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+Project Gutenberg Etext of Mrs. Skaggs's Husbands, by Bret Harte
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+Title:  Mrs. Skaggs's Husbands
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+Author:  Bret Harte
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+April, 2001  [Etext #2597]
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+Project Gutenberg Etext of Mrs. Skaggs's Husbands, by Bret Harte
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+
+MRS. SKAGGS'S HUSBANDS
+
+by Bret Harte
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+MRS. SKAGGS'S HUSBANDS
+
+HOW SANTA CLAUS CAME TO SIMPSON'S BAR
+
+THE PRINCESS BOB AND HER FRIENDS
+
+THE ILIAD OF SANDY BAR
+
+MR. THOMPSON'S PRODIGAL
+
+THE ROMANCE OR MADRONO HOLLOW
+
+THE POET OF SIERRA FLAT
+
+THE CHRISTMAS GIFT THAT CAME TO RUPERT
+
+
+
+
+MRS. SKAGGS'S HUSBANDS.
+
+
+PART I--WEST.
+
+
+The sun was rising in the foot-hills.  But for an hour the black
+mass of Sierra eastward of Angel's had been outlined with fire, and
+the conventional morning had come two hours before with the down
+coach from Placerville.  The dry, cold, dewless California night
+still lingered in the long canyons and folded skirts of Table
+Mountain.  Even on the mountain road the air was still sharp, and
+that urgent necessity for something to keep out the chill, which
+sent the barkeeper sleepily among his bottles and wineglasses at
+the station, obtained all along the road.
+
+Perhaps it might be said that the first stir of life was in the
+bar-rooms.  A few birds twittered in the sycamores at the roadside,
+but long before that glasses had clicked and bottles gurgled in the
+saloon of the Mansion House.  This was still lit by a dissipated-
+looking hanging-lamp, which was evidently the worse for having been
+up all night, and bore a singular resemblance to a faded reveller
+of Angel's, who even then sputtered and flickered in HIS socket in
+an arm-chair below it,--a resemblance so plain that when the first
+level sunbeam pierced the window-pane, the barkeeper, moved by a
+sentiment of consistency and compassion, put them both out together.
+
+Then the sun came up haughtily.  When it had passed the eastern
+ridge it began, after its habit, to lord it over Angel's, sending
+the thermometer up twenty degrees in as many minutes, driving the
+mules to the sparse shade of corrals and fences, making the red
+dust incandescent, and renewing its old imperious aggression on the
+spiked bosses of the convex shield of pines that defended Table
+Mountain.  Thither by nine o'clock all coolness had retreated, and
+the "outsides" of the up stage plunged their hot faces in its
+aromatic shadows as in water.
+
+It was the custom of the driver of the Wingdam coach to whip up his
+horses and enter Angel's at that remarkable pace which the woodcuts
+in the hotel bar-room represented to credulous humanity as the
+usual rate of speed of that conveyance.  At such times the habitual
+expression of disdainful reticence and lazy official severity which
+he wore on the box became intensified as the loungers gathered
+about the vehicle, and only the boldest ventured to address him.
+It was the Hon. Judge Beeswinger, Member of Assembly, who to-day
+presumed, perhaps rashly, on the strength of his official position.
+
+"Any political news from below, Bill?" he asked, as the latter
+slowly descended from his lofty perch, without, however, any
+perceptible coming down of mien or manner.
+
+"Not much," said Bill, with deliberate gravity.  "The President o'
+the United States hezn't bin hisself sens you refoosed that seat in
+the Cabinet.  The ginral feelin' in perlitical circles is one o'
+regret."
+
+Irony, even of this outrageous quality, was too common in Angel's
+to excite either a smile or a frown.  Bill slowly entered the bar-
+room during a dry, dead silence, in which only a faint spirit of
+emulation survived.
+
+"Ye didn't bring up that agint o' Rothschild's this trip?" asked
+the barkeeper, slowly, by way of vague contribution to the
+prevailing tone of conversation.
+
+"No," responded Bill, with thoughtful exactitude.  "He said he
+couldn't look inter that claim o' Johnson's without first
+consultin' the Bank o' England."
+
+The Mr. Johnson here alluded to being present as the faded reveller
+the barkeeper had lately put out, and as the alleged claim
+notoriously possessed no attractions whatever to capitalists,
+expectation naturally looked to him for some response to this
+evident challenge.  He did so by simply stating that he would "take
+sugar" in his, and by walking unsteadily toward the bar, as if
+accepting a festive invitation.  To the credit of Bill be it
+recorded that he did not attempt to correct the mistake, but
+gravely touched glasses with him, and after saying "Here's another
+nail in your coffin,"--a cheerful sentiment, to which "And the hair
+all off your head," was playfully added by the others,--he threw
+off his liquor with a single dexterous movement of head and elbow,
+and stood refreshed.
+
+"Hello, old major!" said Bill, suddenly setting down his glass.
+"Are YOU there?"
+
+It was a boy, who, becoming bashfully conscious that this epithet
+was addressed to him, retreated sideways to the doorway, where he
+stood beating his hat against the door-post with an assumption of
+indifference that his downcast but mirthful dark eyes and reddening
+cheek scarcely bore out.  Perhaps it was owing to his size, perhaps
+it was to a certain cherubic outline of face and figure, perhaps to
+a peculiar trustfulness of expression, that he did not look half
+his age, which was really fourteen.
+
+Everybody in Angel's knew the boy.  Either under the venerable
+title bestowed by Bill, or as "Tom Islington," after his adopted
+father, his was a familiar presence in the settlement, and the
+theme of much local criticism and comment.  His waywardness,
+indolence, and unaccountable amiability--a quality at once
+suspicious and gratuitous in a pioneer community like Angel's--had
+often been the subject of fierce discussion.  A large and reputable
+majority believed him destined for the gallows; a minority not
+quite so reputable enjoyed his presence without troubling
+themselves much about his future; to one or two the evil
+predictions of the majority possessed neither novelty nor terror.
+
+"Anything for me, Bill?" asked the boy, half mechanically, with the
+air of repeating some jocular formulary perfectly understood by
+Bill.
+
+"Anythin' for you!" echoed Bill, with an overacted severity equally
+well understood by Tommy,--"anythin' for you?  No!  And it's my
+opinion there won't be anythin' for you ez long ez you hang around
+bar-rooms and spend your valooable time with loafers and bummers.
+Git!"
+
+The reproof was accompanied by a suitable exaggeration of gesture
+(Bill had seized a decanter) before which the boy retreated still
+good-humoredly.  Bill followed him to the door.  "Dern my skin, if
+he hezn't gone off with that bummer Johnson," he added, as he
+looked down the road.
+
+"What's he expectin', Bill?" asked the barkeeper.
+
+"A letter from his aunt.  Reckon he'll hev to take it out in
+expectin'.  Likely they're glad to get shut o' him."
+
+"He's leadin' a shiftless, idle life here," interposed the Member
+of Assembly.
+
+"Well," said Bill, who never allowed any one but himself to abuse
+his protege, "seein' he ain't expectin' no offis from the hands of
+an enlightened constitooency, it IS rayther a shiftless life."
+After delivering this Parthian arrow with a gratuitous twanging of
+the bow to indicate its offensive personality, Bill winked at the
+barkeeper, slowly resumed a pair of immense, bulgy buckskin gloves,
+which gave his fingers the appearance of being painfully sore and
+bandaged, strode to the door without looking at anybody, called
+out, "All aboard," with a perfunctory air of supreme indifference
+whether the invitation was heeded, remounted his box, and drove
+stolidly away.
+
+Perhaps it was well that he did so, for the conversation at once
+assumed a disrespectful attitude toward Tom and his relatives.  It
+was more than intimated that Tom's alleged aunt was none other than
+Tom's real mother, while it was also asserted that Tom's alleged
+uncle did not himself participate in this intimate relationship to
+the boy to an extent which the fastidious taste of Angel's deemed
+moral and necessary.  Popular opinion also believed that Islington,
+the adopted father, who received a certain stipend ostensibly for
+the boy's support, retained it as a reward for his reticence
+regarding these facts.  "He ain't ruinin' hisself by wastin' it on
+Tom," said the barkeeper, who possibly possessed positive knowledge
+of much of Islington's disbursements.  But at this point exhausted
+nature languished among some of the debaters, and he turned from
+the frivolity of conversation to his severer professional duties.
+
+It was also well that Bill's momentary attitude of didactic
+propriety was not further excited by the subsequent conduct of his
+protege.  For by this time Tom, half supporting the unstable
+Johnson, who developed a tendency to occasionally dash across the
+glaring road, but checked himself mid way each time, reached the
+corral which adjoined the Mansion House.  At its farther extremity
+was a pump and horse-trough.  Here, without a word being spoken,
+but evidently in obedience to some habitual custom, Tom led his
+companion.  With the boy's assistance, Johnson removed his coat and
+neckcloth, turned back the collar of his shirt, and gravely placed
+his head beneath the pump-spout.  With equal gravity and
+deliberation, Tom took his place at the handle.  For a few moments
+only the splashing of water and regular strokes of the pump broke
+the solemnly ludicrous silence.  Then there was a pause in which
+Johnson put his hands to his dripping head, felt of it critically
+as if it belonged to somebody else, and raised his eyes to his
+companion.  "That ought to fetch IT," said Tom, in answer to the
+look.  "Ef it don't," replied Johnson, doggedly, with an air of
+relieving himself of all further responsibility in the matter,
+"it's got to, thet's all!"
+
+If "it" referred to some change in the physiognomy of Johnson, "it"
+had probably been "fetched" by the process just indicated.  The
+head that went under the pump was large, and clothed with bushy,
+uncertain-colored hair; the face was flushed, puffy, and
+expressionless, the eyes injected and full.  The head that came out
+from under the pump was of smaller size and different shape, the
+hair straight, dark, and sleek, the face pale and hollow-cheeked,
+the eyes bright and restless.  In the haggard, nervous ascetic that
+rose from the horse-trough there was very little trace of the
+Bacchus that had bowed there a moment before.  Familiar as Tom must
+have been with the spectacle, he could not help looking inquiringly
+at the trough, as if expecting to see some traces of the previous
+Johnson in its shallow depths.
+
+A narrow strip of willow, alder, and buckeye--a mere dusty,
+ravelled fringe of the green mantle that swept the high shoulders
+of Table Mountain--lapped the edge of the corral.  The silent pair
+were quick to avail themselves of even its scant shelter from the
+overpowering sun.  They had not proceeded far, before Johnson, who
+was walking quite rapidly in advance, suddenly brought himself up,
+and turned to his companion with an interrogative "Eh?"
+
+"I didn't speak," said Tommy, quietly.
+
+"Who said you spoke?" said Johnson, with a quick look of cunning.
+"In course you didn't speak, and I didn't speak, neither.  Nobody
+spoke.  Wot makes you think you spoke?" he continued, peering
+curiously into Tommy's eyes.
+
+The smile which habitually shone there quickly vanished as the boy
+stepped quietly to his companion's side, and took his arm without a
+word.
+
+"In course you didn't speak, Tommy," said Johnson, deprecatingly.
+"You ain't a boy to go for to play an ole soaker like me.  That's
+wot I like you for.  Thet's wot I seed in you from the first.  I
+sez, 'Thet 'ere boy ain't goin' to play you, Johnson!  You can go
+your whole pile on him, when you can't trust even a bar-keep.'
+Thet's wot I said.  Eh?"
+
+This time Tommy prudently took no notice of the interrogation, and
+Johnson went on: "Ef I was to ask you another question, you
+wouldn't go to play me neither,--would you, Tommy?"
+
+"No," said the boy.
+
+"Ef I was to ask you," continued Johnson, without heeding the
+reply, but with a growing anxiety of eye and a nervous twitching of
+his lips,--"ef I was to ask you, fur instance, ef that was a
+jackass rabbit thet jest passed,--eh?--you'd say it was or was not,
+ez the case may be.  You wouldn't play the ole man on thet?"
+
+"No," said Tommy, quietly, "it WAS a jackass rabbit."
+
+"Ef I was to ask you," continued Johnson, "ef it wore, say, fur
+instance, a green hat with yaller ribbons, you wouldn't play me,
+and say it did, onless,"--he added, with intensified cunning,--
+"onless it DID?"
+
+"No," said Tommy, "of course I wouldn't; but then, you see, IT
+DID."
+
+"It did?"
+
+"It did!" repeated Tommy, stoutly; "a green hat with yellow
+ribbons--and--and--a red rosette."
+
+"I didn't get to see the ros-ette," said Johnson, with slow and
+conscientious deliberation, yet with an evident sense of relief;
+"but that ain't sayin' it warn't there, you know.  Eh?"
+
+Tommy glanced quietly at his companion.  There were great beads of
+perspiration on his ashen-gray forehead and on the ends of his lank
+hair; the hand which twitched spasmodically in his was cold and
+clammy, the other, which was free, had a vague, purposeless, jerky
+activity, as if attached to some deranged mechanism.  Without any
+apparent concern in these phenomena, Tommy halted, and, seating
+himself on a log, motioned his companion to a place beside him.
+Johnson obeyed without a word.  Slight as was the act, perhaps no
+other incident of their singular companionship indicated as
+completely the dominance of this careless, half-effeminate, but
+self-possessed boy over this doggedly self-willed, abnormally
+excited man.
+
+"It ain't the square thing," said Johnson, after a pause, with a
+laugh that was neither mirthful nor musical, and frightened away a
+lizard that had been regarding the pair with breathless suspense,--
+"it ain't the square thing for jackass rabbits to wear hats,
+Tommy,--is it, eh?"
+
+"Well," said Tommy, with unmoved composure, "sometimes they do and
+sometimes they don't.  Animals are mighty queer."  And here Tommy
+went off in an animated, but, I regret to say, utterly untruthful
+and untrustworthy account of the habits of California fauna, until
+he was interrupted by Johnson.
+
+"And snakes, eh, Tommy?" said the man, with an abstracted air,
+gazing intently on the ground before him.
+
+"And snakes," said Tommy; "but they don't bite, at least not that
+kind you see.  There!--don't move, Uncle Ben, don't move; they're
+gone now.  And it's about time you took your dose."
+
+Johnson had hurriedly risen as if to leap upon the log, but Tommy
+had as quickly caught his arm with one hand while he drew a bottle
+from his pocket with the other.  Johnson paused, and eyed the
+bottle.  "Ef you say so, my boy," he faltered, as his fingers
+closed nervously around it; say 'when,' then."  He raised the
+bottle to his lips and took a long draught, the boy regarding him
+critically.  "When," said Tommy, suddenly.  Johnson started,
+flushed, and returned the bottle quickly.  But the color that had
+risen to his cheek stayed there, his eye grew less restless, and as
+they moved away again, the hand that rested on Tommy's shoulder was
+steadier.
+
+Their way lay along the flank of Table Mountain,--a wandering trail
+through a tangled solitude that might have seemed virgin and
+unbroken but for a few oyster-cans, yeast-powder tins, and empty
+bottles that had been apparently stranded by the "first low wash"
+of pioneer waves.  On the ragged trunk of an enormous pine hung a
+few tufts of gray hair caught from a passing grizzly, but in
+strange juxtaposition at its foot lay an empty bottle of
+incomparable bitters,--the chef-d'oeuvre of a hygienic
+civilization, and blazoned with the arms of an all-healing
+republic.  The head of a rattlesnake peered from a case that had
+contained tobacco, which was still brightly placarded with the
+high-colored effigy of a popular danseuse.  And a little beyond
+this the soil was broken and fissured, there was a confused mass of
+roughly hewn timber, a straggling line of sluicing, a heap of
+gravel and dirt, a rude cabin, and the claim of Johnson.
+
+Except for the rudest purposes of shelter from rain and cold, the
+cabin possessed but little advantage over the simple savagery of
+surrounding nature.  It had all the practical directness of the
+habitation of some animal, without its comfort or picturesque
+quality; the very birds that haunted it for food must have felt
+their own superiority as architects.  It was inconceivably dirty,
+even with its scant capacity for accretion; it was singularly
+stale, even in its newness and freshness of material.  Unspeakably
+dreary as it was in shadow, the sunlight visited it in a blind,
+aching, purposeless way, as if despairing of mellowing its outlines
+or of even tanning it into color.
+
+The claim worked by Johnson in his intervals of sobriety was
+represented by half a dozen rude openings in the mountain-side,
+with the heaped-up debris of rock and gravel before the mouth of
+each.  They gave very little evidence of engineering skill or
+constructive purpose, or indeed showed anything but the vague,
+successively abandoned essays of their projector.  To-day they
+served another purpose, for as the sun had heated the little cabin
+almost to the point of combustion, curling up the long dry
+shingles, and starting aromatic tears from the green pine beams,
+Tommy led Johnson into one of the larger openings, and with a sense
+of satisfaction threw himself panting upon its rocky floor.  Here
+and there the grateful dampness was condensed in quiet pools of
+water, or in a monotonous and soothing drip from the rocks above.
+Without lay the staring sunlight,--colorless, clarified, intense.
+
+For a few moments they lay resting on their elbows in blissful
+contemplation of the heat they had escaped.  "Wot do you say," said
+Johnson, slowly, without looking at his companion, but abstractly
+addressing himself to the landscape beyond,--"wot do you say to two
+straight games fur one thousand dollars?"
+
+"Make it five thousand," replied Tommy, reflectively, also to the
+landscape, "and I'm in."
+
+"Wot do I owe you now?" said Johnson, after a lengthened silence.
+
+"One hundred and seventy-five thousand two hundred and fifty
+dollars," replied Tommy, with business-like gravity.
+
+"Well," said Johnson, after a deliberation commensurate with the
+magnitude of the transaction, "ef you win, call it a hundred and
+eighty thousand, round.  War's the keerds?"
+
+They were in an old tin box in a crevice of a rock above his head.
+They were greasy and worn with service.  Johnson dealt, albeit his
+right hand was still uncertain,--hovering, after dropping the
+cards, aimlessly about Tommy, and being only recalled by a strong
+nervous effort.  Yet, notwithstanding this incapacity for even
+honest manipulation, Mr. Johnson covertly turned a knave from the
+bottom of the pack with such shameless inefficiency and gratuitous
+unskilfulness, that even Tommy was obliged to cough and look
+elsewhere to hide his embarrassment.  Possibly for this reason the
+young gentleman was himself constrained, by way of correction, to
+add a valuable card to his own hand, over and above the number he
+legitimately held.
+
+Nevertheless, the game was unexciting, and dragged listlessly.
+Johnson won.  He recorded the fact and the amount with a stub of
+pencil and shaking fingers in wandering hieroglyphics all over a
+pocket diary.  Then there was a long pause, when Johnson slowly
+drew something from his pocket, and held it up before his
+companion.  It was apparently a dull red stone.
+
+"Ef," said Johnson, slowly, with his old look of simple cunning,--
+"ef you happened to pick up sich a rock ez that, Tommy, what might
+you say it was?"
+
+"Don't know," said Tommy.
+
+"Mightn't you say," continued Johnson, cautiously, "that it was
+gold, or silver?"
+
+"Neither," said Tommy, promptly.
+
+"Mightn't you say it was quicksilver?  Mightn't you say that ef
+thar was a friend o' yourn ez knew war to go and turn out ten ton
+of it a day, and every ton worth two thousand dollars, that he had
+a soft thing, a very soft thing,--allowin', Tommy, that you used
+sich language, which you don't?"
+
+"But," said the boy, coming to the point with great directness, "DO
+you know where to get it? have you struck it, Uncle Ben?"
+
+Johnson looked carefully around.  "I hev, Tommy.  Listen.  I know
+whar thar's cartloads of it.  But thar's only one other specimen--
+the mate to this yer--thet's above ground, and thet's in 'Frisco.
+Thar's an agint comin' up in a day or two to look into it.  I sent
+for him.  Eh?"
+
+His bright, restless eyes were concentrated on Tommy's face now,
+but the boy showed neither surprise nor interest.  Least of all did
+he betray any recollection of Bill's ironical and gratuitous
+corroboration of this part of the story.
+
+"Nobody knows it," continued Johnson, in a nervous whisper,--
+"nobody knows it but you and the agint in 'Frisco.  The boys
+workin' round yar passes by and sees the old man grubbin' away, and
+no signs o' color, not even rotten quartz; the boys loafin' round
+the Mansion House sees the old man lyin' round free in bar-rooms,
+and they laughs and sez, 'Played out,' and spects nothin'.  Maybe
+ye think they spects suthin now, eh?" queried Johnson, suddenly,
+with a sharp look of suspicion.
+
+Tommy looked up, shook his head, threw a stone at a passing rabbit,
+but did not reply.
+
+"When I fust set eyes on you, Tommy," continued Johnson, apparently
+reassured, "the fust day you kem and pumped for me, an entire
+stranger, and hevin no call to do it, I sez, 'Johnson, Johnson,'
+sez I,' yer's a boy you kin trust.  Yer's a boy that won't play
+you; yer's a chap that's white and square,'--white and square,
+Tommy: them's the very words I used."
+
+He paused for a moment, and then went on in a confidential whisper,
+"'You want capital, Johnson,' sez I, 'to develop your resources,
+and you want a pardner.  Capital you can send for, but your
+pardner, Johnson,--your pardner is right yer.  And his name, it is
+Tommy Islington.'  Them's the very words I used."
+
+He stopped and chafed his clammy hands upon his knees.  "It's six
+months ago sens I made you my pardner.  Thar ain't a lick I've
+struck sens then, Tommy, thar ain't a han'ful o' yearth I've
+washed, thar ain't a shovelful o' rock I've turned over, but I
+tho't o' you.  'Share, and share alike,' sez I.  When I wrote to my
+agint, I wrote ekal for my pardner, Tommy Islington, he hevin no
+call to know ef the same was man or boy."
+
+He had moved nearer the boy, and would perhaps have laid his hand
+caressingly upon him, but even in his manifest affection there was
+a singular element of awed restraint and even fear,--a suggestion
+of something withheld even his fullest confidences, a hopeless
+perception of some vague barrier that never could be surmounted.
+He may have been at times dimly conscious that, in the eyes which
+Tommy raised to his, there was thorough intellectual appreciation,
+critical good-humor, even feminine softness, but nothing more.  His
+nervousness somewhat heightened by his embarrassment, he went on
+with an attempt at calmness which his twitching white lips and
+unsteady fingers made pathetically grotesque.  "Thar's a bill o'
+sale in my bunk, made out accordin' to law, of an ekal ondivided
+half of the claim, and the consideration is two hundred and fifty
+thousand dollars,--gambling debts,--gambling debts from me to you,
+Tommy,--you understand?"--nothing could exceed the intense cunning
+of his eye at this moment,--"and then thar's a will."
+
+"A will?" said Tommy, in amused surprise.
+
+Johnson looked frightened.
+
+"Eh?" he said, hurriedly, "wot will?  Who said anythin' 'bout a
+will, Tommy?"
+
+"Nobody," replied Tommy, with unblushing calm.
+
+Johnson passed his hand over his cold forehead, wrung the damp ends
+of his hair with his fingers, and went on: "Times when I'm took bad
+ez I was to-day, the boys about yer sez--you sez, maybe, Tommy--
+it's whiskey.  It ain't, Tommy.  It's pizen,--quicksilver pizen.
