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diff --git a/old/jhmln10.txt b/old/jhmln10.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..27cbd93 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/jhmln10.txt @@ -0,0 +1,6426 @@ +Project Gutenberg Etext of Mr. Jack Hamlin's Mediation, by Harte +#25 in our series by Bret Harte + + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world, be sure to check +the copyright laws for your country before posting these files!! + +Please take a look at the important information in this header. +We encourage you to keep this file on your own disk, keeping an +electronic path open for the next readers. Do not remove this. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**Etexts Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*These Etexts Prepared By Hundreds of Volunteers and Donations* + +Information on contacting Project Gutenberg to get Etexts, and +further information is included below. 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JACK HAMLIN'S MEDIATION + +THE MAN AT THE SEMAPHORE + +AN ESMERALDA OF ROCKY CANYON + +DICK SPINDLER'S FAMILY CHRISTMAS + +WHEN THE WATERS WERE UP AT "JULES'" + +THE BOOM IN THE "CALAVERAS CLARION" + +THE SECRET OF SOBRIENTE'S WELL + +LIBERTY JONES'S DISCOVERY + + + + +MR. JACK HAMLIN'S MEDIATION + + +At nightfall it began to rain. The wind arose too, and also began +to buffet a small, struggling, nondescript figure, creeping along +the trail over the rocky upland meadow towards Rylands's rancho. +At times its head was hidden in what appeared to be wings thrown +upward from its shoulders; at times its broad-brimmed hat was +cocked jauntily on one side, and again the brim was fixed over the +face like a visor. At one moment a drifting misshapen mass of +drapery, at the next its vague garments, beaten back hard against +the figure, revealed outlines far too delicate for that rude +enwrapping. For it was Mrs. Rylands herself, in her husband's hat +and her "hired man's" old blue army overcoat, returning from the +post-office two miles away. The wind continued its aggression +until she reached the front door of her newly plastered farmhouse, +and then a heavier blast shook the pines above the low-pitched, +shingled roof, and sent a shower of arrowy drops after her like a +Parthian parting, as she entered. She threw aside the overcoat and +hat, and somewhat inconsistently entered the sitting-room, to walk +to the window and look back upon the path she had just traversed. +The wind and the rain swept down a slope, half meadow, half +clearing,--a mile away,--to a fringe of sycamores. A mile further +lay the stage road, where, three hours later, her husband would +alight on his return from Sacramento. It would be a long wet walk +for Joshua Rylands, as their only horse had been borrowed by a +neighbor. + +In that fading light Mrs. Rylands's oval cheek was shining still +from the raindrops, but there was something in the expression of +her worried face that might have as readily suggested tears. She +was strikingly handsome, yet quite as incongruous an ornament to +her surroundings as she had been to her outer wrappings a moment +ago. Even the clothes she now stood in hinted an inadaptibility to +the weather--the house--the position she occupied in it. A figured +silk dress, spoiled rather than overworn, was still of a quality +inconsistent with her evident habits, and the lace-edged petticoat +that peeped beneath it was draggled with mud and unaccustomed +usage. Her glossy black hair, which had been tossed into curls in +some foreign fashion, was now wind-blown into a burlesque of it. +This incongruity was still further accented by the appearance of +the room she had entered. It was coldly and severely furnished, +making the chill of the yet damp white plaster unpleasantly +obvious. A black harmonium organ stood in one corner, set out with +black and white hymn-books; a trestle-like table contained a large +Bible; half a dozen black, horsehair-cushioned chairs stood, +geometrically distant, against the walls, from which hung four +engravings of "Paradise Lost" in black mourning frames; some dried +ferns and autumn leaves stood in a vase on the mantelpiece, as if +the chill of the room had prematurely blighted them. The coldly +glittering grate below was also decorated with withered sprays, as +if an attempt had been made to burn them, but was frustrated +through damp. Suddenly recalled to a sense of her wet boots and +the new carpet, she hurriedly turned away, crossed the hall into +the dining-room, and thence passed into the kitchen. The "hired +girl," a large-boned Missourian, a daughter of a neighboring +woodman, was peeling potatoes at the table. Mrs. Rylands drew a +chair before the kitchen stove, and put her wet feet on the hob. + +"I'll bet a cooky, Mess Rylands, you've done forgot the vanillar," +said the girl, with a certain domestic and confidential familiarity. + +Mrs. Rylands started guiltily. She made a miserable feint of +looking in her lap and on the table. "I'm afraid I did, Jane, if I +didn't bring it in HERE." + +"That you didn't," returned Jane. "And I reckon ye forgot that 'ar +pepper-sauce for yer husband." + +Mrs. Rylands looked up with piteous contrition. "I really don't +know what's the matter with me. I certainly went into the shop, +and had it on my list,--and--really"-- + +Jane evidently knew her mistress, and smiled with superior +toleration. "It's kinder bewilderin' goin' in them big shops, and +lookin' round them stuffed shelves." The shop at the cross roads +and post-office was 14 x 14, but Jane was nurtured on the plains. +"Anyhow," she added good-humoredly, "the expressman is sure to look +in as he goes by, and you've time to give him the order." + +"But is he SURE to come?" asked Mrs. Rylands anxiously. "Mr. +Rylands will be so put out without his pepper-sauce." + +"He's sure to come ef he knows you're here. Ye kin always +kalkilate on that." + +"Why?" said Mrs. Rylands abstractedly. + +"Why? 'cause he just can't keep his eyes off ye! That's why he +comes every day,--'tain't jest for trade!" + +This was quite true, not only of the expressman, but of the butcher +and baker, and the "candlestick-maker," had there been so advanced +a vocation at the cross roads. All were equally and curiously +attracted by her picturesque novelty. Mrs. Rylands knew this +herself, but without vanity or coquettishness. Possibly that was +why the other woman told her. She only slightly deepened the lines +of discontent in her cheek and said abstractedly, "Well, when he +comes, YOU ask him." + +She dried her shoes, put on a pair of slippers that had a faded +splendor about them, and went up to her bedroom. Here she +hesitated for some time between the sewing-machine and her +knitting-needles, but finally settled upon the latter, and a pair +of socks for her husband which she had begun a year ago. But she +presently despaired of finishing them before he returned, three +hours hence, and so applied herself to the sewing-machine. For a +little while its singing hum was heard between the blasts that +shook the house, but the thread presently snapped, and the machine +was put aside somewhat impatiently, with a discontented drawing of +the lines around her handsome mouth. Then she began to "tidy" the +room, putting a great many things away and bringing out a great +many more, a process that was necessarily slow, owing to her +falling into attitudes of minute inspection of certain articles of +dress, with intervals of trying them on, and observing their effect +in her mirror. This kind of interruption also occurred while she +was putting away some books that were lying about on chairs and +tables, stopping midway to open their pages, becoming interested, +and quite finishing one chapter, with the book held close against +the window to catch the fading light of day. The feminine reader +will gather from this that Mrs. Rylands, though charming, was not +facile in domestic duties. She had just glanced at the clock, and +lit the candle to again set herself to work, and thus bridge over +the two hours more of waiting, when there came a tap at the door. +She opened it to Jane. + +"There's an entire stranger downstairs, ez hez got a lame hoss and +wants to borry a fresh one." + +"We have none, you know," said Mrs. Rylands, a little impatiently. + +"Thet's what I told him. Then he wanted to know ef he could lie by +here till he could get one or fix up his own hoss." + +"As you like; you know if you can manage it," said Mrs. Rylands, a +little uneasily. "When Mr. Rylands comes you can arrange it +between you. Where is he now?" + +"In the kitchen." + +"The kitchen!" echoed Mrs. Rylands. + +"Yes, ma'am, I showed him into the parlor, but he kinder shivered +his shoulders, and reckoned ez how he'd go inter the kitchen. Ye +see, ma'am, he was all wet, and his shiny big boots was sloppy. +But he ain't one o' the stuck-up kind, and he's willin' to make +hisself cowf'ble before the kitchen stove." + +"Well, then, he don't want ME," said Mrs. Rylands, with a relieved +voice. + +"Yes'm," said Jane, apparently equally relieved. "Only, I thought +I'd just tell you." + +A few minutes later, in crossing the upper hall, Mrs. Rylands heard +Jane's voice from the kitchen raised in rustic laughter. Had she +been satirically inclined, she might have understood Jane's +willingness to relieve her mistress of the duty of entertaining the +stranger; had she been philosophical, she might have considered the +girl's dreary, monotonous life at the rancho, and made allowance +for her joy at this rare interruption of it. But I fear that Mrs. +Rylands was neither satirical nor philosophical, and presently, +when Jane reentered, with color in her alkaline face, and light in +her huckleberry eyes, and said she was going over to the cattle- +sheds in the "far pasture," to see if the hired man didn't know of +some horse that could be got for the stranger, Mrs. Rylands felt a +little bitterness in the thought that the girl would have scarcely +volunteered to go all that distance in the rain for HER. Yet, in a +few moments she forgot all about it, and even the presence of her +guest in the house, and in one of her fitful abstracted employments +passed through the dining-room into the kitchen, and had opened the +door with an "Oh, Jane!" before she remembered her absence. + +The kitchen, lit by a single candle, could be only partly seen by +her as she stood with her hand on the lock, although she herself +was plainly visible. There was a pause, and then a quiet, self- +possessed, yet amused, voice answered:-- + +"My name isn't Jane, and if you're the lady of the house, I reckon +yours wasn't ALWAYS Rylands." + +At the sound of the voice Mrs. Rylands threw the door wide open, +and as her eyes fell upon the speaker--her unknown guest--she +recoiled with a little cry, and a white, startled face. Yet the +stranger was young and handsome, dressed with a scrupulousness and +elegance which even the stress of travel had not deranged, and he +was looking at her with a smile of recognition, mingled with that +careless audacity and self-possession which seemed to be the +characteristic of his face. + +"Jack Hamlin!" she gasped. + +"That's me, all the time," he responded easily, "and YOU'RE Nell +Montgomery!" + +"How did you know I was here? Who told you?" she said impetuously. + +"Nobody! never was so surprised in my life! When you opened that +door just now you might have knocked me down with a feather." Yet +he spoke lazily, with an amused face, and looked at her without +changing his position. + +"But you MUST have known SOMETHING! It was no mere accident," she +went on vehemently, glancing around the room. + +"That's where you slip up, Nell," said Hamlin imperturbably. "It +WAS an accident and a bad one. My horse lamed himself coming down +the grade. I sighted the nearest shanty, where I thought I might +get another horse. It happened to be this." For the first time he +changed his attitude, and leaned back contemplatively in his chair. + +She came towards him quickly. "You didn't use to lie, Jack," she +said hesitatingly. + +"Couldn't afford it in my business,--and can't now," said Jack +cheerfully. "But," he added curiously, as if recognizing something +in his companion's agitation, and lifting his brown lashes to her, +the window, and the ceiling, "what's all this about? What's your +little game here?" + +"I'm married," she said, with nervous intensity,--"married, and +this is my husband's house!" + +"Not married straight out!--regularly fixed?" + +"Yes," she said hurriedly. + +"One of the boys? Don't remember any Rylands. SPELTER used to be +very sweet on you,--but Spelter mightn't have been his real name?" + +"None of our lot! No one you ever knew; a--a straight out, square +man," she said quickly. + +"I say, Nell, look here! You ought to have shown up your cards +without even a call. You ought to have told him that you danced at +the Casino." + +"I did." + +"Before he asked you to marry him?" + +"Before." + +Jack got up from his chair, put his hands in his pockets, and +looked at her curiously. This Nell Montgomery, this music-hall +"dance and song girl," this girl of whom so much had been SAID and +so little PROVED! Well, this was becoming interesting. + +"You don't understand," she said, with nervous feverishness; "you +remember after that row I had with Jim, that night the manager gave +us a supper,--when he treated me like a dog?" + +"He did that," interrupted Jack. + +"I felt fit for anything," she said, with a half-hysterical laugh, +that seemed voiced, however, to check some slumbering memory. "I'd +have cut my throat or his, it didn't matter which"-- + +"It mattered something to us, Nell," put in Jack again, with polite +parenthesis; "don't leave US out in the cold." + +"I started from 'Frisco that night on the boat ready to fling +myself into anything--or the river!" she went on hurriedly. "There +was a man in the cabin who noticed me, and began to hang around. I +thought he knew who I was,--had seen me on the posters; and as I +didn't feel like foolin', I told him so. But he wasn't that kind. +He said he saw I was in trouble and wanted me to tell him all." + +Mr. Hamlin regarded her cheerfully. "And you told him," he said, +"how you had once run away from your childhood's happy home to go +on the stage! How you always regretted it, and would have gone +back but that the doors were shut forever against you! How you +longed to leave, but the wicked men and women around you always"-- + +"I didn't!" she burst out, with sudden passion; "you know I didn't. +I told him everything: who I was, what I had done, what I expected +to do again. I pointed out the men--who were sitting there, +whispering and grinning at us, as if they were in the front row of +the theatre--and said I knew them all, and they knew me. I never +spared myself a thing. I said what people said of me, and didn't +even care to say it wasn't true!" + +"Oh, come!" protested Jack, in perfunctory politeness. + +"He said he liked me for telling the truth, and not being ashamed +to do it! He said the sin was in the false shame and the hypocrisy; +for that's the sort of man he is, you see, and that's like him +always! He asked if I would marry him--out of hand--and do my best +to be his lawful wife. He said he wanted me to think it over and +sleep on it, and to-morrow he would come and see me for an answer. +I slipped off the boat at 'Frisco, and went alone to a hotel where I +wasn't known. In the morning I didn't know whether he'd keep his +word or I'd keep mine. But he came! He said he'd marry me that +very day, and take me to his farm in Santa Clara. I agreed. I +thought it would take me out of everybody's knowledge, and they'd +think me dead! We were married that day, before a regular +clergyman. I was married under my own name,"--she stopped and +looked at Jack, with a hysterical laugh,--"but he made me write +underneath it, 'known as Nell Montgomery;' for he said HE wasn't +ashamed of it, nor should I be." + +"Does he wear long hair and stick straws in it?" said Hamlin +gravely. "Does he 'hear voices' and have 'visions'?" + +"He's a shrewd, sensible, hard-working man,--no more mad than you +are, nor as mad as I was the day I married him. He's lived up to +everything he's said." She stopped, hesitated in her quick, +nervous speech; her lip quivered slightly, but she recalled +herself, and looking imploringly, yet hopelessly, at Jack, gasped, +"And that's what's the matter!" + +Jack fixed his eyes keenly upon her. "And you?" he said curtly. + +"I?" she repeated wonderingly. + +"Yes, what have YOU done?" he said, with sudden sharpness. + +The wonder was so apparent in her eyes that his keen glance +softened. "Why," she said bewilderingly, "I have been his dog, his +slave,--as far as he would let me. I have done everything; I have +not been out of the house until he almost drove me out. I have +never wanted to go anywhere or see any one; but he has always +insisted upon it. I would have been willing to slave here, day and +night, and have been happy. But he said I must not seem to be +ashamed of my past, when he is not. I would have worn common +homespun clothes and calico frocks, and been glad of it, but he +insists upon my wearing my best things, even my theatre things; and +as he can't afford to buy more, I wear these things I had. I know +they look beastly here, and that I'm a laughing-stock, and when I +go out I wear almost anything to try and hide them; but," her lip +quivered dangerously again, "he wants me to do it, and it pleases +him." + +Jack looked down. After a pause he lifted his lashes towards her +draggled skirt, and said in an easier, conversational tone, "Yes! +I thought I knew that dress. I gave it to you for that walking +scene in 'High Life,' didn't I?" + +"No," she said quickly, "it was the blue one with silver trimming,-- +don't you remember? I tried to turn it the first year I was +married, but it never looked the same." + +"It was sweetly pretty," said Jack encouragingly, "and with that +blue hat lined with silver, it was just fetching! Somehow I don't +quite remember this one," and he looked at it critically. + +"I had it at the races in '58, and that supper Judge Boompointer +gave us at 'Frisco where Colonel Fish upset the table trying to get +at Jim. Do you know," she said, with a little laugh, "it's got the +stains of the champagne on it yet; it never would come off. See!" +and she held the candle with great animation to the breadth of silk +before her. + +"And there's more of it on the sleeve," said Jack; "isn't there?" + +Mrs. Rylands looked reproachfully at Jack. + +"That isn't champagne; don't you know what it is?" + +"No!" + +"It's blood," she said gravely; "when that Mexican cut poor Ned so +bad,--don't you remember? I held his head upon my arm while you +bandaged him." She heaved a little sigh, and then added, with a +faint laugh, "That's the worst thing about the clothes of a girl in +the profession, they get spoiled or stained before they wear out." + +This large truth did not seem to impress Mr. Hamlin. "Why did you +leave Santa Clara?" he said abruptly, in his previous critical +tone. + +"Because of the folks there. They were standoffish and ugly. You +see, Josh"-- + +"Who?" + +"Josh Rylands!--HIM! He told everybody who I was, even those who +had never seen me in the bills,--how good I was to marry him, how +he had faith in me and wasn't ashamed,--until they didn't believe +we were married at all. So they looked another way when they met +us, and didn't call. And all the while I was glad they didn't, but +he wouldn't believe it, and allowed I was pining on account of it." + +"And were you?" + +"I swear to God, Jack, I'd have been content, and more, to have +been just there with him, seein' nobody, letting every one believe +I was dead and gone, but he said it was wrong, and weak! Maybe it +was," she added, with a shy, interrogating look at Jack, of which, +however, he took no notice. "Then when he found they wouldn't +call, what do you think he did?" + +"Beat you, perhaps," suggested Jack cheerfully. + +"He never did a thing to me that wasn't straight out, square, and +kind," she said, half indignantly, half hopelessly. "He thought if +HIS kind of people wouldn't see me, I might like to see my own +sort. So without saying anything to me, he brought down, of all +things! Tinkie Clifford, she that used to dance in the cheap +variety shows at 'Frisco, and her particular friend, Captain Sykes. +It would have just killed you, Jack," she said, with a sudden +hysteric burst of laughter, "to have seen Josh, in his square, +straight-out way, trying to be civil and help things along. But," +she went on, as suddenly relapsing into her former attitude of +worried appeal, "I couldn't stand it, and when she got to talking +free and easy before Josh, and Captain Sykes to guzzling champagne, +she and me had a row. She allowed I was putting on airs, and I +made her walk, in spite of Josh." + +"And Josh seemed to like it," said Hamlin carelessly. "Has he seen +her since?" + +"No; I reckon he's cured of asking that kind of company for me. +And then we came here. But I persuaded him not to begin by going +round telling people who I was,--as he did the last time,--but to +leave it to folks to find out if they wanted to, and he gave in. +Then he let me fix up this house and furnish it my own way, and I +did!" + +"Do you mean to say that YOU fixed up that family vault of a +sitting-room?" said Jack, in horror. + +"Yes, I didn't want any fancy furniture or looking-glasses, and +such like, to attract folks, nor anything to look like the old +times. I don't think any of the boys would care to come here. And +I got rid of a lot of sporting travelers, 'wild-cat' managers, and +that kind of tramp in this way. But"-- She hesitated, and her +face fell again. + +"But what?" said Jack. + +"I don't think that Josh likes it either. He brought home the +other day 'My Johnny is a Shoemakiyure,' and wanted me to try it on +the organ. But it reminded me how we used to get just sick of +singing it on and off the boards, and I couldn't touch it. He +wanted me to go to the circus that was touring over at the cross +roads, but it was the old Flanigin's circus, you know, the one +Gussie Riggs used to ride in, with its old clown and its old +ringmaster and the old 'wheezes,' and I chucked it." + +"Look here," said Jack, rising and surveying Mrs. Rylands +critically. "If you go on at this gait, I'll tell you what that +man of yours will do. He'll bolt with some of your old friends!" + +She turned a quick, scared face upon him for an instant. But only +for an instant. Her hysteric little laugh returned, at once, +followed by her weary, worried look. "No, Jack, you don't know +him! If it was only that! He cares only for me in his own way,-- +and," she stammered as she went on, "I've no luck in making him +happy." + +She stopped. The wind shook the house and fired a volley of rain +against the windows. She took advantage of it to draw a torn lace- +edged handkerchief from her pocket behind, and keeping the tail of +her eyes in a frightened fashion on Jack, applied the handkerchief +furtively, first to her nose, and then to her eyes. + +"Don't do that," said Jack fastidiously, "it's wet enough outside." +Nevertheless, he stood up and gazed at her. + +"Well," he began. + +She timidly drew nearer to him, and took a seat on the kitchen +table, looking up wistfully into his eyes. + +"Well," resumed Jack argumentatively, "if he won't 'chuck' you, why +don't you 'chuck' HIM?" + +She turned quite white, and suddenly dropped her eyes. "Yes," she +said, almost inaudibly, "lots of girls would do that." + +"I don't mean go back to your old life," continued Jack. "I reckon +you've had enough of that. But get into some business, you know, +like other women. A bonnet shop, or a candy shop for children, +see? I'll help start you. I've got a couple of hundred, if not in +my own pocket in somebody's else, just burning to be used! And +then you can look about you; and perhaps some square business man +will turn up and you can marry him. You know you can't live this +way, nohow. It's killing you; it ain't fair on you, nor on Rylands +either." + +"No," she said quickly, "it ain't fair on HIM. I know it, I know +it isn't, I know it isn't," she repeated, "only"-- She stopped. + +"Only what?" said Jack impatiently. + +She did not speak. After a pause she picked up the rolling-pin +from the table and began absently rolling it down her lap to her +knee, as if pressing out the stained silk skirt. "Only," she +stammered, slowly rolling the pin handles in her open palms, "I--I +can't leave Josh." + +"Why can't you?" said Jack quickly. + +"Because--because--I," she went on, with a quivering lip, working +the rolling-pin heavily down her knee as if she were crushing her +answer out of it,--"because--I--love him!" + +There was a pause, a dash of rain against the window, and another +dash from her eyes upon her hands, the rolling-pin, and the skirts +she had gathered up hastily, as she cried, "O Jack! Jack! I never +loved anybody like him! I never knew what love was! I never knew +a man like him before! There never WAS one before!" + +To this large, comprehensive, and passionate statement Mr. Jack +Hamlin made no reply. An audacity so supreme had conquered his. +He walked to the window, looked out upon the dark, rain-filmed pane +that, however, reflected no equal change in his own dark eyes, and +then returned and walked round the kitchen table. When he was at +her back, without looking at her, he reached out his hand, took her +passive one that lay on the table in his, grasped it heartily for a +single moment, laid it gently down, and returned around the table, +where he again confronted her cheerfully face to face. + +"You'll make the riffle yet," he said quietly. "Just now I don't +see what I could do, or where I could chip in your little game; but +if I DO, or you do, count me in and let me know. You know where to +write,--my old address at Sacramento." He walked to the corner, +took up his still wet serape, threw it over his shoulders, and +picked up his broad-brimmed riding-hat. + +"You're not going, Jack?" she said hesitatingly, as she rubbed her +wet eyes into a consciousness of his movements. "You'll wait to +see HIM? He'll be here in an hour." + +"I've been here too long already," said Jack. "And the less you +say about my calling, even accidentally, the better. Nobody will +believe it,--YOU didn't yourself. In fact, unless you see how I +can help you, the sooner you consider us all dead and buried, the +sooner your luck will change. Tell your girl I've found my own +horse so much better that I have pushed on with him, and give her +that." + +He threw a gold coin on the table. + +"But your horse is still lame," she said wonderingly. "What will +you do in this storm?" + +"Get into the cover of the next wood and camp out. I've done it +before." + +"But, Jack!" + +He suddenly made a slight gesture of warning. His quick ear had +caught the approach of footsteps along the wet gravel outside. A +mischievous light slid into his dark eyes as he coolly moved +backward to the door and, holding it open, said, in a remarkably +clear and distinct voice:-- + +"Yes, as you say, society is becoming very mixed and frivolous +everywhere, and you'd scarcely know San Francisco now. So +delighted, however, to have made your acquaintance, and regret my +business prevents my waiting to see your good husband. So odd that +I should have known your Aunt Jemima! But, as you say, the world +is very small, after all. I shall tell the deacon how well you are +looking,--in spite of the kitchen smoke in your eyes. Good-by! A +thousand thanks for your hospitality." + +And Jack, bowing profoundly to the ground, backed out upon Jane, +the hired man, and the expressman, treading, I grieve to say, with +some deliberation upon the toes of the two latter, in order, +possibly, that in their momentary pain and discomposure they might +not scan too closely the face of this ingenious gentleman, as he +melted into the night and the storm. + +Jane entered, with a slight toss of her head. + +"Here's your expressman,--ef you're wantin' him NOW." + +Mrs. Rylands was too preoccupied to notice her handmaiden's +significant emphasis, as she indicated a fresh-looking, bashful +young fellow, whose confusion was evidently heightened by the +unexpected egress of Mr. Hamlin, and the point-blank presence of +the handsome Mrs. Rylands. + +"Oh, certainly," said Mrs. Rylands quickly. "So kind of him to +oblige us. Give him the order, Jane, please." + +She turned to escape from the kitchen and these new intruders, when +her eye fell upon the coin left by Mr. Hamlin. "The gentleman +wished you to take that for your trouble, Jane," she said hastily, +pointing to it, and passed out. + +Jane cast a withering look after her retreating skirts, and picking +the coin from the table, turned to the hired man. "Run to the +stable after that dandified young feller, Dick, and hand that back +to him. Ye kin say that Jane Mackinnon don't run arrants fur +money, nor play gooseberry to other folks fur fun." + + +PART II + + +Mr. Joshua Rylands had, according to the vocabulary of his class, +"found grace" at the age of sixteen, while still in the spiritual +state of "original sin" and the political one of Missouri. He had +not indeed found it by persistent youthful seeking or spiritual +insight, but somewhat violently and turbulently at a camp-meeting. +A village boy, naturally gentle and impressible, with an original +character,--limited, however, in education and experience,--he had, +after his first rustic debauch with some vulgar companions, fallen +upon the camp-meeting in reckless audacity; and instead of being +handed over to the district constable, was taken in and placed upon +"the anxious bench," "rastled with," and exhorted by a strong +revivalist preacher, "convicted of sin," and--converted! It is +doubtful if the shame of a public arrest and legal punishment would +have impressed his youthful spirit as much as did this spiritual +examination and trial, in which he himself became accuser. +Howbeit, its effect, though punitive, was also exemplary. He at +once cast off his evil companions; remaining faithful to his +conversion, in spite of their later "backslidings." When, after +the Western fashion, the time came for him to forsake his father's +farm and seek a new "quarter section" on some more remote frontier, +he carried into that secluded, lonely, half-monkish celibacy of +pioneer life--which has been the foundation of so much strong +Western character--more than the usual religious feeling. At once +industrious and adventurous, he lived by "the Word," as he called +it, and Nature as he knew it,--tempted by none of the vices or +sentiments of civilization. When he finally joined the Californian +emigration, it was not as a gold-seeker, but as a discoverer of new +agricultural fields; if the hardship was as great and the rewards +fewer, he nevertheless knew that he retained his safer isolation +and independence of spirit. Vice and civilization were to him +synonymous terms; it was the natural condition of the worldly and +unregenerate. Such was the man who chanced to meet "Nell +Montgomery, the Pearl of the Variety Stage," on the Sacramento +boat, in one of his forced visits to civilization. Without knowing +her in her profession, her frank exposition of herself did not +startle him; he recognized it, accepted it, and strove to convert +it. And as long as this daughter of Folly forsook her evil ways +for him, it was a triumph in which there was no shame, and might be +proclaimed from the housetop. When his neighbors thought +differently, and avoided them, he saw no inconsistency in bringing +his wife's old friends to divert her: she might in time convert +THEM. He had no more fear of her returning to their ways than he +had of himself "backsliding." Narrow as was his creed, he had none +of the harshness nor pessimism of the bigot. With the keenest +self-scrutiny, his credulity regarding others was touching. + +The storm was still raging when he alighted that evening from the +up coach at the trail nearest his house. Although incumbered with +a heavy carpet-bag, he started resignedly on his two-mile tramp +without begrudging the neighborly act of his wife which had +deprived him of his horse. It was "like her" to do these things in +her good-humored abstraction, an abstraction, however, that +sometimes worried him, from the fear that it indicated some +unhappiness with her present lot. He was longing to rejoin her +after his absence of three days, the longest time they had been +separated since their marriage, and he hurried on with a certain +lover-like excitement, quite new to his usually calm and temperate +blood. + +Struggling with the storm and darkness, but always with the happy +consciousness of drawing nearer to her in that struggle, he labored +on, finding his perilous way over the indistinguishable trail by +certain landmarks in the distance, visible only to his pioneer eye. +That heavier shadow to the right was not the hillside, but the +SLOPE to the distant hill; that low, regular line immediately +before him was not a fence or wall, but the line of distant +gigantic woods, a mile from his home. Yet as he began to descend +the slope towards the wood, he stopped and rubbed his eyes. There +was distinctly a light in it. His first idea was that he had lost +the trail and was nearing the woodman Mackinnon's cabin. But a +more careful scrutiny revealed to him that it was really the wood, +and the light was a camp-fire. It was a rough night for camping +out, but they were probably some belated prospectors. + +When he had reached the fringe of woodland, he could see quite +plainly that the fire was built beside one of the large pines, and +that the little encampment, which looked quite comfortable and +secluded from the storm-beaten trail, was occupied apparently by a +single figure. By the good glow of the leaping fire, that figure +standing erect before it, elegantly shaped, in the graceful folds +of a serape, looked singularly romantic and picturesque, and +reminded Joshua Rylands--whose ideas of art were purely reminiscent +of boyish reading--of some picture in a novel. The heavy black +columns of the pines, glancing out of the concave shadow, also +seemed a fitting background to what might have been a scene in a +play. So strongly was he impressed by it that but for his anxiety +to reach his home, still a mile distant, and the fact that he was +already late, he would have penetrated the wood and the seclusion +of the stranger with an offer of hospitality for the night. The +man, however, was evidently capable of taking care of himself, and +the outline of a tethered horse was faintly visible under another +tree. It might be a surveyor or engineer,--the only men of a +better class who were itinerant. + +But another and even greater surprise greeted him as he toiled up +the rocky slope towards his farmhouse. The windows of the sitting- +room, which were usually blank and black by night, were glittering +with unfamiliar light. Like most farmers, he seldom used the room +except for formal company, his wife usually avoiding it, and even +he himself now preferred the dining-room or the kitchen. His first +suggestion that his wife had visitors gave him a sense of pleasure +on her account, mingled, however, with a slight uneasiness of his +own which he could not account for. More than that, as he +approached nearer he could hear the swell of the organ above the +roar of the swaying pines, and the cadences were not of a +devotional character. He hesitated for a moment, as he had +hesitated at the fire in the woods; yet it was surely his own +house! He hurried to the door, opened it; not only the light of +the sitting-room streamed into the hall, but the ruddier glow of an +actual fire in the disused grate! The familiar dark furniture had +been rearranged to catch some of the glow and relieve its +sombreness. And his wife, rising from the music-stool, was the +room's only occupant! + +Mrs. Rylands gazed anxiously and timidly at her husband's +astonished face, as he threw off his waterproof and laid down his +carpet-bag. Her own face was a little flurried with excitement, +and his, half hidden in his tawny beard, and, possibly owing to his +self-introspective nature, never spontaneously sympathetic, still +expressed only wonder! Mrs. Rylands was a little frightened. It +is sometimes dangerous to meddle with a man's habits, even when he +has grown weary of them. + +"I thought," she began hesitatingly, "that it would be more +cheerful for you in here, this stormy evening. I thought you might +like to put your wet things to dry in the kitchen, and we could sit +here together, after supper, alone." + +I am afraid that Mrs. Rylands did not offer all her thoughts. Ever +since Mr. Hamlin's departure she had been uneasy and excited, +sometimes falling into fits of dejection, and again lighting up +into hysterical levity; at other times carefully examining her +wardrobe, and then with a sudden impulse rushing downstairs again +to give orders for her husband's supper, and to make the +extraordinary changes in the sitting-room already noted. Only a +few moments before he arrived, she had covertly brought down a +piece of music, and put aside the hymn-books, and taken, with a +little laugh, a pack of cards from her pocket, which she placed +behind the already dismantled vase on the chimney. + +"I reckoned you had company, Ellen," he said gravely, kissing her. + +"No," she said quickly. "That is," she stopped with a sudden surge +of color in her face that startled her, "there was--a man--here, in +the kitchen--who had a lame horse, and who wanted to get a fresh +one. But he went away an hour ago. And he wasn't in this room--at +least, after it was fixed up. So I've had no company." + +She felt herself again blushing at having blushed, and a little +terrified. There was no reason for it. But for Jack's warning, +she would have been quite ready to tell her husband all. She had +never blushed before him over her past life; why she should now +blush over seeing Jack, of all people! made her utter a little +hysterical laugh. I am afraid that this