again; they whipped the bay into turbulence on their way to Contra
+Costa, whose level shoreland oaks they had trimmed to windward as
+cleanly and sharply as with a pruning-shears. Untiring themselves, they
+allowed no laggards; they drove the San Franciscan from the wall against
+which he would have leaned, from the scant shade in which at noontide he
+might have rested. They turned his smallest fires into conflagrations,
+and kept him ever alert, watchful, and eager. In return, they scavenged
+his city and held it clean and wholesome; in summer they brought him the
+soft sea-fog for a few hours to soothe his abraded surfaces; in winter
+they brought the rains and dashed the whole coast-line with flowers, and
+the staring sky above it with soft, unwonted clouds. They were always
+there--strong, vigilant, relentless, material, unyielding, triumphant.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Under the Redwoods, by Bret Harte
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