+That's what's the matter with me.  I'm salviated!  Salviated with
+merkery.
+
+"I've heerd o' it before," continued Johnson, appealing to the boy,
+"and ez a boy o' permiskus reading, I reckon you hev too.  Them men
+as works in cinnabar sooner or later gets salviated.  It's bound to
+fetch 'em some time.  Salviated by merkery."
+
+"What are you goin' to do for it?" asked Tommy.
+
+"When the agint comes up, and I begins to realize on this yer
+mine," said Johnson, contemplatively, "I goes to New York.  I sez
+to the barkeep' o' the hotel, 'Show me the biggest doctor here.'
+He shows me.  I sez to him, 'Salviated by merkery,--a year's
+standin',--how much?'  He sez, 'Five thousand dollars, and take two
+o' these pills at bedtime, and an ekil number o' powders at meals,
+and come back in a week.'  And I goes back in a week, cured, and
+signs a certifikit to that effect."
+
+Encouraged by a look of interest in Tommy's eye, he went on.
+
+"So I gets cured.  I goes to the barkeep', and I sez, 'Show me the
+biggest, fashionblest house thet's for sale yer.'  And he sez, 'The
+biggest, nat'rally b'longs to John Jacob Astor.'  And I sez, 'Show
+him,' and he shows him.  And I sez, 'Wot might you ask for this yer
+house?'  And he looks at me scornful, and sez, 'Go 'way, old man;
+you must be sick.'  And I fetches him one over the left eye, and he
+apologizes, and I gives him his own price for the house.  I stocks
+that house with mohogany furniture and pervisions, and thar we
+lives, you and me, Tommy, you and me!"
+
+The sun no longer shone upon the hillside.  The shadows of the
+pines were beginning to creep over Johnson's claim, and the air
+within the cavern was growing chill.  In the gathering darkness his
+eyes shone brightly as he went on: "Then thar comes a day when we
+gives a big spread.  We invites govners, members o' Congress,
+gentlemen o' fashion, and the like.  And among 'em I invites a Man
+as holds his head very high, a Man I once knew; but he doesn't know
+I knows him, and he doesn't remember me.  And he comes and he sits
+opposite me, and I watches him.  And he's very airy, this Man, and
+very chipper, and he wipes his mouth with a white hankercher, and
+he smiles, and he ketches my eye.  And he sez, 'A glass o' wine
+with you, Mr. Johnson'; and he fills his glass and I fills mine,
+and we rises.  And I heaves that wine, glass and all, right into
+his damned grinnin' face.  And he jumps for me,--for he is very
+game, this Man, very game,--but some on 'em grabs him, and he sez,
+'Who be you?'  And I sez, 'Skaggs! damn you, Skaggs!  Look at me!
+Gimme back my wife and child, gimme back the money you stole, gimme
+back the good name you took away, gimme back the health you ruined,
+gimme back the last twelve years!  Give 'em to me, damn you, quick,
+before I cuts your heart out!'  And naterally, Tommy, he can't do
+it.  And so I cuts his heart out, my boy; I cuts his heart out."
+
+The purely animal fury of his eye suddenly changed again to
+cunning.  "You think they hangs me for it, Tommy, but they don't.
+Not much, Tommy.  I goes to the biggest lawyer there, and I says to
+him, 'Salviated by merkery,--you hear me,--salviated by merkery.'
+And he winks at me, and he goes to the judge, and he sez, 'This yer
+unfortnet man isn't responsible,--he's been salviated by merkery.'
+And he brings witnesses; you comes, Tommy, and you sez ez how
+you've seen me took bad afore; and the doctor, he comes, and he sez
+as how he's seen me frightful; and the jury, without leavin' their
+seats, brings in a verdict o' justifiable insanity,--salviated by
+merkery."
+
+In the excitement of his climax he had risen to his feet, but would
+have fallen had not Tommy caught him and led him into the open air.
+In this sharper light there was an odd change visible in his
+yellow-white face,--a change which caused Tommy to hurriedly
+support him, half leading, half dragging him toward the little
+cabin.  When they had reached it, Tommy placed him on a rude
+"bunk," or shelf, and stood for a moment in anxious contemplation
+of the tremor-stricken man before him.  Then he said rapidly:
+"Listen, Uncle Ben.  I'm goin' to town--to town, you understand--
+for the doctor.  You're not to get up or move on any account until
+I return.  Do you hear?"  Johnson nodded violently.  "I'll be back
+in two hours."  In another moment he was gone.
+
+For an hour Johnson kept his word.  Then he suddenly sat up, and
+began to gaze fixedly at a corner of the cabin.  From gazing at it
+he began to smile, from smiling at it he began to talk, from
+talking at it he began to scream, from screaming he passed to
+cursing and sobbing wildly.  Then he lay quiet again.
+
+He was so still that to merely human eyes he might have seemed
+asleep or dead.  But a squirrel, that, emboldened by the stillness,
+had entered from the roof, stopped short upon a beam above the
+bunk, for he saw that the man's foot was slowly and cautiously
+moving toward the floor, and that the man's eyes were as intent and
+watchful as his own.  Presently, still without a sound, both feet
+were upon the floor.  And then the bunk creaked, and the squirrel
+whisked into the eaves of the roof.  When he peered forth again,
+everything was quiet, and the man was gone.
+
+An hour later two muleteers on the Placerville Road passed a man
+with dishevelled hair, glaring, bloodshot eyes, and clothes torn
+with bramble and stained with the red dust of the mountain.  They
+pursued him, when he turned fiercely on the foremost, wrested a
+pistol from his grasp, and broke away.  Later still, when the sun
+had dropped behind Payne's Ridge, the underbrush on Deadwood Slope
+crackled with a stealthy but continuous tread.  It must have been
+an animal whose dimly outlined bulk, in the gathering darkness,
+showed here and there in vague but incessant motion; it could be
+nothing but an animal whose utterance was at once so incoherent,
+monotonous, and unremitting.  Yet, when the sound came nearer, and
+the chaparral was parted, it seemed to be a man, and that man
+Johnson.
+
+Above the baying of phantasmal hounds that pressed him hard and
+drove him on, with never rest or mercy; above the lashing of a
+spectral whip that curled about his limbs, sang in his ears, and
+continually stung him forward; above the outcries of the unclean
+shapes that thronged about him,--he could still distinguish one
+real sound,--the rush and sweep of hurrying waters.  The Stanislaus
+River!  A thousand feet below him drove its yellowing current.
+Through all the vacillations of his unseated mind he had clung to
+one idea,--to reach the river, to lave in it, to swim it if need
+be, but to put it forever between him and the harrying shapes, to
+drown forever in its turbid depths the thronging spectres, to wash
+away in its yellow flood all stains and color of the past.  And now
+he was leaping from boulder to boulder, from blackened stump to
+stump, from gnarled bush to bush, caught for a moment and withheld
+by clinging vines, or plunging downward into dusty hollows, until,
+rolling, dropping, sliding, and stumbling, he reached the river-
+bank, whereon he fell, rose, staggered forward, and fell again with
+outstretched arms upon a rock that breasted the swift current.  And
+there he lay as dead.
+
+A few stars came out hesitatingly above Deadwood Slope.  A cold
+wind that had sprung up with the going down of the sun fanned them
+into momentary brightness, swept the heated flanks of the mountain,
+and ruffled the river.  Where the fallen man lay there was a sharp
+curve in the stream, so that in the gathering shadows the rushing
+water seemed to leap out of the darkness and to vanish again.
+Decayed drift-wood, trunks of trees, fragments of broken sluicing,--
+the wash and waste of many a mile,--swept into sight a moment, and
+were gone.  All of decay, wreck, and foulness gathered in the long
+circuit of mining-camp and settlement, all the dregs and refuse of
+a crude and wanton civilization, reappeared for an instant, and
+then were hurried away in the darkness and lost.  No wonder that as
+the wind ruffled the yellow waters the waves seemed to lift their
+unclean hands toward the rock whereon the fallen man lay, as if
+eager to snatch him from it, too, and hurry him toward the sea.
+
+It was very still.  In the clear air a horn blown a mile away was
+heard distinctly.  The jingling of a spur and a laugh on the
+highway over Payne's Ridge sounded clearly across the river.  The
+rattling of harness and hoofs foretold for many minutes the
+approach of the Wingdam coach, that at last, with flashing lights,
+passed within a few feet of the rock.  Then for an hour all again
+was quiet.  Presently the moon, round and full, lifted herself
+above the serried ridge and looked down upon the river.  At first
+the bared peak of Deadwood Hill gleamed white and skull-like.  Then
+the shadows of Payne's Ridge cast on the slope slowly sank away,
+leaving the unshapely stumps, the dusty fissures, and clinging
+outcrop of Deadwood Slope to stand out in black and silver.  Still
+stealing softly downward, the moonlight touched the bank and the
+rock, and then glittered brightly on the river.  The rock was bare
+and the man was gone, but the river still hurried swiftly to the
+sea.
+
+
+"Is there anything for me?" asked Tommy Islington, as, a week
+after, the stage drew up at the Mansion House, and Bill slowly
+entered the bar-room.  Bill did not reply, but, turning to a
+stranger who had entered with him, indicated with a jerk of his
+finger the boy.  The stranger turned with an air half of business,
+half of curiosity, and looked critically at Tommy.  "Is there
+anything for me?" repeated Tommy, a little confused at the silence
+and scrutiny.  Bill walked deliberately to the bar, and, placing
+his back against it, faced Tommy with a look of demure enjoyment.
+
+"Ef," he remarked slowly,--"ef a hundred thousand dollars down and
+half a million in perspektive is ennything, Major, THERE IS!"
+
+
+MRS. SKAGGS'S HUSBANDS.
+
+
+PART II--EAST.
+
+
+It was characteristic of Angel's that the disappearance of Johnson,
+and the fact that he had left his entire property to Tommy, thrilled
+the community but slightly in comparison with the astounding
+discovery that he had anything to leave.  The finding of a cinnabar
+lode at Angel's absorbed all collateral facts or subsequent details.
+Prospectors from adjoining camps thronged the settlement; the
+hillside for a mile on either side of Johnson's claim was staked out
+and pre-empted; trade received a sudden stimulus; and, in the
+excited rhetoric of the "Weekly Record," "a new era had broken upon
+Angel's."  "On Thursday last," added that paper, "over five hundred
+dollars was taken in over the bar of the Mansion House."
+
+Of the fate of Johnson there was little doubt.  He had been last
+seen lying on a boulder on the river-bank by outside passengers of
+the Wingdam night coach, and when Finn of Robinson's Ferry admitted
+to have fired three shots from a revolver at a dark object
+struggling in the water near the ferry, which he "suspicioned" to be
+a bear, the question seemed to be settled.  Whatever might have been
+the fallibility of his judgment, of the accuracy of his aim there
+could be no doubt.  The general belief that Johnson, after
+possessing himself of the muleteer's pistol, could have run amuck,
+gave a certain retributive justice to this story, which rendered it
+acceptable to the camp.
+
+It was also characteristic of Angel's that no feeling of envy or
+opposition to the good fortune of Tommy Islington prevailed there.
+That he was thoroughly cognizant, from the first, of Johnson's
+discovery, that his attentions to him were interested, calculating,
+and speculative was, however, the general belief of the majority,--
+a belief that, singularly enough, awakened the first feelings of
+genuine respect for Tommy ever shown by the camp.  "He ain't no
+fool; Yuba Bill seed thet from the first," said the barkeeper.  It
+was Yuba Bill who applied for the guardianship of Tommy after his
+accession to Johnson's claim, and on whose bonds the richest men of
+Calaveras were represented.  It was Yuba Bill, also, when Tommy was
+sent East to finish his education, accompanied him to San Francisco,
+and, before parting with his charge on the steamer's deck, drew him
+aside, and said, "Ef at enny time you want enny money, Tommy, over
+and 'bove your 'lowance, you kin write; but ef you'll take my
+advice," he added, with a sudden huskiness mitigating the severity
+of his voice, "you'll forget every derned ole spavined, string-halted
+bummer as you ever met or knew at Angel's,--ev'ry one, Tommy,--ev'ry
+one!  And so--boy--take care of yourself--and--and God bless ye, and
+pertikerly d--n me for a first-class A 1 fool."  It was Yuba Bill,
+also, after this speech, glared savagely around, walked down the
+crowded gang-plank with a rigid and aggressive shoulder, picked a
+quarrel with his cabman, and, after bundling that functionary into
+his own vehicle, took the reins himself, and drove furiously to his
+hotel.  "It cost me," said Bill, recounting the occurrence somewhat
+later at Angel's,--"it cost me a matter o' twenty dollars afore the
+jedge the next mornin'; but you kin bet high thet I taught them
+'Frisco chaps suthin new about drivin'.  I didn't make it lively in
+Montgomery Street for about ten minutes,--O no!"
+
+And so by degrees the two original locaters of the great Cinnabar
+lode faded from the memory of Angel's, and Calaveras knew them no
+more.  In five years their very names had been forgotten; in seven
+the name of the town was changed; in ten the town itself was
+transported bodily to the hillside, and the chimney of the Union
+Smelting Works by night flickered like a corpse-light over the site
+of Johnson's cabin, and by day poisoned the pure spices of the
+pines.  Even the Mansion House was dismantled, and the Wingdam
+stage deserted the highway for a shorter cut by Quicksilver City.
+Only the bared crest of Deadwood Hill, as of old, sharply cut the
+clear blue sky, and at its base, as of old, the Stanislaus River,
+unwearied and unresting, babbled, whispered, and hurried away to
+the sea.
+
+
+A midsummer's day was breaking lazily on the Atlantic.  There was
+not wind enough to move the vapors in the foggy offing, but where
+the vague distance heaved against a violet sky there were dull red
+streaks that, growing brighter, presently painted out the stars.
+Soon the brown rocks of Greyport appeared faintly suffused, and
+then the whole ashen line of dead coast was kindled, and the
+lighthouse beacons went out one by one.  And then a hundred sail,
+before invisible, started out of the vapory horizon, and pressed
+toward the shore.  It was morning, indeed, and some of the best
+society in Greyport, having been up all night, were thinking it was
+time to go to bed.
+
+For as the sky flashed brighter it fired the clustering red roofs
+of a picturesque house by the sands that had all that night, from
+open lattice and illuminated balcony, given light and music to the
+shore.  It glittered on the broad crystal spaces of a great
+conservatory that looked upon an exquisite lawn, where all night
+long the blended odors of sea and shore had swooned under the
+summer moon.  But it wrought confusion among the colored lamps on
+the long veranda, and startled a group of ladies and gentlemen who
+had stepped from the drawing-room window to gaze upon it.  It was
+so searching and sincere in its way, that, as the carriage of the
+fairest Miss Gillyflower rolled away, that peerless young woman,
+catching sight of her face in the oval mirror, instantly pulled
+down the blinds, and, nestling the whitest shoulders in Greyport
+against the crimson cushions, went to sleep.
+
+"How haggard everybody is!  Rose, dear, you look almost
+intellectual," said Blanche Masterman.
+
+"I hope not," said Rose, simply.  "Sunrises are very trying.  Look
+how that pink regularly puts out Mrs. Brown-Robinson, hair and all!"
+
+"The angels," said the Count de Nugat, with a polite gesture toward
+the sky, "must have find these celestial combinations very bad for
+the toilette."
+
+"They're safe in white,--except when they sit for their pictures in
+Venice," said Blanche.  "How fresh Mr. Islington looks!  It's
+really uncomplimentary to us."
+
+"I suppose the sun recognizes in me no rival," said the young man,
+demurely.  "But," he added, "I have lived much in the open air, and
+require very little sleep."
+
+"How delightful!" said Mrs. Brown-Robinson, in a low, enthusiastic
+voice and a manner that held the glowing sentiment of sixteen and
+the practical experiences of thirty-two in dangerous combination;--
+"how perfectly delightful!  What sunrises you must have seen, and
+in such wild, romantic places!  How I envy you!  My nephew was a
+classmate of yours, and has often repeated to me those charming
+stories you tell of your adventures.  Won't you tell some now?  Do!
+How you must tire of us and this artificial life here, so
+frightfully artificial, you know" (in a confidential whisper); "and
+then to think of the days when you roamed the great West with the
+Indians, and the bisons, and the grizzly bears!  Of course, you
+have seen grizzly bears and bisons?"
+
+"Of course he has, dear," said Blanche, a little pettishly,
+throwing a cloak over her shoulders, and seizing her chaperon by
+the arm; "his earliest infancy was soothed by bisons, and he
+proudly points to the grizzly bear as the playmate of his youth.
+Come with me, and I'll tell you all about it.  How good it is of
+you," she added, sotto voce, to Islington, as he stood by the
+carriage,--"how perfectly good it is of you to be like those
+animals you tell us of, and not know your full power.  Think, with
+your experiences and our credulity, what stories you MIGHT tell!
+And you are going to walk?  Good night, then."  A slim, gloved hand
+was frankly extended from the window, and the next moment the
+carriage rolled away.
+
+"Isn't Islington throwing away a chance there?" said Captain
+Merwin, on the veranda.
+
+"Perhaps he couldn't stand my lovely aunt's superadded presence.
+But then, he's the guest of Blanche's father, and I dare say they
+see enough of each other as it is."
+
+"But isn't it a rather dangerous situation?"
+
+"For him, perhaps; although he's awfully old, and very queer.  For
+her, with an experience that takes in all the available men in both
+hemispheres, ending with Nugat over there, I should say a man more
+or less wouldn't affect her much, anyway.  Of course," he laughed,
+"these are the accents of bitterness.  But that was last year."
+
+Perhaps Islington did not overhear the speaker; perhaps, if he did,
+the criticism was not new.  He turned carelessly away, and
+sauntered out on the road to the sea.  Thence he strolled along the
+sands toward the cliffs, where, meeting an impediment in the shape
+of a garden wall, he leaped it with a certain agile, boyish ease
+and experience, and struck across an open lawn toward the rocks
+again.  The best society of Greyport were not early risers, and the
+spectacle of a trespasser in an evening dress excited only the
+criticism of grooms hanging about the stables, or cleanly housemaids
+on the broad verandas that in Greyport architecture dutifully gave
+upon the sea.  Only once, as he entered the boundaries of Cliffwood
+Lodge, the famous seat of Renwyck Masterman, was he aware of
+suspicious scrutiny; but a slouching figure that vanished quickly in
+the lodge offered no opposition to his progress.  Avoiding the
+pathway to the lodge, Islington kept along the rocks until, reaching
+a little promontory and rustic pavilion, he sat down and gazed upon
+the sea.
+
+And presently an infinite peace stole upon him.  Except where the
+waves lapped lazily the crags below, the vast expanse beyond seemed
+unbroken by ripple, heaving only in broad ponderable sheets, and
+rhythmically, as if still in sleep.  The air was filled with a
+luminous haze that caught and held the direct sunbeams.  In the
+deep calm that lay upon the sea, it seemed to Islington that all
+the tenderness of culture, magic of wealth, and spell of refinement
+that for years had wrought upon that favored shore had extended its
+gracious influence even here.  What a pampered and caressed old
+ocean it was; cajoled, flattered, and feted where it lay!  An odd
+recollection of the turbid Stanislaus hurrying by the ascetic
+pines, of the grim outlines of Deadwood Hill, swam before his eyes,
+and made the yellow green of the velvet lawn and graceful foliage
+seem almost tropical by contrast.  And, looking up, a few yards
+distant he beheld a tall slip of a girl gazing upon the sea,--
+Blanche Masterman.
+
+She had plucked somewhere a large fan-shaped leaf, which she held
+parasol-wise, shading the blond masses of her hair, and hiding her
+gray eyes.  She had changed her festal dress, with its amplitude of
+flounce and train, for a closely fitting half-antique habit whose
+scant outlines would have been trying to limbs less shapely, but
+which prettily accented the graceful curves and sweeping lines of
+this Greyport goddess.  As Islington rose, she came toward him with
+a frankly outstretched hand and unconstrained manner.  Had she
+observed him first?  I don't know.
+
+They sat down together on a rustic seat, Miss Blanche facing the
+sea, and shading her eyes with the leaf.
+
+"I don't really know how long I have been sitting here," said
+Islington, "or whether I have not been actually asleep and
+dreaming.  It seemed too lovely a morning to go to bed.  But you?"
+
+From behind the leaf, it appeared that Miss Blanche, on retiring,
+had been pursued by a hideous winged bug which defied the efforts
+of herself and maid to dislodge.  Odin, the Spitz dog, had insisted
+upon scratching at the door.  And it made her eyes red to sleep in
+the morning.  And she had an early call to make.  And the sea
+looked lovely.
+
+"I'm glad to find you here, whatever be the cause," said Islington,
+with his old directness.  "To-day, as you know, is my last day in
+Greyport, and it is much pleasanter to say good by under this blue
+sky than even beneath your father's wonderful frescos yonder.  I
+want to remember you, too, as part of this pleasant prospect which
+belongs to us all, rather than recall you in anybody's particular
+setting."
+
+"I know," said Blanche, with equal directness, "that houses are one
+of the defects of our civilization; but I don't think I ever heard
+the idea as elegantly expressed before.  Where do you go?"
+
+"I don't know yet.  I have several plans.  I may go to South
+America and become president of one of the republics,--I am not
+particular which.  I am rich, but in that part of America which
+lies outside of Greyport it is necessary for every man to have some
+work.  My friends think I should have some great aim in life, with
+a capital A.  But I was born a vagabond, and a vagabond I shall
+probably die."
+
+"I don't know anybody in South America," said Blanche, languidly.
+"There were two girls here last season, but they didn't wear stays
+in the house, and their white frocks never were properly done up.
+If you go to South America, you must write to me."
+
+"I will.  Can you tell me the name of this flower which I found in
+your greenhouse.  It looks much like a California blossom."
+
+"Perhaps it is.  Father bought it of a half-crazy old man who came
+here one day.  Do you know him?"
+
+Islington laughed.  "I am afraid not.  But let me present this in a
+less business-like fashion."
+
+"Thank you.  Remind me to give you one in return before you go,--or
+will you choose yourself?"
+
+They had both risen as by a common instinct.
+
+"Good by."
+
+The cool flower-like hand lay in his for an instant.
+
+"Will you oblige me by putting aside that leaf a moment before I
+go?"
+
+"But my eyes are red, and I look like a perfect fright."
+
+Yet, after a long pause, the leaf fluttered down, and a pair of
+very beautiful but withal very clear and critical eyes met his.
+Islington was constrained to look away.  When he turned again, she
+was gone.
+
+"Mister Hislington,--sir!"
+
+It was Chalker, the English groom, out of breath with running.
+
+"Seein' you alone, sir,--beg your pardon, sir,--but there's a
+person--"
+
+"A person! what the devil do you mean?  Speak English--no, damn it,
+I mean don't," said Islington, snappishly.
+
+"I sed a person, sir.  Beg pardon--no offence--but not a gent, sir.
+In the lib'ry."
+
+A little amused even through the utter dissatisfaction with himself
+and vague loneliness that had suddenly come upon him, Islington, as
+he walked toward the lodge, asked, "Why isn't he a gent?
+
+"No gent--beggin' your pardin, sir--'ud guy a man in sarvis, sir.