experienced little woman +took it for granted that her husband knew that if Jack or any man +had been there as a clandestine lover, she would not have blushed +at all. Yet with all her experience, she did not know that she had +blushed simply because it was to Jack that she had confessed that +she loved the man before her. Her husband noted the blush as part +of her general excitement. He permitted her to drag him into the +room and seat him before the hearth, where she sank down on one +knee to pull off his heavy rubber boots. But he waved her aside at +this, pulled them off with his own hands, and let her take them to +the kitchen and bring back his slippers. By this time a smile had +lighted up his hard face. The room was certainly more comfortable +and cheerful. Still he was a little worried; was there not in +these changes a falling away from the grace of self-abnegation +which she had so sedulously practiced? + +When supper was served by Jane, in the dull dining-room, Mr. +Rylands, had he not been more engaged in these late domestic +changes, might have noticed that the Missouri girl waited upon him +with a certain commiserating air that was remarkable by its +contrast with the frigid ceremonious politeness with which she +attended her mistress. It had not escaped Mrs. Rylands, however, +who ever since Jack's abrupt departure had noticed this change in +the girl's demeanor to herself, and with a woman's intuitive +insight of another woman, had fathomed it. The comfortable tete-a- +tete with Jack, which Jane had looked forward to, Mrs. Rylands had +anticipated herself, and then sent him off! When Joshua thanked +his wife for remembering the pepper-sauce, and Mrs. Rylands +pathetically admitted her forgetfulness, the head-toss which Jane +gave as she left the room was too marked to be overlooked by him. +Mrs. Rylands gave a hysterical little laugh. "I am afraid Jane +doesn't like my sending away the expressman just after I had also +dismissed the stranger whom she had taken a fancy to, and left her +without company," she said unwisely. + +Mr. Rylands did not laugh. "I reckon," he returned slowly, "that +Jane must feel kinder lonely; she bears all the burden of our bein' +outer the world, without any of our glory in the cause of it." + +Nevertheless, when supper was over, and the pair were seated in the +sitting-room before the fire, this episode was forgotten. Mrs. +Rylands produced her husband's pipe and tobacco-pouch. He looked +around the formal walls and hesitated. He had been in the habit of +smoking in the kitchen. + +"Why not here?" said Mrs. Rylands, with a sudden little note of +decision. "Why should we keep this room only for company that +don't come? I call it silly." + +This struck Mr. Rylands as logical. Besides, undoubtedly the fire +had mellowed the room. After a puff or two he looked at his wife +musingly. "Couldn't you make yourself one of them cigarettys, as +they call 'em? Here's the tobacco, and I'll get you the paper." + +"I COULD," she said tentatively. Then suddenly, "What made you +think of it? You never saw ME smoke!" + +"No," said Rylands, "but that lady, your old friend, Miss Clifford, +does, and I thought you might be hankering after it." + +"How do you know Tinkie Clifford smokes?" said Mrs. Rylands quickly. + +"She lit a cigaretty that day she called." + +"I hate it," said Mrs. Rylands shortly. + +Mr. Rylands nodded approval, and puffed meditatively. + +"Josh, have you seen that girl since?" + +"No," said Joshua. + +"Nor any other girl like her?" + +"No," said Joshua wonderingly. "You see I only got to know her on +your account, Ellen, that she might see you." + +"Well, don't you do it any more! None of 'em! Promise me!" She +leaned forward eagerly in her chair. + +"But Ellen,"--her husband began gravely. + +"I know what you're going to say, but they can't do me any good, +and you can't do them any good as you did ME, so there!" + +Mr. Rylands was silent, and smiled meditatively. + +"Josh!" + +"Yes." + +"When you met me that night on the Sacramento boat, and looked at +me, did you--did I," she hesitated,--"did you look at me because I +had been crying?" + +"I thought you were troubled in spirit, and looked so." + +"I suppose I looked worried, of course; I had no time to change or +even fix my hair; I had on that green dress, and it NEVER was +becoming. And you only spoke to me on account of my awful looks?" + +"I saw only your wrestling soul, Ellen, and I thought you needed +comfort and help." + +She was silent for a moment, and then, leaning forward, picked up +the poker and began to thrust it absently between the bars. + +"And if it had been some other girl crying and looking awful, you'd +have spoken to her all the same?" + +This was a new idea to Mr. Rylands, but with most men logic is +supreme. "I suppose I would," he said slowly. + +"And married her?" She rattled the bars of the grate with the +poker as if to drown the inevitable reply. + +Mr. Rylands loved the woman before him, but it pleased him to think +that he loved truth better. "If it had been necessary to her +salvation, yes," he said. + +"Not Tinkie?" she said suddenly. + +"SHE never would have been in your contrite condition." + +"Much you know! Girls like that can cry as well as laugh, just as +they want to. Well! I suppose I DID look horrid." Nevertheless, +she seemed to gain some gratification from her husband's reply, and +changed the subject as if fearful of losing that satisfaction by +further questioning. + +"I tried some of those songs you brought, but I don't think they go +well with the harmonium," she said, pointing to some music on its +rack, "except one. Just listen." She rose, and with the same +nervous quickness she had shown before, went to the instrument and +began to sing and play. There was a hopeless incongruity between +the character of the instrument and the spirit of the song. Mrs. +Rylands's voice was rather forced and crudely trained, but Joshua +Rylands, sitting there comfortably slippered by the fire and +conscious of the sheeted rain against the window, felt it good. +Presently he arose, and lounging heavily over to the fair +performer, leaned down and imprinted a kiss on the labyrinthine +fringes of her hair. At which Mrs. Rylands caught blindly at his +hand nearest her, and without lifting her other hand from the keys, +or her eyes from the music, said tentatively:-- + +"You know there's a chorus just here! Why can't you try it with +me?" + +Mr. Rylands hesitated a moment, then, with a preliminary cough, +lifted a voice as crude as hers, but powerful through much camp- +meeting exercise, and roared a chorus which was remarkable chiefly +for requiring that archness and playfulness in execution which he +lacked. As the whole house seemed to dilate with the sound, and +the wind outside to withhold its fury, Mr. Rylands felt that +physical delight which children feel in personal outcry, and was +grateful to his wife for the opportunity. Laying his hand +affectionately on her shoulder, he noticed for the first time that +she was in a kind of evening-dress, and that her delicate white +shoulder shone through the black lace that enveloped it. + +For an instant Mr. Rylands was shocked at this unwonted exposure. +He had never seen his wife in evening-dress before. It was true +they were alone, and in their own sitting-room, but the room was +still invested with that formality and publicity which seemed to +accent this indiscretion. The simple-minded frontier man's mind +went back to Jane, to the hired man, to the expressman, the +stranger, all of whom might have noticed it also. + +"You have a new dress," he said slowly, "have you worn it all day?" + +"No," she said, with a timid smile. "I only put it on just before +you came. It's the one I used to wear in the ballroom scene in +'Gay Times in 'Frisco.' You don't know it, I know. I thought I +would wear it tonight, and then," she suddenly grasped his hand, +"you'll let me put all these things away forever! Won't you, Josh? +I've seen such nice pretty calico at the store to-day, and I can +make up one or two home dresses, like Jane's, only better fitting, +of course. In fact, I asked them to send the roll up here to- +morrow for you to see." + +Mr. Rylands felt relieved. Perhaps his views had changed about the +moral effect of her retaining these symbols of her past, for he +consented to the calico dresses, not, however, without an inward +suspicion that she would not look so well in them, and that the one +she had on was more becoming. + +Meantime she tried another piece of music. It was equally +incongruous and slightly Bacchantic. + +"There used to be a mighty pretty dance went to that," she said, +nodding her head in time with the music, and assisting the heavily +spasmodic attempts of the instrument with the pleasant levity of +her voice. "I used to do it." + +"Ye might try it now, Ellen," suggested her husband, with a half- +frightened, half-amused tolerance. + +"YOU play, then," said Mrs. Rylands quickly, offering her seat to +him. + +Mr. Rylands sat down to the harmonium, as Mrs. Rylands briskly +moved the table and chairs against the wall. Mr. Rylands played +slowly and strenuously, as from a conscientious regard of the +instrument. Mrs. Rylands stood in the centre of the floor, making +a rather pretty, animated picture, as she again stimulated the +heavy harmonium swell not only with her voice but her hands and +feet. Presently she began to skip. + +I should warn the reader here that this was before the "shawl" or +"skirt" dancing was in vogue, and I am afraid that pretty Mrs. +Rylands's performances would now be voted slow. Her silk skirt and +frilled petticoat were lifted just over her small ankles and tiny +bronze-kid shoes. In the course of a pirouette or two, there was a +slight further revelation of blue silk stockings and some delicate +embroidery, but really nothing more than may be seen in the sweep +of a modern waltz. Suddenly the music ceased. Mr. Rylands had +left the harmonium and walked over to the hearth. Mrs. Rylands +stopped, and came towards him with a flushed, anxious face. + +"It don't seem to go right, does it?" she said, with her nervous +laugh. "I suppose I'm getting too old now, and I don't quite +remember it." + +"Better forget it altogether," he replied gravely. He stopped at +seeing a singular change in her face, and added awkwardly, "When I +told you I didn't want you to be ashamed of your past, nor to try +to forget what you were, I didn't mean such things as that!" + +"What did you mean?" she said timidly. + +The truth was that Mr. Rylands did not know. He had known this +sort of thing only in the abstract. He had never had the least +acquaintance with the class to which his wife had belonged, nor +known anything of their methods. It was a revelation to him now, +in the woman he loved, and who was his wife. He was not shocked so +much as he was frightened. + +"You shall have the dress to-morrow, Ellen," he said gently, "and +you can put away these gewgaws. You don't need to look like Tinkie +Clifford." + +He did not see the look of triumph that lit up her eye, but added, +"Go on and play." + +She sat down obediently to the instrument. He watched her for a +few moments from the toe of her kid slipper on the pedals to the +swell of her shoulders above the keyboard, with a strange, +abstracted face. Presently she stopped and came over to him. + +"And when I've got these nice calico frocks, and you can't tell me +from Jane, and I'm a good housekeeper, and settle down to be a +farmer's wife, maybe I'll have a secret to tell you." + +"A secret?" he repeated gravely. "Why not now?" + +Her face was quite aglow with excitement and a certain timid +mischief as she laughed: "Not while you are so solemn. It can +wait." + +He looked at his watch. "I must give some orders to Jim about the +stock before he turns in," he said. + +"He's gone to the stables already," said Mrs. Rylands. + +"No matter; I can go there and find him." + +"Shall I bring your boots?" she said quickly. + +"I'll put them on when I pass through the kitchen. I won't be long +away. Now go to bed. You are looking tired," he said gently, as +he gazed at the drawn lines about her eyes and mouth. Her former +pretty color struck him also as having changed of late, and as +being irregular and inharmonious. + +As Mrs. Rylands obediently ascended the stairs she heaved a faint +sigh, her only recognition of her husband's criticism. He turned +and passed quickly into the kitchen. He wanted to be alone to +collect his thoughts. But he was surprised to find Jane still +there, sitting bolt upright in a chair in the corner. Apparently +she had been expecting him, for as he entered she stood up, and +wiped her cheek and mouth with one hand, as if to compress her lips +the more tightly. + +"I reckoned," she began, "that unless you war for forgettin' +everythin' in these yer goings on, ye'd be passin' through here to +tend to your stock. I've got a word to say to ye, Mr. Rylands. +When I first kem over here to help, I got word from the folks +around that your wife afore you married her was just one o' them +bally dancers. Well, that was YOUR lookout, not mine! Jane +Mackinnon ain't the kind to take everybody's sayin' as gospil, but +she kalkilates to treat folks ez she finds 'em. When she finds 'em +lyin' and deceivin'; when she finds em purtendin' one thing and +doin' another; when she finds 'em makin' fools tumble to 'em; +playing soots on their own husbands, and turnin' an honest house +into a music-hall and a fandango shop, she kicks! You hear me! +Jane Mackinnon kicks!" + +"What do you mean?" said Mr. Rylands sternly. + +"I mean," said Miss Mackinnon, striking her hips with the back of +her hands smartly, and accenting each word that dropped like a +bullet from her mouth with an additional blow,--"I--mean--that-- +your--wife--had--one--of--her--old--hangers-on--from--'Frisco-- +here--in--this--very--kitchen--all--the--arternoon; there! I mean +that whiles she was waitin' here for you, she was canoodlin' and +cryin' over old times with him! I saw her myself through the +winder. That's what I mean, Mr. Joshua Rylands." + +"It's false! She had some poor stranger here with a lame horse. +She told me so herself." + +Jane Mackinnon laughed shrilly. + +"Did she tell you that the poor stranger was young and pretty- +faced, with black moustarches? that his store clothes must have +cost a fortin, saying nothing of his gold-lined, broadcloth +sarrapper? Did she say that his horse was so lame that when I went +to get another he wouldn't WAIT for it? Did she tell you WHO he +was?" + +"No, she did not know," said Rylands sternly, but with a whitening +face. + +"Well, I'll tell you! The gambler, the shooter!--the man whose +name is black enough to stain any woman he knows. Jim recognized +him like a shot; he sez, the moment he clapped eyes on him at the +door, 'Dod blasted, if it ain't Jack Hamlin!'" + +Little as Mr. Rylands knew of the world, he had heard that name. +But it was not THAT he was thinking of. He was thinking of the +camp-fire in the wood, the handsome figure before it, the tethered +horse. He was thinking of the lighted sitting-room, the fire, his +wife's bare shoulders, her slippers, stockings, and the dance. He +saw it all,--a lightning-flash to his dull imagination. The room +seemed to expand and then grow smaller, the figure of Jane to sway +backwards and forwards before him. He murmured the name of God +with lips that were voiceless, caught at the kitchen table to +steady himself, held it till he felt his arms grow rigid, and then +recovered himself,--white, cold, and sane. + +"Speak a word of this to HER," he said deliberately, "enter her +room while I'm gone, even leave the kitchen before I come back, and +I'll throw you into the road. Tell that hired man, if he dares to +breathe it to a soul I'll strangle him." + +The unlooked-for rage of this quiet, God-fearing man, and dupe, as +she believed, was terrible, but convincing. She shrank back into +the corner as he coolly drew on his boots and waterproof, and +without another word left the house. + +He knew what he was going to do as well as if it had been ordained +for him. He knew he would find the young man in the wood; for +whatever were the truth of the other stories, he and the visitor +were identical; he had seen him with his own eyes. He would +confront him face to face and know all; and until then, he could +not see his wife again. He walked on rapidly, but without +feverishness or mental confusion. He saw his duty plainly,--if +Ellen had "backslidden," he must give her another trial. These +were his articles of faith. He should not put her away; but she +should nevermore be wife to him. It was HE who had tempted her, it +was true; perhaps God would forgive her for that reason, but HE +could never love her again. + +The fury of the storm had somewhat abated as he reached the wood. +The fire was still there, but no longer a leaping flame. A dull +glow in the darkness of the forest aisles was all that indicated +its position. Rylands at once plunged in that direction; he was +near enough to see the red embers when he heard a sharp click, and +a voice called:-- + +"Hold up!" + +Mr. Hamlin was a light sleeper. The crackle of underbrush had been +enough to disturb him. The voice was his; the click was the +cocking of his revolver. + +Rylands was no coward, but halted diplomatically. + +"Now, then," said Mr. Hamlin's voice, "a little more this way, IN +THE LIGHT, if you please!" + +Rylands moved as directed, and saw Mr. Hamlin lying before the +fire, resting easily on one hand, with his revolver in the other. + +"Thank you!" said Jack. "Excuse my precautions, but it is night, +and this is, for the present, my bedroom." + +"My name is Rylands; you called at my house this afternoon and saw +my wife," said Rylands slowly. + +"I did," said Hamlin. "It was mighty kind of you to return my call +so soon, but I didn't expect it." + +"I reckon not. But I know who you are, and that you are an old +associate of hers, in the days of her sin and unregeneration. I +want you to answer me, before God and man, what was your purpose in +coming there to-day?" + +"Look here! I don't think it's necessary to drag in strangers to +hear my answer," said Jack, lying down again, "but I came to borrow +a horse." + +"Is that the truth?" + +Jack got upon his feet very solemnly, put on his hat, drew down his +waistcoat, and approached Mr. Rylands with his hands in his pockets. + +"Mr. Rylands," he said, with great suavity of manner, "this is the +second time today that I have had the honor of having my word +doubted by your family. Your wife was good enough to question my +assertion that I didn't know that she was living here, but that was +a woman's vanity. You have no such excuse. There is my horse +yonder, lame, as you may see. I didn't lame him for the sake of +seeing your wife nor you." + +There was that in Mr. Hamlin's audacity and perfect self-possession +which, even while it irritated, never suggested deceit. He was too +reckless of consequence to lie. Mr. Rylands was staggered and half +convinced. Nevertheless, he hesitated. + +"Dare you tell me everything that happened between my wife and you?" + +"Dare you listen?" said Mr. Hamlin quietly. + +Mr. Rylands turned a little white. After a moment he said:-- + +"Yes." + +"Good!" said Mr. Hamlin. "I like your grit, though I don't mind +telling you it's the ONLY thing I like about you. Sit down. Well, +I haven't seen Nell Montgomery for three years until I met her as +your wife, at your house. She was surprised as I was, and +frightened as I wasn't. She spent the whole interview in telling +me the history of her marriage and her life with you, and nothing +more. I cannot say that it was remarkably entertaining, or that +she was as amusing as your wife as she was as Nell Montgomery, the +variety actress. When she had finished, I came away." + +Mr. Rylands, who had seated himself, made a movement as if to rise. +But Mr. Hamlin laid his hand on his knee. + +"I asked you if you dared to listen. I have something myself to +say of that interview. I found your wife wearing the old dresses +that other men had given her, and she said she wore them because +she thought it pleased you. I found that you, who are questioning +my calling upon her, had already got the worst of her old chums to +visit her without asking her consent; I found that instead of being +the first one to lie for her and hide her, you were the first one +to tell anybody her history, just because you thought it was to the +glory of God generally, and of Joshua Rylands in particular." + +"A man's motives are his own," stammered Rylands. + +"Sorry you didn't see it when you questioned mine just now," said +Jack coolly. + +"Then she complained to you?" said Rylands hesitatingly. + +"I didn't say that," said Jack shortly. + +"But you found her unhappy?" + +"Damnably." + +"And you advised her"--said Rylands tentatively. + +"I advised her to chuck you and try to get a better husband." He +paused, and then added, with a disgusted laugh, "but she didn't +tumble to it, for a d----d silly reason." + +"What reason?" said Rylands hurriedly. + +"Said she LOVED you," returned Jack, kicking a brand back into the +fire. Mr. Rylands's white cheeks flamed out suddenly like the +brand. Seeing which, Jack turned upon him deliberately. + +"Mr. Joshua Rylands, I've seen many fools in my time. I've seen +men holding four aces backed down because they thought they KNEW +the other man had a royal flush! I've seen a man sell his claim +for a wild-cat share, with the gold lying a foot below him in the +ground he walked on. I've seen a dead shot shoot wild because he +THOUGHT he saw something in the other man's eye. I've seen a heap +of God-forsaken fools, but I never saw one before who claimed God +as a pal. You've got a wife a d----d sight truer to you for what +you call her 'sin,' than you've ever been to her, with all your +d----d salvation! And as you couldn't make her otherwise, though +you've tried to hard enough, it seems to me that for square +downright chuckle-headedness, you can take the cake! Good-night! +Now, run away and play! You're making me tired." + +"One moment," said Mr. Rylands awkwardly and hurriedly. "I may +have wronged you; I was mistaken. Won't you come back with me and +accept my--our--hospitality?" + +"Not much," said Jack. "I left your house because I thought it +better for you and her that no one should know of my being there." + +"But you were already recognized," said Mr. Rylands. "It was Jane +who lied about you, and your return with me will confute her +slanders." + +"Who?" asked Jack. + +"Jane, our hired girl." + +Mr. Hamlin uttered an indescribable laugh. + +"That's just as well! You simply tell Jane you SAW me; that I was +greatly shocked at what she said, but that I forgive her. I don't +think she'll say any more." + + +Strange to add, Mr. Hamlin's surmise was correct. Mr. Rylands +found Jane still in the kitchen alone, terrified, remorseful, yet +ever after silent on the subject. Stranger still, the hired man +became equally uncommunicative. Mrs. Rylands, attributing her +husband's absence only to care of the stock, had gone to bed in a +feverish condition, and Mr. Rylands did not deem it prudent to tell +her of his interview. The next day she sent for the doctor, and it +was deemed necessary for her to keep her bed for a few days. Her +husband was singularly attentive and considerate during that time, +and it was probable that Mrs. Rylands seized that opportunity to +tell him the secret she spoke of the night before. Whatever it +was,--for it was not generally known for a few months later,--it +seemed to draw them closer together, imparted a protecting dignity +to Joshua Rylands, which took the place of his former selfish +austerity, gave them a future to talk of confidentially, hopefully, +and sometimes foolishly, which took the place of their more foolish +past, and when the roll of calico came from the cross roads, it +contained also a quantity of fine linen, laces, small caps, and +other trifles, somewhat in contrast to the more homely materials +ordered. + +And when three months were past, the sitting-room was often lit up +and made cheerful, particularly on that supreme occasion when, with +a great deal of enthusiasm, all the women of the countryside +flocked to see Mrs. Rylands and her first baby. And a more +considerate and devoted couple than the father and mother they had +never known. + + + +THE MAN AT THE SEMAPHORE + + +In the early days of the Californian immigration, on the extremest +point of the sandy peninsula, where the bay of San Francisco +debouches into the Pacific, there stood a semaphore telegraph. +Tossing its black arms against the sky,--with its back to the +Golden Gate and that vast expanse of sea whose nearest shore was +Japan,--it signified to another semaphore further inland the "rigs" +of incoming vessels, by certain uncouth signs, which were again +passed on to Telegraph Hill, San Francisco, where they reappeared +on a third semaphore, and read to the initiated "schooner," "brig" +"ship," or "steamer." But all homesick San Francisco had learned +the last sign, and on certain days of the month every eye was +turned to welcome those gaunt arms widely extended at right angles, +which meant "sidewheel steamer" (the only steamer which carried the +mails) and "letters from home." In the joyful reception accorded +to that herald of glad tidings, very few thought of the lonely +watcher on the sand dunes who dispatched them, or even knew of that +desolate Station. + +For desolate it was beyond description. The Presidio, with its +voiceless, dismounted cannon and empty embrasures hidden in a +hollow, and the Mission Dolores, with its crumbling walls and +belfry tower lost in another, made the ultima thule of all San +Francisco wandering. The Cliff house and Fort Point did not then +exist; from Black Point the curving line of shore of "Yerba Buena"-- +or San Francisco--showed only a stretch of glittering wind-swept +sand dunes, interspersed with straggling gullies of half-buried +black "scrub oak." The long six months' summer sun fiercely beat +upon it from the cloudless sky above; the long six months' trade +winds fiercely beat upon it from the west; the monotonous roll-call +of the long Pacific surges regularly beat upon it from the sea. +Almost impossible to face by day through sliding sands and +buffeting winds, at night it was impracticable through the dense +sea-fog that stole softly through the Golden Gate at sunset. +Thence, until morning, sea and shore were a trackless waste, +bounded only by the warning thunders of the unseen sea. The +station itself, a rudely built cabin, with two windows,--one +furnished with a telescope,--looked like a heap of driftwood, or a +stranded wreck left by the retiring sea; the semaphore--the only +object for leagues--lifted above the undulating dunes, took upon +itself various shapes, more or less gloomy, according to the hour +or weather,--a blasted tree, the masts and clinging spars of a +beached ship, a dismantled gallows; or, with the background of a +golden sunset across the Gate, and its arms extended at right +angles, to a more hopeful fancy it might have seemed the missionary +Cross, which the enthusiast Portala lifted on that heathen shore a +hundred years before. + +Not that Dick Jarman--the solitary station keeper--ever indulged +this fancy. An escaped convict from one of her Britannic Majesty's +penal colonies, a "stowaway" in the hold of an Australian ship, he +had landed penniless in San Francisco, fearful of contact with his +more honest countrymen already there, and liable to detection at +any moment. Luckily for him, the English immigration consisted +mainly of gold-seekers en route to Sacramento and the southern +mines. He was prudent enough to resist the temptation to follow +them, and accepted the post of semaphore keeper,--the first work +offered him,--which the meanest immigrant, filled with dreams of +gold, would have scorned. His employers asked him no questions, +and demanded no references; his post could be scarcely deemed one +of trust,--there was no property for him to abscond with but the +telescope; he was removed from temptation and evil company in his +lonely waste; his duties were as mechanical as the instrument he +worked, and interruption of them would be instantly known at San +Francisco. For this he would receive his board and lodging and +seventy-five dollars a month,--a sum to be ridiculed in those +"flush days," but which seemed to the broken-spirited and half- +famished stowaway a princely independence. + +And then there was rest and security! He was free from that +torturing anxiety and fear of detection which had haunted him night +and day for three months. The ceaseless vigilance and watchful +dread he had known since his escape, he could lay aside now. The +rude cabin on the sand dune was to him as the long-sought cave to +some hunted animal. It seemed impossible that any one would seek +him there. He was spared alike the contact of his enemies or the +shame of recognizing even a friendly face, until by each he would +be forgotten. From his coign of vantage on that desolate waste, +and with the aid of his telescope, no stranger could approach +within two or three miles of his cabin without undergoing his +scrutiny. And at the worst, if he was pursued here, before him was +the trackless shore and the boundless sea! + +And at times there was a certain satisfaction in watching, unseen +and in perfect security, the decks of passing ships. With the aid +of his glass he could mingle again with the world from which he was +debarred, and gloomily wonder who among those passengers knew their +solitary watcher, or had heard of his deeds; it might have made him +gloomier had he known that in those eager faces turned towards the +golden haven there was little thought of anything but themselves. +He tried to read in faces on board the few outgoing ships the +record of their success with a strange envy. They were returning +home! HOME! For sometimes--but seldom--he thought of his own home +and his past. It was a miserable past of forgery and embezzlement +that had culminated a career of youthful dissipation and self- +indulgence, and shut him out, forever, from the staid old English +cathedral town where he was born. He knew that his relations +believed and wished him dead. He thought of this past with little +pleasure, but with little remorse. Like most of his stamp, he +believed it was ill-luck, chance, somebody else's fault, but never +his own responsible action. He would not repent; he would be wiser +only. And he would not be retaken--alive! + +Two or three months passed in this monotonous duty, in which he +partly recovered his strength and his nerves. He lost his furtive, +restless, watchful look; the bracing sea air and the burning sun +put into his face the healthy tan and the uplifted frankness of a +sailor. His eyes grew keener from long scanning of the horizon; he +knew where to look for sails, from the creeping coastwise schooner +to the far-rounding merchantman from Cape Horn. He knew the faint +line of haze that indicated the steamer long before her masts and +funnels became visible. He saw no soul except the solitary boatman +of the little "plunger," who landed his weekly provisions at a +small cove hard by. The boatman thought his secretiveness and +reticence only the surliness of his nation, and cared little for a +man who never asked for the news, and to whom he brought no +letters. The long nights which wrapped the cabin in sea-fog, and +at first seemed to heighten the exile's sense of security, by +degrees, however, became monotonous, and incited an odd restlessness, +which he was wont to oppose by whiskey,--allowed as a part of his +stores,--which, while it dulled his sensibilities, he, however, +never permitted to interfere with his mechanical duties. + +He had been there five months, and the hills on the opposite shore +between Tamalpais were already beginning to show their russet +yellow sides. One bright morning he was watching the little fleet +of Italian fishing-boats hovering in the bay. This was always a +picturesque spectacle, perhaps the only one that relieved the +general monotony of his outlook. The quaint lateen sails of dull +red, or yellow, showing against the sparkling waters, and the red +caps or handkerchiefs of the fishermen, might have attracted even a +more abstracted man. Suddenly one of the larger boats tacked, and +made directly for the little cove where his weekly plunger used to +land. In an instant he was alert and suspicious. But a close +examination of the boat through his glass satisfied him that it +contained, in addition to the crew, only two or three women, +apparently the family of the fishermen. As it ran up on the beach +and the entire party disembarked he could see it was merely a +careless, peaceable invasion, and he thought no more about it. The +strangers wandered about the sands, gesticulating and laughing; +they brought a pot ashore, built a fire, and cooked a homely meal. +He could see that from time to time the semaphore--evidently a +novelty to them--had attracted their attention; and having occasion +to signal the arrival of a bark, the working of the uncouth arms of +the instrument drew the children in half-frightened curiosity +towards it, although the others held aloof, as if fearful of +trespassing upon some work of the government, no doubt secretly +guarded by the police. A few mornings later he was surprised to +see upon the beach, near the same locality, a small heap of lumber +which had evidently been landed in the early morning fog. The next +day an old tent appeared on the spot, and the men, evidently +fishermen, began the erection of a rude cabin beside it. Jarman +had been long enough there to know that it was government land, and +that these manifestly humble "squatters" upon it would not be +interfered with for some time to come. He began to be uneasy +again; it was true they were fully half a mile from him, and they +were foreigners; but might not their reckless invasion of the law +attract others, in this lawless country, to do the same? It ought +to be stopped. For once Richard Jarman sided with legal authority. + +But when the cabin was completed, it was evident from what he saw +of its rude structure that it was only a temporary shelter for the +fisherman's family and the stores, and refitting of the fishing- +boat, more convenient to them than the San Francisco wharves. The +beach was utilized for the mending of nets and sails, and thus +became half picturesque. In spite of the keen northwestern trades, +the cloudless, sunshiny mornings tempted these southerners back to +their native al fresco existence; they not only basked in the sun, +but many of their household duties, and even the mysteries of their +toilet, were performed in the open air. They did not seem to care +to penetrate into the desolate region behind them; their half- +amphibious habit kept them near the water's edge, and Richard +Jarman, after taking his limited walks for the first few mornings +in another direction, found it no longer necessary to avoid the +locality, and even forgot their propinquity. + +But one morning, as the fog was clearing away and the sparkle of +the distant sea was beginning to show from his window, he rose from +his belated breakfast to fetch water from the "breaker" outside, +which had to be replenished weekly from Sancelito, as there was no +spring in his vicinity. As he opened the door, he was inexpressibly +startled by the figure of a young woman standing in front of it, +who, however, half fearfully, half laughingly withdrew before him. +But his own manifest disturbance apparently gave her courage. + +"I jess was looking at that thing," she said bashfully, pointing to +the semaphore. + +He was still more astonished, for, looking at her dark eyes and +olive complexion, he had expected her to speak Italian or broken +English. And, possibly because for a long time he had seen and +known little of women, he was quite struck with her good looks. He +hesitated, stammered, and then said:-- + +"Won't you come in?" + +She drew back still farther and made a rapid gesture of negation +with her head, her hand, and even her whole lithe figure. Then she +said, with a decided American intonation:-- + +"No, sir." + +"Why not?" said Jarman mechanically. + +The girl sidled up against the cabin, keeping her eyes fixed on +Jarman with a certain youthful shrewdness. + +"Oh, you know!" she said. + +"I really do not. Tell me why." + +She drew herself up against the wall a little proudly, though still +youthfully, with her hands behind her. + +"I ain't that kind of girl," she said simply. + +The blood rushed to Jarman's checks. Dissipated and abandoned as +his life had been, small respecter of women as he was, he was +shocked and shamed. Knowing too, as he did, how absorbed he was in +other things, he was indignant, because not guilty. + +"Do as you please, then," he said shortly, and reentered the cabin. +But the next moment he saw his error in betraying an irritation +that was open to misconstruction. He came out again, scarcely +looking at the girl, who was lounging away. + +"Do you want me to explain to you how the thing works?" he said +indifferently. "I can't show you unless a ship comes in." + +The girl's eyes brightened softly as she turned to him. + +"Do tell me," she said, with an anticipatory smile and flash of +white teeth. "Won't you?" + +She certainly was very pretty and simple, in spite of her late +speech. Jarman briefly explained to her the movements of the +semaphore arms and their different significance. She listened with +her capped head a little on one side like an attentive bird, and +her arms unconsciously imitating the signs. Certainly, for all +that she SPOKE like an American, her gesticulation was Italian. + +"And then," she said triumphantly when he paused, "when the sailors +see that sign up they know they are coming in the harbor." + +Jarman smiled, as he had not smiled since he had been there. He +corrected this mistake of her eager haste to show her intelligence, +and, taking the telescope, pointed out the other semaphore,--a thin +black outline on a distant inland