+Takes me 'ands so, sir, as I sits in the rumble at the gate, and
+puts 'em downd so, sir, and sez, 'Put 'em in your pocket, young
+man,--or is it a road agint you expects to see, that you 'olds hup
+your 'ands, hand crosses 'em like to that,' sez he.  ''Old 'ard,'
+sez he, 'on the short curves, or you'll bust your precious crust,'
+sez he.  And hasks for you, sir.  This way, sir."
+
+They entered the lodge.  Islington hurried down the long Gothic
+hall, and opened the library door.
+
+In an arm-chair, in the centre of the room, a man sat apparently
+contemplating a large, stiff, yellow hat with an enormous brim,
+that was placed on the floor before him.  His hands rested lightly
+between his knees, but one foot was drawn up at the side of his
+chair in a peculiar manner.  In the first glance that Islington
+gave, the attitude in some odd, irreconcilable way suggested a
+brake.  In another moment he dashed across the room, and, holding
+out both hands, cried, "Yuba Bill!"
+
+The man rose, caught Islington by the shoulders, wheeled him round,
+hugged him, felt of his ribs like a good-natured ogre, shook his
+hands violently, laughed, and then said, somewhat ruefully, "And
+how ever did you know me?"
+
+Seeing that Yuba Bill evidently regarded himself as in some
+elaborate disguise, Islington laughed, and suggested that it must
+have been instinct.
+
+"And you?" said Bill, holding him at arm's length, and surveying
+him critically,--"you!--toe think--toe think--a little cuss no
+higher nor a trace, a boy as I've flicked outer the road with a
+whip time in agin, a boy ez never hed much clothes to speak of,
+turned into a sport!"
+
+Islington remembered, with a thrill of ludicrous terror, that he
+still wore his evening dress.
+
+"Turned," continued Yuba Bill, severely,--"turned into a restyourant
+waiter,--a garsong!  Eh, Alfonse, bring me a patty de foy grass
+and an omelette, demme!"
+
+"Dear old chap!" said Islington, laughing, and trying to put his
+hand over Bill's bearded mouth, "but you--YOU don't look exactly
+like yourself!  You're not well, Bill."  And indeed, as he turned
+toward the light, Bill's eyes appeared cavernous, and his hair and
+beard thickly streaked with gray.
+
+"Maybe it's this yer harness," said Bill, a little anxiously.
+"When I hitches on this yer curb" (he indicated a massive gold
+watch-chain with enormous links), "and mounts this 'morning star,'"
+(he pointed to a very large solitaire pin which had the appearance
+of blistering his whole shirt-front), "it kinder weighs heavy on
+me, Tommy.  Otherwise I'm all right, my boy,--all right."  But he
+evaded Islington's keen eye, and turned from the light.
+
+"You have something to tell me, Bill," said Islington, suddenly,
+and with almost brusque directness; "out with it."
+
+Bill did not speak, but moved uneasily toward his hat,
+
+"You didn't come three thousand miles, without a word of warning,
+to talk to me of old times," said Islington, more kindly, "glad as
+I would have been to see you.  It isn't your way, Bill, and you
+know it.  We shall not be disturbed here," he added, in reply to an
+inquiring glance that Bill directed to the door, "and I am ready to
+hear you."
+
+"Firstly, then," said Bill, drawing his chair nearer Islington,
+"answer me one question, Tommy, fair and square, and up and down."
+
+"Go on," said Islington, with a slight smile.
+
+"Ef I should say to you, Tommy,--say to you to-day, right here, you
+must come with me,--you must leave this place for a month, a year,
+two years maybe, perhaps forever,--is there anything that 'ud keep
+you,--anything, my boy, ez you couldn't leave?"
+
+"No," said Tommy, quietly; "I am only visiting here.  I thought of
+leaving Greyport to-day."
+
+"But if I should say to you, Tommy, come with me on a pasear to
+Chiny, to Japan, to South Ameriky, p'r'aps, could you go?"
+
+"Yes," said Islington, after a slight pause.
+
+"Thar isn't ennything," said Bill, drawing a little closer, and
+lowering his voice confidentially,--"ennything in the way of a
+young woman--you understand, Tommy--ez would keep you?  They're
+mighty sweet about here; and whether a man is young or old, Tommy,
+there's always some woman as is brake or whip to him!"
+
+In a certain excited bitterness that characterized the delivery of
+this abstract truth, Bill did not see that the young man's face
+flushed slightly as he answered "No."
+
+"Then listen.  It's seven years ago, Tommy, thet I was working one
+o' the Pioneer coaches over from Gold Hill.  Ez I stood in front o'
+the stage-office, the sheriff o' the county comes to me, and he
+sez, 'Bill,' sez he, 'I've got a looney chap, as I'm in charge of,
+taking 'im down to the 'sylum in Stockton.  He'z quiet and
+peaceable, but the insides don't like to ride with him.  Hev you
+enny objection to give him a lift on the box beside you?'  I sez,
+'No; put him up.'  When I came to go and get up on that box beside
+him, that man, Tommy,--that man sittin' there, quiet and peaceable,
+was--Johnson!
+
+"He didn't know me, my boy," Yuba Bill continued, rising and
+putting his hands on Tommy's shoulders,--"he didn't know me.  He
+didn't know nothing about you, nor Angel's, nor the quicksilver
+lode, nor even his own name.  He said his name was Skaggs, but I
+knowd it was Johnson.  Thar was times, Tommy, you might have
+knocked me off that box with a feather; thar was times when if the
+twenty-seven passengers o' that stage hed found theirselves
+swimming in the American River five hundred feet below the road, I
+never could have explained it satisfactorily to the company,--
+never.
+
+"The sheriff said," Bill continued hastily, as if to preclude any
+interruption from the young man,--"the sheriff said he had been
+brought into Murphy's Camp three years before, dripping with water,
+and sufferin' from perkussion of the brain, and had been cared for
+generally by the boys 'round.  When I told the sheriff I knowed
+'im, I got him to leave him in my care; and I took him to 'Frisco,
+Tommy, to 'Frisco, and I put him in charge o' the best doctors
+there, and paid his board myself.  There was nothin' he didn't have
+ez he wanted.  Don't look that way, my dear boy, for God's sake,
+don't!"
+
+"O Bill," said Islington, rising and staggering to the window, "why
+did you keep this from me?"
+
+"Why?" said Bill, turning on him savagely,--"why? because I warn't
+a fool.  Thar was you, winnin' your way in college; thar was YOU,
+risin' in the world, and of some account to it; yer was an old
+bummer, ez good ez dead to it,--a man ez oughter been dead afore! a
+man ez never denied it!  But you allus liked him better nor me,"
+said Bill, bitterly.
+
+"Forgive me, Bill," said the young man, seizing both his hands.  "I
+know you did it for the best; but go on."
+
+"Thar ain't much more to tell, nor much use to tell it, as I can
+see," said Bill, moodily.  "He never could be cured, the doctors
+said, for he had what they called monomania,--was always talking
+about his wife and darter that somebody had stole away years ago,
+and plannin' revenge on that somebody.  And six months ago he was
+missed.  I tracked him to Carson, to Salt Lake City, to Omaha, to
+Chicago, to New York,--and here!"
+
+"Here!" echoed Islington.
+
+"Here!  And that's what brings me here to-day.  Whethers he's crazy
+or well, whethers he's huntin' you or lookin' up that other man,
+you must get away from here.  You mustn't see him.  You and me,
+Tommy, will go away on a cruise.  In three or four years he'll be
+dead or missing, and then we'll come back.  Come."  And he rose to
+his feet.
+
+"Bill," said Islington, rising also, and taking the hand of his
+friend, with the same quiet obstinacy that in the old days had
+endeared him to Bill, "wherever he is, here or elsewhere, sane or
+crazy, I shall seek and find him.  Every dollar that I have shall
+be his, every dollar that I have spent shall be returned to him.  I
+am young yet, thank God, and can work; and if there is a way out of
+this miserable business, I shall find it."
+
+"I knew," said Bill, with a surliness that ill concealed his
+evident admiration of the calm figure before him--"I knew the
+partikler style of d--n fool that you was, and expected no better.
+Good by, then--  God Almighty! who's that?"
+
+He was on his way to the open French window, but had started back,
+his face quite white and bloodless, and his eyes staring.
+Islington ran to the window, and looked out.  A white skirt
+vanished around the corner of the veranda.  When he returned, Bill
+had dropped into a chair.
+
+"It must have been Miss Masterman, I think; but what's the matter?"
+
+"Nothing," said Bill, faintly; "have you got any whiskey handy?"
+
+Islington brought a decanter, and, pouring out some spirits, handed
+the glass to Bill.  Bill drained it, and then said, "Who is Miss
+Masterman?"
+
+"Mr. Masterman's daughter; that is, an adopted daughter, I believe."
+
+"Wot name?"
+
+"I really don't know," said Islington, pettishly, more vexed than
+he cared to own at this questioning.
+
+Yuba Bill rose and walked to the window, closed it, walked back
+again to the door, glanced at Islington, hesitated, and then
+returned to his chair.
+
+"I didn't tell you I was married.,--did I?" he said suddenly,
+looking up in Islington's face with an unsuccessful attempt at a
+reckless laugh.
+
+"No," said Islington, more pained at the manner than the words.
+
+"Fact," said Yuba Bill.  "Three years ago it was, Tommy,--three
+years ago!"
+
+He looked so hard at Islington, that, feeling he was expected to
+say something, he asked vaguely, "Who did you marry?"
+
+"Thet's it!" said Yuba Bill; "I can't ezactly say; partikly,
+though, a she devil! generally, the wife of half a dozen other
+men."
+
+Accustomed, apparently, to have his conjugal infelicities a theme
+of mirth among men, and seeing no trace of amusement on Islington's
+grave face, his dogged, reckless manner softened, and, drawing his
+chair closer to Islington, he went on: "It all began outer this: we
+was coming down Watson's grade one night pretty free, when the
+expressman turns to me and sez, 'There's a row inside, and you'd
+better pull up!'  I pulls up, and out hops, first a woman, and then
+two or three chaps swearing and cursin', and tryin' to drag some
+one arter them.  Then it 'pear'd, Tommy, thet it was this woman's
+drunken husband they was going to put out for abusin' her, and
+strikin' her in the coach; and if it hadn't been for me, my boy,
+they'd hev left that chap thar in the road.  But I fixes matters up
+by putting her alongside o' me on the box, and we drove on.  She
+was very white, Tommy,--for the matter o' that, she was always one
+o' these very white women, that never got red in the face,--but she
+never cried a whimper.  Most wimin would have cried.  It was queer,
+but she never cried.  I thought so at the time.
+
+"She was very tall, with a lot o' light hair meandering down the
+back of her head, as long as a deer-skin whip-lash, and about the
+color.  She hed eyes thet'd bore you through at fifty yards, and
+pooty hands and feet.  And when she kinder got out o' that stiff,
+narvous state she was in, and warmed up a little, and got chipper,
+by G-d, sir, she was handsome,--she was that!"
+
+A little flushed and embarrassed at his own enthusiasm, he stopped,
+and then said, carelessly, "They got off at Murphy's."
+
+"Well," said Islington.
+
+"Well, I used to see her often arter thet, and when she was alone
+she allus took the box-seat.  She kinder confided her troubles to
+me, how her husband got drunk and abused her; and I didn't see much
+o' him, for he was away in 'Frisco arter thet.  But it was all
+square, Tommy,--all square 'twixt me and her.
+
+"I got a going there a good deal, and then one day I sez to myself,
+'Bill, this won't do,' and I got changed to another route.  Did you
+ever know Jackson Filltree, Tommy?" said Bill, breaking off
+suddenly.
+
+"No."
+
+"Might have heerd of him, p'r'aps?"
+
+"No," said Islington, impatiently.
+
+"Jackson Filltree ran the express from White's out to Summit,
+'cross the North Fork of the Yuba.  One day he sez to me, 'Bill,
+that's a mighty bad ford at the North Fork.'  I sez, 'I believe
+you, Jackson.'  'It'll git me some day, Bill, sure,' sez he.  I
+sez, 'Why don't you take the lower ford?'  'I don't know,' sez he,
+'but I can't.'  So ever after, when I met him, he sez, 'That North
+Fork ain't got me yet.'  One day I was in Sacramento, and up comes
+Filltree.  He sez, 'I've sold out the express business on account
+of the North Fork, but it's bound to get me yet, Bill, sure'; and
+he laughs.  Two weeks after they finds his body below the ford,
+whar he tried to cross, comin' down from the Summit way.  Folks
+said it was foolishness: Tommy, I sez it was Fate!  The second day
+arter I was changed to the Placerville route, thet woman comes
+outer the hotel above the stage-office.  Her husband, she said, was
+lying sick in Placerville; that's what she said; but it was Fate,
+Tommy, Fate.  Three months afterward, her husband takes an overdose
+of morphine for delirium tremems, and dies.  There's folks ez sez
+she gave it to him, but it's Fate.  A year after that I married
+her,--Fate, Tommy, Fate!
+
+"I lived with her jest three months," he went on, after a long
+breath,--"three months!  It ain't much time for a happy man.  I've
+seen a good deal o' hard life in my day, but there was days in that
+three months longer than any day in my life,--days, Tommy, when it
+was a toss-up whether I should kill her or she me.  But thar, I'm
+done.  You are a young man, Tommy, and I ain't goin' to tell things
+thet, old as I am, three years ago I couldn't have believed."
+
+When at last, with his grim face turned toward the window, he sat
+silently with his clinched hands on his knees before him, Islington
+asked where his wife was now.
+
+"Ask me no more, my boy,--no more.  I've said my say."  With a
+gesture as of throwing down a pair of reins before him, he rose,
+and walked to the window.
+
+"You kin understand, Tommy, why a little trip around the world 'ud
+do me good.  Ef you can't go with me, well and good.  But go I
+must."
+
+"Not before luncheon, I hope," said a very sweet voice, as Blanche
+Masterman suddenly stood before them.  "Father would never forgive
+me if in his absence I permitted one of Mr. Islington's friends to
+go in this way.  You will stay, won't you?  Do!  And you will give
+me your arm now; and when Mr. Islington has done staring, he will
+follow us into the dining-room and introduce you."
+
+
+"I have quite fallen in love with your friend," said Miss Blanche,
+as they stood in the drawing-room looking at the figure of Bill,
+strolling, with his short pipe in his mouth, through the distant
+shrubbery.  "He asks very queer questions, though.  He wanted to
+know my mother's maiden name."
+
+"He is an honest fellow," said Islington, gravely.
+
+"You are very much subdued.  You don't thank me, I dare say, for
+keeping you and your friend here; but you couldn't go, you know,
+until father returned."
+
+Islington smiled, but not very gayly.
+
+"And then I think it much better for us to part here under these
+frescos, don't you?  Good by."
+
+She extended her long, slim hand.
+
+"Out in the sunlight there, when my eyes were red, you were very
+anxious to look at me," she added, in a dangerous voice.
+
+Islington raised his sad eyes to hers.  Something glittering upon
+her own sweet lashes trembled and fell.
+
+"Blanche!"
+
+She was rosy enough now, and would have withdrawn her hand, but
+Islington detained it.  She was not quite certain but that her
+waist was also in jeopardy.  Yet she could not help saying, "Are
+you sure that there isn't anything in the way of a young woman that
+would keep you?"
+
+"Blanche!" said Islington in reproachful horror.
+
+"If gentlemen will roar out their secrets before an open window,
+with a young woman lying on a sofa on the veranda, reading a stupid
+French novel, they must not be surprised if she gives more
+attention to them than her book."
+
+"Then you know all, Blanche?"
+
+"I know," said Blanche, "let's see--I know the partiklar style of--
+ahem!--fool you was, and expected no better.  Good by."  And,
+gliding like a lovely and innocent milk snake out of his grasp, she
+slipped away.
+
+
+To the pleasant ripple of waves, the sound of music and light
+voices, the yellow midsummer moon again rose over Greyport.  It
+looked upon formless masses of rock and shrubbery, wide spaces of
+lawn and beach, and a shimmering expanse of water.  It singled out
+particular objects,--a white sail in shore, a crystal globe upon
+the lawn, and flashed upon something held between the teeth of a
+crouching figure scaling the low wall of Cliffwood Lodge.  Then, as
+a man and woman passed out from under the shadows of the foliage
+into the open moonlight of the garden path, the figure leaped from
+the wall, and stood erect and waiting in the shadow.
+
+It was the figure of an old man, with rolling eyes, his trembling
+hand grasping a long, keen knife,--a figure more pitiable than
+pitiless, more pathetic than terrible.  But the next moment the
+knife was stricken from his hand, and he struggled in the firm
+grasp of another figure that apparently sprang from the wall beside
+him.
+
+"D--n you, Masterman!" cried the old man, hoarsely; "give me fair
+play, and I'll kill you yet!"
+
+"Which my name is Yuba Bill," said Bill, quietly, "and it's time
+this d--n fooling was stopped."
+
+The old man glared in Bill's face savagely.  "I know you.  You're
+one of Masterman's friends,--d--n you,--let me go till I cut his
+heart out,--let me go!  Where is my Mary?--where is my wife?--there
+she is! there!--there!--there!  Mary!"  He would have screamed, but
+Bill placed his powerful hand upon his mouth, as he turned in the
+direction of the old man's glance.  Distinct in the moonlight the
+figures of Islington and Blanche, arm in arm, stood out upon the
+garden path.
+
+"Give me my wife!" muttered the old man hoarsely, between Bill's
+fingers.  "Where is she?"
+
+A sudden fury passed over Yuba Bill's face.  "Where is your wife?"
+he echoed, pressing the old man back against the garden wall, and
+holding him there as in a vice.  "Where is your wife?" he repeated,
+thrusting his grim sardonic jaw and savage eyes into the old man's
+frightened face.  "Where is Jack Adam's wife?  Where is MY wife?
+Where is the she-devil that drove one man mad, that sent another to
+hell by his own hand, that eternally broke and ruined me?  Where!
+Where!  Do you ask where?  In jail in Sacramento,--in jail, do you
+hear?--in jail for murder, Johnson,--murder!"
+
+The old man gasped, stiffened, and then, relaxing, suddenly
+slipped, a mere inanimate mass, at Yuba Bill's feet.  With a sudden
+revulsion of feeling, Yuba Bill dropped at his side, and, lifting
+him tenderly in his arms, whispered, "Look up, old man, Johnson!
+look up, for God's sake!--it's me,--Yuba Bill! and yonder is your
+daughter, and--Tommy!--don't you know--Tommy, little Tommy
+Islington?"
+
+Johnson's eyes slowly opened.  He whispered, "Tommy! yes, Tommy!
+Sit by me, Tommy.  But don't sit so near the bank.  Don't you see
+how the river is rising and beckoning to me,--hissing, and boilin'
+over the rocks?  It's gittin higher!--hold me, Tommy,--hold me, and
+don't let me go yet.  We'll live to cut his heart out, Tommy,--
+we'll live--we'll--"  His head sank, and the rushing river,
+invisible to all eyes save his, leaped toward him out of the
+darkness, and bore him away, no longer to the darkness, but through
+it to the distant, peaceful shining sea.
+
+
+
+HOW SANTA CLAUS CAME TO SIMPSON'S BAR.
+
+
+It had been raining in the valley of the Sacramento.  The North
+Fork had overflowed its banks and Rattlesnake Creek was impassable.
+The few boulders that had marked the summer ford at Simpson's
+Crossing were obliterated by a vast sheet of water stretching to
+the foothills.  The up stage was stopped at Grangers; the last mail
+had been abandoned in the tules, the rider swimming for his life.
+"An area," remarked the "Sierra Avalanche," with pensive local
+pride, "as large as the State of Massachusetts is now under water."
+
+Nor was the weather any better in the foothills.  The mud lay deep
+on the mountain road; wagons that neither physical force nor moral
+objurgation could move from the evil ways into which they had
+fallen, encumbered the track, and the way to Simpson's Bar was
+indicated by broken-down teams and hard swearing.  And farther on,
+cut off and inaccessible, rained upon and bedraggled, smitten by
+high winds and threatened by high water, Simpson's Bar, on the eve
+of Christmas day, 1862, clung like a swallow's nest to the rocky
+entablature and splintered capitals of Table Mountain, and shook in
+the blast.
+
+As night shut down on the settlement, a few lights gleamed through
+the mist from the windows of cabins on either side of the highway
+now crossed and gullied by lawless streams and swept by marauding
+winds.  Happily most of the population were gathered at Thompson's
+store, clustered around a red-hot stove, at which they silently
+spat in some accepted sense of social communion that perhaps
+rendered conversation unnecessary.  Indeed, most methods of
+diversion had long since been exhausted on Simpson's Bar; high
+water had suspended the regular occupations on gulch and on river,
+and a consequent lack of money and whiskey had taken the zest from
+most illegitimate recreation.  Even Mr. Hamlin was fain to leave
+the Bar with fifty dollars in his pocket,--the only amount actually
+realized of the large sums won by him in the successful exercise of
+his arduous profession.  "Ef I was asked," he remarked somewhat
+later,--"ef I was asked to pint out a purty little village where a
+retired sport as didn't care for money could exercise hisself,
+frequent and lively, I'd say Simpson's Bar; but for a young man
+with a large family depending on his exertions, it don't pay."  As
+Mr. Hamlin's family consisted mainly of female adults, this remark
+is quoted rather to show the breadth of his humor than the exact
+extent of his responsibilities.
+
+Howbeit, the unconscious objects of this satire sat that evening in
+the listless apathy begotten of idleness and lack of excitement.
+Even the sudden splashing of hoofs before the door did not arouse
+them.  Dick Bullen alone paused in the act of scraping out his
+pipe, and lifted his head, but no other one of the group indicated
+any interest in, or recognition of, the man who entered.
+
+It was a figure familiar enough to the company, and known in
+Simpson's Bar as "The Old Man."  A man of perhaps fifty years;
+grizzled and scant of hair, but still fresh and youthful of
+complexion.  A face full of ready, but not very powerful sympathy,
+with a chameleon-like aptitude for taking on the shade and color of
+contiguous moods and feelings.  He had evidently just left some
+hilarious companions, and did not at first notice the gravity of
+the group, but clapped the shoulder of the nearest man jocularly,
+and threw himself into a vacant chair.
+
+"Jest heard the best thing out, boys!  Ye know Smiley, over yar,--
+Jim Smiley,--funniest man in the Bar?  Well, Jim was jest telling
+the richest yarn about--"
+
+"Smiley's a ---- fool," interrupted a gloomy voice.
+
+"A particular ---- skunk," added another in sepulchral accents.
+
+A silence followed these positive statements.  The Old Man glanced
+quickly around the group.  Then his face slowly changed.  "That's
+so," he said reflectively, after a pause, "certingly a sort of a
+skunk and suthin of a fool.  In course."  He was silent for a
+moment as in painful contemplation of the unsavoriness and folly of
+the unpopular Smiley.  "Dismal weather, ain't it?" he added, now
+fully embarked on the current of prevailing sentiment.  "Mighty
+rough papers on the boys, and no show for money this season.  And
+tomorrow's Christmas."
+
+There was a movement among the men at this announcement, but
+whether of satisfaction or disgust was not plain.  "Yes," continued
+the Old Man in the lugubrious tone he had, within the last few
+moments, unconsciously adopted,--"yes, Christmas, and to-night's
+Christmas eve.  Ye see, boys, I kinder thought--that is, I sorter
+had an idee, jest passin' like, you know--that may be ye'd all like
+to come over to my house to-night and have a sort of tear round.
+But I suppose, now, you wouldn't?  Don't feel like it, may be?" he
+added with anxious sympathy, peering into the faces of his
+companions.
+
+"Well, I don't know," responded Tom Flynn with some cheerfulness.
+"P'r'aps we may.  But how about your wife, Old Man?  What does SHE
+say to it?"
+
+The Old Man hesitated.  His conjugal experience had not been a
+happy one, and the fact was known to Simpson's Bar.  His first
+wife, a delicate, pretty little woman, had suffered keenly and
+secretly from the jealous suspicions of her husband, until one day
+he invited the whole Bar to his house to expose her infidelity.  On
+arriving, the party found the shy, petite creature quietly engaged
+in her household duties, and retired abashed and discomfited.  But
+the sensitive woman did not easily recover from the shock of this
+extraordinary outrage.  It was with difficulty she regained her
+equanimity sufficiently to release her lover from the closet in
+which he was concealed and escape with him.  She left a boy of
+three years to comfort her bereaved husband.  The Old Man's present
+wife had been his cook.  She was large, loyal, and aggressive.
+
+Before he could reply, Joe Dimmick suggested with great directness
+that it was the "Old Man's house," and that, invoking the Divine
+Power, if the case were his own, he would invite whom he pleased,
+even if in so doing he imperilled his salvation.  The Powers of
+Evil, he further remarked, should contend against him vainly.  All
+this delivered with a terseness and vigor lost in this necessary
+translation.
+
+"In course.  Certainly.  Thet's it," said the Old Man with a
+sympathetic frown.  "Thar's no trouble about THET.  It's my own
+house, built every stick on it myself.  Don't you be afeard o' her,
+boys.  She MAY cut up a trifle rough,--ez wimmin do,--but she'll
+come round."  Secretly the Old Man trusted to the exaltation of
+liquor and the power of courageous example to sustain him in such
+an emergency.
+
+As yet, Dick Bullen, the oracle and leader of Simpson's Bar, had
+not spoken.  He now took his pipe from his lips.  "Old Man, how's
+that yer Johnny gettin' on?  Seems to me he didn't look so peart
+last time I seed him on the bluff heavin' rocks at Chinamen.
+Didn't seem to take much interest in it.  Thar was a gang of 'em by
+yar yesterday,--drownded out up the river,--and I kinder thought o'
+Johnny, and how he'd miss 'em!  May be now, we'd be in the way ef
+he wus sick?"
+
+The father, evidently touched not only by this pathetic picture of
+Johnny's deprivation, but by the considerate delicacy of the
+speaker, hastened to assure him that Johnny was better and that a
+"little fun might 'liven him up."  Whereupon Dick arose, shook
+himself, and saying, "I'm ready.  Lead the way, Old Man: here
+goes," himself led the way with a leap, a characteristic howl, and
+darted out into the night.  As he passed through the outer room he
+caught up a blazing brand from the hearth.  The action was repeated
+by the rest of the party, closely following and elbowing each
+other, and before the astonished proprietor of Thompson's grocery
+was aware of the intention of his guests, the room was deserted.
+
+The night was pitchy dark.  In the first gust of wind their
+temporary torches were extinguished, and only the red brands
+dancing and flitting in the gloom like drunken will-o'-the-wisps
+indicated their whereabouts.  Their way led up Pine-Tree Canyon, at
+the head of which a broad, low, bark-thatched cabin burrowed in the
+mountain-side.  It was the home of the Old Man, and the entrance to
+the tunnel in which he worked when he worked at all.  Here the
+crowd paused for a moment, out of delicate deference to their host,
+who came up panting in the rear.
+
+"P'r'aps ye'd better hold on a second out yer, whilst I go in and
+see thet things is all right," said the Old Man, with an
+indifference he was far from feeling.  The suggestion was
+graciously accepted, the door opened and closed on the host, and
+the crowd, leaning their backs against the wall and cowering under
+the eaves, waited and listened.
+
+For a few moments there was no sound but the dripping of water from
+the eaves, and the stir and rustle of wrestling boughs above them.
+Then the men became uneasy, and whispered suggestion and suspicion
+passed from the one to the other.  "Reckon she's caved in his head
+the first lick!"  "Decoyed him inter the tunnel and barred him up,
+likely."  "Got him down and sittin' on him."  "Prob'ly bilin suthin
+to heave on us: stand clear the door, boys!"  For just then the
+latch clicked, the door slowly opened, and a voice said, "Come in
+out o' the wet."
+
+The voice was neither that of the Old Man nor of his wife.  It was
+the voice of a small boy, its weak treble broken by that
+preternatural hoarseness which only vagabondage and the habit of
+premature self-assertion can give.  It was the face of a small boy
+that looked up at theirs,--a face that might have been pretty and
+even refined but that it was darkened by evil knowledge from
+within, and dirt and hard experience from without.  He had a
+blanket around his shoulders and had evidently just risen from his
+bed.  "Come in," he repeated," and don't make no noise.  The Old
+Man's in there talking to mar," he continued, pointing to an
+adjacent room which seemed to be a kitchen, from which the Old
+Man's voice came in deprecating accents.  "Let me be," he added,
+querulously, to Dick Bullen, who had caught him up, blanket and
+all, and was affecting to toss him into the fire, "let go o' me,
+you d----d old fool, d'ye hear?"
+
+Thus adjured, Dick Bullen lowered Johnny to the ground with a
+smothered laugh, while the men, entering quietly, ranged themselves
+around a long table of rough boards which occupied the centre of
+the room.  Johnny then gravely proceeded to a cupboard and brought
+out several articles which he deposited on the table.  "Thar's
+whiskey.  And crackers.  And red herons.  And cheese."  He took a
+bite of the latter on his way to the table.  "And sugar."  He
+scooped up a mouthful en route with a small and very dirty hand.
+"And terbacker.  Thar's dried appils too on the shelf, but I don't
+admire 'em.  Appils is swellin'.  Thar," he concluded, "now wade
+in, and don't be afeard.  I don't mind the old woman.  She don't
+b'long to ME.  S'long."
+
+He had stepped to the threshold of a small room, scarcely larger
+than a closet, partitioned off from the main apartment, and holding
+in its dim recess a small bed.  He stood there a moment looking at
+the company, his bare feet peeping from the blanket, and nodded.
+
+"Hello, Johnny!  You ain't goin' to turn in agin, are ye?" said
+Dick.
+
+"Yes, I are," responded Johnny, decidedly.
+
+"Why, wot's up, old fellow?"
+
+"I'm sick."
+
+"How sick!"
+
+"I've got a fevier.  And childblains.  And roomatiz," returned
+Johnny, and vanished within.  After a moment's pause, he added in
+the dark, apparently from under the bedclothes,--"And biles!"
+
+There was an embarrassing silence.  The men looked at each other,
+and at the fire.  Even with the appetizing banquet before them, it
+seemed as if they might again fall into the despondency of
+Thompson's grocery, when the voice of the Old Man, incautiously
+lifted, came deprecatingly from the kitchen.
+
+"Certainly!  Thet's so.  In course they is.  A gang o' lazy drunken
+loafers, and that ar Dick Bullen's the ornariest of all.  Didn't
+hev no more sabe than to come round yar with sickness in the house
+and no provision.  Thet's what I said: 'Bullen,' sez I, 'it's crazy
+drunk you are, or a fool,' sez I, 'to think o' such a thing.'
+'Staples,' I sez, 'be you a man, Staples, and 'spect to raise h-ll
+under my roof and invalids lyin' round?'  But they would come,--
+they would.  Thet's wot you must 'spect o' such trash as lays round
+the Bar."
+
+A burst of laughter from the men followed this unfortunate
+exposure.  Whether it was overheard in the kitchen, or whether the
+Old Man's irate companion had just then exhausted all other modes
+of expressing her contemptuous indignation, I cannot say, but a
+back door was suddenly slammed with great violence.  A moment later
+and the Old Man reappeared, haply unconscious of the cause of the
+late hilarious outburst, and smiled blandly.
+
+"The old woman thought she'd jest run over to Mrs. McFadden's for a
+sociable call," he explained, with jaunty indifference, as he took
+a seat at the board.
+
+Oddly enough it needed this untoward incident to relieve the
+embarrassment that was beginning to be felt by the party, and their
+natural audacity returned with their host.  I do not propose to
+record the convivialities of that evening.  The inquisitive reader
+will accept the statement that the conversation was characterized
+by the same intellectual exaltation, the same cautious reverence,
+the same fastidious delicacy, the same rhetorical precision, and
+the same logical and coherent discourse somewhat later in the
+evening, which distinguish similar gatherings of the masculine sex
+in more civilized localities and under more favorable auspices.  No
+glasses were broken in the absence of any; no liquor was uselessly
+spilt on floor or table in the scarcity of that article.
+
+It was nearly midnight when the festivities were interrupted.
+"Hush," said Dick Bullen, holding up his hand.  It was the
+querulous voice of Johnny from his adjacent closet: "O dad!"
+
+The Old Man arose hurriedly and disappeared in the closet.
+Presently he reappeared.  "His rheumatiz is coming on agin bad," he
+explained, "and he wants rubbin'."  He lifted the demijohn of
+whiskey from the table and shook it.  It was empty.  Dick Bullen
+put down his tin cup with an embarrassed laugh.  So did the others.
+The Old Man examined their contents and said hopefully, "I reckon
+that's enough; he don't need much.  You hold on all o' you for a
+spell, and I'll be back"; and vanished in the closet with an old
+flannel shirt and the whiskey.  The door closed but imperfectly,
+and the following dialogue was distinctly audible:--
+
+"Now, Sonny, whar does she ache worst?"
+
+"Sometimes over yar and sometimes under yer; but it's most powerful
+from yer to yer.  Rub yer, dad."
+
+A silence seemed to indicate a brisk rubbing.  Then Johnny:
+
+"Hevin' a good time out yer, dad?"
+
+"Yes, sonny."
+
+"To-morrer's Chrismiss, ain't it?"
+
+"Yes, Sonny.  How does she feel now?"
+
+"Better rub a little furder down.  Wot's Chrismiss, anyway?  Wot's
+it all about?"
+
+"O, it's a day."
+
+This exhaustive definition was apparently satisfactory, for there
+was a silent interval of rubbing.  Presently Johnny again:
+
+"Mar sez that everywhere else but yer everybody gives things to
+everybody Chrismiss, and then she jist waded inter you.  She sez
+thar's a man they call Sandy Claws, not a white man, you know, but a
+kind o' Chinemin, comes down the chimbley night afore Chrismiss and
+gives things to chillern,--boys like me.  Puts 'em in their butes!
+Thet's what she tried to play upon me.  Easy now, pop, whar are you
+rubbin' to,--thet's a mile from the place.  She jest made that up,
+didn't she, jest to aggrewate me and you?  Don't rub thar. . . .
+Why, dad!"
+
+In the great quiet that seemed to have fallen upon the house the
+sigh of the near pines and the drip of leaves without was very
+distinct.  Johnny's voice, too, was lowered as he went on, "Don't
+you take on now, fur I'm gettin' all right fast.  Wot's the boys
+doin' out thar?"
+
+The Old Man partly opened the door and peered through.  His guests
+were sitting there sociably enough, and there were a few silver
+coins and a lean buckskin purse on the table.  "Bettin' on suthin,--
+some little game or 'nother.  They're all right," he replied to
+Johnny, and recommenced his rubbing.
+
+"I'd like to take a hand and win some money," said Johnny,
+reflectively, after a pause.
+
+The Old Man glibly repeated what was evidently a familiar formula,
+that if Johnny would wait until he struck it rich in the tunnel
+he'd have lots of money, etc., etc.
+
+"Yes," said Johnny, "but you don't.  And whether you strike it or I
+win it, it's about the same.  It's all luck.  But it's mighty
+cur'o's about Chrismiss,--ain't it?  Why do they call it
+Chrismiss?"
+
+Perhaps from some instinctive deference to the overhearing of his
+guests, or from some vague sense of incongruity, the Old Man's
+reply was so low as to be inaudible beyond the room.
+
+"Yes," said Johnny, with some slight abatement of interest, "I've
+heerd o' HIM before.  Thar, that'll do, dad.  I don't ache near so
+bad as I did.  Now wrap me tight in this yer blanket.  So.  Now,"
+he added in a muffled whisper, "sit down yer by me till I go
+asleep."  To assure himself of obedience, he disengaged one hand
+from the blanket and, grasping his father's sleeve, again composed
+himself to rest.
+
+For some moments the Old Man waited patiently.  Then the unwonted
+stillness of the house excited his curiosity, and without moving
+from the bed, he cautiously opened the door with his disengaged
+hand, and looked into the main room.  To his infinite surprise it
+was dark and deserted.  But even then a smouldering log on the
+hearth broke, and by the upspringing blaze he saw the figure of
+Dick Bullen sitting by the dying embers.
+
+"Hello!"
+
+Dick started, rose, and came somewhat unsteadily toward him.
+
+"Whar's the boys?" said the Old Man.
+
+"Gone up the canyon on a little pasear.  They're coming back for me
+in a minit.  I'm waitin' round for 'em.  What are you starin' at,
+Old Man?" he added with a forced laugh; "do you think I'm drunk?"
+
+The Old Man might have been pardoned the supposition, for Dick's
+eyes were humid and his face flushed.  He loitered and lounged back
+to the chimney, yawned, shook himself, buttoned up his coat and
+laughed.  "Liquor ain't so plenty as that, Old Man.  Now don't you
+git up," he continued, as the Old Man made a movement to release
+his sleeve from Johnny's hand.  "Don't you mind manners.  Sit jest
+whar you be; I'm goin' in a jiffy.  Thar, that's them now."
+
+There was a low tap at the door.  Dick Bullen opened it quickly,
+nodded "Good night" to his host, and disappeared.  The Old Man
+would have followed him but for the hand that still unconsciously
+grasped his sleeve.  He could have easily disengaged it: it was
+small, weak, and emaciated.  But perhaps because it WAS small,
+weak, and emaciated, he changed his mind, and, drawing his chair
+closer to the bed, rested his head upon it.  In this defenceless
+attitude the potency of his earlier potations surprised him.  The
+room flickered and faded before his eyes, reappeared, faded again,
+went out, and left him--asleep.
+
+Meantime Dick Bullen, closing the door, confronted his companions.
+"Are you ready?" said Staples.  "Ready," said Dick; "what's the
+time?"  "Past twelve," was the reply; "can you make it?--it's nigh
+on fifty miles, the round trip hither and yon."  "I reckon,"
+returned Dick, shortly.  "Whar's the mare?"  "Bill and Jack's
+holdin' her at the crossin'."  "Let 'em hold on a minit longer,"
+said Dick.
+
+He turned and re-entered the house softly.  By the light of the
+guttering candle and dying fire he saw that the door of the little
+room was open.  He stepped toward it on tiptoe and looked in.  The
+Old Man had fallen back in his chair, snoring, his helpless feet
+thrust out in a line with his collapsed shoulders, and his hat
+pulled over his eyes.  Beside him, on a narrow wooden bedstead, lay
+Johnny, muffled tightly in a blanket that hid all save a strip of
+forehead and a few curls damp with perspiration.  Dick Bullen made
+a step forward, hesitated, and glanced over his shoulder into the
+deserted room.  Everything was quiet.  With a sudden resolution he
+parted his huge mustaches with both hands and stooped over the
+sleeping boy.  But even as he did so a mischievous blast, lying in
+wait, swooped down the chimney, rekindled the hearth, and lit up
+the room with a shameless glow from which Dick fled in bashful
+terror.
+
+His companions were already waiting for him at the crossing.  Two
+of them were struggling in the darkness with some strange misshapen
+bulk, which as Dick came nearer took the semblance of a great
+yellow horse.
+
+It was the mare.  She was not a pretty picture.  From her Roman
+nose to her rising haunches, from her arched spine hidden by the
+stiff machillas of a Mexican saddle, to her thick, straight, bony
+legs, there was not a line of equine grace.  In her half-blind but
+wholly vicious white eyes, in her protruding under lip, in her
+monstrous color, there was nothing but ugliness and vice.
+
+"Now then," said Staples, "stand cl'ar of her heels, boys, and up
+with you.  Don't miss your first holt of her mane, and mind ye get
+your off stirrup QUICK.  Ready!"
+
+There was a leap, a scrambling struggle, a bound, a wild retreat of
+the crowd, a circle of flying hoofs, two springless leaps that
+jarred the earth, a rapid play and jingle of spurs, a plunge, and
+then the voice of Dick somewhere in the darkness, "All right!"
+
+"Don't take the lower road back onless you're hard pushed for time!
+Don't hold her in down hill!  We'll be at the ford at five.
+G'lang!  Hoopa!  Mula!  GO!"
+
+A splash, a spark struck from the ledge in the road, a clatter in
+the rocky cut beyond, and Dick was gone.
+
+        .        .        .        .        .        .
+
+Sing, O Muse, the ride of Richard Bullen!  Sing, O Muse of
+chivalrous men! the sacred quest, the doughty deeds, the battery of
+low churls, the fearsome ride and grewsome perils of the Flower of
+Simpson's Bar!  Alack! she is dainty, this Muse!  She will have
+none of this bucking brute and swaggering, ragged rider, and I must
+fain follow him in prose, afoot!
+
+It was one o'clock, and yet he had only gained Rattlesnake Hill.
+For in that time Jovita had rehearsed to him all her imperfections
+and practised all her vices.  Thrice had she stumbled.  Twice had
+she thrown up her Roman nose in a straight line with the reins,
+and, resisting bit and spur, struck out madly across country.
+Twice had she reared, and, rearing, fallen backward; and twice had
+the agile Dick, unharmed, regained his seat before she found her
+vicious legs again.  And a mile beyond them, at the foot of a long
+hill, was Rattlesnake Creek.  Dick knew that here was the crucial
+test of his ability to perform his enterprise, set his teeth
+grimly, put his knees well into her flanks, and changed his
+defensive tactics to brisk aggression.  Bullied and maddened,
+Jovita began the descent of the hill.  Here the artful Richard
+pretended to hold her in with ostentatious objurgation and well-
+feigned cries of alarm.  It is unnecessary to add that Jovita
+instantly ran away.  Nor need I state the time made in the descent;
+it is written in the chronicles of Simpson's Bar.  Enough that in
+another moment, as it seemed to Dick, she was splashing on the
+overflowed banks of Rattlesnake Creek.  As Dick expected, the
+momentum she had acquired carried her beyond the point of balking,
+and, holding her well together for a mighty leap, they dashed into
+the middle of the swiftly flowing current.  A few moments of
+kicking, wading, and swimming, and Dick drew a long breath on the
+opposite bank.
+
+The road from Rattlesnake Creek to Red Mountain was tolerably
+level.  Either the plunge in Rattlesnake Creek had dampened her
+baleful fire, or the art which led to it had shown her the superior
+wickedness of her rider, for Jovita no longer wasted her surplus
+energy in wanton conceits.  Once she bucked, but it was from force
+of habit; once she shied, but it was from a new freshly painted
+meeting-house at the crossing of the county road.  Hollows,
+ditches, gravelly deposits, patches of freshly springing grasses,
+flew from beneath her rattling hoofs.  She began to smell
+unpleasantly, once or twice she coughed slightly, but there was no
+abatement of her strength or speed.  By two o'clock he had passed
+Red Mountain and begun the descent to the plain.  Ten minutes later
+the driver of the fast Pioneer coach was overtaken and passed by a
+"man on a Pinto hoss,"--an event sufficiently notable for remark.
+At half past two Dick rose in his stirrups with a great shout.
+Stars were glittering through the rifted clouds, and beyond him,
+out of the plain, rose two spires, a flagstaff, and a straggling
+line of black objects.  Dick jingled his spurs and swung his riata,
+Jovita bounded forward, and in another moment they swept into
+Tuttleville and drew up before the wooden piazza of "The Hotel of
+All Nations."
+
+What transpired that night at Tuttleville is not strictly a part of
+this record.  Briefly I may state, however, that after Jovita had
+been handed over to a sleepy ostler, whom she at once kicked into
+unpleasant consciousness, Dick sallied out with the bar-keeper for
+a tour of the sleeping town.  Lights still gleamed from a few
+saloons and gambling-houses; but, avoiding these, they stopped
+before several closed shops, and by persistent tapping and
+judicious outcry roused the proprietors from their beds, and made
+them unbar the doors of their magazines and expose their wares.
+Sometimes they were met by curses, but oftener by interest and some
+concern in their needs, and the interview was invariably concluded
+by a drink.  It was three o'clock before this pleasantry was given
+over, and with a small waterproof bag of india-rubber strapped on
+his shoulders Dick returned to the hotel.  But here he was waylaid
+by Beauty,--Beauty opulent in charms, affluent in dress, persuasive
+in speech, and Spanish in accent!  In vain she repeated the
+invitation in "Excelsior," happily scorned by all Alpine-climbing
+youth, and rejected by this child of the Sierras,--a rejection
+softened in this instance by a laugh and his last gold coin.  And
+then he sprang to the saddle and dashed down the lonely street and
+out into the lonelier plain, where presently the lights, the black
+line of houses, the spires, and the flagstaff sank into the earth
+behind him again and were lost in the distance.
+
+The storm had cleared away, the air was brisk and cold, the
+outlines of adjacent landmarks were distinct, but it was half past
+four before Dick reached the meeting-house and the crossing of the
+county road.  To avoid the rising grade he had taken a longer and
+more circuitous road, in whose viscid mud Jovita sank fetlock deep
+at every bound.  It was a poor preparation for a steady ascent of
+five miles more; but Jovita, gathering her legs under her, took it
+with her usual blind, unreasoning fury, and a half-hour later
+reached the long level that led to Rattlesnake Creek.  Another
+half-hour would bring him to the creek.  He threw the reins lightly
+upon the neck of the mare, chirruped to her, and began to sing.
+
+Suddenly Jovita shied with a bound that would have unseated a less
+practised rider.  Hanging to her rein was a figure that had leaped
+from the bank, and at the same time from the road before her arose
+a shadowy horse and rider.  "Throw up your hands," commanded this
+second apparition, with an oath.
+
+Dick felt the mare tremble, quiver, and apparently sink under him.
+He knew what it meant and was prepared.
+
+"Stand aside, Jack Simpson, I know you, you d----d thief.  Let me
+pass or--"
+
+He did not finish the sentence.  Jovita rose straight in the air
+with a terrific bound, throwing the figure from her bit with a
+single shake of her vicious head, and charged with deadly
+malevolence down on the impediment before her.  An oath, a pistol-
+shot, horse and highwayman rolled over in the road, and the next
+moment Jovita was a hundred yards away.  But the good right arm of
+her rider, shattered by a bullet, dropped helplessly at his side.
+
+Without slacking his speed he shifted the reins to his left hand.