hill. He then explained how HIS +signs were repeated by that instrument to San Francisco. + +"My! Why, I always allowed that was only the cross stuck up in the +Lone Mountain Cemetery," she said. + +"You are a Catholic?" + +"I reckon." + +"And you are an Italian?" + +"Father is, but mother was a 'Merikan, same as me. Mother's dead." + +"And your father is the fisherman yonder?" + +"Yes,--but," with a look of pride, "he's got the biggest boat of +any." + +"And only you and your family are ashore here?" + +"Yes, and sometimes Mark." She laughed an odd little laugh. + +"Mark? Who's he?" he asked quickly. + +He had not noticed the sudden coquettish pose and half-affected +bashfulness of the girl; he was thinking only of the possibility of +detection by strangers. + +"Oh, he is Marco Franti, but I call him 'Mark.' It's the same +name, you know, and it makes him mad," said the girl, with the same +suggestion of archness and coquetry. + +But all this was lost on Jarman. + +"Oh, another Italian," he said, relieved. She turned away a little +awkwardly when he added, "But you haven't told me YOUR name, you +know." + +"Cara." + +"Cara,--that's 'dear' in Italian, isn't it?" he said, with a +reminiscence of the opera and a half smile. + +"Yes," she said a little scornfully, "but it means Carlotta,-- +Charlotte, you know. Some girls call me Charley," she said +hurriedly. + +"I see--Cara--or Carlotta Franti." + +To his surprise she burst into a peal of laughter. + +"I reckon not YET. Franti is Mark's name, not mine. Mine is +Murano,--Carlotta Murano. Good-by." She moved away, then stopped +suddenly and said, "I'm comin' again some time when the thing is +working," and with a nod of her head, ran away. He looked after +her; could see the outlines of her youthful figure in her slim +cotton gown,--limp and clinging in the damp sea air, and the sudden +revelation of her bare ankles thrust stockingless into canvas +shoes. + +He went back into his cabin, when presently his attention was +engrossed by an incoming vessel. He made the signals, half +expecting, almost hoping, that the girl would return to watch him. +But her figure was already lost in the sand dunes. Yet he fancied +he still heard the echoes of her voice and his own in this cabin +which had so long been dumb and voiceless, and he now started at +every sound. For the first time he became aware of the dreadful +disorder and untidiness of its uninvaded privacy. He could +scarcely believe he had been living with his stove, his bed, and +cooking utensils all in one corner of the barnlike room, and he +began to put them "to rights" in a rough, hard formality, strongly +suggestive of his convict experience. He rolled up his blankets +into a hard cylinder at the head of his cot. He scraped out his +kettles and saucepans, and even "washed down" the floor, afterwards +sprinkling clean dry sand, hot with the noonday sunshine, on its +half-dried boards. In arranging these domestic details he had to +change the position of a little mirror; and glancing at it for the +first time in many days, he was dissatisfied with his straggling +beard,--grown during his voyage from Australia,--and although he +had retained it as a disguise, he at once shaved it off, leaving +only a mustache, and revealing a face from which a healthier life +and out-of-door existence had removed the last traces of vice and +dissipation. But he did not know it. + +All the next day he thought of his fair visitor, and found himself +often repeating her odd remark that she was "not that kind of +girl," with a smile that was alternately significant or vacant. +Evidently she could take care of herself, he thought, although her +very good looks no doubt had exposed her to the rude attentions of +fishermen or the common drift of San Francisco wharves. Perhaps +this was why her father brought her here. When the day passed and +she came not, he began vaguely to wonder if he had been rude to +her. Perhaps he had taken her simple remark too seriously; perhaps +she had expected he would only laugh, and had found him dull and +stupid. Perhaps he had thrown away an opportunity. An opportunity +for what? To renew his old life and habits? No, no! The horrors +of his recent imprisonment and escape were still too fresh in his +memory; he was not safe yet. Then he wondered if he had not grown +spiritless and pigeon-livered in his solitude and loneliness. The +next day he searched for her with his glass, and saw her playing +with one of the children on the beach,--a very picture of child or +nymphlike innocence. Perhaps it was because she was not "that kind +of girl" that she had attracted him. He laughed bitterly. Yes; +that was very funny; he, an escaped convict, drawn towards honest, +simple innocence! Yet he knew--he was positive--he had not thought +of any ill when he spoke to her. He took a singular, a ridiculous +pride in and credit to himself for that. He repeated it incessantly +to himself. Then what made her angry? Himself! The devil! Did he +carry, then, the record of his past life forever in his face--in his +speech--in his manners? The thought made him sullen. The next day +he would not look towards the shore; it was wonderful what +excitement and satisfaction he got out of that strange act of +self-denial; it made the day seem full that had been so vacant +before; yet he could not tell why or wherefore. He felt injured, +but he rather liked it. Yet in the night he was struck with the +idea that she might have gone back to San Francisco, and he lay +awake longing for the morning light to satisfy him. Yet when the +fog cleared, and from a nearer point, behind a sand dune, he +discovered, by the aid of his glass, that she was seated on the +sun-warmed sands combing out her long hair like a mermaid, he +immediately returned to the cabin, and that morning looked no more +that way. In the afternoon, there being no sails in sight, he +turned aside from the bay and walked westward towards the ocean, +halting only at the league-long line of foam which marked the +breaking Pacific surges. Here he was surprised to see a little +child, half-naked, following barefooted the creeping line of spume, +or running after the detached and quivering scraps of foam that +chased each other over the wet sand, and only a little further on, +to come upon Cara herself, sitting with her elbows on her knees and +her round chin in her hands, apparently gazing over the waste of +waters before her. A sudden and inexplicable shyness overtook him. +He hesitated, and stepped half-hidden in a gully between the sand +dunes. + +As yet he had not been observed; the young girl called to the child +and, suddenly rising, threw off her red cap and shawl and quietly +began to disrobe herself. A couple of coarse towels were at her +feet. Jarman instantly comprehended that she was going to bathe +with the child. She undoubtedly knew as well as he did that she +was safe in that solitude; that no one could intrude upon her +privacy from the bay shore, nor from the desolate inland trail to +the sea, without her knowledge. Of his own contiguity she had +evidently taken no thought, believing him safely housed in his +cabin beside the semaphore. She lifted her hands, and with a +sudden movement shook out her long hair and let it fall down her +back at the same moment that her unloosened blouse began to slip +from her shoulders. Richard Jarman turned quickly and walked +noiselessly and rapidly away, until the little hillock had shut out +the beach. + +His retreat was as sudden, unreasoning, and unpremeditated as his +intrusion. It was not like himself, he knew, and yet it was as +perfectly instinctive and natural as if he had intruded upon a +sister. In the South Seas he had seen native girls diving beside +the vessels for coins, but they had provoked no such instinct as +that which possessed him now. More than that, he swept a quick, +wrathful glance along the horizon on either side, and then, +mounting a remote hillock which still hid him from the beach, he +sat there and kept watch and ward. From time to time the strong +sea-breeze brought him the sound of infantine screams and shouts of +girlish laughter from the unseen shore; he only looked the more +keenly and suspiciously for any wandering trespasser, and did not +turn his head. He lay there nearly half an hour, and when the +sounds had ceased, rose and made his way slowly back to the cabin. +He had not gone many yards before he heard the twitter of voices +and smothered laughter behind him. He turned; it was Cara and the +child,--a girl of six or seven. Cara's face was rosy,--possibly +from her bath, and possibly from some shame-faced consciousness. +He slackened his pace, and as they ranged beside him said, "Good- +morning!" + +"Lord!" said Cara, stifling another laugh, "we didn't know you were +around; we thought you were always 'tending your telegraph, didn't +we, Lucy?" (to the child, who was convulsed with mirth and +sheepishness). "Why, we've been taking a wash in the sea." She +tried to gather up her long hair, which had been left to stray over +her shoulders and dry in the sunlight, and even made a slight +pretense of trying to conceal the wet towels they were carrying. + +Jarman did not laugh. "If you had told me," he said gravely, "I +could have kept watch for you with my glass while you were there. +I could see further than you." + +"Tould you see US?" asked the little girl, with hopeful vivacity. + +"No!" said Jarman, with masterly evasion. "There are little +sandhills between this and the beach." + +"Then how tould other people see us?" persisted the child. + +Jarman could see that the older girl was evidently embarrassed, and +changed the subject. "I sometimes go out," he said, "when I can +see there are no vessels in sight, and I take ray glass with me. I +can always get back in time to make signals. I thought, in fact," +he said, glancing at Cara's brightening face, "that I might get as +far as your house on the shore some day." To his surprise, her +embarrassment suddenly seemed to increase, although she had looked +relieved before, and she did not reply. After a moment she said +abruptly:-- + +"Did you ever see the sea-lions?" + +"No," said Jarman. + +"Not the big ones on Seal Rock, beyond the cliffs?" continued the +girl, in real astonishment. + +"No," repeated Jarman. "I never walked in that direction." He +vaguely remembered that they were a curiosity which sometimes +attracted parties thither, and for that reason he had avoided the +spot. + +"Why, I have sailed all around the rock in father's boat," +continued Cara, with importance. "That's the best way to see 'em, +and folks from Frisco sometimes takes a sail out there just on +purpose,--it's too sandy to walk or drive there. But it's only a +step from here. Look here!" she said suddenly, and frankly opening +her fine eyes upon him. "I'm going to take Lucy there to-morrow, +and I'll show you." Jarman felt his cheeks flush quickly with a +pleasure that embarrassed him. "It won't take long," added Cara, +mistaking his momentary hesitation, "and you can leave your +telegraph alone. Nobody will be there, so no one will see you and +nobody know it." + +He would have gone then, anyway, he knew, yet in his absurd self- +consciousness he was glad that her last suggestion had relieved him +of a sense of reckless compliance. He assented eagerly, when with +a wave of her hand, a flash of her white teeth, and the same +abruptness she had shown at their last parting, she caught Lucy by +the arm and darted away in a romping race to her dwelling. Jarman +started after her. He had not wanted to go to her father's house +particularly, but why was SHE evidently as averse to it? With the +subtle pleasure that this admission gave him there was a faint +stirring of suspicion. + +It was gone when he found her and Lucy the next morning, radiant +with the sunshine, before his door. The restraint of their +previous meetings had been removed in some mysterious way, and they +chatted gayly as they walked towards the cliffs. She asked him +frankly many questions about himself, why he had come there, and if +he "wasn't lonely;" she answered frankly--I fear much more frankly +than he answered her--the many questions he asked her about herself +and her friends. When they reached the cliffs they descended to +the beach, which they found deserted. Before them--it seemed +scarce a pistol shot from the shore arose a high, broad rock, +beaten at its base by the long Pacific surf, on which a number of +shapeless animals were uncouthly disporting. This was Seal Rock, +the goal of their journey. + +Yet after a few moments they no longer looked at it, but seated on +the sand, with Lucy gathering shells at the water's edge, they +continued their talk. Presently the talk became eager confidences, +and then,--there were long and dangerous lapses of silence, when +both were fain to make perfunctory talk with Lucy on the beach. +After one of those silences Jarman said:-- + +"Do you know I rather thought yesterday you didn't want me to come +to your father's house. Why was that?" + +"Because Marco was there," said the girl frankly. + +"What had HE to do with it?" said Jarman abruptly. + +"He wants to marry me." + +"And do you want to marry HIM?" said Jarman quickly. + +"No," said the girl passionately. + +"Why don't you get rid of him, then?" + +"I can't, he's hiding here,--he's father's friend." + +"Hiding? What's he been doing?" + +"Stealing. Stealing gold-dust from miners. I never cared for him +anyway. And I hate a thief!" + +She looked up quickly. Jarman had risen to his feet, his face +turned to sea. + +"What are you looking at?" she said wonderingly. + +"A ship," said Jarman, in a strange, hoarse voice. "I must hurry +back and signal. I'm afraid I haven't even time to walk with you,-- +I must run for it. Good-by!" + +He turned without offering his hand and ran hurriedly in the +direction of the semaphore. + +Cara, discomfited, turned her black eyes to the sea. But it seemed +empty as before, no sail, no ship on the horizon line, only a +little schooner slowly beating out of the Gate. Ah, well! It no +doubt was there,--that sail,--though she could not see it; how keen +and far-seeing his handsome, honest eyes were! She heaved a little +sigh, and, calling Lucy to her side, began to make her way homeward. +But she kept her eyes on the semaphore; it seemed to her the next +thing to seeing him,--this man she was beginning to love. She waited +for the gaunt arms to move with the signal of the vessel he had +seen. But, strange to say, it was motionless. He must have been +mistaken. + +All this, however, was driven from her mind in the excitement that +she found on her return thrilling her own family. They had been +warned that a police boat with detectives on board had been +dispatched from San Francisco to the cove. Luckily, they had +managed to convey the fugitive Franti on board a coastwise +schooner,--Cara started as she remembered the one she had seen +beating out of the Gate,--and he was now safe from pursuit. Cara +felt relieved; at the same time she felt a strange joy at her +heart, which sent the conscious blood to her cheek. She was not +thinking of the escaped Marco, but of Jarman. Later, when the +police boat arrived,--whether the detectives had been forewarned of +Marco's escape or not,--they contented themselves with a formal +search of the little fishing-hut and departed. But their boat +remained lying off the shore. + +That night Cara tossed sleeplessly on her bed; she was sorry she +had ever spoken of Marco to Jarman. It was unnecessary now; +perhaps he disbelieved her and thought she loved Marco; perhaps +that was the reason of his strange and abrupt leave-taking that +afternoon. She longed for the next day, she could tell him +everything now. + +Towards morning she slept fitfully, but was awakened by the sound +of voices on the sands outside the hut. Its flimsy structure, +already warped by the fierce day-long sun, allowed her through +chinks and crevices not only to recognize the voices of the +detectives, but to hear distinctly what they said. Suddenly the +name of Jarman struck upon her ear. She sat upright in bed, +breathless. + +"Are you sure it's the same man?" asked a second voice. + +"Perfectly," answered the first. "He was tracked to 'Frisco, but +disappeared the day he landed. We knew from our agents that he +never left the bay. And when we found that somebody answering his +description got the post of telegraph operator out here, we knew +that we had spotted our man and the L250 sterling offered for his +capture." + +"But that was five months ago. Why didn't you take him then?" + +"Couldn't! For we couldn't hold him without the extradition papers +from Australia. We sent for 'em; they're due to-day or to-morrow +on the mail steamer." + +"But he might have got away at any time?" + +"He couldn't without our knowing it. Don't you see? Every time +the signals went up, we in San Francisco knew he was at his post. +We had him safe, out here on these sandhills, as if he'd been under +lock and key in 'Frisco. He was his own keeper, and reported to +us." + +"But since you're here and expect the papers to-morrow, why don't +you 'cop' him now?" + +"Because there isn't a judge in San Francisco that would hold him a +moment unless he had those extradition papers before him. He'd be +discharged, and escape." + +"Then what are you going to do?" + +"As soon as the steamer is signaled in 'Frisco, we'll board her in +the bay, get the papers, and drop down upon him." + +"I see; and as HE'S the signal man, the darned fool"-- + +"Will give the signal himself." + +The laugh that followed was so cruel that the young girl shuddered. +But the next moment she slipped from the bed, erect, pale, and +determined. + +The voices seemed gradually to retreat. She dressed herself +hurriedly, and passed noiselessly through the room of her still +sleeping parent, and passed out. A gray fog was lifting slowly +over the sands and sea, and the police boat was gone. She no +longer hesitated, but ran quickly in the direction of Jarman's +cabin. As she ran, her mind seemed to be swept clear of all +illusion and fancy; she saw plainly everything that had happened; +she knew the mystery of Jarman's presence here,--the secret of his +life,--the dreadful cruelty of her remark to him,--the man that she +knew now she loved. The sun was painting the black arms of the +semaphore as she toiled over the last stretch of sand and knocked +loudly at the door. There was no reply. She knocked again; the +cabin was silent. Had he already fled?--and without seeing her and +knowing all! She tried the handle of the door; it yielded; she +stepped boldly into the room, with his name upon her lips. He was +lying fully dressed upon his couch. She ran eagerly to his side +and stopped. It needed only a single glance at his congested face, +his lips parted with his heavy breath, to see that the man was +hopelessly, helplessly drunk! + +Yet even then, without knowing that it was her thoughtless speech +which had driven him to seek this foolish oblivion of remorse and +sorrow, she saw only his HELPLESSNESS. She tried in vain to rouse +him; he only muttered a few incoherent words and sank back again. +She looked despairingly around. Something must be done; the +steamer might be visible at any moment. Ah, yes,--the telescope! +She seized it and swept the horizon. There was a faint streak of +haze against the line of sea and sky, abreast the Golden Gate. He +had once told her what it meant. It WAS the steamer! A sudden +thought leaped into her clear and active brain. If the police boat +should chance to see that haze too, and saw no warning signal from +the semaphore, they would suspect something. That signal must be +made, BUT NOT THE RIGHT ONE! She remembered quickly how he had +explained to her the difference between the signals for a coasting +steamer and the one that brought the mails. At that distance the +police boat could not detect whether the semaphore's arms were +extended to perfect right angles for the mail steamer, or if the +left arm slightly deflected for a coasting steamer. She ran out to +the windlass and seized the crank. For a moment it defied her +strength; she redoubled her efforts: it began to creak and groan, +the great arms were slowly uplifted, and the signal made. + +But the familiar sounds of the moving machinery had pierced through +Jarman's sluggish consciousness as no other sound in heaven or +earth could have done, and awakened him to the one dominant sense +he had left,--the habit of duty. She heard him roll from the bed +with an oath, stumble to the door, and saw him dash forward with an +affrighted face, and plunge his head into a bucket of water. He +emerged from it pale and dripping, but with the full light of +reason and consciousness in his eyes. He started when he saw her; +even then she would have fled, but he caught her firmly by the +wrist. + +Then with a hurried, trembling voice she told him all and +everything. He listened in silence, and only at the end raised her +hand gravely to his lips. + +"And now," she added tremulously, "you must fly--quick--at once; or +it will be too late!" + +But Richard Jarman walked slowly to the door of his cabin, still +holding her hand, and said quietly, pointing to his only chair:-- + +"Sit down; we must talk first." + +What they said was never known, but a few moments later they left +the cabin, Jarman carrying in a small bag all his possessions, and +Cara leaning on his arm. An hour later the priest of the Mission +Dolores was called upon to unite in matrimony a frank, honest- +looking sailor and an Italian gypsy-looking girl. There were many +hasty unions in those days, and the Holy Church was only too glad +to be able to give them its legal indorsement. But the good Padre +was a little sorry for the honest sailor, and gave the girl some +serious advice. + +The San Francisco papers the next morning threw some dubious light +upon the matter in a paragraph headed, "Another Police Fiasco." + +"We understand that the indefatigable police of San Francisco, +after ascertaining that Marco Franti, the noted gold-dust thief, +was hiding on the shore near the Presidio, proceeded there with +great solemnity, and arrived, as usual, a few hours after their man +had escaped. But the climax of incapacity was reached when, as it +is alleged, the sweetheart of the absconding Franti, and daughter +of a brother fisherman, eloped still later, and joined her lover +under the very noses of the police. The attempt of the detectives +to excuse themselves at headquarters by reporting that they were +also on the track of an alleged escaped Sydney Duck was received +with the derision and skepticism it deserved, as it seemed that +these worthies mistook the mail steamer, which they should have +boarded to get certain extradition papers, for a coasting steamer." + + . . . . . . + +It was not until four years later that Murano was delighted to +recognize in the husband of his long-lost daughter a very rich +cattle-owner in Southern California, called Jarman; but he never +knew that he had been an escaped convict from Sydney, who had +lately received a full pardon through the instrumentality of divers +distinguished people in Australia. + + + +AN ESMERALDA OF ROCKY CANYON + + +It is to be feared that the hero of this chronicle began life as an +impostor. He was offered to the credulous and sympathetic family +of a San Francisco citizen as a lamb, who, unless bought as a +playmate for the children, would inevitably pass into the butcher's +hands. A combination of refined sensibility and urban ignorance of +nature prevented them from discerning certain glaring facts that +betrayed his caprid origin. So a ribbon was duly tied round his +neck, and in pleasing emulation of the legendary "Mary," he was +taken to school by the confiding children. Here, alas the fraud +was discovered, and history was reversed by his being turned out by +the teacher, because he was NOT "a lamb at school." Nevertheless, +the kind-hearted mother of the family persisted in retaining him, +on the plea that he might yet become "useful." To her husband's +feeble suggestion of "gloves," she returned a scornful negative, +and spoke of the weakly infant of a neighbor, who might later +receive nourishment from this providential animal. But even this +hope was destroyed by the eventual discovery of his sex. Nothing +remained now but to accept him as an ordinary kid, and to find +amusement in his accomplishments,--eating, climbing, and butting. +It must be confessed that these were of a superior quality; a +capacity to eat everything from a cambric handkerchief to an +election poster, an agility which brought him even to the roofs of +houses, and a power of overturning by a single push the chubbiest +child who opposed him, made him a fearful joy to the nursery. This +last quality was incautiously developed in him by a negro boy- +servant, who, later, was hurriedly propelled down a flight of +stairs by his too proficient scholar. Having once tasted victory, +"Billy" needed no further incitement to his performances. The +small wagon which he sometimes consented to draw for the benefit of +the children never hindered his attempts to butt the passer-by. On +the contrary, on well-known scientific principles he added the +impact of the bodies of the children projected over his head in his +charge, and the infelicitous pedestrian found himself not only +knocked off his legs by Billy, but bombarded by the whole nursery. + +Delightful as was this recreation to juvenile limbs, it was felt to +be dangerous to the adult public. Indignant protestations were +made, and as Billy could not be kept in the house, he may be said +to have at last butted himself out of that sympathetic family and +into a hard and unfeeling world. One morning he broke his tether +in the small back yard. For several days thereafter he displayed +himself in guilty freedom on the tops of adjacent walls and +outhouses. The San Francisco suburb where his credulous protectors +lived was still in a volcanic state of disruption, caused by the +grading of new streets through rocks and sandhills. In consequence +the roofs of some houses were on the level of the doorsteps of +others, and were especially adapted to Billy's performances. One +afternoon, to the admiring and perplexed eyes of the nursery, he +was discovered standing on the apex of a neighbor's new Elizabethan +chimney, on a space scarcely larger than the crown of a hat, calmly +surveying the world beneath him. High infantile voices appealed to +him in vain; baby arms were outstretched to him in hopeless +invitation; he remained exalted and obdurate, like Milton's hero, +probably by his own merit "raised to that bad eminence." Indeed, +there was already something Satanic in his budding horns and +pointed mask as the smoke curled softly around him. Then he +appropriately vanished, and San Francisco knew him no more. At the +same time, however, one Owen M'Ginnis, a neighboring sandhill +squatter, also disappeared, leaving San Francisco for the southern +mines, and he was said to have taken Billy with him,--for no +conceivable reason except for companionship. Howbeit, it was the +turning-point of Billy's career; such restraint as kindness, +civilization, or even policemen had exercised upon his nature was +gone. He retained, I fear, a certain wicked intelligence, picked +up in San Francisco with the newspapers and theatrical and election +posters he had consumed. He reappeared at Rocky Canyon among the +miners as an exceedingly agile chamois, with the low cunning of a +satyr. That was all that civilization had done for him! + +If Mr. M'Ginnis had fondly conceived that he would make Billy +"useful," as well as companionable, he was singularly mistaken. +Horses and mules were scarce in Rocky Canyon, and he attempted to +utilize Billy by making him draw a small cart, laden with +auriferous earth, from his claim to the river. Billy, rapidly +gaining strength, was quite equal to the task, but alas! not his +inborn propensity. An incautious gesture from the first passing +miner Billy chose to construe into the usual challenge. Lowering +his head, from which his budding horns had been already pruned by +his master, he instantly went for his challenger, cart and all. +Again the scientific law already pointed out prevailed. With the +shock of the onset the entire contents of the cart arose and poured +over the astonished miner, burying him from sight. In any other +but a Californian mining-camp such a propensity in a draught animal +would have been condemned, on account of the damage and suffering +it entailed, but in Rocky Canyon it proved unprofitable to the +owner from the very amusement and interest it excited. Miners lay +in wait for Billy with a "greenhorn," or new-comer, whom they would +put up to challenge the animal by some indiscreet gesture. In this +way hardly a cartload of "pay-gravel" ever arrived safely at its +destination, and the unfortunate M'Ginnis was compelled to withdraw +Billy as a beast of burden. It was whispered that so great had his +propensity become, under repeated provocation, that M'Ginnis +himself was no longer safe. Going ahead of his cart one day to +remove a fallen bough from the trail, Billy construed the act of +stooping into a playful challenge from his master,--with the +inevitable result. + +The next day M'Ginnis appeared with a wheelbarrow, but without +Billy. From that day he was relegated to the rocky crags above the +camp, from whence he was only lured occasionally by the mischievous +miners, who wished to exhibit his peculiar performances. For +although Billy had ample food and sustenance among the crags, he +had still a civilized longing for posters; and whenever a circus, a +concert, or a political meeting was "billed" in the settlement, he +was on hand while the paste was yet fresh and succulent. In this +way it was averred that he once removed a gigantic theatre bill +setting forth the charms of the "Sacramento Pet," and being caught +in the act by the advance agent, was pursued through the main +street, carrying the damp bill on his horns, eventually affixing +it, after his own peculiar fashion, on the back of Judge +Boompointer, who was standing in front of his own court-house. + +In connection with the visits of this young lady another story +concerning Billy survives in the legends of Rocky Canyon. Colonel +Starbottle was at that time passing through the settlement on +election business, and it was part of his chivalrous admiration for +the sex to pay a visit to the pretty actress. The single waiting- +room of the little hotel gave upon the veranda, which was also +level with the street. After a brief yet gallant interview, in +which he oratorically expressed the gratitude of the settlement +with old-fashioned Southern courtesy, Colonel Starbottle lifted the +chubby little hand of the "Pet" to his lips, and, with a low bow, +backed out upon the veranda. But the Pet was astounded by his +instant reappearance, and by his apparently casting himself +passionately and hurriedly at her feet! It is needless to say that +he was followed closely by Billy, who from the street had casually +noticed him, and construed his novel exit into an ungentlemanly +challenge. + +Billy's visits, however, became less frequent, and as Rocky Canyon +underwent the changes incidental to mining settlements, he was +presently forgotten in the invasion of a few Southwestern families, +and the adoption of amusements less practical and turbulent than he +had afforded. It was alleged that he was still seen in the more +secluded fastnesses of the mountains, having reverted to a wild +state, and it was suggested by one or two of the more adventurous +that he might yet become edible, and a fair object of chase. A +traveler through the Upper Pass of the canyon related how he had +seen a savage-looking, hairy animal like a small elk perched upon +inaccessible rocks, but always out of gunshot. But these and other +legends were set at naught and overthrown by an unexpected incident. + +The Pioneer Coach was toiling up the long grade towards Skinners +Pass when Yuba Bill suddenly pulled up, with his feet on the brake. + +"Jimminy!" he ejaculated, drawing a deep breath. + +The startled passenger beside him on the box followed the direction +of his eyes. Through an opening in the wayside pines he could see, +a few hundred yards away, a cuplike hollow in the hillside of the +vividest green. In the centre a young girl of fifteen or sixteen +was dancing and keeping step to the castanet "click" of a pair of +"bones," such as negro minstrels use, held in her hands above her +head. But, more singular still, a few paces before her a large +goat, with its neck roughly wreathed with flowers and vines, was +taking ungainly bounds and leaps in imitation of its companion. +The wild background of the Sierras, the pastoral hollow, the +incongruousness of the figures, and the vivid color of the girl's +red flannel petticoat showing beneath her calico skirt, that had +been pinned around her waist, made a striking picture, which by +this time had attracted all eyes. Perhaps the dancing of the girl +suggested a negro "break-down" rather than any known sylvan +measure; but all this, and even the clatter of the bones, was made +gracious by the distance. + +"Esmeralda! by the living Harry!" shouted the excited passenger on +the box. + +Yuba Bill took his feet off the brake, and turned a look of deep +scorn upon his companion as he gathered the reins again. + +"It's that blanked goat, outer Rocky Canyon beyond, and Polly +Harkness! How did she ever come to take up with HIM?" + +Nevertheless, as soon as the coach reached Rocky Canyon, the story +was quickly told by the passengers, corroborated by Yuba Bill, and +highly colored by the observer on the box-seat. Harkness was known +to be a new-comer who lived with his wife and only daughter on the +other side of Skinners Pass. He was a "logger" and charcoal- +burner, who had eaten his way into the serried ranks of pines below +the pass, and established in these efforts an almost insurmountable +cordon of fallen trees, stripped bark, and charcoal pits around the +clearing where his rude log hut stood,--which kept his seclusion +unbroken. He was said to be a half-savage mountaineer from Georgia, +in whose rude fastnesses he had distilled unlawful whiskey, and that +his tastes and habits unfitted him for civilization. His wife +chewed and smoked; he was believed to make a fiery brew of his own +from acorns and pine nuts; he seldom came to Rocky Canyon except for +provisions; his logs were slipped down a "shoot" or slide to the +river, where they voyaged once a month to a distant mill, but HE did +not accompany them. The daughter, seldom seen at Rocky Canyon, was +a half-grown girl, brown as autumn fern, wild-eyed, disheveled, in a +homespun skirt, sunbonnet, and boy's brogans. Such were the plain +facts which skeptical Rocky Canyon opposed to the passengers' +legends. Nevertheless, some of the younger miners found it not out +of their way to go over Skinners Pass on the journey to the river, +but with what success was not told. It was said, however, that a +celebrated New York artist, making a tour of California, was on the +coach one day going through the pass, and preserved the memory of +what he saw there in a well-known picture entitled "Dancing Nymph +and Satyr," said by competent critics to be "replete with the study +of Greek life." This did not affect Rocky Canyon, where the study +of mythology was presumably displaced by an experience of more +wonderful flesh-and-blood people, but later it was remembered with +some significance. + +Among the improvements already noted, a zinc and wooden chapel had +been erected in the main street, where a certain popular revivalist +preacher of a peculiar Southwestern sect regularly held exhortatory +services. His rude emotional power over his ignorant fellow- +sectarians was well known, while curiosity drew others. His effect +upon the females of his flock was hysterical and sensational. +Women prematurely aged by frontier drudgery and child-bearing, +girls who had known only the rigors and pains of a half-equipped, +ill-nourished youth in their battling with the hard realities of +nature around them, all found a strange fascination in the +extravagant glories and privileges of the unseen world he pictured +to them, which they might have found in the fairy tales and nursery +legends of civilized children, had they known them. Personally he +was not attractive; his thin pointed face, and bushy hair rising on +either side of his square forehead in two rounded knots, and his +long, straggling, wiry beard dropping from a strong neck and +shoulders, were indeed of a common Southwestern type; yet in him +they suggested something more. This was voiced by a miner who +attended his first service, and as the Reverend Mr. Withholder rose +in the pulpit, the former was heard to audibly ejaculate, "Dod +blasted!