+But a few moments later he was obliged to halt and tighten the
+saddle-girths that had slipped in the onset.  This in his crippled
+condition took some time.  He had no fear of pursuit, but looking
+up he saw that the eastern stars were already paling, and that the
+distant peaks had lost their ghostly whiteness, and now stood out
+blackly against a lighter sky.  Day was upon him.  Then completely
+absorbed in a single idea, he forgot the pain of his wound, and
+mounting again dashed on toward Rattlesnake Creek.  But now
+Jovita's breath came broken by gasps, Dick reeled in his saddle,
+and brighter and brighter grew the sky.
+
+Ride, Richard; run, Jovita; linger, O day!
+
+For the last few rods there was a roaring in his ears.  Was it
+exhaustion from loss of blood, or what?  He was dazed and giddy as
+he swept down the hill, and did not recognize his surroundings.
+Had he taken the wrong road, or was this Rattlesnake Creek?
+
+It was.  But the brawling creek he had swam a few hours before had
+risen, more than doubled its volume, and now rolled a swift and
+resistless river between him and Rattlesnake Hill.  For the first
+time that night Richard's heart sank within him.  The river, the
+mountain, the quickening east, swam before his eyes.  He shut them
+to recover his self-control.  In that brief interval, by some
+fantastic mental process, the little room at Simpson's Bar and the
+figures of the sleeping father and son rose upon him.  He opened
+his eyes wildly, cast off his coat, pistol, boots, and saddle,
+bound his precious pack tightly to his shoulders, grasped the bare
+flanks of Jovita with his bared knees, and with a shout dashed into
+the yellow water.  A cry rose from the opposite bank as the head of
+a man and horse struggled for a few moments against the battling
+current, and then were swept away amidst uprooted trees and
+whirling drift-wood.
+
+        .        .        .        .        .        .
+
+The Old Man started and woke.  The fire on the hearth was dead, the
+candle in the outer room flickering in its socket, and somebody was
+rapping at the door.  He opened it, but fell back with a cry before
+the dripping half-naked figure that reeled against the doorpost.
+
+"Dick?"
+
+"Hush!  Is he awake yet?"
+
+"No,--but, Dick?--"
+
+"Dry up, you old fool!  Get me some whiskey QUICK!"  The Old Man
+flew and returned with--an empty bottle!  Dick would have sworn,
+but his strength was not equal to the occasion.  He staggered,
+caught at the handle of the door, and motioned to the Old Man.
+
+"Thar's suthin' in my pack yer for Johnny.  Take it off.  I can't."
+
+The Old Man unstrapped the pack and laid it before the exhausted
+man.
+
+"Open it, quick!"
+
+He did so with trembling fingers.  It contained only a few poor
+toys,--cheap and barbaric enough, goodness knows, but bright with
+paint and tinsel.  One of them was broken; another, I fear, was
+irretrievably ruined by water; and on the third--ah me! there was a
+cruel spot.
+
+"It don't look like much, that's a fact," said Dick, ruefully . . . .
+"But it's the best we could do. . . .  Take 'em, Old Man, and
+put 'em in his stocking, and tell him--tell him, you know--hold me,
+Old Man--"  The Old Man caught at his sinking figure.  "Tell him,"
+said Dick, with a weak little laugh,--"tell him Sandy Claus has
+come."
+
+
+And even so, bedraggled, ragged, unshaven and unshorn, with one arm
+hanging helplessly at his side, Santa Claus came to Simpson's Bar
+and fell fainting on the first threshold.  The Christmas dawn came
+slowly after, touching the remoter peaks with the rosy warmth of
+ineffable love.  And it looked so tenderly on Simpson's Bar that
+the whole mountain as if caught in a generous action, blushed to
+the skies.
+
+
+
+THE PRINCESS BOB AND HER FRIENDS.
+
+
+She was a Klamath Indian.  Her title was, I think, a compromise
+between her claim as daughter of a chief, and gratitude to her
+earliest white protector, whose name, after the Indian fashion, she
+had adopted.  "Bob" Walker had taken her from the breast of her
+dead mother at a time when the sincere volunteer soldiery of the
+California frontier were impressed with the belief that extermination
+was the manifest destiny of the Indian race.  He had with difficulty
+restrained the noble zeal of his compatriots long enough to convince
+them that the exemption of one Indian baby would not invalidate this
+theory.  And he took her to his home,--a pastoral clearing on the
+banks of the Salmon River,--where she was cared for after a frontier
+fashion.
+
+Before she was nine years old, she had exhausted the scant
+kindliness of the thin, overworked Mrs. Walker.  As a playfellow of
+the young Walkers she was unreliable; as a nurse for the baby she
+was inefficient.  She lost the former in the trackless depths of a
+redwood forest; she basely abandoned the latter in an extemporized
+cradle, hanging like a chrysalis to a convenient bough.  She lied
+and she stole,--two unpardonable sins in a frontier community,
+where truth was a necessity and provisions were the only property.
+Worse than this, the outskirts of the clearing were sometimes
+haunted by blanketed tatterdemalions with whom she had mysterious
+confidences.  Mr. Walker more than once regretted his indiscreet
+humanity; but she presently relieved him of responsibility, and
+possibly of bloodguiltiness, by disappearing entirely.
+
+When she reappeared, it was at the adjacent village of Logport, in
+the capacity of housemaid to a trader's wife, who, joining some
+little culture to considerable conscientiousness, attempted to
+instruct her charge.  But the Princess proved an unsatisfactory
+pupil to even so liberal a teacher.  She accepted the alphabet with
+great good-humor, but always as a pleasing and recurring novelty,
+in which all interest expired at the completion of each lesson.
+She found a thousand uses for her books and writing materials other
+than those known to civilized children.  She made a curious
+necklace of bits of slate-pencil, she constructed a miniature canoe
+from the pasteboard covers of her primer, she bent her pens into
+fish-hooks, and tattooed the faces of her younger companions with
+blue ink.  Religious instruction she received as good-humoredly,
+and learned to pronounce the name of the Deity with a cheerful
+familiarity that shocked her preceptress.  Nor could her reverence
+be reached through analogy; she knew nothing of the Great Spirit,
+and professed entire ignorance of the Happy Hunting-Grounds.  Yet
+she attended divine service regularly, and as regularly asked for a
+hymn-book; and it was only through the discovery that she had
+collected twenty-five of these volumes and had hidden them behind
+the woodpile, that her connection with the First Baptist Church of
+Logport ceased.  She would occasionally abandon these civilized and
+Christian privileges, and disappear from her home, returning after
+several days of absence with an odor of bark and fish, and a peace-
+offering to her mistress in the shape of venison or game.
+
+To add to her troubles, she was now fourteen, and, according to the
+laws of her race, a woman.  I do not think the most romantic fancy
+would have called her pretty.  Her complexion defied most of those
+ambiguous similes through which poets unconsciously apologize for
+any deviation from the Caucasian standard.  It was not wine nor
+amber colored; if anything, it was smoky.  Her face was tattooed
+with red and white lines on one cheek, as if a duo-toothed comb had
+been drawn from cheek-bone to jaw, and, but for the good-humor that
+beamed from her small berry-like eyes and shone in her white teeth,
+would have been repulsive.  She was short and stout.  In her scant
+drapery and unrestrained freedom she was hardly statuesque, and her
+more unstudied attitudes were marred by a simian habit of softly
+scratching her left ankle with the toes of her right foot, in
+moments of contemplation.
+
+I think I have already shown enough to indicate the incongruity of
+her existence with even the low standard of civilization that
+obtained at Logport in the year 1860.  It needed but one more fact
+to prove the far-sighted poetical sagacity and prophetic ethics of
+those sincere advocates of extermination, to whose virtues I have
+done but scant justice in the beginning of this article.  This fact
+was presently furnished by the Princess.  After one of her
+periodical disappearances,--this time unusually prolonged,--she
+astonished Logport by returning with a half-breed baby of a week
+old in her arms.  That night a meeting of the hard-featured serious
+matrons of Logport was held at Mrs. Brown's.  The immediate
+banishment of the Princess was demanded.  Soft-hearted Mrs. Brown
+endeavored vainly to get a mitigation or suspension of the
+sentence.  But, as on a former occasion, the Princess took matters
+into her own hands.  A few mornings afterwards, a wicker cradle
+containing an Indian baby was found hanging on the handle of the
+door of the First Baptist Church.  It was the Parthian arrow of the
+flying Princess.  From that day Logport knew her no more.
+
+
+It had been a bright clear day on the upland, so clear that the
+ramparts of Fort Jackson and the flagstaff were plainly visible
+twelve miles away from the long curving peninsula that stretched a
+bared white arm around the peaceful waters of Logport Bay.  It had
+been a clear day upon the sea-shore, albeit the air was filled with
+the flying spume and shifting sand of a straggling beach whose low
+dunes were dragged down by the long surges of the Pacific and
+thrown up again by the tumultuous trade-winds.  But the sun had
+gone down in a bank of fleecy fog that was beginning to roll in
+upon the beach.  Gradually the headland at the entrance of the
+harbor and the lighthouse disappeared, then the willow fringe that
+marked the line of Salmon River vanished, and the ocean was gone.
+A few sails still gleamed on the waters of the bay; but the
+advancing fog wiped them out one by one, crept across the steel-
+blue expanse, swallowed up the white mills and single spire of
+Logport, and, joining with reinforcements from the marshes, moved
+solemnly upon the hills.  Ten minutes more and the landscape was
+utterly blotted out; simultaneously the wind died away, and a
+death-like silence stole over sea and shore.  The faint clang, high
+overhead, of unseen brent, the nearer call of invisible plover, the
+lap and wash of undistinguishable waters, and the monotonous roll
+of the vanished ocean, were the only sounds.  As night deepened,
+the far-off booming of the fog-bell on the headland at intervals
+stirred the thick air.
+
+Hard by the shore of the bay, and half hidden by a drifting sand-
+hill, stood a low nondescript structure, to whose composition sea
+and shore had equally contributed.  It was built partly of logs and
+partly of driftwood and tarred canvas.  Joined to one end of the
+main building--the ordinary log-cabin of the settler--was the half-
+round pilot-house of some wrecked steamer, while the other gable
+terminated in half of a broken whale-boat.  Nailed against the boat
+were the dried skins of wild animals, and scattered about lay the
+flotsam and jetsam of many years' gathering,--bamboo crates, casks,
+hatches, blocks, oars, boxes, part of a whale's vertebrae, and the
+blades of sword-fish.  Drawn up on the beach of a little cove
+before the house lay a canoe.  As the night thickened and the fog
+grew more dense, these details grew imperceptible, and only the
+windows of the pilot-house, lit up by a roaring fire within the
+hut, gleamed redly through the mist.
+
+By this fire, beneath a ship's lamp that swung from the roof, two
+figures were seated, a man and a woman.  The man, broad-shouldered
+and heavily bearded, stretched his listless powerful length beyond
+a broken bamboo chair, with his eyes fixed on the fire.  The woman
+crouched cross-legged upon the broad earthen hearth, with her eyes
+blinkingly fixed on her companion.  They were small, black, round,
+berry-like eyes, and as the firelight shone upon her smoky face,
+with its one striped cheek of gorgeous brilliancy, it was plainly
+the Princess Bob and no other.
+
+Not a word was spoken.  They had been sitting thus for more than an
+hour, and there was about their attitude a suggestion that silence
+was habitual.  Once or twice the man rose and walked up and down
+the narrow room, or gazed absently from the windows of the pilot-
+house, but never by look or sign betrayed the slightest
+consciousness of his companion.  At such times the Princess from
+her nest by the fire followed him with eyes of canine expectancy
+and wistfulness.  But he would as inevitably return to his
+contemplation of the fire, and the Princess to her blinking
+watchfulness of his face.
+
+They had sat there silent and undisturbed for many an evening in
+fair weather and foul.  They had spent many a day in sunshine and
+storm, gathering the unclaimed spoil of sea and shore.  They had
+kept these mute relations, varied only by the incidents of the hunt
+or meagre household duties, for three years, ever since the man,
+wandering moodily over the lonely sands, had fallen upon the half-
+starved woman lying in the little hollow where she had crawled to
+die.  It had seemed as if they would never be disturbed, until now,
+when the Princess started, and, with the instinct of her race, bent
+her ear to the ground.
+
+The wind had risen and was rattling the tarred canvas.  But in
+another moment there plainly came from without the hut the sound of
+voices.  Then followed a rap at the door; then another rap; and
+then, before they could rise to their feet, the door was flung
+briskly open.
+
+"I beg your pardon," said a pleasant but somewhat decided contralto
+voice, "but I don't think you heard me knock.  Ah, I see you did
+not.  May I come in?"
+
+There was no reply.  Had the battered figurehead of the Goddess of
+Liberty, which lay deeply embedded in the sand on the beach,
+suddenly appeared at the door demanding admittance, the occupants
+of the cabin could not have been more speechlessly and hopelessly
+astonished than at the form which stood in the open doorway.
+
+It was that of a slim, shapely, elegantly dressed young woman.  A
+scarlet-lined silken hood was half thrown back from the shining
+mass of the black hair that covered her small head; from her pretty
+shoulders dropped a fur cloak, only restrained by a cord and tassel
+in her small gloved hand.  Around her full throat was a double
+necklace of large white beads, that by some cunning feminine trick
+relieved with its infantile suggestion the strong decision of her
+lower face.
+
+"Did you say yes?  Ah, thank you.  We may come in, Barker."  (Here
+a shadow in a blue army overcoat followed her into the cabin,
+touched its cap respectfully, and then stood silent and erect
+against the wall.)  "Don't disturb yourself in the least, I beg.
+What a distressingly unpleasant night!  Is this your usual
+climate?"
+
+Half graciously, half absently overlooking the still embarrassed
+silence of the group, she went on: "We started from the fort over
+three hours ago,--three hours ago, wasn't it, Barker?" (the erect
+Barker touched his cap,)--"to go to Captain Emmons's quarters on
+Indian Island,--I think you call it Indian Island, don't you?" (she
+was appealing to the awe-stricken Princess,)--"and we got into the
+fog and lost our way; that is, Barker lost his way," (Barker
+touched his cap deprecatingly,) "and goodness knows where we didn't
+wander to until we mistook your light for the lighthouse and pulled
+up here.  No, no, pray keep your seat, do!  Really I must insist."
+
+Nothing could exceed the languid grace of the latter part of this
+speech,--nothing except the easy unconsciousness with which she
+glided by the offered chair of her stammering, embarrassed host and
+stood beside the open hearth.
+
+"Barker will tell you," she continued, warming her feet by the
+fire, "that I am Miss Portfire, daughter of Major Portfire,
+commanding the post.  Ah, excuse me, child!"  (She had accidentally
+trodden upon the bare yellow toes of the Princess.)  "Really, I did
+not know you were there.  I am very near-sighted."  (In confirmation
+of her statement, she put to her eyes a dainty double eyeglass that
+dangled from her neck.)  "It's a shocking thing to be near-sighted,
+isn't it?"
+
+If the shamefaced uneasy man to whom this remark was addressed
+could have found words to utter the thought that even in his
+confusion struggled uppermost in his mind, he would, looking at the
+bold, dark eyes that questioned him, have denied the fact.  But he
+only stammered, "Yes."  The next moment, however, Miss Portfire had
+apparently forgotten him and was examining the Princess through her
+glass.
+
+"And what is your name, child?"
+
+The Princess, beatified by the eyes and eyeglass, showed all her
+white teeth at once, and softly scratched her leg.
+
+"Bob?"
+
+"Bob?  What a singular name!"
+
+Miss Portfire's host here hastened to explain the origin of the
+Princess's title.
+
+"Then YOU are Bob."  (Eye-glass.)
+
+"No, my name is Grey,--John Grey."  And he actually achieved a bow
+where awkwardness was rather the air of imperfectly recalling a
+forgotten habit.
+
+"Grey?--ah, let me see.  Yes, certainly.  You are Mr. Grey the
+recluse, the hermit, the philosopher, and all that sort of thing.
+Why, certainly; Dr. Jones, our surgeon, has told me all about you.
+Dear me, how interesting a rencontre!  Lived all alone here for
+seven--was it seven years?--yes, I remember now.  Existed quite au
+naturel, one might say.  How odd!  Not that I know anything about
+that sort of thing, you know.  I've lived always among people, and
+am really quite a stranger, I assure you.  But honestly, Mr.--I beg
+your pardon--Mr. Grey, how do you like it?"
+
+She had quietly taken his chair and thrown her cloak and hood over
+its back, and was now thoughtfully removing her gloves.  Whatever
+were the arguments,--and they were doubtless many and profound,--
+whatever the experience,--and it was doubtless hard and satisfying
+enough,--by which this unfortunate man had justified his life for
+the last seven years, somehow they suddenly became trivial and
+terribly ridiculous before this simple but practical question.
+
+"Well, you shall tell me all about it after you have given me
+something to eat.  We will have time enough; Barker cannot find his
+way back in this fog to-night.  Now don't put yourselves to any
+trouble on my account.  Barker will assist?"
+
+Barker came forward.  Glad to escape the scrutiny of his guest, the
+hermit gave a few rapid directions to the Princess in her native
+tongue, and disappeared in the shed.  Left a moment alone, Miss
+Portfire took a quick, half-audible, feminine inventory of the
+cabin.  "Books, guns, skins, ONE chair, ONE bed, no pictures, and
+no looking-glass!"  She took a book from the swinging shelf and
+resumed her seat by the fire as the Princess re-entered with fresh
+fuel.  But while kneeling on the hearth the Princess chanced to
+look up and met Miss Portfire's dark eyes over the edge of her book.
+
+"Bob!"
+
+The Princess showed her teeth.
+
+"Listen.  Would you like to have fine clothes, rings, and beads
+like these, to have your hair nicely combed and put up so?  Would
+you?"
+
+The Princess nodded violently.
+
+"Would you like to live with me and have them?  Answer quickly.
+Don't look round for HIM.  Speak for yourself.  Would you?  Hush;
+never mind now."
+
+The hermit re-entered, and the Princess, blinking, retreated into
+the shadow of the whale-boat shed, from which she did not emerge
+even when the homely repast of cold venison, ship biscuit, and tea
+was served.  Miss Portfire noticed her absence: "You really must
+not let me interfere with your usual simple ways.  Do you know this
+is exceedingly interesting to me, so pastoral and patriarchal and
+all that sort of thing.  I must insist upon the Princess coming
+back; really, I must."
+
+But the Princess was not to be found in the shed, and Miss
+Portfire, who the next minute seemed to have forgotten all about
+her, took her place in the single chair before an extemporized
+table.  Barker stood behind her, and the hermit leaned against the
+fireplace.  Miss Portfire's appetite did not come up to her
+protestations.  For the first time in seven years it occurred to
+the hermit that his ordinary victual might be improved.  He
+stammered out something to that effect.
+
+"I have eaten better, and worse," said Miss Portfire, quietly.
+
+"But I thought you--that is, you said--"
+
+"I spent a year in the hospitals, when father was on the Potomac,"
+returned Miss Portfire, composedly.  After a pause she continued:
+"You remember after the second Bull Run--  But, dear me!  I beg
+your pardon; of course, you know nothing about the war and all that
+sort of thing, and don't care."  (She put up her eye-glass and
+quietly surveyed his broad muscular figure against the chimney.)
+"Or, perhaps, your prejudices--  But then, as a hermit you know you
+have no politics, of course.  Please don't let me bore you."
+
+To have been strictly consistent, the hermit should have exhibited
+no interest in this topic.  Perhaps it was owing to some quality in
+the narrator, but he was constrained to beg her to continue in such
+phrases as his unfamiliar lips could command.  So that, little by
+little, Miss Portfire yielded up incident and personal observation
+of the contest then raging; with the same half-abstracted, half-
+unconcerned air that seemed habitual to her, she told the stories
+of privation, of suffering, of endurance, and of sacrifice.  With
+the same assumption of timid deference that concealed her great
+self-control, she talked of principles and rights.  Apparently
+without enthusiasm and without effort, of which his morbid nature
+would have been suspicious, she sang the great American Iliad in a
+way that stirred the depths of her solitary auditor to its massive
+foundations.  Then she stopped and asked quietly, "Where is Bob?"
+
+The hermit started.  He would look for her.  But Bob, for some
+reason, was not forthcoming.  Search was made within and without
+the hut, but in vain.  For the first time that evening Miss
+Portfire showed some anxiety.  "Go," she said to Barker, "and find
+her.  She MUST be found; stay, give me your overcoat, I'll go
+myself."  She threw the overcoat over her shoulders and stepped out
+into the night.  In the thick veil of fog that seemed suddenly to
+inwrap her, she stood for a moment irresolute, and then walked
+toward the beach, guided by the low wash of waters on the sand.
+She had not taken many steps before she stumbled over some dark
+crouching object.  Reaching down her hand she felt the coarse wiry
+mane of the Princess.
+
+"Bob!"
+
+There was no reply.
+
+"Bob.  I've been looking for you, come."
+
+"Go 'way."
+
+"Nonsense, Bob.  I want you to stay with me to-night, come."
+
+"Injin squaw no good for waugee woman.  Go 'way."
+
+"Listen, Bob.  You are daughter of a chief: so am I.  Your father
+had many warriors: so has mine.  It is good that you stay with me.
+Come."
+
+The Princess chuckled and suffered herself to be lifted up.  A few
+moments later and they re-entered the hut, hand in hand.
+
+With the first red streaks of dawn the next day the erect Barker
+touched his cap at the door of the hut.  Beside him stood the
+hermit, also just risen from his blanketed nest in the sand.  Forth
+from the hut, fresh as the morning air, stepped Miss Portfire,
+leading the Princess by the hand.  Hand in hand also they walked to
+the shore, and when the Princess had been safely bestowed in the
+stern sheets, Miss Portfire turned and held out her own to her late
+host.
+
+"I shall take the best of care of her, of course.  You will come
+and see her often.  I should ask you to come and see me, but you
+are a hermit, you know, and all that sort of thing.  But if it's
+the correct anchorite thing, and can be done, my father will be
+glad to requite you for this night's hospitality.  But don't do
+anything on my account that interferes with your simple habits.
+Good by."
+
+She handed him a card, which he took mechanically.
+
+"Good by."
+
+The sail was hoisted, and the boat shoved off.  As the fresh
+morning breeze caught the white canvas it seemed to bow a parting
+salutation.  There was a rosy flash of promise on the water, and as
+the light craft darted forward toward the ascending sun, it seemed
+for a moment uplifted in its glory.
+
+
+Miss Portfire kept her word.  If thoughtful care and intelligent
+kindness could regenerate the Princess, her future was secure.  And
+it really seemed as if she were for the first time inclined to heed
+the lessons of civilization and profit by her new condition.  An
+agreeable change was first noticed in her appearance.  Her lawless
+hair was caught in a net, and no longer strayed over her low
+forehead.  Her unstable bust was stayed and upheld by French
+corsets; her plantigrade shuffle was limited by heeled boots.  Her
+dresses were neat and clean, and she wore a double necklace of
+glass beads.  With this physical improvement there also seemed some
+moral awakening.  She no longer stole nor lied.  With the
+possession of personal property came a respect for that of others.