--if it ain't Billy!" But when on the following Sunday, to +everybody's astonishment, Polly Harkness, in a new white muslin +frock and broad-brimmed Leghorn hat, appeared before the church +door with the real Billy, and exchanged conversation with the +preacher, the likeness was appalling. + +I grieve to say that the goat was at once christened by Rocky +Canyon as "The Reverend Billy," and the minister himself was +Billy's "brother." More than that, when an attempt was made by +outsiders, during the service, to inveigle the tethered goat into +his old butting performances, and he took not the least notice of +their insults and challenges, the epithet "blanked hypocrite" was +added to his title. + +Had he really reformed? Had his pastoral life with his nymph-like +mistress completely cured him of his pugnacious propensity, or had +he simply found it was inconsistent with his dancing, and seriously +interfered with his "fancy steps"? Had he found tracts and hymn- +books were as edible as theatre posters? These were questions that +Rocky canyon discussed lightly, although there was always the more +serious mystery of the relations of the Reverend Mr. Withholder, +Polly Harkness, and the goat towards each other. The appearance of +Polly at church was no doubt due to the minister's active canvass +of the districts. But had he ever heard of Polly's dancing with +the goat? And where in this plain, angular, badly dressed Polly +was hidden that beautiful vision of the dancing nymph which had +enthralled so many? And when had Billy ever given any suggestion +of his Terpsichorean abilities--before or since? Were there any +"points" of the kind to be discerned in him now? None! Was it not +more probable that the Reverend Mr. Withholder had himself been +dancing with Polly, and been mistaken for the goat? Passengers who +could have been so deceived with regard to Polly's beauty might +have as easily mistaken the minister for Billy. About this time +another incident occurred which increased the mystery. + +The only male in the settlement who apparently dissented from the +popular opinion regarding Polly was a new-comer, Jack Filgee. +While discrediting her performance with the goat,--which he had +never seen,--he was evidently greatly prepossessed with the girl +herself. Unfortunately, he was equally addicted to drinking, and +as he was exceedingly shy and timid when sober, and quite +unpresentable at other times, his wooing, if it could be so called, +progressed but slowly. Yet when he found that Polly went to +church, he listened so far to the exhortations of the Reverend Mr. +Withholder as to promise to come to "Bible class" immediately after +the Sunday service. It was a hot afternoon, and Jack, who had kept +sober for two days, incautiously fortified himself for the ordeal +by taking a drink before arriving. He was nervously early, and +immediately took a seat in the empty church near the open door. +The quiet of the building, the drowsy buzzing of flies, and perhaps +the soporific effect of the liquor caused his eyes to close and his +head to fall forward on his breast repeatedly. He was recovering +himself for the fourth time when he suddenly received a violent +cuff on the ear, and was knocked backward off the bench on which he +was sitting. That was all he knew. + +He picked himself up with a certain dignity, partly new to him, and +partly the result of his condition, and staggered, somewhat bruised +and disheveled, to the nearest saloon. Here a few frequenters who +had seen him pass, who knew his errand and the devotion to Polly +which had induced it, exhibited a natural concern. + +"How's things down at the gospel shop?" said one. "Look as ef +you'd been wrastlin' with the Sperit, Jack!" + +"Old man must hev exhorted pow'ful," said another, glancing at his +disordered Sunday attire. + +"Ain't be'n hevin' a row with Polly? I'm told she slings an awful +left." + +Jack, instead of replying, poured out a dram of whiskey, drank it, +and putting down his glass, leaned heavily against the counter as +he surveyed his questioners with a sorrow chastened by reproachful +dignity. + +"I'm a stranger here, gentlemen," he said slowly "ye've known me +only a little; but ez ye've seen me both blind drunk and sober, I +reckon ye've caught on to my gin'ral gait! Now I wanter put it to +you, ez fair-minded men, ef you ever saw me strike a parson?" + +"No," said a chorus of sympathetic voices. The barkeeper, however, +with a swift recollection of Polly and the Reverend Withholder, and +some possible contingent jealousy in Jack, added prudently, "Not +yet." + +The chorus instantly added reflectively, "Well, no not yet." + +"Did ye ever," continued Jack solemnly, "know me to cuss, sass, +bully-rag, or say anything agin parsons, or the church?" + +"No," said the crowd, overthrowing prudence in curiosity, "ye never +did,--we swear it! And now, what's up?" + +"I ain't what you call 'a member in good standin','" he went on, +artistically protracting his climax. "I ain't be'n convicted o' +sin; I ain't 'a meek an' lowly follower;' I ain't be'n exactly what +I orter be'n; I hevn't lived anywhere up to my lights; but is thet +a reason why a parson should strike me?" + +"Why? What? When did he? Who did?" asked the eager crowd, with +one voice. + +Jack then painfully related how he had been invited by the Reverend +Mr. Withholder to attend the Bible class. How he had arrived +early, and found the church empty. How he had taken a seat near +the door to be handy when the parson came. How he just felt +"kinder kam and good," listenin' to the flies buzzing, and must +have fallen asleep,--only he pulled himself up every time,--though, +after all, it warn't no crime to fall asleep in an empty church! +How "all of a suddent" the parson came in, "give him a clip side o' +the head," and knocked him off the bench, and left him there! + +"But what did he SAY?" queried the crowd. + +"Nuthin'. Afore I could get up, he got away." + +"Are you sure it was him?" they asked. "You know you SAY you was +asleep." + +"Am I sure?" repeated Jack scornfully. "Don't I know thet face and +beard? Didn't I feel it hangin' over me?" + +"What are you going to do about it?" continued the crowd eagerly. + +"Wait till he comes out--and you'll see," said Jack, with dignity. + +This was enough for the crowd; they gathered excitedly at the door, +where Jack was already standing, looking towards the church. The +moments dragged slowly; it might be a long meeting. Suddenly the +church door opened and a figure appeared, looking up and down the +street. Jack colored--he recognized Polly--and stepped out into +the road. The crowd delicately, but somewhat disappointedly, drew +back in the saloon. They did not care to interfere in THAT sort of +thing. + +Polly saw him, and came hurriedly towards him. She was holding +something in her hand. + +"I picked this up on the church floor," she said shyly, "so I +reckoned you HAD be'n there,--though the parson said you hadn't,-- +and I just excused myself and ran out to give it ye. It's yourn, +ain't it?" She held up a gold specimen pin, which he had put on in +honor of the occasion. "I had a harder time, though, to git this +yer,--it's yourn too,--for Billy was laying down in the yard, back +o' the church, and just comf'bly swallerin' it." + +"Who?" said Jack quickly. + +"Billy,--my goat." + +Jack drew a long breath, and glanced back at the saloon. "Ye ain't +goin' back to class now, are ye?" he said hurriedly. "Ef you ain't, +I'll--I'll see ye home." + +"I don't mind," said Polly demurely, "if it ain't takin' ye outer +y'ur way." + +Jack offered his arm, and hurrying past the saloon, the happy pair +were soon on the road to Skinners Pass. + + +Jack did not, I regret to say, confess his blunder, but left the +Reverend Mr. Withholder to remain under suspicion of having +committed an unprovoked assault and battery. It was characteristic +of Rocky Canyon, however, that this suspicion, far from injuring +his clerical reputation, incited a respect that had been hitherto +denied him. A man who could hit out straight from the shoulder +had, in the language of the critics, "suthin' in him." Oddly +enough, the crowd that had at first sympathized with Jack now began +to admit provocations. His subsequent silence, a disposition when +questioned on the subject to smile inanely, and, later, when +insidiously asked if he had ever seen Polly dancing with the goat, +his bursting into uproarious laughter completely turned the current +of opinion against him. The public mind, however, soon became +engrossed by a more interesting incident. + +The Reverend Mr. Withholder had organized a series of Biblical +tableaux at Skinnerstown for the benefit of his church. +Illustrations were to be given of "Rebecca at the Well," "The +Finding of Moses," "Joseph and his Brethren;" but Rocky Canyon was +more particularly excited by the announcement that Polly Harkness +would personate "Jephthah's Daughter." On the evening of the +performance, however, it was found that this tableau had been +withdrawn and another substituted, for reasons not given. Rocky +Canyon, naturally indignant at this omission to represent native +talent, indulged in a hundred wild surmises. But it was generally +believed that Jack Filgee's revengeful animosity to the Reverend +Mr. Withholder was at the bottom of it. Jack, as usual, smiled +inanely, but nothing was to be got from him. It was not until a +few days later, when another incident crowned the climax of these +mysteries, that a full disclosure came from his lips. + +One morning a flaming poster was displayed at Rocky Canyon, with a +charming picture of the "Sacramento Pet" in the briefest of skirts, +disporting with a tambourine before a goat garlanded with flowers, +who bore, however, an undoubted likeness to Billy. The text in +enormous letters, and bristling with points of admiration, stated +that the "Pet" would appear as "Esmeralda," assisted by a performing +goat, especially trained by the gifted actress. The goat would +dance, play cards, and perform those tricks of magic familiar to the +readers of Victor Hugo's beautiful story of the "Hunchback of Notre +Dame," and finally knock down and overthrow the designing seducer, +Captain Phoebus. The marvelous spectacle would be produced under +the patronage of the Hon. Colonel Starbottle and the Mayor of +Skinnerstown. + +As all Rocky Canyon gathered open-mouthed around the poster, Jack +demurely joined the group. Every eye was turned upon him. + +"It don't look as if yer Polly was in THIS show, any more than she +was in the tablows," said one, trying to conceal his curiosity +under a slight sneer. "She don't seem to be doin' any dancin'!" + +"She never DID any dancin'," said Jack, with a smile. + +"Never DID! Then what was all these yarns about her dancin' up at +the pass?" + +"It was the Sacramento Pet who did all the dancin'; Polly only LENT +the goat. Ye see, the Pet kinder took a shine to Billy arter he +bowled Starbottle over thet day at the hotel, and she thought she +might teach him tricks. So she DID, doing all her teachin' and +stage-rehearsin' up there at the pass, so's to be outer sight, and +keep this thing dark. She bribed Polly to lend her the goat and +keep her secret, and Polly never let on a word to anybody but me." + +"Then it was the Pet that Yuba Bill saw dancin' from the coach?" + +"Yes." + +"And that yer artist from New York painted as an 'Imp and Satire'?" + +"Yes." + +"Then that's how Polly didn't show up in them tablows at +Skinnerstown? It was Withholder who kinder smelt a rat, eh? and +found out it was only a theayter gal all along that did the +dancin'?" + +"Well, you see," said Jack, with affected hesitation, "thet's +another yarn. I don't know mebbe ez I oughter tell it. Et ain't +got anything to do with this advertisement o' the Pet, and might be +rough on old man Withholder! Ye mustn't ask me, boys." + +But there was that in his eye, and above all in this lazy +procrastination of the true humorist when he is approaching his +climax, which rendered the crowd clamorous and unappeasable. They +WOULD have the story! + +Seeing which, Jack leaned back against a rock with great gravity, +put his hands in his pockets, looked discontentedly at the ground, +and began: "You see, boys, old Parson Withholder had heard all +these yarns about Polly and thet trick-goat, and he kinder reckoned +that she might do for some one of his tablows. So he axed her if +she'd mind standin' with the goat and a tambourine for Jephthah's +Daughter, at about the time when old Jeph comes home, sailin' in +and vowin' he'll kill the first thing he sees,--jest as it is in +the Bible story. Well, Polly didn't like to say it wasn't HER that +performed with the goat, but the Pet, for thet would give the Pet +dead away; so Polly agrees to come thar with the goat and rehearse +the tablow. Well, Polly's thar, a little shy; and Billy,--you bet +HE'S all there, and ready for the fun; but the darned fool who +plays Jephthah ain't worth shucks, and when HE comes in he does +nothin' but grin at Polly and seem skeert at the goat. This makes +old Withholder jest wild, and at last he goes on the platform +hisself to show them how the thing oughter be done. So he comes +bustlin' and prancin' in, and ketches sight o' Polly dancin' in +with the goat to welcome him; and then he clasps his hands--so--and +drops on his knees, and hangs down his head--so--and sez, 'Me +chyld! me vow! Oh, heavens!' But jest then Billy--who's gettin' +rather tired o' all this foolishness--kinder slues round on his +hind legs, and ketches sight o' the parson!" Jack paused a moment, +and thrusting his hands still deeper in his pockets, said lazily, +"I don't know if you fellers have noticed how much old Withholder +looks like Billy?" + +There was a rapid and impatient chorus of "Yes! yes!" and "Go on!" + +"Well," continued Jack, "when Billy sees Withholder kneelin' thar +with his head down, he gives a kind o' joyous leap and claps his +hoofs together, ez much ez to say, 'I'm on in this scene,' drops +his own head, and jest lights out for the parson!" + +"And butts him clean through the side scenes into the street," +interrupted a delighted auditor. + +But Jack's face never changed. "Ye think so?" he said gravely. +"But thet's jest whar ye slip up; and thet's jest whar Billy +slipped up!" he added slowly. "Mebbe ye've noticed, too, thet the +parson's built kinder solid about the head and shoulders. It +mought hev be'n thet, or thet Billy didn't get a fair start, but +thet goat went down on his fore legs like a shot, and the parson +gave one heave, and jest scooted him off the platform! Then the +parson reckoned thet this yer 'tablow' had better be left out, as +thar didn't seem to be any other man who could play Jephthah, and +it wasn't dignified for HIM to take the part. But the parson +allowed thet it might be a great moral lesson to Billy!" + +And it WAS, for from that moment Billy never attempted to butt +again. He performed with great docility later on in the Pet's +engagement at Skinnerstown; he played a distinguished role +throughout the provinces; he had had the advantages of Art from +"the Pet," and of Simplicity from Polly, but only Rocky Canyon knew +that his real education had come with his first rehearsal with the +Reverend Mr. Withholder. + + + +DICK SPINDLER'S FAMILY CHRISTMAS + + +There was surprise and sometimes disappointment in Rough and Ready, +when it was known that Dick Spindler intended to give a "family" +Christmas party at his own house. That he should take an early +opportunity to celebrate his good fortune and show hospitality was +only expected from the man who had just made a handsome "strike" on +his claim; but that it should assume so conservative, old- +fashioned, and respectable a form was quite unlooked-for by Rough +and Ready, and was thought by some a trifle pretentious. There +were not half-a-dozen families in Rough and Ready; nobody ever knew +before that Spindler had any relations, and this "ringing in" of +strangers to the settlement seemed to indicate at least a lack of +public spirit. "He might," urged one of his critics, "hev given +the boys,--that had worked alongside o' him in the ditches by day, +and slung lies with him around the camp-fire by night,--he might +hev given them a square 'blow out,' and kep' the leavin's for his +old Spindler crew, just as other families do. Why, when old man +Scudder had his house-raisin' last year, his family lived for a +week on what was left over, arter the boys had waltzed through the +house that night,--and the Scudders warn't strangers, either." It +was also evident that there was an uneasy feeling that Spindler's +action indicated an unhallowed leaning towards the minority of +respectability and exclusiveness, and a desertion--without the +excuse of matrimony--of the convivial and independent bachelor +majority of Rough and Ready. + +"Ef he was stuck after some gal and was kinder looking ahead, I'd +hev understood it," argued another critic. + +"Don't ye be too sure he ain't," said Uncle Jim Starbuck gloomily. +"Ye'll find that some blamed woman is at the bottom of this yer +'family' gathering. That and trouble ez almost all they're made +for!" + +There happened to be some truth in this dark prophecy, but none of +the kind that the misogynist supposed. In fact, Spindler had +called a few evenings before at the house of the Rev. Mr. Saltover, +and Mrs. Saltover, having one of her "Saleratus headaches," had +turned him over to her widow sister, Mrs. Huldy Price, who +obediently bestowed upon him that practical and critical attention +which she divided with the stocking she was darning. She was a +woman of thirty-five, of singular nerve and practical wisdom, who +had once smuggled her wounded husband home from a border affray, +calmly made coffee for his deceived pursuers while he lay hidden in +the loft, walked four miles for that medical assistance which +arrived too late to save him, buried him secretly in his own +"quarter section," with only one other witness and mourner, and so +saved her position and property in that wild community, who +believed he had fled. There was very little of this experience to +be traced in her round, fresh-colored brunette cheek, her calm +black eyes, set in a prickly hedge of stiff lashes, her plump +figure, or her frank, courageous laugh. The latter appeared as a +smile when she welcomed Mr. Spindler. "She hadn't seen him for a +coon's age," but "reckoned he was busy fixin' up his new house." + +"Well, yes," said Spindler, with a slight hesitation, "ye see, I'm +reckonin' to hev a kinder Christmas gatherin' of my"--he was about +to say "folks," but dismissed it for "relations," and finally +settled upon "relatives" as being more correct in a preacher's +house. + +Mrs. Price thought it a very good idea. Christmas was the natural +season for the family to gather to "see who's here and who's there, +who's gettin' on and who isn't, and who's dead and buried. It was +lucky for them who were so placed that they could do so and be +joyful." Her invincible philosophy probably carried her past any +dangerous recollections of the lonely grave in Kansas, and holding +up the stocking to the light, she glanced cheerfully along its +level to Mr. Spindler's embarrassed face by the fire. + +"Well, I can't say much ez to that," responded Spindler, still +awkwardly, "for you see I don't know much about it anyway." + +"How long since you've seen 'em?" asked Mrs. Price, apparently +addressing herself to the stocking. + +Spindler gave a weak laugh. "Well, you see, ef it comes to that, +I've never seen 'em!" + +Mrs. Price put the stocking in her lap and opened her direct eyes +on Spindler. "Never seen 'em?" she repeated. "Then, they're not +near relations?" + +"There are three cousins," said Spindler, checking them off on his +fingers, "a half-uncle, a kind of brother-in-law,--that is, the +brother of my sister-in-law's second husband,--and a niece. That's +six." + +"But if you've not seen them, I suppose they've corresponded with +you?" said Mrs. Price. + +"They've nearly all of 'em written to me for money, seeing my name +in the paper ez hevin' made a strike," returned Spindler simply; +"and hevin' sent it, I jest know their addresses." + +"Oh!" said Mrs. Price, returning to the stocking. + +Something in the tone of her ejaculation increased Spindler's +embarrassment, but it also made him desperate. "You see, Mrs. +Price," he blurted out, "I oughter tell ye that I reckon they are +the folks that 'hevn't got on,' don't you see, and so it seemed +only the square thing for me, ez had 'got on,' to give them a sort +o' Christmas festival. Suthin', don't ye know, like what your +brother-in-law was sayin' last Sunday in the pulpit about this yer +peace and goodwill 'twixt man and man." + +Mrs. Price looked again at the man before her. His sallow, +perplexed face exhibited some doubt, yet a certain determination, +regarding the prospect the quotation had opened to him. "A very +good idea, Mr. Spindler, and one that does you great credit," she +said gravely. + +"I'm mighty glad to hear you say so, Mrs. Price," he said, with an +accent of great relief, "for I reckoned to ask you a great favor! +You see," he fell into his former hesitation, "that is--the fact +is--that this sort o' thing is rather suddent to me,--a little +outer my line, don't you see, and I was goin' to ask ye ef you'd +mind takin' the hull thing in hand and runnin it for me." + +"Running it for you," said Mrs. Price, with a quick eye-shot from +under the edge of her lashes. "Man alive! What are you thinking +of?" + +"Bossin' the whole job for me," hurried on Spindler, with nervous +desperation. "Gettin' together all the things and makin' ready for +'em,--orderin' in everythin' that's wanted, and fixin' up the +rooms,--I kin step out while you're doin' it,--and then helpin' me +receivin' 'em, and sittin' at the head o' the table, you know,-- +like ez ef you was the mistress." + +"But," said Mrs. Price, with her frank laugh, "that's the duty of +one of your relations,--your niece, for instance,--or cousin, if +one of them is a woman." + +"But," persisted Spindler, "you see, they're strangers to me; I +don't know 'em, and I do you. You'd make it easy for 'em,--and for +me,--don't you see? Kinder introduce 'em,--don't you know? A +woman of your gin'ral experience would smooth down all them little +difficulties," continued Spindler, with a vague recollection of the +Kansas story, "and put everybody on velvet. Don't say 'No,' Mrs. +Price! I'm just kalkilatin' on you." + +Sincerity and persistency in a man goes a great way with even the +best of women. Mrs. Price, who had at first received Spindler's +request as an amusing originality, now began to incline secretly +towards it. And, of course, began to suggest objections. + +"I'm afraid it won't do," she said thoughtfully, awakening to the +fact that it would do and could be done. "You see, I've promised +to spend Christmas at Sacramento with my nieces from Baltimore. +And then there's Mrs. Saltover and my sister to consult." + +But here Spindler's simple face showed such signs of distress that +the widow declared she would "think it over,"--a process which the +sanguine Spindler seemed to consider so nearly akin to talking it +over that Mrs. Price began to believe it herself, as he hopefully +departed. + +She "thought it over" sufficiently to go to Sacramento and excuse +herself to her nieces. But here she permitted herself to "talk it +over," to the infinite delight of those Baltimore girls, who +thought this extravaganza of Spindler's "so Californian and +eccentric!" So that it was not strange that presently the news +came back to Rough and Ready, and his old associates learned for +the first time that he had never seen his relatives, and that they +would be doubly strangers. This did not increase his popularity; +neither, I grieve to say, did the intelligence that his relatives +were probably poor, and that the Reverend Mr. Saltover had approved +of his course, and had likened it to the rich man's feast, to which +the halt and blind were invited. Indeed, the allusion was supposed +to add hypocrisy and a bid for popularity to Spindler's defection, +for it was argued that he might have feasted "Wall-eyed Joe" or +"Tangle-foot Billy,"--who had once been "chawed" by a bear while +prospecting,--if he had been sincere. Howbeit, Spindler's faith +was oblivious to these criticisms, in his joy at Mr. Saltover's +adhesion to his plans and the loan of Mrs. Price as a hostess. In +fact, he proposed to her that the invitation should also convey +that information in the expression, "by the kind permission of the +Rev. Mr. Saltover," as a guarantee of good faith, but the widow +would have none of it. The invitations were duly written and +dispatched. + +"Suppose," suggested Spindler, with a sudden lugubrious +apprehension,--"suppose they shouldn't come?" + +"Have no fear of that," said Mrs. Price, with a frank laugh. + +"Or ef they was dead," continued Spindler. + +"They couldn't all be dead," said the widow cheerfully. + +"I've written to another cousin by marriage," said Spindler +dubiously, "in case of accident; I didn't think of him before, +because he was rich." + +"And have you ever seen him either, Mr. Spindler?" asked the widow, +with a slight mischievousness. + +"Lordy! No!" he responded, with unaffected concern. + +Only one mistake was made by Mrs. Price in her arrangements for the +party. She had noticed what the simple-minded Spindler could never +have conceived,--the feeling towards him held by his old associates, +and had tactfully suggested that a general invitation should be +extended to them in the evening. + +"You can have refreshments, you know, too, after the dinner, and +games and music." + +"But," said the unsophisticated host, "won't the boys think I'm +playing it rather low down on them, so to speak, givin' 'em a kind +o' second table, as ef it was the tailings after a strike?" + +"Nonsense," said Mrs. Price, with decision. "It's quite +fashionable in San Francisco, and just the thing to do." + +To this decision Spindler, in his blind faith in the widow's +management, weakly yielded. An announcement in the "Weekly Banner" +that, "On Christmas evening Richard Spindler, Esq., proposed to +entertain his friends and fellow citizens at an 'at home,' in his +own residence," not only widened the breach between him and the +"boys," but awakened an active resentment that only waited for an +outlet. It was understood that they were all coming; but that they +should have "some fun out of it" which might not coincide with +Spindler's nor his relatives' sense of humor seemed a foregone +conclusion. + +Unfortunately, too, subsequent events lent themselves to this irony +of the situation. + +He was so obviously sincere in his intent, and, above all, seemed +to place such a pathetic reliance on her judgment, that she +hesitated to let him know the shock his revelation had given her. +And what might his other relations prove to be? Good Lord! Yet, +oddly enough, she was so prepossessed by him, and so fascinated by +his very Quixotism, that it was perhaps for these complex reasons +that she said a little stiffly:-- + +"One of these cousins, I see, is a lady, and then there is your +niece. Do you know anything about them, Mr. Spindler?" + +His face grew serious. "No more than I know of the others," he +said apologetically. After a moment's hesitation he went on: "Now +you speak of it, it seems to me I've heard that my niece was +di-vorced. But," he added, brightening up, "I've heard that she +was popular." + +Mrs. Price gave a short laugh, and was silent for a few minutes. +Then this sublime little woman looked up at him. What he might +have seen in her eyes was more than he expected, or, I fear, +deserved. "Cheer up, Mr. Spindler," she said manfully. "I'll see +you through this thing, don't you mind! But don't you say anything +about--about--this Vigilance Committee business to anybody. Nor +about your niece--it was your niece, wasn't it?--being divorced. +Charley (the late Mr. Price) had a queer sort of sister, who--but +that's neither here nor there! And your niece mayn't come, you +know; or if she does, you ain't bound to bring her out to the +general company." + +At parting, Spindler, in sheer gratefulness, pressed her hand, and +lingered so long over it that a little color sprang into the +widow's brown cheek. Perhaps a fresh courage sprang into her +heart, too, for she went to Sacramento the next day, previously +enjoining Spindler on no account to show any answers he might +receive. At Sacramento her nieces flew to her with confidences. + +"We so wanted to see you, Aunt Huldy, for we've heard something so +delightful about your funny Christmas Party!" Mrs. Price's heart +sank, but her eyes snapped. "Only think of it! One of Mr. +Spindler's long-lost relatives--a Mr. Wragg--lives in this hotel, +and papa knows him. He's a sort of half-uncle, I believe, and he's +just furious that Spindler should have invited him. He showed papa +the letter; said it was the greatest piece of insolence in the +world; that Spindler was an ostentatious fool, who had made a +little money and wanted to use him to get into society; and the fun +of the whole thing was that this half-uncle and whole brute is +himself a parvenu,--a vulgar, ostentatious creature, who was only +a"-- + +"Never mind what he was, Kate," interrupted Mrs. Price hastily. "I +call his conduct a shame." + +"So do we," said both girls eagerly. After a pause Kate clasped +her knees with her locked fingers, and rocking backwards and +forwards, said, "Milly and I have got an idea, and don't you say +'No' to it. We've had it ever since that brute talked in that way. +Now, through him, we know more about this Mr. Spindler's family +connections than you do; and we know all the trouble you and he'll +have in getting up this party. You understand? Now, we first want +to know what Spindler's like. Is he a savage, bearded creature, +like the miners we saw on the boat?" + +Mrs. Price said that, on the contrary, he was very gentle, soft- +spoken, and rather good-looking. + +"Young or old?" + +"Young,--in fact, a mere boy, as you may judge from his actions," +returned Mrs. Price, with a suggestive matronly air. + +Kate here put up a long-handled eyeglass to her fine gray eyes, +fitted it ostentatiously over her aquiline nose, and then said, in +a voice of simulated horror, "Aunt Huldy,--this revelation is +shocking!" + +Mrs. Price laughed her usual frank laugh, albeit her brown cheek +took upon it a faint tint of Indian red. "If that's the wonderful +idea you girls have got, I don't see how it's going to help +matters," she said dryly. + +"No, that's not it? We really have an idea. Now look here." + +Mrs. Price "looked here." This process seemed to the superficial +observer to be merely submitting her waist and shoulders to the +arms of her nieces, and her ears to their confidential and coaxing +voices. + +Twice she said "it couldn't be thought of," and "it was +impossible;" once addressed Kate as "You limb!" and finally said +that she "wouldn't promise, but might write!" + + . . . . . . + +It was two days before Christmas. There was nothing in the air, +sky, or landscape of that Sierran slope to suggest the season to +the Eastern stranger. A soft rain had been dropping for a week on +laurel, pine, and buckeye, and the blades of springing grasses and +shyly opening flowers. Sedate and silent hillsides that had grown +dumb and parched towards the end of the dry season became gently +articulate again; there were murmurs in hushed and forgotten +canyons, the leap and laugh of water among the dry bones of dusty +creeks, and the full song of the larger forks and rivers. +Southwest winds brought the warm odor of the pine sap swelling in +the forest, or the faint, far-off spice of wild mustard springing +in the lower valleys. But, as if by some irony of Nature, this +gentle invasion of spring in the wild wood brought only disturbance +and discomfort to the haunts and works of man. The ditches were +overflowed, the fords of the Fork impassable, the sluicing adrift, +and the trails and wagon roads to Rough and Ready knee-deep in mud. +The stage-coach from Sacramento, entering the settlement by the +mountain highway, its wheels and panels clogged and crusted with an +unctuous pigment like mud and blood, passed out of it through the +overflowed and dangerous ford, and emerged in spotless purity, +leaving its stains behind with Rough and Ready. A week of enforced +idleness on the river "Bar" had driven the miners to the more +comfortable recreation of the saloon bar, its mirrors, its florid +paintings, its armchairs, and its stove. The steam of their wet +boots and the smoke of their pipes hung over the latter like the +sacrificial incense from an altar. But the attitude of the men was +more critical and censorious than contented, and showed little of +the gentleness of the weather or season. + +"Did you hear if the stage brought down any more relations of +Spindler's?" + +The barkeeper, to whom this question was addressed, shifted his +lounging position against the bar and said, "I reckon not, ez far +ez I know." + +"And that old bloat of a second cousin--that crimson beak--what kem +down yesterday,--he ain't bin hangin' round here today for his +reg'lar pizon?" + +"No," said the barkeeper thoughtfully, "I reckon Spindler's got him +locked up, and is settin' on him to keep him sober till after +Christmas, and prevent you boys gettin' at him." + +"He'll have the jimjams before that," returned the first speaker; +"and how about that dead beat of a half-nephew who borrowed twenty +dollars of Yuba Bill on the way down, and then wanted to get off at +Shootersvilie, but Bill wouldn't let him, and scooted him down to +Spindler's and collected the money from Spindler himself afore he'd +give him up?" + +"He's up thar with the rest of the menagerie," said the barkeeper, +"but I reckon that Mrs. Price hez bin feedin' him up. And ye know +the old woman--that fifty-fifth cousin by marriage--whom Joe +Chandler swears he remembers ez an old cook for a Chinese +restaurant in Stockton,--darn my skin ef that Mrs. Price hasn't +rigged her out in some fancy duds of her own, and made her look +quite decent." + +A deep groan here broke from Uncle Jim Starbuck. + +"Didn't I tell ye?" he said, turning appealingly to the others. +"It's that darned widow that's at the bottom of it all! She first +put Spindler up to givin' the party, and now, darn my skin, ef she +ain't goin to fix up these ragamuffins and drill 'em so we can't +get any fun outer 'em after all! And it's bein' a woman that's +bossin' the job, and not Spindler, we've got to draw things mighty +fine and not cut up too rough, or some of the boys will kick." + +"You bet," said a surly but decided voice in the crowd. + +"And," said another voice, "Mrs. Price didn't live in 'Bleeding +Kansas' for nothing." + +"Wot's the programme you've settled on, Uncle Jim?" said the +barkeeper lightly, to check what seemed to promise a dangerous +discussion. + +"Well," said Starbuck, "we kalkilate to gather early Christmas +night in Hooper's Hollow and rig ourselves up Injun fashion, and +then start for Spindler's with pitch-pine torches, and have a +'torchlight dance' around the house; them who does the dancin' and +yellin' outside takin' their turn at goin' in and hevin' refreshment. +Jake Cooledge, of Boston, sez if anybody objects to it, we've only +got to say we're 'Mummers of the Olden Times,' sabe? Then, later, +we'll have 'Them Sabbath Evening Bells' performed on prospectin' +pans by the band. Then, at the finish, Jake Cooledge is goin' to +give one of his surkastic speeches,--kinder welcomin' Spindler's +family to the Free Openin' o' Spindler's Almshouse and Reformatory." +He paused, possibly for that approbation which, however, did not +seem to come spontaneously. "It ain't much," he added apologetically, +"for we're hampered by women; but we'll add to the programme ez we +see how things pan out. Ye see, from what we can hear, all of +Spindler's relations ain't on hand yet! We've got to wait, like in +elckshun times, for 'returns from the back counties.' Hello! What's +that?" + +It was the swish and splutter of hoofs on the road before the door. +The Sacramento coach! In an instant every man was expectant, and +Starbuck darted outside on the platform. Then there was the usual +greeting and bustle, the hurried ingress of thirsty passengers into +the saloon, and a pause. Uncle Jim returned, excitedly and +pantingly. "Look yer, boys! Ef this ain't the richest thing out! +They say there's two more relations o' Spindler's on the coach, +come down as express freight, consigned,--d'ye hear?--consigned to +Spindler!" + +"Stiffs, in coffins?" suggested an eager voice. + +"I didn't get to hear more. But here they are." + +There was the sudden irruption of a laughing, curious crowd into +the bar-room, led by Yuba Bill, the driver. Then the crowd parted, +and out of their midst stepped two children, a boy and a girl, the +oldest apparently of not more than six years, holding each other's +hands. They were coarsely yet cleanly dressed, and with a certain +uniform precision that suggested formal charity. But more +remarkable than all, around the neck of each was a little steel +chain, from which depended the regular check and label of the +powerful Express Company, Wells; Fargo & Co., and the words: "To +Richard Spindler." "Fragile." "With great care." "Collect on +delivery." Occasionally their little hands went up automatically +and touched their labels, as if to show them. They surveyed the +crowd, the floor, the gilded bar, and Yuba Bill without fear and +without wonder. There was a pathetic suggestion that they were +accustomed to this observation. + +"Now, Bobby," said Yuba Bill, leaning back against the bar, with an +air half-paternal, half-managerial, "tell these gents how you came +here." + +"By Wellth, Fargoth Expreth," lisped Bobby. + +"Whar from?" + +"Wed Hill, Owegon." + +"Red Hill, Oregon? Why, it's a thousand miles from here," said a +bystander. + +"I reckon," said Yuba Bill coolly, "they kem by stage to Portland, +by steamer to 'Frisco, steamer again to Stockton, and then by stage +over the whole line. Allers by Wells, Fargo & Co.'s Express, from +agent to agent, and from messenger to messenger. Fact! They ain't +bin tetched or handled by any one but the Kempany's agents; they +ain't had a line or direction except them checks around their necks! +And they've wanted for nothin' else. Why, I've carried heaps o' +treasure before, gentlemen, and once a hundred thousand dollars in +greenbacks, but I never carried anythin' that was watched and +guarded as them kids! Why, the division inspector at Stockton +wanted to go with 'em over the line; but Jim Bracy, the messenger, +said he'd call it a reflection on himself and resign, ef they +didn't give 'em to him with the other packages! Ye had a pretty +good time, Bobby, didn't ye? Plenty to eat and drink, eh?" + +The two children laughed a little weak laugh, turned each other +bashfully around, and then looked up shyly at Yuba Bill and said, +"Yeth." + +"Do you know where you are goin'?" asked Starbuck, in a constrained +voice. + +It was the little girl who answered quickly and eagerly:-- + +"Yes, to Krissmass and Sandy Claus." + +"To what?" asked Starbuck. + +Here the boy interposed with a superior air:-- + +"Thee meanth Couthin Dick. He'th got Krithmath." + +"Where's your mother?" + +"Dead." + +"And your father?" + +"In orthpittal." + +There was a laugh somewhere on the outskirts of the crowd. Every +one faced angrily in that direction, but the laugher had disappeared. +Yuba Bill, however, sent his voice after him. "Yes, in hospital! +Funny, ain't it?--amoosin' place! Try it. Step over here, and in +five minutes, by the living Hoky, I'll qualify you for admission, +and not charge you a cent!" He stopped, gave a sweeping glance of +dissatisfaction around him, and then, leaning back against the bar, +beckoned to some one near the door, and said in a disgusted tone, +"You tell these galoots how it happened, Bracy. They make me sick!" + +Thus appealed to, Bracy, the express messenger, stepped forward in +Yuba Bill's place. + +"It's nothing particular, gentlemen," he said, with a laugh, "only +it seems that some man called Spindler, who lives about here, sent +an invitation to the father of these children to bring his family +to a Christmas party. It wasn't a bad sort of thing for Spindler +to do, considering that they were his poor relations, though they +didn't know him from Adam,--was it?" He paused; several of the +bystanders cleared their throats, but said nothing. "At least," +resumed Bracy, "that's what the boys up at Red Hill, Oregon, +thought, when they heard of it. Well, as the father was in +hospital with a broken leg, and the mother only a few weeks dead, +the boys thought it mighty rough on these poor kids if they were +done out of their fun because they had no one to bring them. The +boys couldn't afford to go themselves, but they got a little money +together, and then got the idea of sendin' 'em by express. Our +agent at Red Hill tumbled to the idea at once; but he wouldn't take +any money in advance, and said he would send 'em 'C. O. D.' like +any other package. And he did, and here they are! That's all! +And now, gentlemen, as I've got to deliver them personally to this +Spindler, and get his receipt and take off their checks, I reckon +we must toddle. Come, Bill, help take 'em up!" + +"Hold on!" said a dozen voices. A dozen hands were thrust into a +dozen pockets; I grieve to say some were regretfully withdrawn +empty, for it was a hard season in Rough and Ready. But the +expressman stepped before them, with warning, uplifted hand. + +"Not a cent, boys,--not a cent! Wells, Fargo's Express Company +don't undertake to carry bullion with those kids, at least on the +same contract!" He laughed, and then looking around him, said +confidentially in a lower voice, which, however, was quite audible +to the children, "There's as much as three bags of silver in +quarter and half dollars in my treasure box in the coach that has +been poured, yes, just showered upon them, ever since they started, +and have been passed over from agent to agent and messenger to +messenger,--enough to pay their passage from here to China! It's +time to say quits now. But bet your life, they are not going to +that Christmas party poor!" + +He caught up the boy, as Yuba Bill lifted the little girl to his +shoulder, and both passed out. Then one by one the loungers in the +bar-room silently and awkwardly followed, and when the barkeeper +turned back from putting away his decanters and glasses, to his +astonishment the room was empty. + + . . . . . . + +Spindler's house, or "Spindler's Splurge," as Rough and Ready chose +to call it, stood above the settlement, on a deforested hillside, +which, however, revenged itself by producing not enough vegetation +to cover even the few stumps that were ineradicable. A large +wooden structure in the pseudo-classic style affected by Westerners, +with an incongruous cupola, it was oddly enough relieved by a still +more incongruous veranda extending around its four sides, upheld by +wooden Doric columns, which were already picturesquely covered with +flowering vines and sun-loving roses. Mr. Spindler had trusted the +furnishing of its interior to the same contractor who had +upholstered the gilded bar-room of the Eureka Saloon, and who had +apparently bestowed the same design and material, impartially, on +each. There were gilded mirrors all over the house and chilly +marble-topped tables, gilt plaster Cupids in the corners, and +stuccoed lions "in the way" everywhere. The tactful hands of Mrs. +Price had screened some of these with seasonable laurels, fir +boughs, and berries, and had imparted a slight Christmas flavor to +the house. But the greater part of her time had been employed in +trying to subdue the eccentricities of Spindler's amazing relations; +in tranquilizing Mrs. "Aunt" Martha Spindler,--the elderly cook +before alluded to,--who was inclined to regard the gilded splendors +of the house as indicative of dangerous immorality; in restraining +"Cousin" Morley Hewlett from considering the dining-room buffet as a +bar for "intermittent refreshment;" and in keeping the weak-minded +nephew, Phinney Spindler, from shooting at bottles from the veranda, +wearing his uncle's clothes, or running up an account in his uncle's +name for various articles at the general stores. Yet the +unlooked-for arrival of the two children had been the one great +compensation and diversion for her. She wrote at once to her nieces +a brief account of her miraculous deliverance. "I think these poor +children dropped from the skies here to make our Christmas party +possible, to say nothing of the sympathy they have created in Rough +and Ready for Spindler. He is going to keep them as long as he can, +and is writing to the father. Think of the poor little tots +traveling a thousand miles to 'Krissmass,' as they call it!--though +they were so well cared for by the messengers that their little +bodies were positively stuffed like quails. So, you see, dear, we +will be able to get along without airing your famous idea. I'm +sorry, for I know you're just dying to see it all." + +Whatever Kate's "idea" might have been, there certainly seemed now +no need of any extraneous aid to Mrs. Price's management. +Christmas came at last, and the dinner passed off without serious +disaster. But the ordeal of the reception of Rough and Ready was +still to come. For Mrs. Price well knew that although "the boys" +were more subdued, and, indeed, inclined to sympathize with their +host's uncouth endeavor, there was still much in the aspect of +Spindler's relations to excite their sense of the ludicrous. + +But here Fortune again favored the house of Spindler with a +dramatic surprise, even greater than the advent of the children had +been. In the change that had come over Rough and Ready, "the boys" +had decided, out of deference to the women and children, to omit +the first part of their programme, and had approached and entered +the house as soberly and quietly as ordinary guests. But before +they had shaken hands with the host and hostess, and seen the +relations, the clatter of wheels was heard before the open door, +and its lights flashed upon a carriage and pair,--an actual private +carriage,--the like of which had not been seen since the governor +of the State had come down to open the new ditch! Then there was a +pause, the flash of the carriage lamps upon white silk, the light +tread of a satin foot on the veranda and in the hall, and the +entrance of a vision of loveliness! Middle-aged men and old +dwellers of cities remembered their youth; younger men bethought +themselves of Cinderella and the Prince! There was a thrill and a +hush as this last guest--a beautiful girl, radiant with youth and +adornment--put a dainty glass to her sparkling eye and advanced +familiarly, with outstretched hand, to Dick Spindler. Mrs. Price +gave a single gasp, and drew back speechless. + +"Uncle Dick," said a laughing contralto voice, which, indeed, +somewhat recalled Mrs. Price's own, in its courageous frankness, "I +am so delighted to come, even if a little late, and so sorry that +Mr. M'Kenna could not come on account of business." + +Everybody listened eagerly, but none more eagerly and surprisingly +than the host himself. M'Kenna! The rich cousin who had never +answered the invitation! And Uncle Dick! This, then, was his +divorced niece! Yet even in his astonishment he remembered that of +course no one but himself and Mrs. Price knew it,--and that lady +had glanced discreetly away. + +"Yes," continued the half-niece brightly. "I came from Sacramento +with some friends to Shootersville, and from thence I drove here; +and though I must return to-night, I could not forego the pleasure +of coming, if it was only for an hour or two, to answer the +invitation of the uncle I have not seen for years." She paused, +and, raising her glasses, turned a politely questioning eye towards +Mrs. Price. "One of our relations?" she said smilingly to Spindler. + +"No," said Spindler, with some embarrassment, "a--a friend!" + +The half-niece extended her hand. Mrs. Price took it. + +But the fair stranger,--what she did and said were the only things +remembered in Rough and Ready on that festive occasion; no one +thought of the other relations; no one recalled them nor their +eccentricities; Spindler himself was forgotten. People only +recollected how Spindler's lovely niece lavished her smiles and +courtesies on every one, and brought to her feet particularly the +misogynist Starbuck and the sarcastic Cooledge, oblivious of his +previous speech; how she sat at the piano and sang like an angel, +hushing the most hilarious and excited into sentimental and even +maudlin silence; how, graceful as a nymph, she led with "Uncle +Dick" a Virginia reel until the whole assembly joined, eager for a +passing touch of her dainty hand in its changes; how, when two +hours had passed,--all too swiftly for the guests,--they stood with +bared heads and glistening eyes on the veranda to see the fairy +coach whirl the fairy princess away! How--but this incident was +never known to Rough and Ready. + +It happened in the sacred dressing-room, where Mrs. Price was +cloaking with her own hands the departing half-niece of Mr. +Spindler. Taking that opportunity to seize the lovely relative by +the shoulders and shake her violently, she said: "Oh, yes, and it's +all very well for you, Kate, you limb! For you're going away, and +will never see Rough and Ready and poor Spindler again. But what +am I to do, miss? How am I to face it out? For you know I've got +to tell him at least that you're no half-niece of his!" + +"Have you?" said the young lady. + +"Have I?" repeated the widow impatiently. "Have I? Of course I +have! What are you thinking of?" + +"I was thinking, aunty," said the girl audaciously, "that from what +I've seen and heard to-night, if I'm not his half-niece now, it's +only a question of time! So you'd better wait. Good-night, dear." + +And, really,--it turned out that she was right! + + + +WHEN THE WATERS WERE UP AT "JULES'" + + +When the waters were up at "Jules'" there was little else up on +that monotonous level. For the few inhabitants who calmly and +methodically moved to higher ground, camping out in tents until the +flood had subsided, left no distracting wreckage behind them. A +dozen half-submerged log cabins dotted the tranquil surface of the +waters, without ripple or disturbance, looking in the moonlight +more like the ruins of centuries than of a few days. There was no +current to sap their slight foundations or sweep them away; nothing +stirred that silent lake but the occasional shot-like indentations +of a passing raindrop, or, still more rarely, a raft, made of a +single log, propelled by some citizen on a tour of inspection of +his cabin roof-tree, where some of his goods were still stored. +There was no sense of terror in this bland obliteration of the +little settlement; the ruins of a single burnt-up cabin would have +been more impressive than this stupid and even grotesquely placid +effect of the rival destroying element. People took it naturally; +the water went as it had come,--slowly, impassively, noiselessly; a +few days of fervid Californian sunshine dried the cabins, and in a +week or two the red dust lay again as thickly before their doors as +the winter mud had lain. The waters of Rattlesnake Creek dropped +below its banks, the stage-coach from Marysville no longer made a +detour of the settlement. There was even a singular compensation +to this amicable invasion; the inhabitants sometimes found gold in +those breaches in the banks made by the overflow. To wait for the +"old Rattlesnake sluicing" was a vernal hope of the trusting miner. + +The history of "Jules'," however, was once destined to offer a +singular interruption of this peaceful and methodical process. The +winter of 1859-60 was an exceptional one. But little rain had +fallen in the valleys, although the snow lay deep in the high +Sierras. Passes were choked, ravines filled, and glaciers found on +their slopes. And when the tardy rains came with the withheld +southwesterly "trades," the regular phenomenon recurred; Jules' +Flat silently, noiselessly, and peacefully went under water; the +inhabitants moved to the higher ground, perhaps a little more +expeditiously from an impatience born of the delay. The stagecoach +from Marysville made its usual detour and stopped before the +temporary hotel, express offices, and general store of "Jules'," +under canvas, bark, and the limp leaves of a spreading alder. It +deposited a single passenger,--Miles Hemmingway, of San Francisco, +but originally of Boston,--the young secretary of a mining company, +dispatched to report upon the alleged auriferous value of "Jules'." +Of this he had been by no means impressed as he looked down upon +the submerged cabins from the box-seat of the coach and listened to +the driver's lazy recital of the flood, and of the singularly +patient acceptance of it by the inhabitants. + +It was the old story of the southwestern miner's indolence and +incompetency,--utterly distasteful to his northern habits of +thought and education. Here was their old fatuous endurance of +Nature's wild caprices, without that struggle against them which +brought others strength and success; here was the old philosophy +which accepted the prairie fire and cyclone, and survived them +without advancement, yet without repining. Perhaps in different +places and surroundings a submission so stoic might have impressed +him; in gentlemen who tucked their dirty trousers in their muddy +boots and lived only for the gold they dug, it did not seem to him +heroic. Nor was he mollified as he stood beside the rude +refreshment bar--a few planks laid on trestles--and drank his +coffee beneath the dripping canvas roof, with an odd recollection +of his boyhood and an inclement Sunday-school picnic. Yet these +men had been living in this shiftless fashion for three weeks! It +exasperated him still more to think that he might have to wait +there a few days longer for the water to subside sufficiently for +him to make his examination and report. As he took a proffered +seat on a candle-box, which tilted under him, and another survey of +the feeble makeshifts around him, his irascibility found vent. + +"Why, in the name of God, didn't you, after you had been flooded +out ONCE, build your cabins PERMANENTLY on higher ground?" + +Although the tone of his voice was more disturbing than his +question, it pleased one of the loungers to affect to take it +literally. + +"Well, ez you've put it that way,--'in the name of God!'"--returned +the man lazily, "it mout hev struck us that ez HE was bossin' the +job, so to speak, and handlin' things round here generally, we +might leave it to Him. It wasn't OUR flood to monkey with." + +"And as He didn't coven-ant, so to speak, to look arter this higher +ground 'speshally, and make an Ararat of it for us, ez far ez we +could see, we didn't see any reason for SETTLIN' yer," put in a +second speaker, with equal laziness. + +The secretary saw his mistake instantly, and had experience enough +of Western humor not to prolong the disadvantage of his unfortunate +adjuration. He colored slightly and said, with a smile, "You know +what I mean; you could have protected yourselves better. A levee +on the bank would have kept you clear of the highest watermark." + +"Hey you ever heard WHAT the highest watermark was?" said the first +speaker, turning to another of the loungers without looking at the +secretary. + +"Never heard it,--didn't know there was a limit before," responded +the man. + +The first speaker turned back to the secretary. "Did you ever know +what happened at 'Bulger's,' on the North Fork? They had one o' +them levees." + +"No. What happened?" asked the secretary impatiently. + +"They was fixed suthin' like us," returned the first speaker. +"THEY allowed they'd build a levee above THEIR highest watermark, +and did. It worked like a charm at first; but the water hed to go +somewhere, and it kinder collected at the first bend. Then it +sorter raised itself on its elbows one day, and looked over the +levee down upon whar some of the boys was washin' quite comf'ble. +Then it paid no sorter attention to the limit o' that high +watermark, but went six inches better! Not slow and quiet like ez +it useter to, ez it does HERE, kinder fillin' up from below, but +went over with a rush and a current, hevin' of course the whole +height of the levee to fall on t'other side where the boys were +sluicing." He paused, and amidst a profound silence added, "They +say that 'Bulger's' was scattered promiscuous-like all along the +fort for five miles. I only know that one of his mules and a +section of sluicing was picked up at Red Flat, eight miles away!" + +Mr. Hemmingway felt that there WAS an answer to this, but, being +wise, also felt that it would be unavailing. He smiled politely +and said nothing, at which the first speaker turned to him:-- + +"Thar ain't anything to see to-day, but to-morrow, ez things go, +the water oughter be droppin'. Mebbe you'd like to wash up now and +clean yourself," he added, with a glance at Hemmingway's small +portmanteau. "Ez we thought you'd likely be crowded here, we've +rigged up a corner for you at Stanton's shanty with the women." + +The young man's cheek flushed slightly at some possible irony in +this, and he protested with considerable stress that he was quite +ready "to rough it" where he was. + +"I reckon it's already fixed," returned the man decisively, "so +you'd better come and I'll show you the way." + +"One moment," said Hemmingway, with a smile; "my credentials are +addressed to the manager of the Boone Ditch Company at 'Jules'.' +Perhaps I ought to see him first." + +"All right; he's Stanton." + +"And"--hesitated the secretary, "YOU, who appear to understand the +locality so well,--I trust I may have the pleasure"-- + +"Oh, I'm Jules." + +The secretary was a little startled and amused. So "Jules" was a +person, and not a place! + +"Then you're a pioneer?" asked Hemmingway, a little less +dictatorially, as they passed out under the dripping trees. + +"I struck this creek in the fall of '49, comin' over Livermore's +Pass with Stanton," returned Jules, with great brevity of speech +and deliberate tardiness of delivery. "Sent for my wife and two +children the next year; wife died same winter, change bein' too +sudden for her, and contractin' chills and fever at Sweetwater. +When I kem here first thar wasn't six inches o' water in the creek; +out there was a heap of it over there where you see them yallowish- +green patches and strips o' brush and grass; all that war water +then, and all that growth hez sprung up since." + +Hemmingway looked around him. The "higher ground" where they stood +was in reality only a mound-like elevation above the dead level of +the flat, and the few trees were merely recent young willows and +alders. The area of actual depression was much greater than he had +imagined, and its resemblance to the bed of some prehistoric inland +sea struck him forcibly. A previous larger inundation than Jules' +brief experience had ever known had been by no means improbable. +His cheek reddened at his previous hasty indictment of the +settlers' ignorance and shiftlessness, and the thought that he had +probably committed his employers to his own rash confidence and +superiority of judgment. However, there was no evidence that this +diluvial record was not of the remote past. He smiled again with +greater security as he thought of the geological changes that had +since tempered these cataclysms, and the amelioration brought by +settlement and cultivation. Nevertheless, he would make a thorough +examination to-morrow. + +Stanton's cabin was the furthest of these temporary habitations, +and was partly on the declivity which began to slope to the river's +bank. It was, like the others, a rough shanty of unplaned boards, +but, unlike the others, it had a base of logs laid lengthwise on +the ground and parallel with each other, on which the flooring and +structure were securely fastened. This gave it the appearance of a +box slid on runners, or a Noah's Ark whose bulk had been reduced. +Jules explained that the logs, laid in that manner, kept the shanty +warmer and free from damp. In reply to Hemmingway's suggestion +that it was a great waste of material, Jules simply replied that +the logs were the "flotsam and jetsam" of the creek from the +overflowed mills below. + +Hemmingway again smiled. It was again the old story of Western +waste and prodigality. Accompanied by Jules, however, he climbed +up the huge, slippery logs which made a platform before the door, +and entered. + +The single room was unequally divided; the larger part containing +three beds, by day rolled in a single pile in one corner to make +room for a table and chairs. A few dresses hanging from nails on +the wall showed that it was the women's room. The smaller +compartment was again subdivided by a hanging blanket, behind which +was a rude bunk or berth against the wall, a table made of a +packing-box, containing a tin basin and a can of water. This was +his apartment. + +"The women-folks are down the creek, bakin', to-day," said Jules +explanatorily; "but I reckon that one of 'em will be up here in a +jiffy to make supper, so you just take it easy till they come. +I've got to meander over to the claim afore I turn in, but you just +lie by to-night and take a rest." + +He turned away, leaving Hemmingway standing in the doorway still +distraught and hesitating. Nor did the young man recognize the +delicacy of Jules' leave-taking until he had unstrapped his +portmanteau and found himself alone, free to make his toilet, +unembarrassed by company. But even then he would have preferred +the rough companionship of the miners in the common dormitory of +the general store to this intrusion upon the half-civilization of +the women, their pitiable little comforts and secret makeshifts. +His disgust of his own indecision which brought him there naturally +recoiled in the direction of his host and hostesses, and after a +hurried ablution, a change of linen, and an attempt to remove the +stains of travel from his clothes, he strode out impatiently into +the open air again. + +It was singularly mild even for the season. The southwest trades +blew softly, and whispered to him of San Francisco and the distant +Pacific, with its long, steady swell. He turned again to the +overflowed Flat beneath him, and the sluggish yellow water that +scarcely broke a ripple against the walls of the half-submerged +cabins. And this was the water for whose going down they were +waiting with an immobility as tranquil as the waters themselves! +What marvelous incompetency,--or what infinite patience! He knew, +of course, their expected compensation in this "ground sluicing" at +Nature's own hand; the long rifts in the banks of the creek which +so often showed "the color" in the sparkling scales of river gold +disclosed by the action of the water; the heaps of reddish mud left +after its subsidence around the walls of the cabins,--a deposit +that often contained a treasure a dozen times more valuable than +the cabin itself! And then he heard behind him a laugh, a short +and panting breath, and turning, beheld a young woman running +towards him. + +In his first astounded sight of her, in her limp nankeen sunbonnet, +thrown back from her head by the impetus of her flight, he saw only +too much hair, two much white teeth, too much eye-flash, and, above +all,--as it appeared to him,--too much confidence in the power of +these qualities. Even as she ran, it seemed to him that she was +pulling down ostentatiously the rolled-up sleeves of her pink +calico gown over her shapely arms. I am inclined to think that the +young gentleman's temper was at fault, and his conclusion hasty; a +calmer observer would have detected nothing of this in her frankly +cheerful voice. Nevertheless, her evident pleasure in the meeting +seemed to him only obtrusive coquetry. + +"Lordy! I reckoned to git here afore you'd get through fixin' up, +and in time to do a little prinkin' myself, and here you're out +already." She laughed, glancing at his clean shirt and damp hair. +"But all the same, we kin have a talk, and you kin tell me all the +news afore the other wimmen get up here. It's a coon's age since I +was at Sacramento and saw anybody or anything." She stopped and, +instinctively detecting some vague reticence in the man before her, +said, still laughing, "You're Mr. Hemmingway, ain't you?" + +Hemmingway took off his hat quickly, with a slight start at his +forgetfulness. "I beg your pardon; yes, certainly." + +"Aunty Stanton thought it was 'Hummingbird,'" said the girl, with a +laugh, "but I reckoned not. I'm Jinney Jules, you know; folks call +me 'J. J.' It wouldn't do for a Hummingbird and a Jay Jay to be in +the same camp, would it? It would be just TOO funny!" + +Hemmingway did not find the humor of this so singularly exhaustive, +but he was already beginning to be ashamed of his attitude towards +her. "I'm very sorry to be giving you all this trouble by my +intrusion, for I was quite willing to stay at the store yonder. +Indeed," he added, with a burst of frankness quite as sincere as +her own, "if you think your father will not be offended, I would +gladly go there now." + +If he still believed in her coquetry and vanity, he would have been +undeceived and crushed by the equal and sincere frankness with +which she met this ungallant speech. + +"No! I reckon he wouldn't care, if you'd be as comf'ble and fit +for to-morrow. But ye WOULDN'T," she said reflectively. "The boys +thar sit up late over euchre, and swear a heap, and Simpson, who'd +sleep alongside of ye, snores pow'ful, I've heard. Aunty Stanton +kin do her level at that, too, and they say"--with a laugh--"that I +kin, too, but you're away off in that corner, and it won't reach +you. So, takin' it all, by the large, you'd better stay whar ye +are. We wimmen, that is, the most of us, will be off and away down +to Rattlesnake Bar shoppin' afore sun up, so ye'll sleep ez long ez +ye want to, and find yer breakfast ready when ye wake. So I'll +jest set to and get ye some supper, and ye kin tell me all the +doin's in Sacramento and 'Frisco while I'm workin'." + +In spite of her unconscious rebuff to his own vanity, Hemmingway +felt a sense of relief and less constraint in his relations to this +decidedly provincial hostess. + +"Can I help you in any way?" he asked eagerly. + +"Well, ye MIGHT bring me an armful o' wood from the pile under the +alders, ef ye ain't afraid o' dirtyin' your coat," she said +tentatively. + +Mr. Hemmingway was not afraid; he declared himself delighted. He +brought a generous armful of small cut willow boughs, and deposited +them before a small stove, which seemed a temporary substitute for +the usual large adobe chimney that generally occupied the entire +gable of a miner's cabin. An elbow and short length of stovepipe +carried the smoke through the cabin side. But he also noticed that +his fair companion had used the interval to put on a pair of white +cuffs and a collar. However, she brushed the green moss from his +sleeve with some toweling, and although this operation brought her +so near to him that her breath--as soft and warm as the southwest +trades--stirred his hair, it was evident that this contiguity was +only frontier familiarity, as far removed from conscious coquetry +as it was, perhaps, from educated delicacy. + +"The boys gin'rally kem to take up enough wood for me to begin +with," she said, "but I reckon they didn't know I was comin' up so +soon." + +Hemmingway's distrust returned a little at this obvious suggestion +that he was only a substitute for their general gallantry, but he +smiled and said somewhat bluntly, "I don't suppose you lack for +admirers here." + +The girl, however, took him literally. "Lordy, no! Me and Mamie +Robinson are the only girls for fifteen miles along the creek. +ADMIRIN'! I call it jest PESTERIN' sometimes! I reckon I'll hev +to keep a dog!" + +Hemmingway shivered. Yes, she was not only conscious, but spoilt +already. He pictured to himself the uncouth gallantries of the +settlement, the provincial badinage, the feeble rivalries of the +young men whom he had seen at the general store. Undoubtedly this +was what she was expecting in HIM! + +"Well," she said, turning from the fire she had kindled, "while I'm +settin' the table, tell me what's a-doin' in Sacramento! I reckon +you've got heaps of lady friends thar,--I'm told there's lots of +fashions just from the States." + +"I'm afraid I don't know enough of them to interest you," he said +dryly. + +"Go on and talk," she replied. "Why, when Tom Flynn kem back from +Sacramento, and he warn't thar more nor a week, he jest slung yarns +about his doin's thar to last the hull rainy season." + +Half amused and half annoyed, Hemmingway seated himself on the +little platform beside the open door, and began a conscientious +description of the progress of Sacramento, its new buildings, +hotels, and theatres, as it had struck him on his last visit. For +a while he was somewhat entertained by the girl's vivacity and +eager questioning, but presently it began to pall. He continued, +however, with a grim sense of duty, and partly as a reason for +watching her in her household duties. Certainly she was graceful! +Her tall, lithe, but beautifully moulded figure, even in its +characteristic southwestern indolence, fell into poses as +picturesque as they were unconscious. She lifted the big molasses- +can from its shelf on the rafters with the attitude of a Greek +water-bearer. She upheaved the heavy flour-sack to the same secure +shelf with the upraised palms of an Egyptian caryatid. Suddenly +she interrupted Hemmingway's perfunctory talk with a hearty laugh. +He started, looked up from his seat on the platform, and saw that +she was standing over him and regarding him with a kind of +mischievous pity. + +"Look here," she said, "I reckon that'll do! You kin pull up +short! I kin see what's the matter with you; you're jest plumb +tired, tuckered out, and want to turn in! So jest you sit that +quiet until I get supper ready and never mind me." In vain +Hemmingway protested, with a rising color. The girl only shook her +head. "Don't tell me! You ain't keering to talk, and you're only +playin' Sacramento statistics on me," she retorted, with unfeigned +cheerfulness. "Anyhow, here's the wimmen comin', and supper is +ready." + +There was a sound of weary, resigned ejaculations and pantings, and +three gaunt women in lustreless alpaca gowns appeared before the +cabin. They seemed prematurely aged and worn with labor, anxiety, +and ill nourishment. Doubtless somewhere in these ruins a flower +like Jay Jules had once flourished; doubtless somewhere in that +graceful nymph herself the germ of this dreary maturity was hidden. +Hemmingway welcomed them with a seriousness equal to their own. +The supper was partaken with the kind of joyless formality which in +the southwest is supposed to indicate deep respect, even the +cheerful Jay falling under the influence, and it was with a feeling +of relief that at last the young man retired to his fenced-off +corner for solitude and repose. He gathered, however, that before +"sun up" the next morning the elder women were going to Rattlesnake +Bar for the weekly shopping, leaving Jay as before to prepare his +breakfast and then join them later. It was already a change in his +sentiments to find himself looking forward to that tete-a-tete with +the young girl, as a chance of redeeming his character in her eyes. +He was beginning to feel he had been stupid, unready, and withal +prejudiced. He undressed himself in his seclusion, broken only by +the monotonous voices in the adjoining apartment. From time to +time he heard fragments and scraps of their conversation, always in +reference to affairs of the household and settlement, but never of +himself,--not even the suggestion of a prudent lowering of their +voices,--and fell asleep. He woke up twice in the night with a +sensation of cold so marked and distinct from his experience of the +early evening, that he was fain to pile his clothes over his +blankets to keep warm. He fell asleep again, coming once more to +consciousness with a sense of a slight jar, but relapsing again +into slumber for he knew not how long. Then he was fully awakened +by a voice calling him, and, opening his eyes, beheld the blanket +partition put aside, and the face of Jay thrust forward. To his +surprise it wore a look of excited astonishment dominated by +irrepressible laughter. + +"Get up quick as you kin," she said gaspingly; "this is about the +killingest thing that ever happened!" + +She disappeared, but he could still hear her laughing, and to his +utter astonishment with her disappearance the floor seemed to +change its level. A giddy feeling seized him; he put his feet to +the floor; it was unmistakably wet and oozing. He hurriedly +clothed himself, still accompanied by the strange feeling of +oscillation and giddiness, and passed though the opening into the +next room. Again his step produced the same effect upon the floor, +and he actually stumbled against her shaking figure, as she wiped +the tears of uncontrollable mirth from her eyes with her apron. +The contact seemed to upset her remaining gravity. She dropped +into a chair, and, pointing to the open door, gasped, "Look thar! +Lordy! How's that for high?" threw her apron over her head, and +gave way to an uproarious fit of laughter. + +Hemmingway turned to the open door. A lake was before him on the +level of the cabin. He stepped forward on the platform; the water +was right and left, all around him. The platform dipped slightly +to his step. The cabin was afloat,--afloat upon its base of logs +like a raft, the whole structure upheld by the floor on which the +logs were securely fastened. The high ground had disappeared--the +river--its banks the green area beyond. They, and THEY alone, were +afloat upon an inland sea. + +He turned an astounded and serious face upon her mirth. "When did +it happen?" he demanded. She checked her laugh, more from a sense +of polite deference to his mood than any fear, and said quietly, +"That gets me. Everything was all right two hours ago when the +wimmen left. It was too early to get your breakfast and rouse ye +out, and I felt asleep, I reckon, until I felt a kind o' slump and +a jar." Hemmingway remembered his own half-conscious sensation. +"Then I got up and saw we was adrift. I didn't waken ye, for I +thought it was only a sort of wave that would pass. It wasn't +until I saw we were movin' and the hull rising ground gettin' away, +that I thought o' callin' ye." + +He thought of the vanished general store, of her father, the +workers on the bank, the helpless women on their way to the Bar, +and turned almost savagely on her. + +"But the others,--where are they?" he said indignantly. "Do you +call that a laughing matter?" + +She stopped at the sound of his voice as at a blow. Her face +hardened into immobility, yet when she replied it was with the +deliberate indolence of her father. "The wimmen are up on the +hills by this time. The boys hev bin drowned out many times afore +this and got clear off, on sluice boxes and timber, without +squealing. Tom Flynn went down ten miles to Sayer's once on two +bar'ls, and I never heard that HE was cryin' when they picked him +up." + +A flush came to Hemmingway's cheek, but with it a gleam of +intelligence. Of course the inundation was known to them FIRST, +and there was the wreckage to support them. They had clearly saved +themselves. If they had abandoned the cabin, it was because they +knew its security, perhaps had even seen it safely adrift. + +"Has this ever happened to the cabin before?" he asked, as he +thought of its peculiar base. + +"No." + +He looked at the water again. There was a decided current. The +overflow was evidently no part of the original inundation. He put +his hand in the water. It was icy cold. Yes, he understood it +now. It was the sudden melting of snow in the Sierras which had +brought this volume down the canyon. But was there more still to +come? + +"Have you anything like a long pole or stick in the cabin?" + +"Nary," said the girl, opening her big eyes and shaking her head +with a simulation of despair, which was, however, flatly contradicted +by her laughing mouth. + +"Nor any cord or twine?" he continued. + +She handed him a ball of coarse twine. + +"May I take a couple of these hooks?" he asked, pointing to some +rough iron hooks in the rafters, on which bacon and jerked beef +were hanging. + +She nodded. He dislodged the hooks, greased them with the bacon +rind, and affixed them to the twine. + +"Fishin'?" she asked demurely. + +"Exactly," he replied gravely. + +He threw the line in the water. It slackened at about six feet, +straightened, and became taut at an angle, and then dragged. After +one or two sharp jerks he pulled it up. A few leaves and grasses +were caught in the hooks. He examined them attentively. + +"We're not in the creek," he said, "nor in the old overflow. +There's no mud or gravel on the hooks, and these grasses don't grow +near water." + +"Now, that's mighty cute of you," she said admiringly, as she knelt +beside him on the platform. "Let's see what you've caught. Look +yer!" she added, suddenly lifting a limp stalk, "that's 'old man,' +and thar ain't a scrap of it grows nearer than Springer's Rise,-- +four miles from home." + +"Are you sure?" he asked quickly. + +"Sure