+With increased dependence on the word of those about her came a
+thoughtful consideration of her own.  Intellectually she was still
+feeble, although she grappled sturdily with the simple lessons
+which Miss Portfire set before her.  But her zeal and simple vanity
+outran her discretion, and she would often sit for hours with an
+open book before her, which she could not read.  She was a favorite
+with the officers at the fort, from the Major, who shared his
+daughter's prejudices and often yielded to her powerful self-will,
+to the subalterns, who liked her none the less that their natural
+enemies, the frontier volunteers, had declared war against her
+helpless sisterhood.  The only restraint put upon her was the
+limitation of her liberty to the enclosure of the fort and parade;
+and only once did she break this parole, and was stopped by the
+sentry as she stepped into a boat at the landing.
+
+The recluse did not avail himself of Miss Portfire's invitation.
+But after the departure of the Princess he spent less of his time
+in the hut, and was more frequently seen in the distant marshes of
+Eel River and on the upland hills.  A feverish restlessness, quite
+opposed to his usual phlegm, led him into singular freaks strangely
+inconsistent with his usual habits and reputation.  The purser of
+the occasional steamer which stopped at Logport with the mails
+reported to have been boarded, just inside the bar, by a strange
+bearded man, who asked for a newspaper containing the last war
+telegrams.  He tore his red shirt into narrow strips, and spent two
+days with his needle over the pieces and the tattered remnant of
+his only white garment; and a few days afterward the fishermen on
+the bay were surprised to see what, on nearer approach, proved to
+be a rude imitation of the national flag floating from a spar above
+the hut.
+
+One evening, as the fog began to drift over the sand-hills, the
+recluse sat alone in his hut.  The fire was dying unheeded on the
+hearth, for he had been sitting there for a long time, completely
+absorbed in the blurred pages of an old newspaper.  Presently he
+arose, and, refolding it,--an operation of great care and delicacy
+in its tattered condition,--placed it under the blankets of his
+bed.  He resumed his seat by the fire, but soon began drumming with
+his fingers on the arm of his chair.  Eventually this assumed the
+time and accent of some air.  Then he began to whistle softly and
+hesitatingly, as if trying to recall a forgotten tune.  Finally
+this took shape in a rude resemblance, not unlike that which his
+flag bore to the national standard, to Yankee Doodle.  Suddenly he
+stopped.
+
+There was an unmistakable rapping at the door.  The blood which had
+at first rushed to his face now forsook it and settled slowly
+around his heart.  He tried to rise, but could not.  Then the door
+was flung open, and a figure with a scarlet-lined hood and fur
+mantle stood on the threshold.  With a mighty effort he took one
+stride to the door.  The next moment he saw the wide mouth and
+white teeth of the Princess, and was greeted by a kiss that felt
+like a baptism.
+
+To tear the hood and mantle from her figure in the sudden fury that
+seized him, and to fiercely demand the reason of this masquerade,
+was his only return to her greeting.  "Why are you here? did you
+steal these garments?" he again demanded in her guttural language,
+as he shook her roughly by the arm.  The Princess hung her head.
+"Did you?" he screamed, as he reached wildly for his rifle.
+
+"I did?"
+
+His hold relaxed, and he staggered back against the wall.  The
+Princess began to whimper.  Between her sobs, she was trying to
+explain that the Major and his daughter were going away, and that
+they wanted to send her to the Reservation; but he cut her short.
+"Take off those things!"  The Princess tremblingly obeyed.  He
+rolled them up, placed them in the canoe she had just left, and
+then leaped into the frail craft.  She would have followed, but
+with a great oath he threw her from him, and with one stroke of his
+paddle swept out into the fog, and was gone.
+
+"Jessamy," said the Major, a few days after, as he sat at dinner
+with his daughter, "I think I can tell you something to match the
+mysterious disappearance and return of your wardrobe.  Your crazy
+friend, the recluse, has enlisted this morning in the Fourth
+Artillery.  He's a splendid-looking animal, and there's the right
+stuff for a soldier in him, if I'm not mistaken.  He's in earnest
+too, for he enlists in the regiment ordered back to Washington.
+Bless me, child, another goblet broken; you'll ruin the mess in
+glassware, at this rate!"
+
+"Have you heard anything more of the Princess, papa?"
+
+"Nothing, but perhaps it's as well that she has gone.  These cursed
+settlers are at their old complaints again about what they call
+'Indian depredations,' and I have just received orders from head-
+quarters to keep the settlement clear of all vagabond aborigines.
+I am afraid, my dear, that a strict construction of the term would
+include your protegee."
+
+The time for the departure of the Fourth Artillery had come.  The
+night before was thick and foggy.  At one o'clock, a shot on the
+ramparts called out the guard and roused the sleeping garrison.
+The new sentry, Private Grey, had challenged a dusky figure
+creeping on the glacis, and, receiving no answer, had fired.  The
+guard sent out presently returned, bearing a lifeless figure in
+their arms.  The new sentry's zeal, joined with an ex-frontiersman's
+aim, was fatal.
+
+They laid the helpless, ragged form before the guard-house door,
+and then saw for the first time that it was the Princess.
+Presently she opened her eyes.  They fell upon the agonized face of
+her innocent slayer, but haply without intelligence or reproach.
+
+"Georgy!" she whispered.
+
+"Bob!"
+
+"All's same now.  Me get plenty well soon.  Me make no more fuss.
+Me go to Reservation."
+
+Then she stopped, a tremor ran through her limbs, and she lay
+still.  She had gone to the Reservation.  Not that devised by the
+wisdom of man, but that one set apart from the foundation of the
+world for the wisest as well as the meanest of His creatures.
+
+
+
+THE ILIAD OF SANDY BAR.
+
+
+Before nine o'clock it was pretty well known all along the river
+that the two partners of the "Amity Claim" had quarrelled and
+separated at daybreak.  At that time the attention of their nearest
+neighbor had been attracted by the sounds of altercations and two
+consecutive pistol-shots.  Running out, he had seen, dimly, in the
+gray mist that rose from the river, the tall form of Scott, one of
+the partners, descending the hill toward the canyon; a moment
+later, York, the other partner, had appeared from the cabin, and
+walked in an opposite direction toward the river, passing within a
+few feet of the curious watcher.  Later it was discovered that a
+serious Chinaman, cutting wood before the cabin, had witnessed part
+of the quarrel.  But John was stolid, indifferent, and reticent.
+"Me choppee wood, me no fightee," was his serene response to all
+anxious queries.  "But what did they SAY, John?"  John did not
+sabe.  Colonel Starbottle deftly ran over the various popular
+epithets which a generous public sentiment might accept as
+reasonable provocation for an assault.  But John did not recognize
+them.  "And this yer's the cattle," said the Colonel, with some
+severity, "that some thinks oughter be allowed to testify ag'in' a
+White Man!  Git--you heathen!"
+
+Still the quarrel remained inexplicable.  That two men, whose
+amiability and grave tact had earned for them the title of "The
+Peacemakers," in a community not greatly given to the passive
+virtues,--that these men, singularly devoted to each other, should
+suddenly and violently quarrel, might well excite the curiosity of
+the camp.  A few of the more inquisitive visited the late scene of
+conflict, now deserted by its former occupants.  There was no trace
+of disorder or confusion in the neat cabin.  The rude table was
+arranged as if for breakfast; the pan of yellow biscuit still sat
+upon that hearth whose dead embers might have typified the evil
+passions that had raged there but an hour before.  But Colonel
+Starbottle's eye--albeit somewhat bloodshot and rheumy--was more
+intent on practical details.  On examination, a bullet-hole was
+found in the doorpost, and another, nearly opposite, in the casing
+of the window.  The Colonel called attention to the fact that the
+one "agreed with" the bore of Scott's revolver, and the other with
+that of York's derringer.  "They must hev stood about yer," said
+the Colonel, taking position; "not mor'n three feet apart, and--
+missed!"  There was a fine touch of pathos in the falling inflection
+of the Colonel's voice, which was not without effect.  A delicate
+perception of wasted opportunity thrilled his auditors.
+
+But the Bar was destined to experience a greater disappointment.
+The two antagonists had not met since the quarrel, and it was
+vaguely rumored that, on the occasion of a second meeting, each had
+determined to kill the other "on sight."  There was, consequently,
+some excitement--and, it is to be feared, no little gratification--
+when, at ten o'clock, York stepped from the Magnolia Saloon into
+the one long straggling street of the camp, at the same moment that
+Scott left the blacksmith's shop at the forks of the road.  It was
+evident, at a glance, that a meeting could only be avoided by the
+actual retreat of one or the other.
+
+In an instant the doors and windows of the adjacent saloons were
+filled with faces.  Heads unaccountably appeared above the river-
+banks and from behind bowlders.  An empty wagon at the cross-road
+was suddenly crowded with people, who seemed to have sprung from
+the earth.  There was much running and confusion on the hillside.
+On the mountain-road, Mr. Jack Hamlin had reined up his horse, and
+was standing upright on the seat of his buggy.  And the two objects
+of this absorbing attention approached each other.
+
+"York's got the sun," "Scott'll line him on that tree," "He's
+waitin' to draw his fire," came from the cart; and then it was
+silent.  But above this human breathlessness the river rushed and
+sang, and the wind rustled the tree-tops with an indifference that
+seemed obtrusive.  Colonel Starbottle felt it, and in a moment of
+sublime preoccupation, without looking around, waved his cane
+behind him, warningly to all nature, and said, "Shu!"
+
+The men were now within a few feet of each other.  A hen ran across
+the road before one of them.  A feathery seed-vessel, wafted from a
+wayside tree, fell at the feet of the other.  And, unheeding this
+irony of nature, the two opponents came nearer, erect and rigid,
+looked in each other's eyes, and--passed!
+
+Colonel Starbottle had to be lifted from the cart.  "This yer camp
+is played out," he said, gloomily, as he affected to be supported
+into the Magnolia.  With what further expression he might have
+indicated his feelings it was impossible to say, for at that moment
+Scott joined the group.  "Did you speak to me?" he asked of the
+Colonel, dropping his hand, as if with accidental familiarity, on
+that gentleman's shoulder.  The Colonel, recognizing some occult
+quality in the touch, and some unknown quantity in the glance of
+his questioner, contented himself by replying, "No, sir," with
+dignity.  A few rods away, York's conduct was as characteristic and
+peculiar.  "You had a mighty fine chance; why didn't you plump
+him?" said Jack Hamlin, as York drew near the buggy.  "Because I
+hate him," was the reply, heard only by Jack.  Contrary to popular
+belief, this reply was not hissed between the lips of the speaker,
+but was said in an ordinary tone.  But Jack Hamlin, who was an
+observer of mankind, noticed that the speaker's hands were cold,
+and his lips dry, as he helped him into the buggy, and accepted the
+seeming paradox with a smile.
+
+
+When Sandy Bar became convinced that the quarrel between York and
+Scott could not be settled after the usual local methods, it gave
+no further concern thereto.  But presently it was rumored that the
+"Amity Claim" was in litigation, and that its possession would be
+expensively disputed by each of the partners.  As it was well known
+that the claim in question was "worked out" and worthless, and that
+the partners, whom it had already enriched, had talked of abandoning
+it but a day or two before the quarrel, this proceeding could only
+be accounted for as gratuitous spite.  Later, two San Francisco
+lawyers made their appearance in this guileless Arcadia, and were
+eventually taken into the saloons, and--what was pretty much the
+same thing--the confidences of the inhabitants.  The results of this
+unhallowed intimacy were many subpoenas; and, indeed, when the
+"Amity Claim" came to trial, all of Sandy Bar that was not in
+compulsory attendance at the county seat came there from curiosity.
+The gulches and ditches for miles around were deserted.  I do not
+propose to describe that already famous trial.  Enough that, in the
+language of the plaintiff's counsel, "it was one of no ordinary
+significance, involving the inherent rights of that untiring
+industry which had developed the Pactolian resources of this golden
+land"; and, in the homelier phrase of Colonel Starbottle, "A fuss
+that gentlemen might hev settled in ten minutes over a social glass,
+ef they meant business; or in ten seconds with a revolver, ef they
+meant fun."  Scott got a verdict, from which York instantly
+appealed.  It was said that he had sworn to spend his last dollar in
+the struggle.
+
+In this way Sandy Bar began to accept the enmity of the former
+partners as a lifelong feud, and the fact that they had ever been
+friends was forgotten.  The few who expected to learn from the
+trial the origin of the quarrel were disappointed.  Among the
+various conjectures, that which ascribed some occult feminine
+influence as the cause was naturally popular, in a camp given to
+dubious compliment of the sex.  "My word for it, gentlemen," said
+Colonel Starbottle, who had been known in Sacramento as a Gentleman
+of the Old School, "there's some lovely creature at the bottom of
+this."  The gallant Colonel then proceeded to illustrate his
+theory, by divers sprightly stories, such as Gentlemen of the Old
+School are in the habit of repeating, but which, from deference to
+the prejudices of gentlemen of a more recent school, I refrain from
+transcribing here.  But it would appear that even the Colonel's
+theory was fallacious.  The only woman who personally might have
+exercised any influence over the partners was the pretty daughter
+of "old man Folinsbee," of Poverty Flat, at whose hospitable house--
+which exhibited some comforts and refinements rare in that crude
+civilization--both York and Scott were frequent visitors.  Yet into
+this charming retreat York strode one evening, a month after the
+quarrel, and, beholding Scott sitting there, turned to the fair
+hostess with the abrupt query, "Do you love this man?"  The young
+woman thus addressed returned that answer--at once spirited and
+evasive--which would occur to most of my fair readers in such an
+exigency.  Without another word, York left the house.  "Miss Jo"
+heaved the least possible sigh as the door closed on York's curls
+and square shoulders, and then, like a good girl, turned to her
+insulted guest "But would you believe it, dear?" she afterward
+related to an intimate friend, "the other creature, after glowering
+at me for a moment, got upon its hind legs, took its hat, and left,
+too; and that's the last I've seen of either."
+
+The same hard disregard of all other interests or feelings in the
+gratification of their blind rancor characterized all their
+actions.  When York purchased the land below Scott's new claim, and
+obliged the latter, at a great expense, to make a long detour to
+carry a "tail-race" around it, Scott retaliated by building a dam
+that overflowed York's claim on the river.  It was Scott, who, in
+conjunction with Colonel Starbottle, first organized that active
+opposition to the Chinamen, which resulted in the driving off of
+York's Mongolian laborers; it was York who built the wagon-road and
+established the express which rendered Scott's mules and pack-
+trains obsolete; it was Scott who called into life the Vigilance
+Committee which expatriated York's friend, Jack Hamlin; it was York
+who created the "Sandy Bar Herald," which characterized the act as
+"a lawless outrage," and Scott as a "Border Ruffian"; it was Scott,
+at the head of twenty masked men, who, one moonlight night, threw
+the offending "forms" into the yellow river, and scattered the
+types in the dusty road.  These proceedings were received in the
+distant and more civilized outlying towns as vague indications of
+progress and vitality.  I have before me a copy of the "Poverty
+Flat Pioneer," for the week ending August 12, 1856, in which the
+editor, under the head of "County Improvements," says: "The new
+Presbyterian Church on C Street, at Sandy Bar, is completed.  It
+stands upon the lot formerly occupied by the Magnolia Saloon, which
+was so mysteriously burnt last month.  The temple, which now rises
+like a Phoenix from the ashes of the Magnolia, is virtually the
+free gift of H. J. York, Esq., of Sandy Bar, who purchased the lot
+and donated the lumber.  Other buildings are going up in the
+vicinity, but the most noticeable is the 'Sunny South Saloon,'
+erected by Captain Mat. Scott, nearly opposite the church.  Captain
+Scott has spared no expense in the furnishing of this saloon, which
+promises to be one of the most agreeable places of resort in old
+Tuolumne.  He has recently imported two new, first-class billiard-
+tables, with cork cushions.  Our old friend, 'Mountain Jimmy,' will
+dispense liquors at the bar.  We refer our readers to the
+advertisement in another column.  Visitors to Sandy Bar cannot do
+better than give 'Jimmy' a call."  Among the local items occurred
+the following: "H. J. York, Esq., of Sandy Bar, has offered a
+reward of $100 for the detection of the parties who hauled away the
+steps of the new Presbyterian Church, C Street, Sandy Bar, during
+divine service on Sabbath evening last.  Captain Scott adds another
+hundred for the capture of the miscreants who broke the magnificent
+plate-glass windows of the new saloon on the following evening.
+There is some talk of reorganizing the old Vigilance Committee at
+Sandy Bar."
+
+When, for many months of cloudless weather, the hard, unwinking sun
+of Sandy Bar had regularly gone down on the unpacified wrath of
+these men, there was some talk of mediation.  In particular, the
+pastor of the church to which I have just referred--a sincere,
+fearless, but perhaps not fully enlightened man--seized gladly upon
+the occasion of York's liberality to attempt to reunite the former
+partners.  He preached an earnest sermon on the abstract sinfulness
+of discord and rancor.  But the excellent sermons of the Rev. Mr.
+Daws were directed to an ideal congregation that did not exist at
+Sandy Bar,--a congregation of beings of unmixed vices and virtues,
+of single impulses, and perfectly logical motives, of preternatural
+simplicity, of childlike faith, and grown-up responsibilities.  As,
+unfortunately, the people who actually attended Mr. Daws's church
+were mainly very human, somewhat artful, more self-excusing than
+self-accusing, rather good-natured, and decidedly weak, they
+quietly shed that portion of the sermon which referred to
+themselves, and, accepting York and Scott--who were both in defiant
+attendance--as curious examples of those ideal beings above
+referred to, felt a certain satisfaction--which, I fear, was not
+altogether Christian-like--in their "raking-down."  If Mr. Daws
+expected York and Scott to shake hands after the sermon, he was
+disappointed.  But he did not relax his purpose.  With that quiet
+fearlessness and determination which had won for him the respect of
+men who were too apt to regard piety as synonymous with effeminacy,
+he attacked Scott in his own house.  What he said has not been
+recorded, but it is to be feared that it was part of his sermon.
+When he had concluded, Scott looked at him, not unkindly, over the
+glasses of his bar, and said, less irreverently than the words
+might convey, "Young man, I rather like your style; but when you
+know York and me as well as you do God Almighty, it'll be time to
+talk."
+
+And so the feud progressed; and so, as in more illustrious
+examples, the private and personal enmity of two representative men
+led gradually to the evolution of some crude, half-expressed
+principle or belief.  It was not long before it was made evident
+that those beliefs were identical with certain broad principles
+laid down by the founders of the American Constitution, as
+expounded by the statesmanlike A; or were the fatal quicksands, on
+which the ship of state might be wrecked, warningly pointed out by
+the eloquent B.  The practical result of all which was the
+nomination of York and Scott to represent the opposite factions of
+Sandy Bar in legislative councils.
+
+For some weeks past, the voters of Sandy Bar and the adjacent camps
+had been called upon, in large type, to "RALLY!"  In vain the great
+pines at the cross-roads--whose trunks were compelled to bear this
+and other legends--moaned and protested from their windy watch-
+towers.  But one day, with fife and drum, and flaming transparency,
+a procession filed into the triangular grove at the head of the
+gulch.  The meeting was called to order by Colonel Starbottle, who,
+having once enjoyed legislative functions, and being vaguely known
+as a "war-horse," was considered to be a valuable partisan of York.
+He concluded an appeal for his friend, with an enunciation of
+principles, interspersed with one or two anecdotes so gratuitously
+coarse that the very pines might have been moved to pelt him with
+their cast-off cones, as he stood there.  But he created a laugh,
+on which his candidate rode into popular notice; and when York rose
+to speak, he was greeted with cheers.  But, to the general
+astonishment, the new speaker at once launched into bitter
+denunciation of his rival.  He not only dwelt upon Scott's deeds
+and example, as known to Sandy Bar, but spoke of facts connected
+with his previous career, hitherto unknown to his auditors.  To
+great precision of epithet and directness of statement, the speaker
+added the fascination of revelation and exposure.  The crowd
+cheered, yelled, and were delighted, but when this astounding
+philippic was concluded, there was a unanimous call for "Scott!"
+Colonel Starbottle would have resisted this manifest impropriety,
+but in vain.  Partly from a crude sense of justice, partly from a
+meaner craving for excitement, the assemblage was inflexible; and
+Scott was dragged, pushed, and pulled upon the platform.
+
+As his frowsy head and unkempt beard appeared above the railing, it
+was evident that he was drunk.  But it was also evident, before he
+opened his lips, that the orator of Sandy Bar--the one man who
+could touch their vagabond sympathies (perhaps because he was not
+above appealing to them)--stood before them.  A consciousness of
+this power lent a certain dignity to his figure, and I am not sure
+but that his very physical condition impressed them as a kind of
+regal unbending and large condescension.  Howbeit, when this
+unexpected Hector arose from the ditch, York's myrmidons trembled.
+
+"There's naught, gentlemen," said Scott, leaning forward on the
+railing,--"there's naught as that man hez said as isn't true.  I
+was run outer Cairo; I did belong to the Regulators; I did desert
+from the army; I did leave a wife in Kansas.  But thar's one thing
+he didn't charge me with, and, maybe, he's forgotten.  For three
+years, gentlemen, I was that man's pardner!--"  Whether he intended
+to say more, I cannot tell; a burst of applause artistically
+rounded and enforced the climax, and virtually elected the speaker.
+That fall he went to Sacramento, York went abroad; and for the
+first time in many years, distance and a new atmosphere isolated
+the old antagonists.
+
+
+With little of change in the green wood, gray rock, and yellow
+river, but with much shifting of human landmarks, and new faces in
+its habitations, three years passed over Sandy Bar.  The two men,
+once so identified with its character, seemed to have been quite
+forgotten.  "You will never return to Sandy Bar," said Miss
+Folinsbee, the "Lily of Poverty Flat," on meeting York in Paris,
+"for Sandy Bar is no more.  They call it Riverside now; and the new
+town is built higher up on the river-bank.  By the by, 'Jo' says
+that Scott has won his suit about the 'Amity Claim,' and that he
+lives in the old cabin, and is drunk half his time.  O, I beg your
+pardon," added the lively lady, as a flush crossed York's sallow
+cheek; "but, bless me, I really thought that old grudge was made
+up.  I'm sure it ought to be."
+
+It was three months after this conversation, and a pleasant summer
+evening, that the Poverty Flat coach drew up before the veranda of
+the Union Hotel at Sandy Bar.  Among its passengers was one,
+apparently a stranger, in the local distinction of well-fitting
+clothes and closely shaven face, who demanded a private room and
+retired early to rest.  But before sunrise next morning he arose,
+and, drawing some clothes from his carpet-bag, proceeded to array
+himself in a pair of white duck trousers, a white duck overshirt,
+and straw hat.  When his toilet was completed, he tied a red
+bandanna handkerchief in a loop and threw it loosely over his
+shoulders.  The transformation was complete.  As he crept softly
+down the stairs and stepped into the road, no one would have
+detected in him the elegant stranger of the previous night, and but
+few have recognized the face and figure of Henry York of Sandy Bar.
+
+In the uncertain light of that early hour, and in the change that
+had come over the settlement, he had to pause for a moment to
+recall where he stood.  The Sandy Bar of his recollection lay below
+him, nearer the river; the buildings around him were of later date
+and newer fashion.  As he strode toward the river, he noticed here
+a schoolhouse and there a church.  A little farther on, "The Sunny
+South" came in view, transformed into a restaurant, its gilding
+faded and its paint rubbed off.  He now knew where he was; and,
+running briskly down a declivity, crossed a ditch, and stood upon
+the lower boundary of the Amity Claim.