as pop! I used to go huntin' it for smellidge." + +"For what?" he said, with a bewildered smile. + +"For this,"--she thrust the leaves to his nose and then to her own +pink nostrils; "for--for"--she hesitated, and then with a +mischievous simulation of correctness added, "for the perfume." + +He looked at her admiringly. For all her five feet ten inches, +what a mere child she was, after all! What a fool he was to have +taken a resentful attitude towards her! How charming and graceful +she looked, kneeling there beside him! + +"Tell me," he said suddenly, in a gentler voice, "what were you +laughing at just now?" + +Her brown eyes wavered for a moment, and then brimmed with +merriment. She threw herself sideways, in a leaning posture, +supporting herself on one arm, while with her other hand she slowly +drew out her apron string, as she said, in a demure voice:-- + +"Well, I reckoned it was jest too killin' to think of you, who +didn't want to talk to me, and would hev given your hull pile to +hev skipped out o' this, jest stuck here alongside o' me, whether +you would or no, for Lord knows how long!" + +"But that was last night," he said, in a tone of raillery. "I was +tired, and you said so yourself, you know. But I'm ready to talk +now. What shall I tell you?" + +"Anything," said the girl, with a laugh. + +"What I am thinking of?" he said, with frankly admiring eyes. + +"Yes." + +"Everything?" + +"Yes, everything." She stopped, and leaning forward, suddenly +caught the brim of his soft felt hat, and drawing it down smartly +over his audacious eyes, said, "Everything BUT THAT." + +It was with some difficulty and some greater embarrassment that he +succeeded in getting his eyes free again. When he did so, she had +risen and entered the cabin. Disconcerted as he was, he was +relieved to see that her expression of amusement was unchanged. +Was her act a piece of rustic coquetry, or had she resented his +advances? Nor did her next words settle the question. + +"Ye kin do yer nice talk and philanderin' after we've settled whar +we are, what we're goin', and what's goin' to happen. Jest now it +'pears to me that ez these yere logs are the only thing betwixt us +and 'kingdom come,' ye'd better be hustlin' round with a few spikes +to clinch 'em to the floor." + +She handed him a hammer and a few spikes. He obediently set to +work, with little confidence, however, in the security of the +fastening. There was neither rope nor chain for lashing the logs +together; a stronger current and a collision with some submerged +stump or wreckage would loosen them and wreck the cabin. But he +said nothing. It was the girl who broke the silence. + +"What's your front name?" + +"Miles." + +"MILES,--that's a funny name. I reckon that's why you war so FAR +OFF and DISTANT at first." + +Mr. Hemmingway thought this very witty, and said so. "But," he +added, "when I was a little nearer a moment ago, you stopped me." + +"But you was moving faster than the shanty was. I reckon you don't +take that gait with your lady friends at Sacramento! However, you +kin talk now." + +"But you forget I don't know 'where we are,' nor 'what's going to +happen.'" + +"But I do," she said quietly. "In a couple of hours we'll be +picked up, so you'll be free again." + +Something in the confidence of her manner made him go to the door +again and look out. There was scarcely any current now, and the +cabin seemed motionless. Even the wind, which might have acted +upon it, was wanting. They were apparently in the same position as +before, but his sounding-line showed that the water was slightly +falling. He came back and imparted the fact with a certain +confidence born of her previous praise of his knowledge. To his +surprise she only laughed and said lazily, "We'll be all right, and +you'll be free, in about two hours." + +"I see no sign of it," he said, looking through the door again. + +"That's because you're looking in the water and the sky and the mud +for it," she said, with a laugh. "I reckon you've been trained to +watch them things a heap better than to study the folks about +here." + +"I daresay you're right," said Hemmingway cheerfully, "but I don't +clearly see what the folks about here have to do with our situation +just now." + +"You'll see," she said, with a smile of mischievous mystery. "All +the same," she added, with a sudden and dangerous softness in her +eyes, "I ain't sayin' that YOU ain't kinder right neither." + +An hour ago he would have laughed at the thought that a mere look +and sentence like this from the girl could have made his heart +beat. "Then I may go on and talk?" + +She smiled, but her eyes said, "Yes," plainly. + +He turned to take a chair near her. Suddenly the cabin trembled, +there was a sound of scraping, a bump, and then the whole structure +tilted to one side and they were both thrown violently towards the +corner, with a swift inrush of water. Hemmingway quickly caught +the girl by the waist; she clung to him instinctively, yet still +laughing, as with a desperate effort he succeeded in dragging her +to the upper side of the slanting cabin, and momentarily restoring +its equilibrium. They remained for an instant breathless. But in +that instant he had drawn her face to his and kissed her. + +She disengaged herself gently with neither excitement nor emotion, +and pointing to the open door said, "Look there!" + +Two of the logs which formed the foundation of their floor were +quietly floating in the water before the cabin! The submerged +obstacle or snag which had torn them from their fastening was still +holding the cabin fast. Hemmingway saw the danger. He ran along +the narrow ledge to the point of contact and unhesitatingly leaped +into the icy cold water. It reached his armpits before his feet +struck the obstacle,--evidently a stump with a projecting branch. +Bracing himself against it, he shoved off the cabin. But when he +struck out to follow it, he found that the log nearest him was +loose and his grasp might tear it away. At the same moment, +however, a pink calico arm fluttered above his head, and a strong +grasp seized his coat collar. The cabin half revolved as the girl +dragged him into the open door. + +"You bantam!" she said, with a laugh, "why didn't you let ME do +that? I'm taller than you! But," she added, looking at his +dripping clothes and dragging out a blanket from the corner, "I +couldn't dry myself as quick as you kin!" To her surprise, +however, Hemmingway tossed the blanket aside, and pointing to the +floor, which was already filmed with water, ran to the still warm +stove, detached it from its pipe, and threw it overboard. The sack +of flour, bacon, molasses, and sugar, and all the heavier articles +followed it into the stream. Relieved of their weight the cabin +base rose an inch or two higher. Then he sat down and said, +"There! that may keep us afloat for that 'couple of hours' you +speak of. So I suppose I may talk now!" + +"Ye haven't no time," she said, in a graver voice. "It won't be as +long as a couple of hours now. Look over thar!" + +He looked where she pointed across the gray expanse of water. At +first he could see nothing. Presently he saw a mere dot on its +face which at times changed to a single black line. + +"It's a log, like these," he said. + +"It's no log. It's an Injun dug-out*--comin' for me." + + +* A canoe made from a hollowed log. + + +"Your father?" he said joyfully. + +She smiled pityingly. "It's Tom Flynn. Father's got suthin' else +to look arter. Tom Flynn hasn't." + +"And who's Tom Flynn?" he asked, with an odd sensation. + +"The man I'm engaged to," she said gravely, with a slight color. + +The rose that blossomed on her cheek faded in his. There was a +moment of silence. Then he said frankly, "I owe you some apology. +Forgive my folly and impertinence a moment ago. How could I have +known this?" + +"You took no more than you deserved, or that Tom would have +objected to," she said, with a little laugh. "You've been mighty +kind and handy." + +She held out her hand; their fingers closed together in a frank +pressure. Then his mind went back to his work, which he had +forgotten,--to his first impressions of the camp and of her. They +both stood silent, watching the canoe, now quite visible, and the +man that was paddling it, with an intensity that both felt was +insincere. + +"I'm afraid," he said, with a forced laugh, "that I was a little +too hasty in disposing of your goods and possessions. We could +have kept afloat a little longer." + +"It's all the same," she said, with a slight laugh; "it's jest as +well we didn't look too comf'ble--to HIM." + +He did not reply; he did not dare to look at her. Yes! It was the +same coquette he had seen last night. His first impressions were +correct. + +The canoe came on rapidly now, propelled by a powerful arm. In a +few moments it was alongside, and its owner leaped on the platform. +It was the gentleman with his trousers tucked in his boots, the +second voice in the gloomy discussion in the general store last +evening. He nodded simply to the girl, and shook Hemmingway's hand +warmly. + +Then he made a hurried apology for his delay: it was so difficult +to find "the lay" of the drifted cabin. He had struck out first +for the most dangerous spot,--the "old clearing," on the right +bank, with its stumps and new growths,--and it seemed he was right. +And all the rest were safe, and "nobody was hurt." + +"All the same, Tom," she said, when they were seated and paddling +off again, "you don't know HOW NEAR YOU CAME TO LOSING ME." Then +she raised her beautiful eyes and looked significantly, not at HIM, +but at Hemmingway. + +When the water was down at "Jules'" the next day, they found +certain curious changes and some gold, and the secretary was able +to make a favorable report. But he made none whatever of his +impressions "when the water was up at 'Jules','" though he often +wondered if they were strictly trustworthy. + + + +THE BOOM IN THE "CALAVERAS CLARION" + + +The editorial sanctum of the "Calaveras Clarion" opened upon the +"composing-room" of that paper on the one side, and gave apparently +upon the rest of Calaveras County upon the other. For, situated on +the very outskirts of the settlement and the summit of a very steep +hill, the pines sloped away from the editorial windows to the long +valley of the South Fork and--infinity. The little wooden building +had invaded Nature without subduing it. It was filled night and +day with the murmur of pines and their fragrance. Squirrels +scampered over its roof when it was not preoccupied by woodpeckers, +and a printer's devil had once seen a nest-building blue jay enter +the composing window, flutter before one of the slanting type-cases +with an air of deliberate selection, and then fly off with a vowel +in its bill. + +Amidst these sylvan surroundings the temporary editor of the +"Clarion" sat at his sanctum, reading the proofs of an editorial. +As he was occupying that position during a six weeks' absence of +the bona fide editor and proprietor, he was consequently reading +the proof with some anxiety and responsibility. It had been +suggested to him by certain citizens that the "Clarion" needed a +firmer and more aggressive policy towards the Bill before the +Legislature for the wagon road to the South Fork. Several Assembly +men had been "got at" by the rival settlement of Liberty Hill, and +a scathing exposure and denunciation of such methods was necessary. +The interests of their own township were also to be "whooped up." +All this had been vigorously explained to him, and he had grasped +the spirit, if not always the facts, of his informants. It is to +be feared, therefore, that he was perusing his article more with +reference to its vigor than his own convictions. And yet he was +not so greatly absorbed as to be unmindful of the murmur of the +pines without, his half-savage environment, and the lazy talk of +his sole companions,--the foreman and printer in the adjoining +room. + +"Bet your life! I've always said that a man INSIDE a newspaper +office could hold his own agin any outsider that wanted to play +rough or tried to raid the office! Thar's the press, and thar's +the printin' ink and roller! Folks talk a heap o' the power o' the +Press!--I tell ye, ye don't half know it. Why, when old Kernel +Fish was editin' the 'Sierra Banner,' one o' them bullies that he'd +lampooned in the 'Banner' fought his way past the Kernel in the +office, into the composin'-room, to wreck everythin' and 'pye' all +the types. Spoffrel--ye don't remember Spoffrel?--little red- +haired man?--was foreman. Spoffrel fended him off with the roller +and got one good dab inter his eyes that blinded him, and then +Spoffrel sorter skirmished him over to the press,--a plain lever +just like ours,--whar the locked-up form of the inside was still +a-lyin'! Then, quick as lightnin', Spoffrel tilts him over agin it, +and HE throws out his hand and ketches hold o' the form to steady +himself, when Spoffrel just runs the form and the hand under the +press and down with the lever! And that held the feller fast as +grim death! And when at last he begs off, and Spoff lets him +loose, the hull o' that 'ere lampooning article he objected to was +printed right onto the skin o' his hand! Fact, and it wouldn't +come off, either." + +"Gosh, but I'd like to hev seen it," said the printer. "There +ain't any chance, I reckon, o' such a sight here. The boss don't +take no risks lampoonin', and he" (the editor knew he was being +indicated by some unseen gesture of the unseen workman) "ain't that +style." + +"Ye never kin tell," said the foreman didactically, "what might +happen! I've known editors to get into a fight jest for a little +innercent bedevilin' o' the opposite party. Sometimes for a +misprint. Old man Pritchard of the 'Argus' oncet had a hole blown +through his arm because his proofreader had called Colonel +Starbottle's speech an 'ignominious' defense, when the old man hed +written 'ingenuous' defense." + +The editor paused in his proof-reading. He had just come upon the +sentence: "We cannot congratulate Liberty Hill--in its superior +elevation--upon the ignominious silence of the representative of +all Calaveras when this infamous Bill was introduced." He referred +to his copy. Yes! He had certainly written "ignominious,"--that +was what his informants had suggested. But was he sure they were +right? He had a vague recollection, also, that the representative +alluded to--Senator Bradley--had fought two duels, and was a "good" +though somewhat impulsive shot! He might alter the word to +"ingenuous" or "ingenious," either would be finely sarcastic, but +then--there was his foreman, who would detect it! He would wait +until he had finished the entire article. In that occupation he +became oblivious of the next room, of a silence, a whispered +conversation, which ended with a rapping at the door and the +appearance of the foreman in the doorway. + +"There's a man in the office who wants to see the editor," he said. + +"Show him in," replied the editor briefly. He was, however, +conscious that there was a singular significance in his foreman's +manner, and an eager apparition of the other printer over the +foreman's shoulder. + +"He's carryin' a shot-gun, and is a man twice as big as you be," +said the foreman gravely. + +The editor quickly recalled his own brief and as yet blameless +record in the "Clarion." "Perhaps," he said tentatively, with a +gentle smile, "he's looking for Captain Brush" (the absent editor). + +"I told him all that," said the foreman grimly, "and he said he +wanted to see the man in charge." + +In proportion as the editor's heart sank his outward crest arose. +"Show him in," he said loftily. + +"We KIN keep him out," suggested the foreman, lingering a moment; +"me and him," indicating the expectant printer behind him, "is +enough for that." + +"Show him up," repeated the editor firmly. + +The foreman withdrew; the editor seated himself and again took up +his proof. The doubtful word "ignominious" seemed to stand out of +the paragraph before him; it certainly WAS a strong expression! He +was about to run his pencil through it when he heard the heavy step +of his visitor approaching. A sudden instinct of belligerency took +possession of him, and he wrathfully threw the pencil down. + +The burly form of the stranger blocked the doorway. He was dressed +like a miner, but his build and general physiognomy were quite +distinct from the local variety. His upper lip and chin were +clean-shaven, still showing the blue-black roots of the beard which +covered the rest of his face and depended in a thick fleece under +his throat. He carried a small bundle tied up in a silk +handkerchief in one hand, and a "shot-gun" in the other, perilously +at half-cock. Entering the sanctum, he put down his bundle and +quietly closed the door behind him. He then drew an empty chair +towards him and dropped heavily into it with his gun on his knees. +The editor's heart dropped almost as heavily, although he quite +composedly held out his hand. + +"Shall I relieve you of your gun?" + +"Thank ye, lad--noa. It's moor coomfortable wi' me, and it's main +dangersome to handle on the half-cock. That's why I didn't leave +'im on the horse outside!" + +At the sound of his voice and occasional accent a flash of +intelligence relieved the editor's mind. He remembered that twenty +miles away, in the illimitable vista from his windows, lay a +settlement of English north-country miners, who, while faithfully +adopting the methods, customs, and even slang of the Californians, +retained many of their native peculiarities. The gun he carried on +his knee, however, was evidently part of the Californian imitation. + +"Can I do anything for you?" said the editor blandly. + +"Ay! I've coom here to bill ma woife." + +"I--don't think I understand," hesitated the editor, with a smile. + +"I've coom here to get ye to put into your paaper a warnin', a +notiss, that onless she returns to my house in four weeks, I'll +have nowt to do wi' her again." + +"Oh!" said the editor, now perfectly reassured, "you want an +advertisement? That's the business of the foreman; I'll call him." +He was rising from his seat when the stranger laid a heavy hand on +his shoulder and gently forced him down again. + +"Noa, lad! I don't want noa foreman nor understrappers to take +this job. I want to talk it over wi' you. Sabe? My woife she bin +up and awaa these six months. We had a bit of difference, that +ain't here nor there, but she skedaddled outer my house. I want to +give her fair warning, and let her know I ain't payin' any debts o' +hers arter this notiss, and I ain't takin' her back arter four +weeks from date." + +"I see," said the editor glibly. "What's your wife's name?" + +"Eliza Jane Dimmidge." + +"Good," continued the editor, scribbling on the paper before him; +"something like this will do: 'Whereas my wife, Eliza Jane +Dimmidge, having left my bed and board without just cause or +provocation, this is to give notice that I shall not be responsible +for any debts of her contracting on or after this date.'" + +"Ye must be a lawyer," said Mr. Dimmidge admiringly. + +It was an old enough form of advertisement, and the remark showed +incontestably that Mr. Dimmidge was not a native; but the editor +smiled patronizingly and went on: "'And I further give notice that +if she does not return within the period of four weeks from this +date, I shall take such proceedings for relief as the law affords.'" + +"Coom, lad, I didn't say THAT." + +"But you said you wouldn't take her back." + +"Ay." + +"And you can't prevent her without legal proceedings. She's your +wife. But you needn't take proceedings, you know. It's only a +warning." + +Mr. Dimmidge nodded approvingly. "That's so." + +"You'll want it published for four weeks, until date?" asked the +editor. + +"Mebbe longer, lad." + +The editor wrote "till forbid" in the margin of the paper and +smiled. + +"How big will it be?" said Mr. Dimmidge. + +The editor took up a copy of the "Clarion" and indicated about an +inch of space. Mr. Dimmidge's face fell. + +"I want it bigger,--in large letters, like a play-card," he said. +"That's no good for a warning." + +"You can have half a column or a whole column if you like," said +the editor airily. + +"I'll take a whole one," said Mr. Dimmidge simply. + +The editor laughed. "Why! it would cost you a hundred dollars." + +"I'll take it," repeated Mr. Dimmidge. + +"But," said the editor gravely, "the same notice in a small space +will serve your purpose and be quite legal." + +"Never you mind that, lad! It's the looks of the thing I'm arter, +and not the expense. I'll take that column." + +The editor called in the foreman and showed him the copy. "Can you +display that so as to fill a column?" + +The foreman grasped the situation promptly. It would be big +business for the paper. "Yes," he said meditatively, "that bold- +faced election type will do it." + +Mr. Dimmidge's face brightened. The expression "bold-faced" +pleased him. "That's it! I told you. I want to bill her in a +portion of the paper." + +"I might put in a cut," said the foreman suggestively; "something +like this." He took a venerable woodcut from the case. I grieve +to say it was one which, until the middle of the present century, +was common enough in the newspaper offices in the Southwest. It +showed the running figure of a negro woman carrying her personal +property in a knotted handkerchief slung from a stick over her +shoulder, and was supposed to represent "a fugitive slave." + +Mr. Dimmidge's eyes brightened. "I'll take that, too. It's a +little dark-complected for Mrs. P., but it will do. Now roon away, +lad," he said to the foreman, as he quietly pushed him into the +outer office again and closed the door. Then, facing the surprised +editor, he said, "Theer's another notiss I want ye to put in your +paper; but that's atween US. Not a word to THEM," he indicated the +banished foreman with a jerk of his thumb. "Sabe? I want you to +put this in another part o' your paper, quite innocent-like, ye +know." He drew from his pocket a gray wallet, and taking out a +slip of paper read from it gravely, "'If this should meet the eye +of R. B., look out for M. J. D. He is on your track. When this +you see write a line to E. J. D., Elktown Post Office.' I want +this to go in as 'Personal and Private'--sabe?--like them notisses +in the big 'Frisco papers." + +"I see," said the editor, laying it aside. "It shall go in the +same issue in another column." + +Apparently Mr. Dimmidge expected something more than this reply, +for after a moment's hesitation he said with an odd smile: + +"Ye ain't seein' the meanin' o' that, lad?" + +"No," said the editor lightly; "but I suppose R. B. does, and it +isn't intended that any one else should." + +"Mebbe it is, and mebbe it isn't," said Mr. Dimmidge, with a self- +satisfied air. "I don't mind saying atween us that R. B. is the +man as I've suspicioned as havin' something to do with my wife +goin' away; and ye see, if he writes to E. J. D.--that's my wife's +initials--at Elktown, I'LL get that letter and so make sure." + +"But suppose your wife goes there first, or sends?" + +"Then I'll ketch her or her messenger. Ye see?" + +The editor did not see fit to oppose any argument to this phenomenal +simplicity, and Mr. Dimmidge, after settling his bill with the +foreman, and enjoining the editor to the strictest secrecy regarding +the origin of the "personal notice," took up his gun and departed, +leaving the treasury of the "Clarion" unprecedentedly enriched, and +the editor to his proofs. + +The paper duly appeared the next morning with the column +advertisement, the personal notice, and the weighty editorial on +the wagon road. There was a singular demand for the paper, the +edition was speedily exhausted, and the editor was proportionately +flattered, although he was surprised to receive neither praise nor +criticism from his subscribers. Before evening, however, he +learned to his astonishment that the excitement was caused by the +column advertisement. Nobody knew Mr. Dimmidge, nor his domestic +infelicities, and the editor and foreman, being equally in the +dark, took refuge in a mysterious and impressive evasion of all +inquiry. Never since the last San Francisco Vigilance Committee +had the office been so besieged. The editor, foreman, and even the +apprentice, were buttonholed and "treated" at the bar, but to no +effect. All that could be learned was that it was a bona fide +advertisement, for which one hundred dollars had been received! +There were great discussions and conflicting theories as to whether +the value of the wife, or the husband's anxiety to get rid of her, +justified the enormous expense and ostentatious display. She was +supposed to be an exceedingly beautiful woman by some, by others a +perfect Sycorax; in one breath Mr. Dimmidge was a weak, uxorious +spouse, wasting his substance on a creature who did not care for +him, and in another a maddened, distracted, henpecked man, content +to purchase peace and rest at any price. Certainly, never was +advertisement more effective in its publicity, or cheaper in +proportion to the circulation it commanded. It was copied +throughout the whole Pacific slope; mighty San Francisco papers +described its size and setting under the attractive headline, "How +they Advertise a Wife in the Mountains!" It reappeared in the +Eastern journals, under the title of "Whimsicalities of the Western +Press." It was believed to have crossed to England as a specimen +of "Transatlantic Savagery." The real editor of the "Clarion" +awoke one morning, in San Francisco, to find his paper famous. Its +advertising columns were eagerly sought for; he at once advanced +the rates. People bought successive issues to gaze upon this +monumental record of extravagance. A singular idea, which, +however, brought further fortune to the paper, was advanced by an +astute critic at the Eureka Saloon. "My opinion, gentlemen, is +that the whole blamed thing is a bluff! There ain't no Mr. +Dimmidge; there ain't no Mrs. Dimmidge; there ain't no desertion! +The whole rotten thing is an ADVERTISEMENT o' suthin'! Ye'll find +afore ye get through with it that that there wife won't come back +until that blamed husband buys Somebody's Soap, or treats her to +Somebody's particular Starch or Patent Medicine! Ye jest watch and +see!" The idea was startling, and seized upon the mercantile mind. +The principal merchant of the town, and purveyor to the mining +settlements beyond, appeared the next morning at the office of the +"Clarion." "Ye wouldn't mind puttin' this 'ad' in a column +alongside o' the Dimmidge one, would ye?" The young editor glanced +at it, and then, with a serpent-like sagacity, veiled, however, by +the suavity of the dove, pointed out that the original advertiser +might think it called his bona fides into question and withdraw his +advertisement. "But if we secured you by an offer of double the +amount per column?" urged the merchant. "That," responded the +locum tenens, "was for the actual editor and proprietor in San +Francisco to determine. He would telegraph." He did so. The +response was, "Put it in." Whereupon in the next issue, side by +side with Mr. Dimmidge's protracted warning, appeared a column with +the announcement, in large letters, "WE HAVEN'T LOST ANY WIFE, but +WE are prepared to furnish the following goods at a lower rate than +any other advertiser in the county," followed by the usual price +list of the merchant's wares. There was an unprecedented demand +for that issue. The reputation of the "Clarion," both as a shrewd +advertising medium and a comic paper, was established at once. For +a few days the editor waited with some apprehension for a +remonstrance from the absent Dimmidge, but none came. Whether Mr. +Dimmidge recognized that this new advertisement gave extra +publicity to his own, or that he was already on the track of the +fugitive, the editor did not know. The few curious citizens who +had, early in the excitement, penetrated the settlement of the +English miners twenty miles away in search of information, found +that Mr. Dimmidge had gone away, and that Mrs. Dimmidge had NEVER +resided there with him! + +Six weeks passed. The limit of Mr. Dimmidge's advertisement had +been reached, and, as it was not renewed, it had passed out of the +pages of the "Clarion," and with it the merchant's advertisement in +the next column. The excitement had subsided, although its +influence was still felt in the circulation of the paper and its +advertising popularity. The temporary editor was also nearing the +limit of his incumbency, but had so far participated in the good +fortune of the "Clarion" as to receive an offer from one of the San +Francisco dailies. + +It was a warm night, and he was alone in his sanctum. The rest of +the building was dark and deserted, and his solitary light, +flashing out through the open window, fell upon the nearer pines +and was lost in the dark, indefinable slope below. He had reached +the sanctum by the rear, and a door which he also left open to +enjoy the freshness of the aromatic air. Nor did it in the least +mar his privacy. Rather the solitude of the great woods without +seemed to enter through that door and encompassed him with its +protecting loneliness. There was occasionally a faint "peep" in +the scant eaves, or a "pat-pat," ending in a frightened scurry +across the roof, or the slow flap of a heavy wing in the darkness +below. These gentle disturbances did not, however, interrupt his +work on "The True Functions of the County Newspaper," the editorial +on which he was engaged. + +Presently a more distinct rustling against the straggling blackberry +bushes beside the door attracted his attention. It was followed by +a light tapping against the side of the house. The editor started +and turned quickly towards the open door. Two outside steps led to +the ground. Standing upon the lower one was a woman. The upper +part of her figure, illuminated by the light from the door, was +thrown into greater relief by the dark background of the pines. Her +face was unknown to him, but it was a pleasant one, marked by a +certain good-humored determination. + +"May I come in?" she said confidently. + +"Certainly," said the editor. "I am working here alone because it +is so quiet." He thought he would precipitate some explanation +from her by excusing himself. + +"That's the reason why I came," she said, with a quiet smile. + +She came up the next step and entered the room. She was plainly +but neatly dressed, and now that her figure was revealed he saw +that she was wearing a linsey-woolsey riding-skirt, and carried a +serviceable rawhide whip in her cotton-gauntleted hand. She took +the chair he offered her and sat down sideways on it, her whip hand +now also holding up her skirt, and permitting a hem of clean white +petticoat and a smart, well-shaped boot to be seen. + +"I don't remember to have had the pleasure of seeing you in +Calaveras before," said the editor tentatively. + +"No. I never was here before," she said composedly, "but you've +heard enough of me, I reckon. I'm Mrs. Dimmidge." She threw one +hand over the back of the chair, and with the other tapped her +riding-whip on the floor. + +The editor started. Mrs. Dimmidge! Then she was not a myth. An +absurd similarity between her attitude with the whip and her +husband's entrance with his gun six weeks before forced itself upon +him and made her an invincible presence. + +"Then you have returned to your husband?" he said hesitatingly. + +"Not much!" she returned, with a slight curl of her lip. + +"But you read his advertisement?" + +"I saw that column of fool nonsense he put in your paper--ef that's +what you mean," she said with decision, "but I didn't come here to +see HIM--but YOU." + +The editor looked at her with a forced smile, but a vague misgiving. +He was alone at night in a deserted part of the settlement, with a +plump, self-possessed woman who had a contralto voice, a horsewhip, +and--he could not help feeling--an evident grievance. + +"To see me?" he repeated, with a faint attempt at gallantry. "You +are paying me a great compliment, but really"-- + +"When I tell you I've come three thousand miles from Kansas straight +here without stopping, ye kin reckon it's so," she replied firmly. + +"Three thousand miles!" echoed the editor wonderingly. + +"Yes. Three thousand miles from my own folks' home in Kansas, +where six years ago I married Mr. Dimmidge,--a British furriner as +could scarcely make himself understood in any Christian language! +Well, he got round me and dad, allowin' he was a reg'lar out-and- +out profeshnal miner,--had lived in mines ever since he was a boy; +and so, not knowin' what kind o' mines, and dad just bilin' over +with the gold fever, we were married and kem across the plains to +Californy. He was a good enough man to look at, but it warn't +three months before I discovered that he allowed a wife was no +better nor a nigger slave, and he the master. That made me open my +eyes; but then, as he didn't drink, and didn't gamble, and didn't +swear, and was a good provider and laid by money, why I shifted +along with him as best I could. We drifted down the first year to +Sonora, at Red Dog, where there wasn't another woman. Well, I did +the nigger slave business,--never stirring out o' the settlement, +never seein' a town or a crowd o' decent people,--and he did the +lord and master! We played that game for two years, and I got +tired. But when at last he allowed he'd go up to Elktown Hill, +where there was a passel o' his countrymen at work, with never a +sign o' any other folks, and leave me alone at Red Dog until he +fixed up a place for me at Elktown Hill,--I kicked! I gave him +fair warning! I did as other nigger slaves did,--I ran away!" + +A recollection of the wretched woodcut which Mr. Dimmidge had +selected to personify his wife flashed upon the editor with a new +meaning. Yet perhaps she had not seen it, and had only read a copy +of the advertisement. What could she want? The "Calaveras +Clarion," although a "Palladium" and a "Sentinel upon the Heights +of Freedom" in reference to wagon roads, was not a redresser of +domestic wrongs,--except through its advertising columns! Her next +words intensified that suggestion. + +"I've come here to put an advertisement in your paper." + +The editor heaved a sigh of relief, as once before. "Certainly," +he said briskly. "But that's another department of the paper, and +the printers have gone home. Come to-morrow morning early." + +"To-morrow morning I shall be miles away," she said decisively, +"and what I want done has got to be done NOW! I don't want to see +no printers; I don't want ANYBODY to know I've been here but you. +That's why I kem here at night, and rode all the way from Sawyer's +Station, and wouldn't take the stage-coach. And when we've settled +about the advertisement, I'm going to mount my horse, out thar in +the bushes, and scoot outer the settlement." + +"Very good," said the editor resignedly. "Of course I can deliver +your instructions to the foreman. And now--let me see--I suppose +you wish to intimate in a personal notice to your husband that +you've returned." + +"Nothin' o' the kind!" said Mrs. Dimmidge coolly. "I want to +placard him as he did me. I've got it all written out here. +Sabe?" + +She took from her pocket a folded paper, and spreading it out on +the editor's desk, with a certain pride of authorship read as +follows:-- + +"Whereas my husband, Micah J. Dimmidge, having given out that I +have left his bed and board,--the same being a bunk in a log cabin +and pork and molasses three times a day,--and having advertised +that he'd pay no debts of MY contractin',--which, as thar ain't +any, might be easier collected than debts of his own contractin',-- +this is to certify that unless he returns from Elktown Hill to his +only home in Sonora in one week from date, payin' the cost of this +advertisement, I'll know the reason why.--Eliza Jane Dimmidge." + +"Thar," she added, drawing a long breath, "put that in a column of +the 'Clarion,' same size as the last, and let it work, and that's +all I want of you." + +"A column?" repeated the editor. "Do you know the cost is very +expensive, and I COULD put it in a single paragraph?" + +"I reckon I kin pay the same as Mr. Dimmidge did for HIS," said the +lady complacently. "I didn't see your paper myself, but the paper +as copied it--one of them big New York dailies--said that it took +up a whole column." + +The editor breathed more freely; she had not seen the infamous +woodcut which her husband had selected. At the same moment he was +struck with a sense of retribution, justice, and compensation. + +"Would you," he asked hesitatingly,--"would you like it illustrated-- +by a cut?" + +"With which?" + +"Wait a moment; I'll show you." + +He went into the dark composing-room, lit a candle, and rummaging +in a drawer sacred to weather-beaten, old-fashioned electrotyped +advertising symbols of various trades, finally selected one and +brought it to Mrs. Dimmidge. It represented a bare and exceedingly +stalwart arm wielding a large hammer. + +"Your husband being a miner,--a quartz miner,--would that do?" he +asked. (It had been previously used to advertise a blacksmith, a +gold-beater, and a stone-mason.) + +The lady examined it critically. + +"It does look a little like Micah's arm," she said meditatively. +"Well--you kin put it in." + +The editor was so well pleased with his success that he must needs +make another suggestion. "I suppose," he said ingenuously, "that +you don't want to answer the 'Personal'?" + +"'Personal'?" she repeated quickly, "what's that? I ain't seen no +'Personal.'" The editor saw his blunder. She, of course, had +never seen Mr. Dimmidge's artful "Personal;" THAT the big dailies +naturally had not noticed nor copied. But it was too late to +withdraw now. He brought out a file of the "Clarion," and snipping +out the paragraph with his scissors, laid it before the lady. + +She stared at it with wrinkled brows and a darkening face. + +"And THIS was in the same paper?