+
+The gray mist was rising slowly from the river, clinging to the
+tree-tops and drifting up the mountain-side, until it was caught
+among those rocky altars, and held a sacrifice to the ascending
+sun.  At his feet the earth, cruelly gashed and scarred by his
+forgotten engines, had, since the old days, put on a show of
+greenness here and there, and now smiled forgivingly up at him, as
+if things were not so bad after all.  A few birds were bathing in
+the ditch with a pleasant suggestion of its being a new and special
+provision of nature, and a hare ran into an inverted sluice-box, as
+he approached, as if it were put there for that purpose.
+
+He had not yet dared to look in a certain direction.  But the sun
+was now high enough to paint the little eminence on which the cabin
+stood.  In spite of his self-control, his heart beat faster as he
+raised his eyes toward it.  Its window and door were closed, no
+smoke came from its adobe chimney, but it was else unchanged.  When
+within a few yards of it, he picked up a broken shovel, and,
+shouldering it with a smile, strode toward the door and knocked.
+There was no sound from within.  The smile died upon his lips as he
+nervously pushed the door open.
+
+A figure started up angrily and came toward him,--a figure whose
+bloodshot eyes suddenly fixed into a vacant stare, whose arms were
+at first outstretched and then thrown up in warning gesticulation,--
+a figure that suddenly gasped, choked, and then fell forward in a
+fit.
+
+But before he touched the ground, York had him out into the open
+air and sunshine.  In the struggle, both fell and rolled over on
+the ground.  But the next moment York was sitting up, holding the
+convulsed frame of his former partner on his knee, and wiping the
+foam from his inarticulate lips.  Gradually the tremor became less
+frequent, and then ceased; and the strong man lay unconscious in
+his arms.
+
+For some moments York held him quietly thus, looking in his face.
+Afar, the stroke of a wood-man's axe--a mere phantom of sound--was
+all that broke the stillness.  High up the mountain, a wheeling
+hawk hung breathlessly above them.  And then came voices, and two
+men joined them.
+
+"A fight?"  No, a fit; and would they help him bring the sick man
+to the hotel?
+
+And there, for a week, the stricken partner lay, unconscious of
+aught but the visions wrought by disease and fear.  On the eighth
+day, at sunrise, he rallied, and, opening his eyes, looked upon
+York, and pressed his hand; then he spoke:--
+
+"And it's you.  I thought it was only whiskey."
+
+York replied by taking both of his hands, boyishly working them
+backward and forward, as his elbow rested on the bed, with a
+pleasant smile.
+
+"And you've been abroad.  How did you like Paris?"
+
+"So, so.  How did YOU like Sacramento?"
+
+"Bully."
+
+And that was all they could think to say.  Presently Scott opened
+his eyes again.
+
+"I'm mighty weak."
+
+"You'll get better soon."
+
+"Not much."
+
+A long silence followed, in which they could hear the sounds of
+wood-chopping, and that Sandy Bar was already astir for the coming
+day.  Then Scott slowly and with difficulty turned his face to
+York, and said,--
+
+"I might hev killed you once."
+
+"I wish you had."
+
+They pressed each other's hands again, but Scott's grasp was
+evidently failing.  He seemed to summon his energies for a special
+effort.
+
+"Old man!"
+
+"Old chap."
+
+"Closer!"
+
+York bent his head toward the slowly fading face.
+
+"Do ye mind that morning?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+A gleam of fun slid into the corner of Scott's blue eye, as he
+whispered,--
+
+"Old man, thar WAS too much saleratus in that bread."
+
+It is said that these were his last words.  For when the sun, which
+had so often gone down upon the idle wrath of these foolish men,
+looked again upon them reunited, it saw the hand of Scott fall cold
+and irresponsive from the yearning clasp of his former partner, and
+it knew that the feud of Sandy Bar was at an end.
+
+
+
+MR THOMPSON'S PRODIGAL
+
+
+We all knew that Mr. Thompson was looking for his son, and a pretty
+bad one at that.  That he was coming to California for this sole
+object was no secret to his fellow-passengers; and the physical
+peculiarities, as well as the moral weaknesses, of the missing
+prodigal were made equally plain to us through the frank volubility
+of the parent.  "You was speaking of a young man which was hung at
+Red Dog for sluice-robbing," said Mr. Thompson to a steerage
+passenger, one day; "be you aware of the color of his eyes?"
+"Black," responded the passenger.  "Ah," said Mr. Thompson,
+referring to some mental memoranda, "Char-les's eyes was blue."  He
+then walked away.  Perhaps it was from this unsympathetic mode of
+inquiry, perhaps it was from that Western predilection to take a
+humorous view of any principle or sentiment persistently brought
+before them, that Mr. Thompson's quest was the subject of some
+satire among the passengers.  A gratuitous advertisement of the
+missing Charles, addressed to "Jailers and Guardians," circulated
+privately among them; everybody remembered to have met Charles under
+distressing circumstances.  Yet it is but due to my countrymen to
+state that when it was known that Thompson had embarked some wealth
+in this visionary project, but little of this satire found its way
+to his ears, and nothing was uttered in his hearing that might bring
+a pang to a father's heart, or imperil a possible pecuniary
+advantage of the satirist.  Indeed, Mr. Bracy Tibbets's jocular
+proposition to form a joint-stock company to "prospect" for the
+missing youth received at one time quite serious entertainment.
+
+Perhaps to superficial criticism Mr. Thompson's nature was not
+picturesque nor lovable.  His history, as imparted at dinner, one
+day, by himself, was practical even in its singularity.  After a
+hard and wilful youth and maturity,--in which he had buried a
+broken-spirited wife, and driven his son to sea,--he suddenly
+experienced religion.  "I got it in New Orleans in '59," said Mr.
+Thompson, with the general suggestion of referring to an epidemic.
+"Enter ye the narrer gate.  Parse me the beans."  Perhaps this
+practical quality upheld him in his apparently hopeless search.  He
+had no clew to the whereabouts of his runaway son; indeed, scarcely
+a proof of his present existence.  From his indifferent recollection
+of the boy of twelve, he now expected to identify the man of
+twenty-five.
+
+It would seem that he was successful.  How he succeeded was one of
+the few things he did not tell.  There are, I believe, two versions
+of the story.  One, that Mr. Thompson, visiting a hospital,
+discovered his son by reason of a peculiar hymn, chanted by the
+sufferer, in a delirious dream of his boyhood.  This version,
+giving as it did wide range to the finer feelings of the heart, was
+quite popular; and as told by the Rev. Mr. Gushington, on his
+return from his California tour, never failed to satisfy an
+audience.  The other was less simple, and, as I shall adopt it
+here, deserves more elaboration.
+
+It was after Mr. Thompson had given up searching for his son among
+the living, and had taken to the examination of cemeteries, and a
+careful inspection of the "cold hic jacets of the dead."  At this
+time he was a frequent visitor of "Lone Mountain,"--a dreary hill-
+top, bleak enough in its original isolation, and bleaker for the
+white-faced marbles by which San Francisco anchored her departed
+citizens, and kept them down in a shifting sand that refused to
+cover them, and against a fierce and persistent wind that strove to
+blow them utterly away.  Against this wind the old man opposed a
+will quite as persistent,--a grizzled, hard face, and a tall,
+crape-bound hat drawn tightly over his eyes,--and so spent days in
+reading the mortuary inscriptions audibly to himself.  The
+frequency of Scriptural quotation pleased him, and he was fond of
+corroborating them by a pocket Bible.  "That's from Psalms," he
+said, one day, to an adjacent grave-digger.  The man made no reply.
+Not at all rebuffed, Mr. Thompson at once slid down into the open
+grave, with a more practical inquiry, "Did you ever, in your
+profession, come across Char-les Thompson?"  "Thompson be d----d!"
+said the grave-digger, with great directness.  "Which, if he hadn't
+religion, I think he is," responded the old man, as he clambered
+out of the grave.
+
+It was, perhaps, on this occasion that Mr. Thompson stayed later
+than usual.  As he turned his face toward the city, lights were
+beginning to twinkle ahead, and a fierce wind, made visible by fog,
+drove him forward, or, lying in wait, charged him angrily from the
+corners of deserted suburban streets.  It was on one of these
+corners that something else, quite as indistinct and malevolent,
+leaped upon him with an oath, a presented pistol, and a demand for
+money.  But it was met by a will of iron and a grip of steel.  The
+assailant and assailed rolled together on the ground.  But the next
+moment the old man was erect; one hand grasping the captured
+pistol, the other clutching at arm's length the throat of a figure,
+surly, youthful, and savage.
+
+"Young man," said Mr. Thompson, setting his thin lips together,
+"what might be your name?"
+
+"Thompson!"
+
+The old man's hand slid from the throat to the arm of his prisoner,
+without relaxing its firmness.
+
+"Char-les Thompson, come with me," he said, presently, and marched
+his captive to the hotel.  What took place there has not transpired,
+but it was known the next morning that Mr. Thompson had found his
+son.
+
+
+It is proper to add to the above improbable story, that there was
+nothing in the young man's appearance or manners to justify it.
+Grave, reticent, and handsome, devoted to his newly found parent,
+he assumed the emoluments and responsibilities of his new condition
+with a certain serious ease that more nearly approached that which
+San Francisco society lacked, and--rejected.  Some chose to despise
+this quality as a tendency to "psalm-singing"; others saw in it the
+inherited qualities of the parent, and were ready to prophesy for
+the son the same hard old age.  But all agreed that it was not
+inconsistent with the habits of money-getting, for which father and
+son were respected.
+
+And yet, the old man did not seem to be happy.  Perhaps it was that
+the consummation of his wishes left him without a practical
+mission; perhaps--and it is the more probable--he had little love
+for the son he had regained.  The obedience he exacted was freely
+given, the reform he had set his heart upon was complete; and yet,
+somehow, it did not seem to please him.  In reclaiming his son, he
+had fulfilled all the requirements that his religious duty required
+of him, and yet the act seemed to lack sanctification.  In this
+perplexity, he read again the parable of the Prodigal Son,--which
+he had long ago adopted for his guidance,--and found that he had
+omitted the final feast of reconciliation.  This seemed to offer
+the proper quality of ceremoniousness in the sacrament between
+himself and his son; and so, a year after the appearance of
+Charles, he set about giving him a party.  "Invite everybody,
+Char-les," he said, dryly; "everybody who knows that I brought
+you out of the wine-husks of iniquity, and the company of harlots;
+and bid them eat, drink, and be merry."
+
+Perhaps the old man had another reason, not yet clearly analyzed.
+The fine house he had built on the sand-hills sometimes seemed
+lonely and bare.  He often found himself trying to reconstruct,
+from the grave features of Charles, the little boy whom he but
+dimly remembered in the past, and of whom lately he had been
+thinking a great deal.  He believed this to be a sign of impending
+old age and childishness; but coming, one day, in his formal
+drawing-room, upon a child of one of the servants, who had strayed
+therein, he would have taken him in his arms, but the child fled
+from before his grizzled face.  So that it seemed eminently proper
+to invite a number of people to his house, and, from the array of
+San Francisco maidenhood, to select a daughter-in-law.  And then
+there would be a child--a boy, whom he could "rare up" from the
+beginning, and--love--as he did not love Charles.
+
+We were all at the party.  The Smiths, Joneses, Browns, and
+Robinsons also came, in that fine flow of animal spirits, unchecked
+by any respect for the entertainer, which most of us are apt to
+find so fascinating.  The proceedings would have been somewhat
+riotous, but for the social position of the actors.  In fact, Mr.
+Bracy Tibbets, having naturally a fine appreciation of a humorous
+situation, but further impelled by the bright eyes of the Jones
+girls, conducted himself so remarkably as to attract the serious
+regard of Mr. Charles Thompson, who approached him, saying quietly:
+"You look ill, Mr. Tibbets; let me conduct you to your carriage.
+Resist, you hound, and I'll throw you through that window.  This
+way, please; the room is close and distressing."  It is hardly
+necessary to say that but a part of this speech was audible to the
+company, and that the rest was not divulged by Mr. Tibbets, who
+afterward regretted the sudden illness which kept him from
+witnessing a certain amusing incident, which the fastest Miss Jones
+characterized as the "richest part of the blow-out," and which I
+hasten to record.
+
+It was at supper.  It was evident that Mr. Thompson had overlooked
+much lawlessness in the conduct of the younger people, in his
+abstract contemplation of some impending event.  When the cloth was
+removed, he rose to his feet, and grimly tapped upon the table.  A
+titter, that broke out among the Jones girls, became epidemic on
+one side of the board.  Charles Thompson, from the foot of the
+table, looked up in tender perplexity.  "He's going to sing a
+Doxology," "He's going to pray," "Silence for a speech," ran round
+the room.
+
+"It's one year to-day, Christian brothers and sisters," said Mr.
+Thompson, with grim deliberation,--"one year to-day since my son
+came home from eating of wine-husks and spending of his substance
+on harlots."  (The tittering suddenly ceased.)  "Look at him now.
+Char-les Thompson, stand up."  (Charles Thompson stood up.)  "One
+year ago to-day,--and look at him now."
+
+He was certainly a handsome prodigal, standing there in his
+cheerful evening-dress,--a repentant prodigal, with sad, obedient
+eyes turned upon the harsh and unsympathetic glance of his father.
+The youngest Miss Smith, from the pure depths of her foolish little
+heart, moved unconsciously toward him.
+
+"It's fifteen years ago since he left my house," said Mr. Thompson,
+"a rovier and a prodigal.  I was myself a man of sin, O Christian
+friends,--a man of wrath and bitterness" ("Amen," from the eldest
+Miss Smith),--"but praise be God, I've fled the wrath to come.
+It's five years ago since I got the peace that passeth
+understanding.  Have you got it, friends?"  (A general sub-chorus
+of "No, no," from the girls, and, "Pass the word for it," from
+Midshipman Coxe, of the U. S. sloop Wethersfield.)  "Knock, and it
+shall be opened to you.
+
+"And when I found the error of my ways, and the preciousness of
+grace," continued Mr. Thompson, "I came to give it to my son.  By
+sea and land I sought him far, and fainted not.  I did not wait for
+him to come to me, which the same I might have done, and justified
+myself by the Book of books, but I sought him out among his husks,
+and--" (the rest of the sentence was lost in the rustling
+withdrawal of the ladies).  "Works, Christian friends, is my motto.
+By their works shall ye know them, and there is mine."
+
+The particular and accepted work to which Mr. Thompson was alluding
+had turned quite pale, and was looking fixedly toward an open door
+leading to the veranda, lately filled by gaping servants, and now
+the scene of some vague tumult.  As the noise continued, a man,
+shabbily dressed, and evidently in liquor, broke through the
+opposing guardians, and staggered into the room.  The transition
+from the fog and darkness without to the glare and heat within
+evidently dazzled and stupefied him.  He removed his battered hat,
+and passed it once or twice before his eyes, as he steadied
+himself, but unsuccessfully, by the back of a chair.  Suddenly, his
+wandering glance fell upon the pale face of Charles Thompson; and
+with a gleam of childlike recognition, and a weak, falsetto laugh,
+he darted forward, caught at the table, upset the glasses, and
+literally fell upon the prodigal's breast.
+
+"Sha'ly! yo' d----d ol' scoun'rel, hoo rar ye!"
+
+"Hush--sit down!--hush!" said Charles Thompson, hurriedly
+endeavoring to extricate himself from the embrace of his unexpected
+guest.
+
+"Look at 'm!" continued the stranger, unheeding the admonition, but
+suddenly holding the unfortunate Charles at arm's length, in loving
+and undisguised admiration of his festive appearance.  "Look at 'm!
+Ain't he nasty?  Sha'ls, I'm prow of yer!"
+
+"Leave the house!" said Mr. Thompson, rising, with a dangerous look
+in his cold, gray eye.  "Char-les, how dare you?"
+
+"Simmer down, ole man!  Sha'ls, who's th' ol' bloat?  Eh?"
+
+"Hush, man; here, take this!"  With nervous hands, Charles Thompson
+filled a glass with liquor.  "Drink it and go--until to-morrow--any
+time, but--leave us!--go now!"  But even then, ere the miserable
+wretch could drink, the old man, pale with passion, was upon him.
+Half carrying him in his powerful arms, half dragging him through
+the circling crowd of frightened guests, he had reached the door,
+swung open by the waiting servants, when Charles Thompson started
+from a seeming stupor, crying,--
+
+"Stop!"
+
+The old man stopped.  Through the open door the fog and wind drove
+chilly.  "What does this mean?" he asked, turning a baleful face on
+Charles.
+
+"Nothing--but stop--for God's sake.  Wait till to-morrow, but not
+to-night.  Do not--I implore you--do this thing."
+
+There was something in the tone of the young man's voice, something,
+perhaps, in the contact of the struggling wretch he held in his
+powerful arms; but a dim, indefinite fear took possession of the old
+man's heart.  "Who," he whispered, hoarsely, "is this man?"
+
+Charles did not answer.
+
+"Stand back, there, all of you," thundered Mr. Thompson, to the
+crowding guests around him.  "Char-les--come here!  I command you--
+I--I--I--beg you--tell me WHO is this man?"
+
+Only two persons heard the answer that came faintly from the lips
+of Charles Thompson,--
+
+"YOUR SON."
+
+
+When day broke over the bleak sand-hills, the guests had departed
+from Mr. Thompson's banquet-halls.  The lights still burned dimly
+and coldly in the deserted rooms,--deserted by all but three
+figures, that huddled together in the chill drawing-room, as if for
+warmth.  One lay in drunken slumber on a couch; at his feet sat he
+who had been known as Charles Thompson; and beside them, haggard
+and shrunken to half his size, bowed the figure of Mr. Thompson,
+his gray eye fixed, his elbows upon his knees, and his hands
+clasped over his ears, as if to shut out the sad, entreating voice
+that seemed to fill the room.
+
+"God knows I did not set about to wilfully deceive.  The name I
+gave that night was the first that came into my thought,--the name
+of one whom I thought dead,--the dissolute companion of my shame.
+And when you questioned further, I used the knowledge that I gained
+from him to touch your heart to set me free; only, I swear, for
+that!  But when you told me who you were, and I first saw the
+opening of another life before me--then--then--  O, sir, if I was
+hungry, homeless, and reckless, when I would have robbed you of
+your gold, I was heart-sick, helpless, and desperate, when I would
+have robbed you of your love!"
+
+The old man stirred not.  From his luxurious couch the newly found
+prodigal snored peacefully.
+
+"I had no father I could claim.  I never knew a home but this.  I
+was tempted.  I have been happy,--very happy."
+
+He rose and stood before the old man.  "Do not fear that I shall
+come between your son and his inheritance.  To-day I leave this
+place, never to return.  The world is large, sir, and, thanks to
+your kindness, I now see the way by which an honest livelihood is
+gained.  Good by.  You will not take my hand?  Well, well.  Good
+by."
+
+He turned to go.  But when he had reached the door he suddenly came
+back, and, raising with both hands the grizzled head, he kissed it
+once and twice.
+
+"Char-les."
+
+There was no reply.
+
+"Char-les!"
+
+The old man rose with a frightened air, and tottered feebly to the
+door.  It was open.  There came to him the awakened tumult of a
+great city, in which the prodigal's footsteps were lost forever.
+
+
+
+THE ROMANCE OF MADRONO HOLLOW.
+
+
+The latch on the garden gate of the Folinsbee Ranch clicked twice.
+The gate itself was so much in shadow that lovely night, that "old
+man Folinsbee," sitting on his porch, could distinguish nothing but
+a tall white hat and beside it a few fluttering ribbons, under the
+pines that marked the entrance.  Whether because of this fact, or
+that he considered a sufficient time had elapsed since the clicking
+of the latch for more positive disclosure, I do not know; but after
+a few moments' hesitation he quietly laid aside his pipe and walked
+slowly down the winding path toward the gate.  At the Ceanothus
+hedge he stopped and listened.
+
+There was not much to hear.  The hat was saying to the ribbons that
+it was a fine night, and remarking generally upon the clear outline
+of the Sierras against the blue-black sky.  The ribbons, it so
+appeared, had admired this all the way home, and asked the hat if
+it had ever seen anything half so lovely as the moonlight on the
+summit.  The hat never had; it recalled some lovely nights in the
+South in Alabama ("in the South in Ahlabahm" was the way the old
+man heard it), but then there were other things that made this
+night seem so pleasant.  The ribbons could not possibly conceive
+what the hat could be thinking about.  At this point there was a
+pause, of which Mr. Folinsbee availed himself to walk very grimly
+and craunchingly down the gravel-walk toward the gate.  Then the
+hat was lifted, and disappeared in the shadow, and Mr. Folinsbee
+confronted only the half-foolish, half-mischievous, but wholly
+pretty face of his daughter.
+
+It was afterward known to Madrono Hollow that sharp words passed
+between "Miss Jo" and the old man, and that the latter coupled the
+names of one Culpepper Starbottle and his uncle, Colonel Starbottle,
+with certain uncomplimentary epithets, and that Miss Jo retaliated
+sharply.  "Her father's blood before her father's face boiled up and
+proved her truly of his race," quoted the blacksmith, who leaned
+toward the noble verse of Byron.  "She saw the old man's bluff and
+raised him," was the directer comment of the college-bred Masters.
+
+Meanwhile the subject of these animadversions proceeded slowly
+along the road to a point where the Folinsbee mansion came in
+view,--a long, narrow, white building, unpretentious, yet superior
+to its neighbors, and bearing some evidences of taste and
+refinement in the vines that clambered over its porch, in its
+French windows, and the white muslin curtains that kept out the
+fierce California sun by day, and were now touched with silver in
+the gracious moonlight.  Culpepper leaned against the low fence,
+and gazed long and earnestly at the building.  Then the moonlight
+vanished ghostlike from one of the windows, a material glow took
+its place, and a girlish figure, holding a candle, drew the white
+curtains together.  To Culpepper it was a vestal virgin standing
+before a hallowed shrine; to the prosaic observer I fear it was
+only a fair-haired young woman, whose wicked black eyes still shone
+with unfilial warmth.  Howbeit, when the figure had disappeared he
+stepped out briskly into the moonlight of the high-road.  Here he
+took off his distinguishing hat to wipe his forehead, and the moon
+shone full upon his face.
+
+It was not an unprepossessing one, albeit a trifle too thin and
+lank and bilious to be altogether pleasant.  The cheek-bones were
+prominent, and the black eyes sunken in their orbits.  Straight
+black hair fell slantwise off a high but narrow forehead, and swept
+part of a hollow cheek.  A long black mustache followed the
+perpendicular curves of his mouth.  It was on the whole a serious,
+even Quixotic face, but at times it was relieved by a rare smile of
+such tender and even pathetic sweetness, that Miss Jo is reported
+to have said that, if it would only last through the ceremony, she
+would have married its possessor on the spot.  "I once told him
+so," added that shameless young woman; "but the man instantly fell
+into a settled melancholy, and hasn't smiled since."