--put in by Mr. Dimmidge?" she +asked breathlessly. + +The editor, somewhat alarmed, stammered "Yes." But the next moment +he was reassured. The wrinkles disappeared, a dozen dimples broke +out where they had been, and the determined, matter-of-fact Mrs. +Dimmidge burst into a fit of rosy merriment. Again and again she +laughed, shaking the building, startling the sedate, melancholy +woods beyond, until the editor himself laughed in sheer vacant +sympathy. + +"Lordy!" she said at last, gasping, and wiping the laughter from +her wet eyes. "I never thought of THAT." + +"No," explained the editor smilingly; "of course you didn't. Don't +you see, the papers that copied the big advertisement never saw +that little paragraph, or if they did, they never connected the two +together." + +"Oh, it ain't that," said Mrs. Dimmidge, trying to regain her +composure and holding her sides. "It's that blessed DEAR old +dunderhead of a Dimmidge I'm thinking of. That gets me. I see it +all now. Only, sakes alive! I never thought THAT of him. Oh, +it's just too much!" and she again relapsed behind her handkerchief. + +"Then I suppose you don't want to reply to it," said the editor. + +Her laughter instantly ceased. "Don't I?" she said, wiping her +face into its previous complacent determination. "Well, young man, +I reckon that's just what I WANT to do! Now, wait a moment; let's +see what he said," she went on, taking up and reperusing the +"Personal" paragraph. "Well, then," she went on, after a moment's +silent composition with moving lips, "you just put these lines in." + +The editor took up his pencil. + +"To Mr. J. D. Dimmidge.--Hope you're still on R. B.'s tracks. Keep +there!--E. J. D." + +The editor wrote down the line, and then, remembering Mr. Dimmidge's +voluntary explanation of HIS "Personal," waited with some confidence +for a like frankness from Mrs. Dimmidge. But he was mistaken. + +"You think that he--R. B.--or Mr. Dimmidge--will understand this?" +he at last asked tentatively. "Is it enough?" + +"Quite enough," said Mrs. Dimmidge emphatically. She took a roll +of greenbacks from her pocket, selected a hundred-dollar bill and +then a five, and laid them before the editor. "Young man," she +said, with a certain demure gravity, "you've done me a heap o' +good. I never spent money with more satisfaction than this. I +never thought much o' the 'power o' the Press,' as you call it, +afore. But this has been a right comfortable visit, and I'm glad I +ketched you alone. But you understand one thing: this yer visit, +and WHO I am, is betwixt you and me only." + +"Of course I must say that the advertisement was AUTHORIZED," +returned the editor. "I'm only the temporary editor. The +proprietor is away." + +"So much the better," said the lady complacently. "You just say +you found it on your desk with the money; but don't you give me +away." + +"I can promise you that the secret of your personal visit is safe +with me," said the young man, with a bow, as Mrs. Dimmidge rose. +"Let me see you to your horse," he added. "It's quite dark in the +woods." + +"I can see well enough alone, and it's just as well you shouldn't +know HOW I kem or HOW I went away. Enough for you to know that +I'll be miles away before that paper comes out. So stay where you +are." + +She pressed his hand frankly and firmly, gathered up her riding- +skirt, slipped backwards to the door, and the next moment rustled +away into the darkness. + +Early the next morning the editor handed Mrs. Dimmidge's +advertisement, and the woodcut he had selected, to his foreman. He +was purposely brief in his directions, so as to avoid inquiry, and +retired to his sanctum. In the space of a few moments the foreman +entered with a slight embarrassment of manner. + +"You'll excuse my speaking to you, sir," he said, with a singular +mixture of humility and cunning. "It's no business of mine, I +know; but I thought I ought to tell you that this yer kind o' thing +won't pay any more,--it's about played out!" + +"I don't think I understand you," said the editor loftily, but with +an inward misgiving. "You don't mean to say that a regular, actual +advertisement"-- + +"Of course, I know all that," said the foreman, with a peculiar +smile; "and I'm ready to back you up in it, and so's the boy; but +it won't pay." + +"It HAS paid a hundred and five dollars," said the editor, taking +the notes from his pocket; "so I'd advise you to simply attend to +your duty and set it up." + +A look of surprise, followed, however, by a kind of pitying smile, +passed over the foreman's face. "Of course, sir, THAT'S all right, +and you know your own business; but if you think that the new +advertisement will pay this time as the other one did, and whoop up +another column from an advertiser, I'm afraid you'll slip up. It's +a little 'off color' now,--not 'up to date,'--if it ain't a regular +'back number,' as you'll see." + +"Meantime I'll dispense with your advice," said the editor curtly, +"and I think you had better let our subscribers and advertisers do +the same, or the 'Clarion' might also be obliged to dispense with +your SERVICES." + +"I ain't no blab," said the foreman, in an aggrieved manner, "and I +don't intend to give the show away even if it don't PAY. But I +thought I'd tell you, because I know the folks round here better +than you do." + +He was right. No sooner had the advertisement appeared than the +editor found that everybody believed it to be a sheer invention of +his own to "once more boom" the "Clarion." If they had doubted +MR. Dimmidge, they utterly rejected MRS. Dimmidge as an advertiser! +It was a stale joke that nobody would follow up; and on the heels of +this came a letter from the editor-in-chief. + + +MY DEAR BOY,--You meant well, I know, but the second Dimmidge "ad" +was a mistake. Still, it was a big bluff of yours to show the +money, and I send you back your hundred dollars, hoping you won't +"do it again." Of course you'll have to keep the advertisement in +the paper for two issues, just as if it were a real thing, and it's +lucky that there's just now no pressure in our columns. You might +have told a better story than that hogwash about your finding the +"ad" and a hundred dollars lying loose on your desk one morning. +It was rather thin, and I don't wonder the foreman kicked. + + +The young editor was in despair. At first he thought of writing to +Mrs. Dimmidge at the Elktown Post-Office, asking her to relieve him +of his vow of secrecy; but his pride forbade. There was a humorous +concern, not without a touch of pity, in the faces of his +contributors as he passed; a few affected to believe in the new +advertisement, and asked him vague, perfunctory questions about it. +His position was trying, and he was not sorry when the term of his +engagement expired the next week, and he left Calaveras to take his +new position on the San Francisco paper. + +He was standing in the saloon of the Sacramento boat when he felt a +sudden heavy pressure on his shoulder, and looking round sharply, +beheld not only the black-bearded face of Mr. Dimmidge, lit up by a +smile, but beside it the beaming, buxom face of Mrs. Dimmidge, +overflowing with good-humor. Still a little sore from his past +experience, he was about to address them abruptly, when he was +utterly vanquished by the hearty pressure of their hands and the +unmistakable look of gratitude in their eyes. + +"I was just saying to 'Lizy Jane," began Mr. Dimmidge breathlessly, +"if I could only meet that young man o' the 'Clarion' what brought +us together again"-- + +"You'd be willin' to pay four times the amount we both paid him," +interpolated the laughing Mrs. Dimmidge. + +"But I didn't bring you together," burst out the dazed young man, +"and I'd like to know, in the name of Heaven, what brought you +together now?" + +"Don't you see, lad," said the imperturbable Mr. Dimmidge, "'Lizy +Jane and myself had qua'lled, and we just unpacked our fool +nonsense in your paper and let the hull world know it! And we both +felt kinder skeert and shamed like, and it looked such small +hogwash, and of so little account, for all the talk it made, that +we kinder felt lonely as two separated fools that really ought to +share their foolishness together." + +"And that ain't all," said Mrs. Dimmidge, with a sly glance at her +spouse, "for I found out from that 'Personal' you showed me that +this particular old fool was actooally jealous!--JEALOUS!" + +"And then?" said the editor impatiently. + +"And then I KNEW he loved me all the time." + + + +THE SECRET OF SOBRIENTE'S WELL + + +Even to the eye of the most inexperienced traveler there was no +doubt that Buena Vista was a "played-out" mining camp. There, +seamed and scarred by hydraulic engines, was the old hillside, over +whose denuded surface the grass had begun to spring again in fitful +patches; there were the abandoned heaps of tailings already +blackened by sun and rain, and worn into mounds like ruins of +masonry; there were the waterless ditches, like giant graves, and +the pools of slumgullion, now dried into shining, glazed cement. +There were two or three wooden "stores," from which the windows and +doors had been taken and conveyed to the newer settlement of +Wynyard's Gulch. Four or five buildings that still were inhabited-- +the blacksmith's shop, the post-office, a pioneer's cabin, and the +old hotel and stage-office--only accented the general desolation. +The latter building had a remoteness of prosperity far beyond the +others, having been a wayside Spanish-American posada, with adobe +walls of two feet in thickness, that shamed the later shells of +half-inch plank, which were slowly warping and cracking like dried +pods in the oven-like heat. + +The proprietor of this building, Colonel Swinger, had been looked +upon by the community as a person quite as remote, old-fashioned, +and inconsistent with present progress as the house itself. He was +an old Virginian, who had emigrated from his decaying plantation on +the James River only to find the slaves, which he had brought with +him, freed men when they touched Californian soil; to be driven by +Northern progress and "smartness" out of the larger cities into the +mountains, to fix himself at last, with the hopeless fatuity of his +race, upon an already impoverished settlement; to sink his scant +capital in hopeless shafts and ledges, and finally to take over the +decaying hostelry of Buena Vista, with its desultory custom and +few, lingering, impecunious guests. Here, too, his old Virginian +ideas of hospitality were against his financial success; he could +not dun nor turn from his door those unfortunate prospectors whom +the ebbing fortunes of Buena Vista had left stranded by his side. + +Colonel Swinger was sitting in a wicker-work rocking-chair on the +veranda of his hotel--sipping a mint julep which he held in his +hand, while he gazed into the dusty distance. Nothing could have +convinced him that he was not performing a serious part of his duty +as hotel-keeper in this attitude, even though there were no +travelers expected, and the road at this hour of the day was +deserted. On a bench at his side Larry Hawkins stretched his lazy +length,--one foot dropped on the veranda, and one arm occasionally +groping under the bench for his own tumbler of refreshment. Apart +from this community of occupation, there was apparently no +interchange of sentiment between the pair. The silence had +continued for some moments, when the colonel put down his glass and +gazed earnestly into the distance. + +"Seein' anything?" remarked the man on the bench, who had sleepily +regarded him. + +"No," said the colonel, "that is--it's only Dick Ruggles crossin' +the road." + +"Thought you looked a little startled, ez if you'd seen that ar +wanderin' stranger." + +"When I see that wandering stranger, sah," said the colonel +decisively, "I won't be sittin' long in this yer chyar. I'll let +him know in about ten seconds that I don't harbor any vagrants +prowlin' about like poor whites or free niggers on my propahty, +sah!" + +"All the same, I kinder wish ye did see him, for you'd be settled +in YOUR mind and I'd be easier in MINE, ef you found out what he +was doin' round yer, or ye had to admit that it wasn't no LIVIN' +man." + +"What do you mean?" said the colonel, testily facing around in his +chair. + +His companion also altered his attitude by dropping his other foot +to the floor, sitting up, and leaning lazily forward with his hands +clasped. + +"Look yer, colonel. When you took this place, I felt I didn't have +no call to tell ye all I know about it, nor to pizen yer mind by +any darned fool yarns I mout hev heard. Ye know it was one o' them +old Spanish haciendas?" + +"I know," said the colonel loftily, "that it was held by a grant +from Charles the Fifth of Spain, just as my propahty on the James +River was given to my people by King James of England, sah!" + +"That ez as may be," returned his companion, in lazy indifference; +"though I reckon that Charles the Fifth of Spain and King James of +England ain't got much to do with what I'm goin' to tell ye. Ye +see, I was here long afore YOUR time, or any of the boys that hev +now cleared out; and at that time the hacienda belonged to a man +named Juan Sobriente. He was that kind o' fool that he took no +stock in mining. When the boys were whoopin' up the place and +finding the color everywhere, and there was a hundred men working +down there in the gulch, he was either ridin' round lookin' up the +wild horses he owned, or sittin' with two or three lazy peons and +Injins that was fed and looked arter by the priests. Gosh! now I +think of it, it was mighty like YOU when you first kem here with +your niggers. That's curious, too, ain't it?" + +He had stopped, gazing with an odd, superstitious wonderment at the +colonel, as if overcome by this not very remarkable coincidence. +The colonel, overlooking or totally oblivious to its somewhat +uncomplimentary significance, simply said, "Go on. What about +him?" + +"Well, ez I was sayin', he warn't in it nohow, but kept on his +reg'lar way when the boom was the biggest. Some of the boys +allowed it was mighty oncivil for him to stand off like that, and +others--when he refused a big pile for his hacienda and the garden, +that ran right into the gold-bearing ledge--war for lynching him +and driving him outer the settlement. But as he had a pretty +darter or niece livin' with him, and, except for his partickler +cussedness towards mining, was kinder peaceable and perlite, they +thought better of it. Things went along like this, until one day +the boys noticed--particklerly the boys that had slipped up on +their luck--that old man Sobriente was gettin' rich,--had stocked a +ranch over on the Divide, and had given some gold candlesticks to +the mission church. That would have been only human nature and +business, ef he'd had any during them flush times; but he hadn't. +This kinder puzzled them. They tackled the peons,--his niggers,-- +but it was all 'No sabe.' They tackled another man,--a kind of +half-breed Kanaka, who, except the priest, was the only man who +came to see him, and was supposed to be mighty sweet on the darter +or niece,--but they didn't even get the color outer HIM. Then the +first thing we knowed was that old Sobriente was found dead in the +well!" + +"In the well, sah!" said the colonel, starting up. "The well on my +propahty?" + +"No," said his companion. "The old well that was afterwards shut +up. Yours was dug by the last tenant, Jack Raintree, who allowed +that he didn't want to 'take any Sobriente in his reg'lar whiskey +and water.' Well, the half-breed Kanaka cleared out after the old +man's death, and so did that darter or niece; and the church, to +whom old Sobriente had left this house, let it to Raintree for next +to nothin'." + +"I don't see what all that has got to do with that wandering +tramp," said the colonel, who was by no means pleased with this +history of his property. + +"I'll tell ye. A few days after Raintree took it over, he was +lookin' round the garden, which old Sobriente had always kept shut +up agin strangers, and he finds a lot of dried-up 'slumgullion'* +scattered all about the borders and beds, just as if the old man +had been using it for fertilizing. Well, Raintree ain't no fool; +he allowed the old man wasn't one, either; and he knew that +slumgullion wasn't worth no more than mud for any good it would do +the garden. So he put this yer together with Sobriente's good +luck, and allowed to himself that the old coyote had been secretly +gold-washin' all the while he seemed to be standin' off agin it! +But where was the mine? Whar did he get the gold? That's what got +Raintree. He hunted all over the garden, prospected every part of +it,--ye kin see the holes yet,--but he never even got the color!" + + +* That is, a viscid cement-like refuse of gold-washing. + + +He paused, and then, as the colonel made an impatient gesture, he +went on. + +"Well, one night just afore you took the place, and when Raintree +was gettin' just sick of it, he happened to be walkin' in the +garden. He was puzzlin' his brain agin to know how old Sobriente +made his pile, when all of a suddenst he saw suthin' a-movin' in +the brush beside the house. He calls out, thinkin' it was one of +the boys, but got no answer. Then he goes to the bushes, and a +tall figger, all in black, starts out afore him. He couldn't see +any face, for its head was covered with a hood, but he saw that it +held suthin' like a big cross clasped agin its breast. This made +him think it was one them priests, until he looks agin and sees +that it wasn't no cross it was carryin,' but a PICKAXE! He makes a +jump towards it, but it vanished! He traipsed over the hull +garden,--went though ev'ry bush,--but it was clean gone. Then the +hull thing flashed upon him with a cold shiver. The old man bein' +found dead in the well! the goin' away of the half-breed and the +girl! the findin' o' that slumgullion! The old man HAD made a +strike in that garden, the half-breed had discovered his secret and +murdered him, throwin' him down the well! It war no LIVIN' man +that he had seen, but the ghost of old Sobriente!" + +The colonel emptied the remaining contents of his glass at a single +gulp, and sat up. "It's my opinion, sah, that Raintree had that +night more than his usual allowance of corn-juice on board; and +it's only a wonder, sah, that he didn't see a few pink alligators +and sky-blue snakes at the same time. But what's this got to do +with that wanderin' tramp?" + +"They're all the same thing, colonel, and in my opinion that there +tramp ain't no more alive than that figger was." + +"But YOU were the one that saw this tramp with your own eyes," +retorted the colonel quickly, "and you never before allowed it was +a spirit!" + +"Exactly! I saw it whar a minit afore nothin' had been standin', +and a minit after nothin' stood," said Larry Hawkins, with a +certain serious emphasis; "but I warn't goin' to say it to ANYBODY, +and I warn't goin' to give you and the hacienda away. And ez +nobody knew Raintree's story, I jest shut up my head. But you kin +bet your life that the man I saw warn't no livin' man!" + +"We'll see, sah!" said the colonel, rising from his chair with his +fingers in the armholes of his nankeen waistcoat, "ef he ever +intrudes on my property again. But look yar! don't ye go sayin' +anything of this to Polly,--you know what women are!" + +A faint color came into Larry's face; an animation quite different +to the lazy deliberation of his previous monologue shone in his +eyes, as he said, with a certain rough respect he had not shown +before to his companion, "That's why I'm tellin' ye, so that ef SHE +happened to see anything and got skeert, ye'd know how to reason +her out of it." + +"'Sh!" said the colonel, with a warning gesture. + +A young girl had just appeared in the doorway, and now stood +leaning against the central pillar that supported it, with one hand +above her head, in a lazy attitude strongly suggestive of the +colonel's Southern indolence, yet with a grace entirely her own. +Indeed, it overcame the negligence of her creased and faded yellow +cotton frock and unbuttoned collar, and suggested--at least to the +eyes of ONE man--the curving and clinging of the jasmine vine +against the outer column of the veranda. Larry Hawkins rose +awkwardly to his feet. + +"Now what are you two men mumblin' and confidin' to each other? +You look for all the world like two old women gossips," she said, +with languid impertinence. + +It was easy to see that a privileged and recognized autocrat spoke. +No one had ever questioned Polly Swinger's right to interrupting, +interfering, and saucy criticisms. Secure in the hopeless or +chivalrous admiration of the men around her, she had repaid it with +a frankness that scorned any coquetry; with an indifference to the +ordinary feminine effect or provocation in dress or bearing that +was as natural as it was invincible. No one had ever known Polly +to "fix up" for anybody, yet no one ever doubted the effect, if she +had. No one had ever rebuked her charming petulance, or wished to. + +Larry gave a weak, vague laugh. Colonel Swinger as ineffectively +assumed a mock parental severity. "When you see two gentlemen, +miss, discussin' politics together, it ain't behavin' like a lady +to interrupt. Better run away and tidy yourself before the stage +comes." + +The young lady replied to the last innuendo by taking two spirals +of soft hair, like "corn silk," from her oval cheek, wetting them +with her lips, and tucking them behind her ears. Her father's +ungentlemanly suggestion being thus disposed of, she returned to +her first charge. + +"It ain't no politics; you ain't been swearing enough for THAT! +Come, now! It's the mysterious stranger ye've been talking about!" + +Both men stared at her with unaffected concern. + +"What do YOU know about any mysterious stranger?" demanded her +father. + +"Do you suppose you men kin keep a secret," scoffed Polly. "Why, +Dick Ruggles told me how skeert ye all were over an entire +stranger, and he advised me not to wander down the road after dark. +I asked him if he thought I was a pickaninny to be frightened by +bogies, and that if he hadn't a better excuse for wantin' 'to see +me home' from the Injin spring, he might slide." + +Larry laughed again, albeit a little bitterly, for it seemed to him +that the excuse was fully justified; but the colonel said promptly, +"Dick's a fool, and you might have told him there were worse things +to be met on the road than bogies. Run away now, and see that the +niggers are on hand when the stage comes." + +Two hours later the stage came with a clatter of hoofs and a cloud +of red dust, which precipitated itself and a dozen thirsty +travelers upon the veranda before the hotel bar-room; it brought +also the usual "express" newspapers and much talk to Colonel +Swinger, who always received his guests in a lofty personal fashion +at the door, as he might have done in his old Virginian home; but +it brought likewise--marvelous to relate--an ACTUAL GUEST, who had +two trunks and asked for a room! He was evidently a stranger to +the ways of Buena Vista, and particularly to those of Colonel +Swinger, and at first seemed inclined to resent the social attitude +of his host, and his frank and free curiosity. When he, however, +found that Colonel Swinger was even better satisfied to give an +account of HIS OWN affairs, his family, pedigree, and his present +residence, he began to betray some interest. The colonel told him +all the news, and would no doubt have even expatiated on his +ghostly visitant, had he not prudently concluded that his guest +might decline to remain in a haunted inn. The stranger had spoken +of staying a week; he had some private mining speculations to watch +at Wynyard's Gulch,--the next settlement, but he did not care to +appear openly at the "Gulch Hotel." He was a man of thirty, with +soft, pleasing features and a singular litheness of movement, +which, combined with a nut-brown, gypsy complexion, at first +suggested a foreigner. But his dialect, to the colonel's ears, was +distinctly that of New England, and to this was added a puritanical +and sanctimonious drawl. "He looked," said the colonel in after +years, "like a blank light mulatter, but talked like a blank Yankee +parson." For all that, he was acceptable to his host, who may have +felt that his reminiscences of his plantation on the James River +were palling on Buena Vista ears, and was glad of his new auditor. +It was an advertisement, too, of the hotel, and a promise of its +future fortunes. "Gentlemen having propahty interests at the +Gulch, sah, prefer to stay at Buena Vista with another man of +propahty, than to trust to those new-fangled papah-collared, +gingerbread booths for traders that they call 'hotels' there," he +had remarked to some of "the boys." In his preoccupation with the +new guest, he also became a little neglectful of his old chum and +dependent, Larry Hawkins. Nor was this the only circumstance that +filled the head of that shiftless loyal retainer of the colonel +with bitterness and foreboding. Polly Swinger--the scornfully +indifferent, the contemptuously inaccessible, the coldly capricious +and petulant--was inclined to be polite to the stranger! + +The fact was that Polly, after the fashion of her sex, took it into +her pretty head, against all consistency and logic, suddenly to +make an exception to her general attitude towards mankind in favor +of one individual. The reason-seeking masculine reader will rashly +conclude that this individual was the CAUSE as well as the object; +but I am satisfied that every fair reader of these pages will +instinctively know better. Miss Polly had simply selected the new +guest, Mr. Starbuck, to show OTHERS, particularly Larry Hawkins, +what she COULD do if she were inclined to be civil. For two days +she "fixed up" her distracting hair at him so that its silken floss +encircled her head like a nimbus; she tucked her oval chin into a +white fichu instead of a buttonless collar; she appeared at dinner +in a newly starched yellow frock! She talked to him with "company +manners;" said she would "admire to go to San Francisco," and asked +if he knew her old friends the Fauquier girls from "Faginia." The +colonel was somewhat disturbed; he was glad that his daughter had +become less negligent of her personal appearance; he could not but +see, with the others, how it enhanced her graces; but he was, with +the others, not entirely satisfied with her reasons. And he could +not help observing--what was more or less patent to ALL--that +Starbuck was far from being equally responsive to her attentions, +and at times was indifferent and almost uncivil. Nobody seemed to +be satisfied with Polly's transformation but herself. + +But eventually she was obliged to assert herself. The third +evening after Starbuck's arrival she was going over to the cabin of +Aunt Chloe, who not only did the washing for Buena Vista, but +assisted Polly in dressmaking. It was not far, and the night was +moonlit. As she crossed the garden she saw Starbuck moving in the +manzanita bushes beyond; a mischievous light came into her eyes; +she had not EXPECTED to meet him, but she had seen him go out, and +there were always POSSIBILITIES. To her surprise, however, he +merely lifted his hat as she passed, and turned abruptly in another +direction. This was more than the little heart-breaker of Buena +Vista was accustomed to! + +"Oh, Mr. Starbuck!" she called, in her laziest voice. + +He turned almost impatiently. + +"Since you're so civil and pressing, I thought I'd tell you I was +just runnin' over to Aunt Chloe's," she said dryly. + +"I should think it was hardly the proper thing for a young lady to +do at this time of night," he said superciliously. "But you know +best,--you know the people here." + +Polly's cheeks and eyes flamed. "Yes, I reckon I do," she said +crisply; "it's only a STRANGER here would think of being rude. +Good-night, Mr. Starbuck!" + +She tripped away after this Parthian shot, yet feeling, even in her +triumph, that the conceited fool seemed actually relieved at her +departure! And for the first time she now thought that she had +seen something in his face that she did not like! But her lazy +independence reasserted itself soon, and half an hour later, when +she had left Aunt Chloe's cabin, she had regained her self-esteem. +Yet, to avoid meeting him again, she took a longer route home, +across the dried ditch and over the bluff, scarred by hydraulics, +and so fell, presently, upon the old garden at the point where it +adjoined the abandoned diggings. She was quite sure she had +escaped a meeting with Starbuck, and was gliding along under the +shadow of the pear-trees, when she suddenly stopped. An +indescribable terror overcame her as she stared at a spot in the +garden, perfectly illuminated by the moonlight not fifty yards from +where she stood. For she saw on its surface a human head--a man's +head!--seemingly on the level of the ground, staring in her +direction. A hysterical laugh sprang from her lips, and she caught +at the branches above her or she would have fallen! Yet in that +moment the head had vanished! The moonlight revealed the empty +garden,--the ground she had gazed at,--but nothing more! + +She had never been superstitious. As a child she had heard the +negroes talk of "the hants,"--that is, "the HAUNTS" or spirits,-- +but had believed it a part of their ignorance, and unworthy a white +child,--the daughter of their master! She had laughed with Dick +Ruggles over the illusions of Larry, and had shared her father's +contemptuous disbelief of the wandering visitant being anything but +a living man; yet she would have screamed for assistance now, only +for the greater fear of making her weakness known to Mr. Starbuck, +and being dependent upon him for help. And with it came the sudden +conviction that HE had seen this awful vision, too. This would +account for his impatience of her presence and his rudeness. She +felt faint and giddy. Yet after the first shock had passed, her +old independence and pride came to her relief. She would go to the +spot and examine it. If it were some trick or illusion, she would +show her superiority and have the laugh on Starbuck. She set her +white teeth, clenched her little hands, and started out into the +moonlight. But alas! for women's weakness. The next moment she +uttered a scream and almost fell into the arms of Mr. Starbuck, who +had stepped out of the shadows beside her. + +"So you see you HAVE been frightened," he said, with a strange, +forced laugh; "but I warned you about going out alone!" + +Even in her fright she could not help seeing that he, too, seemed +pale and agitated, at which she recovered her tongue and her self- +possession. + +"Anybody would be frightened by being dogged about under the trees," +she said pertly. + +"But you called out before you saw me," he said bluntly, "as if +something had frightened you. That was WHY I came towards you." + +She knew it was the truth; but as she would not confess to her +vision, she fibbed outrageously. + +"Frightened," she said, with pale but lofty indignation. "What was +there to frighten me? I'm not a baby, to think I see a bogie in +the dark!" This was said in the faint hope that HE had seen +something too. If it had been Larry or her father who had met her, +she would have confessed everything. + +"You had better go in," he said curtly. "I will see you safe +inside the house." + +She demurred at this, but as she could not persist in her first +bold intention of examining the locality of the vision without +admitting its existence, she permitted him to walk with her to the +house, and then at once fled to her own room. Larry and her father +noticed their entrance together and their agitated manner, and were +uneasy. Yet the colonel's paternal pride and Larry's lover's +respect kept the two men from communicating their thoughts to each +other. + +"The confounded pup has been tryin' to be familiar, and Polly's set +him down," thought Larry, with glowing satisfaction. + +"He's been trying some of his sanctimonious Yankee abolition talk +on Polly, and she shocked him!" thought the colonel exultingly. + +But poor Polly had other things to think of in the silence of her +room. Another woman would have unburdened herself to a confidante; +but Polly was too loyal to her father to shatter his beliefs, and +too high-spirited to take another and a lesser person into her +confidence. She was certain that Aunt Chloe would be full of +sympathetic belief and speculations, but she would not trust a +nigger with what she couldn't tell her own father. For Polly +really and truly believed that she had seen a ghost, no doubt the +ghost of the murdered Sobriente, according to Larry's story. WHY +he should appear with only his head above ground puzzled her, +although it suggested the Catholic idea of purgatory, and he was a +Catholic! Perhaps he would have risen entirely but for that stupid +Starbuck's presence; perhaps he had a message for HER alone. The +idea pleased Polly, albeit it was a "fearful joy" and attended with +some cold shivering. Naturally, as a gentleman, he would appear to +HER--the daughter of a gentleman--the successor to his house-- +rather than to a Yankee stranger. What was she to do? For once +her calm nerves were strangely thrilled; she could not think of +undressing and going to bed, and two o'clock surprised her, still +meditating, and occasionally peeping from her window upon the +moonlit but vacant garden. If she saw him again, would she dare to +go down alone? Suddenly she started to her feet with a beating +heart! There was the unmistakable sound of a stealthy footstep in +the passage, coming towards her room. Was it he? In spite of her +high resolves she felt that if the door opened she should scream! +She held her breath--the footsteps came nearer--were before her +door--and PASSED! + +Then it was that the blood rushed back to her cheek with a flush of +indignation. Her room was at the end of the passage; there was +nothing beyond but a private staircase, long disused, except by +herself, as a short cut through the old patio to the garden. No +one else knew of it, and no one else had the right of access to it! +This insolent human intrusion--as she was satisfied it was now-- +overcame her fear, and she glided to the door. Opening it softly, +she could hear the stealthy footsteps descending. She darted back, +threw a shawl over her head and shoulders, and taking the small +Derringer pistol which it had always been part of her ostentatious +independence to place at her bed-head, she as stealthily followed +the intruder. But the footsteps had died away before she reached +the patio, and she saw only the small deserted, grass-grown +courtyard, half hidden in shadows, in whose centre stood the +fateful and long sealed-up well! A shudder came over her at again +being brought into contact with the cause of her frightful vision, +but as her eyes became accustomed to the darkness, she saw +something more real and appalling! The well was no longer sealed! +Fragments of bricks and boards lay around it! One end of a rope, +coiled around it like a huge snake, descended its foul depths; and +as she gazed with staring eyes, the head and shoulders of a man +emerged slowly from it! But it was NOT the ghostly apparition of +last evening, and her terror changed to scorn and indignation as +she recognized the face of Starbuck! + +Their eyes met; an oath broke from his lips. He made a movement to +spring from the well, but as the girl started back, the pistol held +in her hand was discharged aimlessly in the air, and the report +echoed throughout the courtyard. With a curse Starbuck drew back, +instantly disappeared in the well, and Polly fell fainting on the +steps. When she came to, her father and Larry were at her side. +They had been alarmed at the report, and had rushed quickly to the +patio, but not in time to prevent the escape of Starbuck and his +accomplice. By the time she had recovered her consciousness, they +had learned the full extent of that extraordinary revelation which +she had so innocently precipitated. Sobriente's well had really +concealed a rich gold ledge,--actually tunneled and galleried by +him secretly in the past,--and its only other outlet was an opening +in the garden hidden by a stone which turned on a swivel. Its +existence had been unknown to Sobriente's successor, but was known +to the Kanaka who had worked with Sobriente, who fled with his +daughter after the murder, but who no doubt was afraid to return +and work the mine. He had imparted the secret to Starbuck, another +half-breed, son of a Yankee missionary and Hawaiian wife, who had +evidently conceived this plan of seeking Buena Vista with an +accomplice, and secretly removing such gold as was still +accessible. The accomplice, afterwards identified by Larry as the +wandering tramp, failed to discover the secret entrance FROM the +garden, and Starbuck was consequently obliged to attempt it from +the hotel--for which purpose he had introduced himself as a +boarder--by opening the disused well secretly at night. These +facts were obtained from papers found in the otherwise valueless +trunks, weighted with stones for ballast, which Starbuck had +brought to the hotel to take away his stolen treasure in, but which +he was obliged to leave in his hurried flight. The attempt would +have doubtless succeeded but for Polly's courageous and timely +interference! + +And now that they had told her ALL, they only wanted to know what +had first excited HER suspicions, and driven her to seek the well +as the object of Starbuck's machinations? THEY had noticed her +manner when she entered the house that night, and Starbuck's +evident annoyance. Had she taxed him with her suspicions, and so +discovered a clue? + +It was a terrible temptation to Polly to pose as a more perfect +heroine, and one may not blame her if she did not rise entirely +superior to it. Her previous belief, that the head of the +accomplice at the opening of the garden was that of a GHOST, she +now felt was certainly in the way, as was also her conduct to +Starbuck, whom she believed to be equally frightened, and whom she +never once suspected! So she said, with a certain lofty +simplicity, that there were SOME THINGS which she really did not +care to talk about, and Larry and her father left her that night +with the firm conviction that the rascal Starbuck had tried to +tempt her to fly with him and his riches, and had been crushingly +foiled. Polly never denied this, and once, in later days, when +admiringly taxed with it by Larry, she admitted with dove-like +simplicity that she MAY have been too foolishly polite to her +father's guest for the sake of her father's hotel. + +However, all this was of small account to the thrilling news of a +new discovery and working of the "old gold ledge" at Buena Vista! +As the three kept their secret from the world, the discovery was +accepted in the neighborhood as the result of careful examination +and prospecting on the part of Colonel Swinger and his partner +Larry Hawkins. And when the latter gentleman afterwards boldly +proposed to Polly Swinger, she mischievously declared that she +accepted him only that the secret might not go "out of the family." + + + +LIBERTY JONES'S DISCOVERY + + +It was at best merely a rocky trail winding along a shelf of the +eastern slope of the Santa Cruz range, yet the only road between +the sea and the inland valley. The hoof-prints of a whole century +of zigzagging mules were impressed on the soil, regularly soaked by +winter rains and dried by summer suns during that period; the +occasional ruts of heavy, rude, wooden wheels--long obsolete--were +still preserved and visible. Weather-worn boulders and ledges, +lying in the unclouded glare of an August sky, radiated a quivering +heat that was intolerable, even while above them the masts of +gigantic pines rocked their tops in the cold southwestern trades +from the unseen ocean beyond. A red, burning dust lay everywhere, +as if the heat were slowly and visibly precipitating itself. + +The creaking of wheels and axles, the muffled plunge of hoofs, and +the cough of a horse in the dust thus stirred presently broke the +profound woodland silence. Then a dirty white canvas-covered +emigrant wagon slowly arose with the dust along the ascent. It was +travel-stained and worn, and with its rawboned horses seemed to +have reached the last stage of its journey and fitness. The only +occupants, a man and a girl, appeared to be equally jaded and +exhausted, with the added querulousness of discontent in their +sallow and badly nourished faces. Their voices, too, were not +unlike the creaking they had been pitched to overcome, and there +was an absence of reserve and consciousness in their speech, which +told pathetically of an equal absence of society. + +"It's no user talkin'! I tell ye, ye hain't got no more sense than +a coyote! I'm sick and tired of it, doggoned if I ain't! Ye ain't +no more use nor a hossfly,--and jest ez hinderin'! It was along o' +you that we lost the stock at Laramie, and ef ye'd bin at all +decent and takin', we'd hev had kempany that helped, instead of +laggin' on yere alone!" + +"What did ye bring me for?" retorted the girl shrilly. "I might +hev stayed with Aunt Marty. I wasn't hankerin' to come." + +"Bring ye for?" repeated her father contemptuously; "I reckoned ye +might he o' some account here, whar wimmin folks is skeerce, in the +way o' helpin',--and mebbe gettin' yer married to some likely +feller. Mighty much chance o' that, with yer yaller face and skin +and bones." + +"Ye can't blame me for takin' arter you, dad," she said, with a +shrill laugh, but no other resentment of his brutality. + +"Ye want somebody to take arter you--with a club," he retorted +angrily. "Ye hear! Wot's that ye're doin' now?" + +She had risen and walked to the tail of the wagon. "Goin' to get +out and walk. I'm tired o' bein' jawed at." + +She jumped into the road. The act was neither indignant nor +vengeful; the frequency of such scenes had blunted their sting. +She was probably "tired" of the quarrel, and ended it rudely. Her +father, however, let fly a Parthian arrow. + +"Ye needn't think I'm goin' to wait for ye, ez I hev! Ye've got to +keep tetch with the team, or get left. And a good riddance of bad +rubbidge." + +In reply the girl dived into the underwood beside the trail, picked +a wild berry or two, stripped a wand of young hazel she had broken +off, and switching it at her side, skipped along on the outskirts +of the wood and ambled after the wagon. Seen in the full, +merciless glare of a Californian sky, she justified her father's +description; thin and bony, her lank frame outstripped the body of +her ragged calico dress, which was only kept on her shoulders by +straps,--possibly her father's cast-off braces. A boy's soft felt +hat covered her head, and shadowed her only notable feature, a pair +of large dark eyes, looking larger for the hollow temples which +narrowed the frame in which they were set. + +So long as the wagon crawled up the ascent the girl knew she could +easily keep up with it, or even distance the tired horses. She +made one or two incursions into the wood, returning like an animal +from quest of food, with something in her mouth, which she was +tentatively chewing, and once only with some inedible mandrono +berries, plucked solely for their brilliant coloring. It was very +hot and singularly close; the higher current of air had subsided, +and, looking up, a singular haze seemed to have taken its place +between the treetops. Suddenly she heard a strange, rumbling +sound; an odd giddiness overtook her, and she was obliged to clutch +at a sapling to support herself; she laughed vacantly, though a +little frightened, and looked vaguely towards the summit of the +road; but the wagon had already disappeared. A strange feeling of +nausea then overcame her; she spat out the leaves she had been +chewing, disgustedly. But the sensation as quickly passed, and she +once more sought the trail and began slowly to follow the tracks of +the wagon. The air blew freshly, the treetops began again to rock +over her head, and the incident was forgotten. + +Presently she paused; she must have missed the trail, for the wagon +tracks had ended abruptly before a large boulder that lay across +the mountain trail. She dipped into the woods again; here there +were other wagon tracks that confused her. It was like her dogged, +stupid father to miss the trail; she felt a gleam of malicious +satisfaction at his discomfiture. Sooner or later, he would have +to retrace his steps and virtually come back for her! She took up +a position where two rough wheel ruts and tracks intersected each +other, one of which must be the missing trail. She noticed, too, +the broader hoof-prints of cattle without the following wheel ruts, +and instead of traces, the long smooth trails made by the dragging +of logs, and knew by these tokens that she must be near the highway +or some woodman's hut or ranch. She began to be thirsty, and was +glad, presently, when her quick, rustic ear caught the tinkling of +water. Yet it was not so easy to discover, and she was getting +footsore and tired again before she found it, some distance away, +in a gully coming from a fissure in a dislocated piece of outcrop. +It was beautifully clear, cold, and sparkling, with a slightly +sweetish taste, yet unlike the brackish "alkali" of the plains. It +refreshed and soothed her greatly, so much that, reclining against +a tree, but where she would be quite visible from the trail, her +eyes closed dreamily, and presently she slept. + +When she awoke, the shafts of sunlight were striking almost level +into her eyes. She must have slept two hours. Her father had not +returned; she knew the passage of the wagon would have awakened +her. She began to feel strange, but not yet alarmed; it was only +the uncertainty that made her uneasy. Had her father really gone +on by some other trail? Or had he really hurried on and left her, +as he said he would? The thought brought an odd excitement to her +rather than any fear. A sudden sense of freedom, as if some +galling chain had dropped from her, sent a singular thrill through +her frame. Yet she felt confused with her independence, not +knowing what to do with it, and momentarily dazzled with the +possible gift. + +At this moment she heard voices, and the figures of two men +appeared on the trail. + +They were talking earnestly, and walking as if familiar with the +spot, yet gazing around them as if at some novelty of the aspect. + +"And look there," said one; "there has been some serious disturbance +of that outcrop," pointing in the direction of the spring; "the +lower part has distinctly subsided." He spoke with a certain +authority, and dominance of position, and was evidently the +superior, as he was the elder of the two, although both were roughly +dressed. + +"Yes, it does kinder look as if it had lost its holt, like the +ledge yonder." + +"And you see I am right; the movement was from east to west," +continued the elder man. + +The girl could not comprehend what they said, and even thought them +a little silly. But she advanced towards them; at which they +stopped short, staring at her. With feminine instinct she +addressed the more important one:-- + +"Ye ain't passed no wagon nor team goin' on, hev ye?" + +"What sort of wagon?" said the man. + +"Em'grant wagon, two yaller hosses. Old man--my dad--drivin'." +She added the latter kinship as a protecting influence against +strangers, in spite of her previous independence. + +The men glanced at each other. + +"How long ago?" + +The girl suddenly remembered that she had slept two hours. + +"Sens noon," she said hesitatingly. + +"Since the earthquake?" + +"Wot's that?" + +The man came impatiently towards her. "How did you come here?" + +"Got outer the wagon to walk. I reckon dad missed the trail, and +hez got off somewhere where I can't find him." + +"What trail was he on,--where was he going?" + +"Sank Hozay,* I reckon. He was goin' up the grade--side o' the +hill; he must hev turned off where there's a big rock hangin' +over." + + +* San Jose. + + +"Did you SEE him turn off?" + +"No." + +The second man, who was in hearing distance, had turned away, and +was ostentatiously examining the sky and the treetops; the man who +had spoken to her joined him, and they said something in a low +voice. They turned again and came slowly towards her. She, from +some obscure sense of imitation, stared at the treetops and the sky +as the second man had done. But the first man now laid his hand +kindly on her shoulder and said, "Sit down." + +Then they told her there had been an earthquake so strong that it +had thrown down a part of the hillside, including the wagon trail. +That a wagon team and driver, such as she had described, had been +carried down with it, crushed to fragments, and buried under a +hundred feet of rock in the gulch below. A party had gone down to +examine, but it would be weeks perhaps before they found it, and +she must be prepared for the worst. She looked at them vaguely and +with tearless eyes. + +"Then ye reckon dad's dead?" + +"We fear it." + +"Then wot's a-goin' to become o' me?" she said simply. + +They glanced again at each other. "Have you no friends in +California?" said the elder man. + +"Nary one." + +"What was your father going to do?" + +"Dunno. I reckon HE didn't either." + +"You may stay here for the present," said the elder man meditatively. +"Can you milk?" + +The girl nodded. "And I suppose you know something about looking +after stock?" he continued. + +The girl remembered that her father thought she didn't, but this +was no time for criticism, and she again nodded. + +"Come with me," said the older man, rising. "I suppose," he added, +glancing at her ragged frock, "everything you have is in the +wagon." + +She nodded, adding with the same cold naivete, "It ain't much!" + +They walked on, the girl following; at times straying furtively on +either side, as if meditating an escape in the woods,--which indeed +had once or twice been vaguely in her thoughts,--but chiefly to +avoid further questioning and not to hear what the men said to each +other. For they were evidently speaking of her, and she could not +help hearing the younger repeat her words, "Wot's agoin' to become +o' me?" with considerable amusement, and the addition: "She'll take +care of herself, you bet! I call that remark o' hers the richest +thing out." + +"And I call the state of things that provoked it--monstrous!" said +the elder man grimly. "You don't know the lives of these people." + +Presently they came to an open clearing in the forest, yet so +incomplete that many of the felled trees, partly lopped of their +boughs, still lay where they had fallen. There was a cabin or +dwelling of unplaned, unpainted boards; very simple in structure, +yet made in a workmanlike fashion, quite unlike the usual log cabin +she had seen. This made her think that the elder man was a +"towny," and not a frontiersman like the other. + +As they approached the cabin the elder man stopped, and turning to +her, said:-- + +"Do you know Indians?" + +The girl started, and then recovering herself with a quick laugh: +"G'lang!--there ain't any Injins here!" + +"Not the kind YOU mean; these are very peaceful. There's a squaw +here whom you will"--he stopped, hesitated as he looked critically +at the girl, and then corrected himself--"who will help you." + +He pushed open the cabin door and showed an interior, equally +simple but well joined and fitted,--a marvel of neatness and finish +to the frontier girl's eye. There were shelves and cupboards and +other conveniences, yet with no ostentation of refinement to +frighten her rustic sensibilities. + +Then he pushed open another door leading into a shed and called +"Waya." A stout, undersized Indian woman, fitted with a coarse +cotton gown, but cleaner and more presentable than the girl's one +frock, appeared in the doorway. "This is Waya, who attends to the +cooking and cleaning," he said; "and by the way, what is your +name?" + +"Libby Jones." + +He took a small memorandum book and a "stub" of pencil from his +pocket. "Elizabeth Jones," he said, writing it down. The girl +interposed a long red hand. + +"No," she interrupted sharply, "not Elizabeth, but Libby, short for +Lib'rty." + +"Liberty?" + +"Yes." + +"Liberty Jones, then. Well, Waya, this is Miss Jones, who will +look after the cows and calves--and the dairy." Then glancing at +her torn dress, he added: "You'll find some clean things in there, +until I can send up something from San Jose. Waya will show you." + +Without further speech he turned away with the other man. When +they were some distance from the cabin, the younger remarked:-- + +"More like a boy than a girl, ain't she?" + +"So much the better for her work," returned the elder grimly. + +"I reckon! I was only thinkin' she didn't han'some much either as +a boy or girl, eh, doctor?" he pursued. + +"Well! as THAT won't make much difference to the cows, calves, or +the dairy, it needn't trouble US," returned the doctor dryly. But +here a sudden outburst of laughter from the cabin made them both +turn in that direction. They were in time to see Liberty Jones +dancing out of the cabin door in a large cotton pinafore, evidently +belonging to the squaw, who was following her with half-laughing, +half-frightened expostulations. The two men stopped and gazed at +the spectacle. + +"Don't seem to be takin' the old man's death very pow'fully," said +the younger, with a laugh. + +"Quite as much as he deserved, I daresay," said the doctor curtly. +"If the accident had happened to HER, he would have whined and +whimpered to us for the sake of getting something, but have been as +much relieved, you may be certain. SHE'S too young and too natural +to be a hypocrite yet." + +Suddenly the laughter ceased and Liberty Jones's voice arose, +shrill but masterful: "Thar, that'll do! Quit now! You jest get +back to your scrubbin'--d'ye hear? I'm boss o' this shanty, you +bet!" + +The doctor turned with a grim smile to his companion. "That's the +only thing that bothered me, and I've been waiting for. She's +settled it. She'll do. Come." + +They turned away briskly through the wood. At the end of half an +hour's walk they found the team that had brought them there in +waiting, and drove towards San Jose. It was nearly ten miles +before they passed another habitation or trace of clearing. And by +this time night had fallen upon the cabin they had left, and upon +the newly made orphan and her Indian companion, alone and contented +in that trackless solitude. + + . . . . . . + +Liberty Jones had been a year at the cabin. In that time she had +learned that her employer's name was Doctor Ruysdael, that he had a +lucrative practice in San Jose, but had also "taken up" a league or +two of wild forest land in the Santa Cruz range, which he preserved +and held after a fashion of his own, which gave him the reputation +of being a "crank" among the very few neighbors his vast possessions +permitted, and the equally few friends his singular tastes allowed +him. It was believed that a man owning such an enormous quantity of +timber land, who should refuse to set up a sawmill and absolutely +forbid the felling of trees; who should decline to connect it with +the highway to Santa Cruz, and close it against improvement and +speculation, had given sufficient evidence of his insanity; but when +to this was added the rumor that he himself was not only devoid of +the human instinct of hunting the wild animals with which his domain +abounded, but that he held it so sacred to their use as to forbid +the firing of a gun within his limits, and that these restrictions +were further preserved and "policed" by the scattered remnants of a +band of aborigines,--known as "digger Injins,"--it was seriously +hinted that his eccentricity had acquired a political and moral +significance, and demanded legislative interference. But the doctor +was a rich man, a necessity to his patients, a good marksman, and, +it was rumored, did not include his fellow men among the animals he +had a distaste for killing. + +Of all this, however, Liberty knew little and cared less. The +solitude appealed to her sense of freedom; she did not "hanker" +after a society she had never known. At the end of the first week, +when the doctor communicated to her briefly, by letter, the +convincing proofs of the death of her father and his entombment +beneath the sunken cliff, she accepted the fact without comment or +apparent emotion. Two months later, when her only surviving +relative, "Aunt Marty," of Missouri, acknowledged the news-- +communicated by Doctor Ruysdael--with Scriptural quotations and the +cheerful hope that it "would be a lesson to her" and she would +"profit in her new place," she left her aunt's letter unanswered. + +She looked after the cows and calves with an interest that was +almost possessory, patronized and played with the squaw,--yet made +her feel her inferiority,--and moved among the peaceful aborigines +with the domination of a white woman and a superior. She tolerated +the half-monthly visits of "Jim Hoskins," the young companion of +the doctor, who she learned was the doctor's factor and overseer of +the property, who lived seven miles away on an agricultural +clearing, and whose control of her actions was evidently limited by +the doctor,--for the doctor's sake alone. Nor was Mr. Hoskins +inclined to exceed those limits. He looked upon her as something +abnormal,--a "crank" as remarkable in her way as her patron was in +his, neuter of sex and vague of race, and he simply restricted his +supervision to the bringing and taking of messages. She remained +sole queen of the domain. A rare straggler from the main road, +penetrating this seclusion, might have scarcely distinguished her +from Waya, in her coarse cotton gown and slouched hat, except for +the free stride which contrasted with her companion's waddle. +Once, in following an estrayed calf, she had crossed the highway +and been saluted by a passing teamster in the digger dialect; yet +the mistake left no sting in her memory. And, like the digger, she +shrank from that civilization which had only proved a hard +taskmaster. + +The sole touch of human interest she had in her surroundings was in +the rare visits of the doctor and his brief but sincere commendation +of her rude and rustic work. It is possible that the strange, +middle-aged, gray-haired, intellectual man, whose very language was +at times mysterious and unintelligible to her, and whose suggestion +of power awed her, might have touched some untried filial chord in +her being. Although she felt that, save for absolute freedom, she +was little more to him than she had been to her father, yet he had +never told her she had "no sense," that she was "a hindrance," and +he had even praised her performance of her duties. Eagerly as she +looked for his coming, in his actual presence she felt a singular +uneasiness of which she was not entirely ashamed, and if she was +relieved at his departure, it none the less left her to a delightful +memory of him, a warm sense of his approval, and a fierce ambition +to be worthy of it, for which she would have sacrificed herself or +the other miserable retainers about her, as a matter of course. She +had driven Waya and the other squaws far along the sparse tableland +pasture in search of missing stock; she herself had lain out all +night on the rocks beside an ailing heifer. Yet, while satisfied to +earn his praise for the performance of her duty, for some feminine +reason she thought more frequently of a casual remark he had made on +his last visit: "You are stronger and more healthy in this air," he +had said, looking critically into her face. "We have got that +abominable alkali out of your system, and wholesome food will do the +rest." She was not sure she had quite understood him, but she +remembered that she had felt her face grow hot when he spoke,-- +perhaps because she had not understood him. + +His next visit was a day or two delayed, and in her anxiety she had +ventured as far as the highway to earnestly watch for his coming. +From her hiding-place in the underwood she could see the team and +Jim Hoskins already waiting for him. Presently she saw him drive +up to the trail in a carryall with a party of ladies and gentlemen. +He alighted, bade "Good-by" to the party, and the team turned to +retrace its course. But in that single moment she had been struck +and bewildered by what seemed to her the dazzlingly beautiful +apparel of the women, and their prettiness. She felt a sudden +consciousness of her own coarse, shapeless calico gown, her +straggling hair, and her felt hat, and a revulsion of feeling +seized her. She crept like a wounded animal out of the underwood, +and then ran swiftly and almost fiercely back towards the cabin. +She ran so fast that for a time she almost kept pace with the +doctor and Hoskins in the wagon on the distant trail. Then she +dived into the underwood again, and making a short cut through the +forest, came at the end of two hours within hailing distance of the +cabin,--footsore and exhausted, in spite of the strange excitement +that had driven her back. Here she thought she heard voices--his +voice among the rest--calling her, but the same singular revulsion +of feeling hurried her vaguely on again, even while she experienced +a foolish savage delight in not answering the summons. In this +erratic wandering she came upon the spring she had found on her +first entrance in the forest a year ago, and drank feverishly a +second time at its trickling source. She could see that since her +first visit it had worn a great hollow below the tree roots and now +formed a shining, placid pool. As she stooped to look at it, she +suddenly observed that it reflected her whole figure as in a cruel +mirror,--her slouched hat and loosened hair, her coarse and +shapeless gown, her hollow cheeks and dry yellow skin,--in all +their hopeless, uncompromising details. She uttered a quick, +angry, half-reproachful cry, and turned again to fly. But she had +not gone far before she came upon the hurrying figures and anxious +faces of the doctor and Hoskins. She stopped, trembling and +irresolute. + +"Ah," said the doctor, in a tone of frank relief. "Here you are! +I was getting worried about you. Waya said you had been gone since +morning!" He stopped and looked at her attentively. "Is anything +the matter?" + +His evident concern sent a warm glow over her chilly frame, and yet +the strange sensation remained. "No--no!" she stammered. + +Doctor Ruysdael turned to Hoskins. "Go back and tell Waya I've +found her." + +Libby felt that the doctor only wanted to get rid of his companion, +and became awed again. + +"Has anybody been bothering you?" + +"No." + +"Have the diggers frightened you?" + +"No"--with a gesture of contempt. + +"Have you and Waya quarreled?" + +"Nary"--with a faint, tremulous smile. + +He still stared at her, and then dropped his blue eyes musingly. +"Are you lonely here? Would you rather go to San Jose?" + +Like a flash the figures of the two smartly dressed women started +up before her again, with every detail of their fresh and wholesome +finery as cruelly distinct as had been her own shapeless ugliness +in the mirror of the spring. "No! NO!" she broke out vehemently +and passionately. "Never!" + +He smiled gently. "Look here! I'll send you up some books. You +read--don't you?" She nodded quickly. "Some magazines and papers. +Odd I never thought of it before," he added half musingly. "Come +along to the cabin. And," he stopped again and said decisively, +"the next time you want anything, don't wait for me to come, but +write." + +A few days after he left she received a package of books,--an odd +collection of novels, magazines, and illustrated journals of the +period. She received them eagerly as an evidence of his concern +for her, but it is to be feared that her youthful nature found +little satisfaction in the gratification of fancy. Many of the +people she read of were strange to her; many of the incidents +related seemed to her mere lies; some tales which treated of people +in her own sphere she found profoundly uninteresting. In one of +the cheaper magazines she chanced upon a fashion plate; she glanced +eagerly through all the others for a like revelation until she got +a dozen together, when she promptly relegated the remaining +literature to a corner and oblivion. The text accompanying the +plates was in a jargon not always clear, but her instinct supplied +the rest. She dispatched by Hoskins a note to Doctor Ruysdael: +"Please send me some brite kalikers and things for sewing. You +told me to ask." A few days later brought the response in a good- +sized parcel. + +Yet this did not keep her from her care of the stock nor her +rambles in the forest; she was quick to utilize her rediscovery of +the spring for watering the cattle; it was not so far afield as the +half-dried creek in the canyon, and was a quiet sylvan spot. She +ate her frugal midday meal there and drank of its waters, and, +secure in her seclusion, bathed there and made her rude toilet when +the cows were driven home. But she did not again look into its +mirrored surface when it was tranquil! + +And so a month passed. But when Doctor Ruysdael was again due at +the cabin, a letter was brought by Hoskins, with the news that he +was called away on professional business down the coast, and could +not come until two weeks later. In the disappointment that +overcame her, she did not at first notice that Hoskins was gazing +at her with a singular expression, which was really one of +undisguised admiration. Never having seen this before in the eyes +of any man who looked at her, she referred it to some vague +"larking" or jocularity, for which she was in no mood. + +"Say, Libby! you're gettin' to be a right smart-lookin' gal. Seems +to agree with ye up here," said Hoskins with an awkward laugh. +"Darned ef ye ain't lookin' awful purty!" + +"G'long!" said Liberty Jones, more than ever convinced of his +badinage. + +"Fact," said Hoskins energetically. "Why, Doc would tell ye so, +too. See ef he don't!" + +At this Liberty Jones felt her face grow hot. "You jess get!" she +said, turning away in as much embarrassment as anger. Yet he +hovered near her with awkward attentions that pleased while it +still angered her. He offered to go with her to look up the cows; +she flatly declined, yet with a strange satisfaction in his evident +embarrassment. This may have lent some animation to her face, for +he drew a long breath and said:-- + +"Don't go pertendin' ye don't know yer purty. Say, let me and you +walk a bit and have a talk together." But Libby had another idea +in her mind and curtly dismissed him. Then she ran swiftly to the +spring, for the words "The Doc will tell ye so, too" were ringing +in her ears. The doctor who came with the two beautifully dressed +women! HE--would tell her she was pretty! She had not dared to +look at herself in that crystal mirror since that dreadful day two +months ago. She would now. + +It was a pretty place in the cool shade of the giant trees, and the +hoof-marks of cattle drinking from the run beneath the pool had not +disturbed the margin of that tranquil sylvan basin. For a moment +she stood tremulous and uncertain, and then going up to the shining +mirror, dropped on her knees before it with her thin red hands +clasped on her lap. Unconsciously she had taken the attitude of +prayer; perhaps there was something like it in her mind. + +And then the light glanced full on the figure that she saw there! + +It fell on a full oval face and throat guileless of fleck or stain, +smooth as a child's and glowing with health; on large dark eyes, no +longer sunk in their orbits, but filled with an eager, happy light; +on bared arms now shapely in contour and cushioned with firm flesh; +on a dazzling smile, the like of which had never been on the face +of Liberty Jones before! + +She rose to her feet, and yet lingered as if loath to part from +this delightful vision. Then a fear overcame her that it was some +trick of the water, and she sped swiftly back to the house to +consult the little mirror which hung in her sleeping-room, but +which she had never glanced at since the momentous day of the +spring. She took it shyly into the sunshine, and found that it +corroborated the reflection of the spring. That night she worked +until late at the calico Doctor Ruysdael had sent her, and went to +bed happy. The next day brought her Hoskins again with a feeble +excuse of inquiring if she had a letter for the doctor, and she was +surprised to find that he was reinforced by a stranger from +Hoskins's farm, who was equally awkward and vaguely admiring. But +the appearance of the TWO men produced a singular phase in her +impressions and experience. She was no longer indignant at +Hoskins, but she found relief in accepting the compliments of the +stranger in preference, and felt a delight in Hoskins's discomfiture. +Waya, promoted to the burlesque of a chaperone, grinned with +infinite delight and understanding. + +When at last the day came for the doctor's arrival, he was duly met +by Hoskins, and as duly informed by that impressible subordinate of +the great change in Liberty's appearance. But the doctor was far +from being equally impressed with his factor's story, and indeed +showed much more interest in the appearance of the stock which they +met along the road. Once the doctor got out of the wagon to +inspect a cow, and particularly the coat of a rough draught horse +that had been turned out and put under Liberty's care. "His skin +is like velvet," said the doctor. "The girl evidently understands +stock, and knows how to keep them in condition." + +"I reckon she's beginning to understand herself, too," said +Hoskins. "Golly! wait till ye see HER." + +The doctor DID see her, but with what feelings he did not as +frankly express. She was not at the cabin when they arrived, but +presently appeared from the direction of the spring where, for +reasons of her own, she had evidently made her toilet. Doctor +Ruysdael was astounded; Hoskins's praise was not exaggerated; and +there was an added charm that Hoskins was not prepared for. She +had put on a gown of her own making,--the secret toil of many a +long night,--amateurishly fashioned from some cheap yellow calico +the doctor had sent her, yet fitting her wonderfully, and showing +every curve of her graceful figure. Unaccented by a corset,--an +article she had never known,--even the lines of the stiff, +unyielding calico had a fashion that was nymph-like and suited her +unfettered limbs. Doctor Ruysdael was profoundly moved. Though a +philosopher, he was practical. He found himself suddenly +confronted not only by a beautiful girl, but a problem! It was +impossible to keep the existence of this woodland nymph from the +knowledge of his distant neighbors; it was equally impossible for +him to assume the responsibility of keeping a goddess like this in +her present position. He had noticed her previous improvement, but +had never dreamed that pure and wholesome living could in two +months work such a miracle. And he was to a certain degree +responsible, HE had created her,--a beautiful Frankenstein, whose +lustrous, appealing eyes were even now menacing his security and +position. + +Perhaps she saw trouble and perplexity in the face where she had +expected admiration and pleasure, for a slight chill went over her +as he quickly praised the appearance of the stock and spoke of her +own improvement. But when they were alone, he turned to her +abruptly. + +"You said you had no wish to go to San Jose?" + +"No." Yet she was conscious that her greatest objection had been +removed, and she colored faintly. + +"Listen to me," he said dryly. "You deserve a better position than +this,--a better home and surroundings than you have here. You are +older, too,--a woman almost,--and you must look ahead." + +A look of mingled fright, reproach, and appeal came into her +eloquent face. "Yer wantin' to send me away?" she stammered. + +"No," he said frankly. "It is you who are GROWING away. This is +no longer the place for you." + +"But I want to stay. I don't wanter go. I am--I WAS happy here." + +"But I'm thinking of giving up this place. It takes up too much of +my time. You must be provided"-- + +"YOU are going away?" she said passionately. + +"Yes." + +"Take me with you. I'll go anywhere!--to San Jose---wherever you +go. Don't turn me off as dad did, for I'll foller you as I never +followed dad. I'll go with you--or I'll die!" + +There was neither fear nor shame in her words; it was the outspoken +instinct of the animal he had been rearing; be was convinced and +appalled by it. + +"I am returning to San Jose at once," he said gravely. "You shall +go with me--FOR THE PRESENT! Get yourself ready!" + +He took her to San Jose, and temporarily to the house of a patient,-- +a widow lady,--while he tried, alone, to grapple with the problem +that now confronted him. But that problem became more complicated +at the end of the third day, by Liberty Jones falling suddenly and +alarmingly ill. The symptoms were so grave that the doctor, in his +anxiety, called in a brother physician in consultation. When the +examination was over, the two men withdrew and stared at each other. + +"Of course there is no doubt that the symptoms all point to slow +arsenical poisoning," said the consulting doctor. + +"Yes," said Ruysdael quickly, "yet it is utterly inexplicable, both +as to motive and opportunity." + +"Humph!" said the other grimly, "young ladies take arsenic in +minute doses to improve the complexion and promote tissue, +forgetting that the effects are cumulative when they stop suddenly. +Your young friend has 'sworn off' too quickly." + +"But it is impossible," said Doctor Ruysdael impatiently. "She is +a mere child--a country girl--ignorant of such habits." + +"Humph! the peasants in the Tyrol try it on themselves after +noticing the effect on the coats of cattle." + +Doctor Ruysdael started. A recollection of the sleek draught horse +flashed upon him. He rose and hastily re-entered the patient's +room. In a few moments he returned. "Do you think I could remove +her at once to the mountains?" he said gravely. + +"Yes, with care and a return to graduated doses of the same poison; +you know it's the only remedy just now," answered the other. + +By noon the next day the doctor and his patient had returned to the +cabin, but Ruysdael himself carried the helpless Liberty Jones to +the spring and deposited her gently beside it. "You may drink +now," he said gravely. + +The girl did so eagerly, apparently imbibing new strength from the +sparkling water. The doctor meanwhile coolly filled a phial from +the same source, and made a hasty test of the contents by the aid +of some other phials from his case. The result seemed to satisfy +him. Then he said gravely: + +"And THIS is the spring you had discovered?" + +The girl nodded. + +"And you and the cattle have daily used it?" + +She nodded again wonderingly. Then she caught his hand appealingly. + +"You won't send me away?" + +He smiled oddly as he glanced from the waters of the hill to the +brimming eyes. "No." + +"No-r," tremulously, "go away--yourself?" + +The doctor looked this time only into her eyes. There was a +tremendous idea in his own, which seemed in some way to have solved +that dreadful problem. + +"No! We will stay here TOGETHER." + + . . . . . . + +Six months later there was a paragraph in the San Francisco press: +"The wonderful Arsenical Spring in the Santa Cruz Mountain, known +as 'Liberty Spring,' discovered by Doctor Ruysdael, has proved such +a remarkable success that we understand the temporary huts for +patients are to be shortly replaced by a magnificent Spa Hotel +worthy of the spot, and the eligible villa sites it has brought +into the market. It will be a source of pleasure to all to know +that the beautiful nymph--a worthy successor to the far-famed +'Elise' of the German 'Brunnen'--who has administered the waters to +so many grateful patients will still be in attendance, although it +is rumored that she is shortly to become the wife of the +distinguished discoverer." + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg Etext of Mr. Jack Hamlin's Mediation, by Harte + diff --git a/old/jhmln10.zip b/old/jhmln10.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..82d0e4f --- /dev/null +++ b/old/jhmln10.zip |