+
+A half-mile below the Folinsbee Ranch the white road dipped and was
+crossed by a trail that ran through Madrono hollow.  Perhaps
+because it was a near cut-off to the settlement, perhaps from some
+less practical reason, Culpepper took this trail, and in a few
+moments stood among the rarely beautiful trees that gave their name
+to the valley.  Even in that uncertain light the weird beauty of
+these harlequin masqueraders was apparent; their red trunks--a
+blush in the moonlight, a deep blood-stain in the shadow--stood out
+against the silvery green foliage.  It was as if Nature in some
+gracious moment had here caught and crystallized the gypsy memories
+of the transplanted Spaniard, to cheer him in his lonely exile.
+
+As Culpepper entered the grove he heard loud voices.  As he turned
+toward a clump of trees, a figure so bizarre and characteristic
+that it might have been a resident Daphne--a figure over-dressed in
+crimson silk and lace, with bare brown arms and shoulders, and a
+wreath of honeysuckle--stepped out of the shadow.  It was followed
+by a man.  Culpepper started.  To come to the point briefly, he
+recognized in the man the features of his respected uncle, Colonel
+Starbottle; in the female, a lady who may be briefly described as
+one possessing absolutely no claim to an introduction to the polite
+reader.  To hurry over equally unpleasant details, both were
+evidently under the influence of liquor.
+
+From the excited conversation that ensued, Culpepper gathered that
+some insult had been put upon the lady at a public ball which she
+had attended that evening; that the Colonel, her escort, had failed
+to resent it with the sanguinary completeness that she desired.  I
+regret that, even in a liberal age, I may not record the exact and
+even picturesque language in which this was conveyed to her
+hearers.  Enough that at the close of a fiery peroration, with
+feminine inconsistency she flew at the gallant Colonel, and would
+have visited her delayed vengeance upon his luckless head, but for
+the prompt interference of Culpepper.  Thwarted in this, she threw
+herself upon the ground, and then into unpicturesque hysterics.
+There was a fine moral lesson, not only in this grotesque performance
+of a sex which cannot afford to be grotesque, but in the ludicrous
+concern with which it inspired the two men.  Culpepper, to whom woman
+was more or less angelic, was pained and sympathetic; the Colonel,
+to whom she was more or less improper, was exceedingly terrified and
+embarrassed.  Howbeit the storm was soon over, and after Mistress
+Dolores had returned a little dagger to its sheath (her garter), she
+quietly took herself out of Madrono Hollow, and happily out of these
+pages forever.  The two men, left to themselves, conversed in low
+tones.  Dawn stole upon them before they separated: the Colonel
+quite sobered and in full possession of his usual jaunty
+self-assertion; Culpepper with a baleful glow in his hollow cheek,
+and in his dark eyes a rising fire.
+
+
+The next morning the general ear of Madrono Hollow was filled with
+rumors of the Colonel's mishap.  It was asserted that he had been
+invited to withdraw his female companion from the floor of the
+Assembly Ball at the Independence Hotel, and that, failing to do
+this, both were expelled.  It is to be regretted that in 1854
+public opinion was divided in regard to the propriety of this step,
+and that there was some discussion as to the comparative virtue of
+the ladies who were not expelled; but it was generally conceded
+that the real casus belli was political.  "Is this a dashed Puritan
+meeting?" had asked the Colonel, savagely.  "It's no Pike County
+shindig," had responded the floor-manager, cheerfully.  "You're a
+Yank!" had screamed the Colonel, profanely qualifying the noun.
+"Get! you border ruffian," was the reply.  Such at least was the
+substance of the reports.  As, at that sincere epoch, expressions
+like the above were usually followed by prompt action, a fracas was
+confidently looked for.
+
+Nothing, however, occurred.  Colonel Starbottle made his appearance
+next day upon the streets with somewhat of his usual pomposity, a
+little restrained by the presence of his nephew, who accompanied
+him, and who, as a universal favorite, also exercised some
+restraint upon the curious and impertinent.  But Culpepper's face
+wore a look of anxiety quite at variance with his usual grave
+repose.  "The Don don't seem to take the old man's set-back
+kindly," observed the sympathizing blacksmith.  "P'r'aps he was
+sweet on Dolores himself," suggested the sceptical expressman.
+
+It was a bright morning, a week after this occurrence, that Miss Jo
+Folinsbee stepped from her garden into the road.  This time the
+latch did not click as she cautiously closed the gate behind her.
+After a moment's irresolution, which would have been awkward but
+that it was charmingly employed, after the manner of her sex, in
+adjusting a bow under a dimpled but rather prominent chin, and in
+pulling down the fingers of a neatly fitting glove, she tripped
+toward the settlement.  Small wonder that a passing teamster drove
+his six mules into the wayside ditch and imperilled his load, to
+keep the dust from her spotless garments; small wonder that the
+"Lightning Express" withheld its speed and flash to let her pass,
+and that the expressman, who had never been known to exchange more
+than rapid monosyllables with his fellow-man, gazed after her with
+breathless admiration.  For she was certainly attractive.  In a
+country where the ornamental sex followed the example of youthful
+Nature, and were prone to overdress and glaring efflorescence, Miss
+Jo's simple and tasteful raiment added much to the physical charm
+of, if it did not actually suggest a sentiment to, her presence.
+It is said that Euchre-deck Billy, working in the gulch at the
+crossing, never saw Miss Folinsbee pass but that he always remarked
+apologetically to his partner, that "he believed he MUST write a
+letter home."  Even Bill Masters, who saw her in Paris presented to
+the favorable criticism of that most fastidious man, the late
+Emperor, said that she was stunning, but a big discount on what she
+was at Madrono Hollow.
+
+It was still early morning, but the sun, with California
+extravagance, had already begun to beat hotly on the little chip
+hat and blue ribbons, and Miss Jo was obliged to seek the shade of
+a bypath.  Here she received the timid advances of a vagabond
+yellow dog graciously, until, emboldened by his success, he
+insisted upon accompanying her, and, becoming slobberingly
+demonstrative, threatened her spotless skirt with his dusty paws,
+when she drove him from her with some slight acerbity, and a stone
+which haply fell within fifty feet of its destined mark.  Having
+thus proved her ability to defend herself, with characteristic
+inconsistency she took a small panic, and, gathering her white
+skirts in one hand, and holding the brim of her hat over her eyes
+with the other, she ran swiftly at least a hundred yards before she
+stopped.  Then she began picking some ferns and a few wild-flowers
+still spared to the withered fields, and then a sudden distrust of
+her small ankles seized her, and she inspected them narrowly for
+those burrs and bugs and snakes which are supposed to lie in wait
+for helpless womanhood.  Then she plucked some golden heads of wild
+oats, and with a sudden inspiration placed them in her black hair,
+and then came quite unconsciously upon the trail leading to Madrono
+Hollow.
+
+Here she hesitated.  Before her ran the little trail, vanishing at
+last into the bosky depths below.  The sun was very hot.  She must
+be very far from home.  Why should she not rest awhile under the
+shade of a madrono?
+
+She answered these questions by going there at once.  After
+thoroughly exploring the grove, and satisfying herself that it
+contained no other living human creature, she sat down under one of
+the largest trees, with a satisfactory little sigh.  Miss Jo loved
+the madrono.  It was a cleanly tree; no dust ever lay upon its
+varnished leaves; its immaculate shade never was known to harbor
+grub or insect.
+
+She looked up at the rosy arms interlocked and arched above her
+head.  She looked down at the delicate ferns and cryptogams at her
+feet.  Something glittered at the root of the tree.  She picked it
+up; it was a bracelet.  She examined it carefully for cipher or
+inscription; there was none.  She could not resist a natural desire
+to clasp it on her arm, and to survey it from that advantageous
+view-point.  This absorbed her attention for some moments; and when
+she looked up again she beheld at a little distance Culpepper
+Starbottle.
+
+He was standing where he had halted, with instinctive delicacy, on
+first discovering her.  Indeed, he had even deliberated whether he
+ought not to go away without disturbing her.  But some fascination
+held him to the spot.  Wonderful power of humanity!  Far beyond
+jutted an outlying spur of the Sierra, vast, compact, and silent.
+Scarcely a hundred yards away, a league-long chasm dropped its
+sheer walls of granite a thousand feet.  On every side rose up the
+serried ranks of pine-trees, in whose close-set files centuries of
+storm and change had wrought no breach.  Yet all this seemed to
+Culpepper to have been planned by an all-wise Providence as the
+natural background to the figure of a pretty girl in a yellow
+dress.
+
+Although Miss Jo had confidently expected to meet Culpepper
+somewhere in her ramble, now that he came upon her suddenly, she
+felt disappointed and embarrassed.  His manner, too, was more than
+usually grave and serious; and more than ever seemed to jar upon
+that audacious levity which was this giddy girl's power and
+security in a society where all feeling was dangerous.  As he
+approached her she rose to her feet, but almost before she knew it
+he had taken her hand and drawn her to a seat beside him.  This was
+not what Miss Jo had expected, but nothing is so difficult to
+predicate as the exact preliminaries of a declaration of love.
+
+What did Culpepper say?  Nothing, I fear, that will add anything to
+the wisdom of the reader; nothing, I fear, that Miss Jo had not
+heard substantially from other lips before.  But there was a
+certain conviction, fire-speed, and fury in the manner that was
+deliciously novel to the young lady.  It was certainly something to
+be courted in the nineteenth century with all the passion and
+extravagance of the sixteenth; it was something to hear, amid the
+slang of a frontier society, the language of knight-errantry poured
+into her ear by this lantern-jawed, dark-browed descendant of the
+Cavaliers.
+
+I do not know that there was anything more in it.  The facts,
+however, go to show that at a certain point Miss Jo dropped her
+glove, and that in recovering it Culpepper possessed himself first
+of her hand and then her lips.  When they stood up to go Culpepper
+had his arm around her waist, and her black hair, with its sheaf of
+golden oats, rested against the breast pocket of his coat.  But
+even then I do not think her fancy was entirely captive.  She took
+a certain satisfaction in this demonstration of Culpepper's
+splendid height, and mentally compared it with a former flame, one
+lieutenant McMirk, an active, but under-sized Hector, who
+subsequently fell a victim to the incautiously composed and
+monotonous beverages of a frontier garrison.  Nor was she so much
+preoccupied but that her quick eyes, even while absorbing
+Culpepper's glances, were yet able to detect, at a distance, the
+figure of a man approaching.  In an instant she slipped out of
+Culpepper's arm, and, whipping her hands behind her, said, "There's
+that horrid man!"
+
+Culpepper looked up and beheld his respected uncle panting and
+blowing over the hill.  His brow contracted as he turned to Miss
+Jo: "You don't like my uncle!"
+
+"I hate him!"  Miss Jo was recovering her ready tongue.
+
+Culpepper blushed.  He would have liked to enter upon some details
+of the Colonel's pedigree and exploits, but there was not time.  He
+only smiled sadly.  The smile melted Miss Jo.  She held out her
+hand quickly, and said with even more than her usual effrontery,
+"Don't let that man get you into any trouble.  Take care of
+yourself, dear, and don't let anything happen to you."
+
+Miss Jo intended this speech to be pathetic; the tenure of life
+among her lovers had hitherto been very uncertain.  Culpepper
+turned toward her, but she had already vanished in the thicket.
+
+The Colonel came up panting.  "I've looked all over town for you,
+and be dashed to you, sir.  Who was that with you?"
+
+"A lady."  (Culpepper never lied, but he was discreet.)
+
+"D--m 'em all!  Look yar, Culp, I've spotted the man who gave the
+order to put me off the floor" ("flo" was what the Colonel said)
+"the other night!"
+
+"Who was it?" asked Culpepper, listlessly.
+
+"Jack Folinsbee."
+
+"Who?"
+
+"Why, the son of that dashed nigger-worshipping psalm-singing
+Puritan Yankee.  What's the matter, now?  Look yar, Culp, you ain't
+goin' back on your blood, ar' ye?  You ain't goin' back on your
+word?  Ye ain't going down at the feet of this trash, like a
+whipped hound?"
+
+Culpepper was silent.  He was very white.  Presently he looked up
+and said quietly.  "No."
+
+
+Culpepper Starbottle had challenged Jack Folinsbee, and the
+challenge was accepted.  The cause alleged was the expelling of
+Culpepper's uncle from the floor of the Assembly Ball by the order
+of Folinsbee.  This much Madrono Hollow knew and could swear to;
+but there were other strange rumors afloat, of which the blacksmith
+was an able expounder.  "You see, gentlemen," he said to the crowd
+gathered around his anvil, "I ain't got no theory of this affair, I
+only give a few facts as have come to my knowledge.  Culpepper and
+Jack meets quite accidental like in Bob's saloon.  Jack goes up to
+Culpepper and says, 'A word with you.'  Culpepper bows and steps
+aside in this way, Jack standing about HERE."  (The blacksmith
+demonstrates the position of the parties with two old horseshoes on
+the anvil.)  "Jack pulls a bracelet from his pocket and says, 'Do
+you know that bracelet?'  Culpepper says, 'I do not,' quite cool-
+like and easy.  Jack says, 'You gave it to my sister.'  Culpepper
+says, still cool as you please, 'I did not.'  Jack says, 'You lie,
+G-d d-mn you,' and draws his derringer.  Culpepper jumps forward
+about here" (reference is made to the diagram) "and Jack fires.
+Nobody hit.  It's a mighty cur'o's thing, gentlemen," continued the
+blacksmith, dropping suddenly into the abstract, and leaning
+meditatively on his anvil,--"it's a mighty cur'o's thing that
+nobody gets hit so often.  You and me empties our revolvers
+sociably at each other over a little game, and the room full and
+nobody gets hit!  That's what gets me."
+
+"Never mind, Thompson," chimed in Bill Masters, "there's another
+and a better world where we shall know all that and--become better
+shots.  Go on with your story."
+
+"Well, some grabs Culpepper and some grabs Jack, and so separates
+them.  Then Jack tells 'em as how he had seen his sister wear a
+bracelet which he knew was one that had been given to Dolores by
+Colonel Starbottle.  That Miss Jo wouldn't say where she got it,
+but owned up to having seen Culpepper that day.  Then the most
+cur'o's thing of it yet, what does Culpepper do but rise up and
+takes all back that he said, and allows that he DID give her the
+bracelet.  Now my opinion, gentlemen, is that he lied; it ain't
+like that man to give a gal that he respects anything off of that
+piece, Dolores.  But it's all the same now, and there's but one
+thing to be done."
+
+The way this one thing was done belongs to the record of Madrono
+Hollow.  The morning was bright and clear; the air was slightly
+chill, but that was from the mist which arose along the banks of
+the river.  As early as six o'clock the designated ground--a little
+opening in the madrono grove--was occupied by Culpepper Starbottle,
+Colonel Starbottle, his second, and the surgeon.  The Colonel was
+exalted and excited, albeit in a rather imposing, dignified way,
+and pointed out to the surgeon the excellence of the ground, which
+at that hour was wholly shaded from the sun, whose steady stare is
+more or less discomposing to your duellist.  The surgeon threw
+himself on the grass and smoked his cigar.  Culpepper, quiet and
+thoughtful, leaned against a tree and gazed up the river.  There
+was a strange suggestion of a picnic about the group, which was
+heightened when the Colonel drew a bottle from his coat-tails, and,
+taking a preliminary draught, offered it to the others.  "Cocktails,
+sir," he explained with dignified precision.  "A gentleman, sir,
+should never go out without 'em.  Keeps off the morning chill.  I
+remember going out in '53 with Hank Boompirater.  Good ged, sir, the
+man had to put on his overcoat, and was shot in it.  Fact."
+
+But the noise of wheels drowned the Colonel's reminiscences, and a
+rapidly driven buggy, containing Jack Folinsbee, Calhoun
+Bungstarter, his second, and Bill Masters, drew up on the ground.
+Jack Folinsbee leaped out gayly.  "I had the jolliest work to get
+away without the governor's hearing," he began, addressing the
+group before him with the greatest volubility.  Calhoun Bungstarter
+touched his arm, and the young man blushed.  It was his first duel.
+
+"If you are ready, gentlemen," said Mr. Bungstarter, "we had better
+proceed to business.  I believe it is understood that no apology
+will be offered or accepted.  We may as well settle preliminaries
+at once, or I fear we shall be interrupted.  There is a rumor in
+town that the Vigilance Committee are seeking our friends the
+Starbottles, and I believe, as their fellow-countryman, I have the
+honor to be included in their warrant."
+
+At this probability of interruption, that gravity which had
+hitherto been wanting fell upon the group.  The preliminaries were
+soon arranged and the principals placed in position.  Then there
+was a silence.
+
+To a spectator from the hill, impressed with the picnic suggestion,
+what might have been the popping of two champagne corks broke the
+stillness.
+
+Culpepper had fired in the air.  Colonel Starbottle uttered a low
+curse.  Jack Folinsbee sulkily demanded another shot.
+
+Again the parties stood opposed to each other.  Again the word was
+given, and what seemed to be the simultaneous report of both
+pistols rose upon the air.  But after an interval of a few seconds
+all were surprised to see Culpepper slowly raise his unexploded
+weapon and fire it harmlessly above his head.  Then, throwing the
+pistol upon the ground, he walked to a tree and leaned silently
+against it.
+
+Jack Folinsbee flew into a paroxysm of fury.  Colonel Starbottle
+raved and swore.  Mr. Bungstarter was properly shocked at their
+conduct.  "Really, gentlemen, if Mr. Culpepper Starbottle declines
+another shot, I do not see how we can proceed."
+
+But the Colonel's blood was up, and Jack Folinsbee was equally
+implacable.  A hurried consultation ensued, which ended by Colonel
+Starbottle taking his nephew's place as principal, Bill Masters
+acting as second, vice Mr. Bungstarter, who declined all further
+connection with the affair.
+
+Two distinct reports rang through the Hollow.  Jack Folinsbee
+dropped his smoking pistol, took a step forward, and then dropped
+heavily upon his face.
+
+In a moment the surgeon was at his side.  The confusion was
+heightened by the trampling of hoofs, and the voice of the
+blacksmith bidding them flee for their lives before the coming
+storm.  A moment more and the ground was cleared, and the surgeon,
+looking up, beheld only the white face of Culpepper bending over
+him.
+
+"Can you save him?"
+
+"I cannot say.  Hold up his head a moment, while I run to the
+buggy."
+
+Culpepper passed his arm tenderly around the neck of the insensible
+man.  Presently the surgeon returned with some stimulants.
+
+"There, that will do, Mr. Starbottle, thank you.  Now my advice is
+to get away from here while you can.  I'll look after Folinsbee.
+Do you hear?"
+
+Culpepper's arm was still round the neck of his late foe, but his
+head had drooped and fallen on the wounded man's shoulder.  The
+surgeon looked down, and, catching sight of his face, stooped and
+lifted him gently in his arms.  He opened his coat and waistcoat.
+There was blood upon his shirt, and a bullet-hole in his breast.
+He had been shot unto death at the first fire.
+
+
+
+THE POET OF SIERRA FLAT.
+
+
+As the enterprising editor of the "Sierra Flat Record" stood at his
+case setting type for his next week's paper, he could not help
+hearing the woodpeckers who were busy on the roof above his head.
+It occurred to him that possibly the birds had not yet learned to
+recognize in the rude structure any improvement on nature, and this
+idea pleased him so much that he incorporated it in the editorial
+article which he was then doubly composing.  For the editor was
+also printer of the "Record"; and although that remarkable journal
+was reputed to exert a power felt through all Calaveras and a
+greater part of Tuolumne County, strict economy was one of the
+conditions of its beneficent existence.
+
+Thus preoccupied, he was startled by the sudden irruption of a
+small roll of manuscript, which was thrown through the open door
+and fell at his feet.  He walked quickly to the threshold and
+looked down the tangled trail which led to the high-road.  But
+there was nothing to suggest the presence of his mysterious
+contributor.  A hare limped slowly away, a green-and-gold lizard
+paused upon a pine stump, the woodpeckers ceased their work.  So
+complete had been his sylvan seclusion, that he found it difficult
+to connect any human agency with the act; rather the hare seemed to
+have an inexpressibly guilty look, the woodpeckers to maintain a
+significant silence, and the lizard to be conscience-stricken into
+stone.
+
+An examination of the manuscript, however, corrected this injustice
+to defenceless nature.  It was evidently of human origin,--being
+verse, and of exceeding bad quality.  The editor laid it aside.  As
+he did so he thought he saw a face at the window.  Sallying out in
+some indignation, he penetrated the surrounding thicket in every
+direction, but his search was as fruitless as before.  The poet, if
+it were he, was gone.
+
+A few days after this the editorial seclusion was invaded by voices
+of alternate expostulation and entreaty.  Stepping to the door, the
+editor was amazed at beholding Mr. Morgan McCorkle, a well-known
+citizen of Angelo, and a subscriber to the "Record," in the act of
+urging, partly by force and partly by argument, an awkward young
+man toward the building.  When he had finally effected his object,
+and, as it were, safely landed his prize in a chair, Mr. McCorkle
+took off his hat, carefully wiped the narrow isthmus of forehead
+which divided his black brows from his stubby hair, and with an
+explanatory wave of his hand toward his reluctant companion, said,
+"A borned poet, and the cussedest fool you ever seed!"
+
+Accepting the editor's smile as a recognition of the introduction,
+Mr. McCorkle panted and went on: "Didn't want to come!  'Mister
+Editor don't went to see me, Morg,' sez he.  'Milt,' sez I, 'he do;
+a borned poet like you and a gifted genius like he oughter come
+together sociable!'  And I fetched him.  Ah, will yer?"  The born
+poet had, after exhibiting signs of great distress, started to run.
+But Mr. McCorkle was down upon him instantly, seizing him by his
+long linen coat, and settled him back in his chair.  "Tain't no use
+stampeding.  Yer ye are and yer ye stays.  For yer a borned poet,--
+ef ye are as shy as a jackass rabbit.  Look at 'im now!"
+
+He certainly was not an attractive picture.  There was hardly a
+notable feature in his weak face, except his eyes, which were moist
+and shy and not unlike the animal to which Mr. McCorkle had
+compared him.  It was the face that the editor had seen at the
+window.
+
+"Knowed him for fower year,--since he war a boy," continued Mr.
+McCorkle in a loud whisper.  "Allers the same, bless you!  Can jerk
+a rhyme as easy as turnin' jack.  Never had any eddication; lived
+out in Missooray all his life.  But he's chock full o' poetry.
+On'y this mornin' sez I to him,--he camps along o' me,--'Milt!' sez
+I, 'are breakfast ready?' and he up and answers back quite peert
+and chipper, 'The breakfast it is ready, and the birds is singing
+free, and it's risin' in the dawnin' light is happiness to me!'
+When a man," said Mr. McCorkle, dropping his voice with deep
+solemnity, "gets off things like them, without any call to do it,
+and handlin' flapjacks over a cookstove at the same time,--that
+man's a borned poet."
+
+There was an awkward pause.  Mr. McCorkle beamed patronizingly on
+his protege.  The born poet looked as if he were meditating another
+flight,--not a metaphorical one.  The editor asked if he could do
+anything for them.
+
+"In course you can," responded Mr. McCorkle, "that's jest it.
+Milt, where's that poetry!"
+
+The editor's countenance fell as the poet produced from his pocket
+a roll of manuscript.  He, however, took it mechanically and
+glanced over it.  It was evidently a duplicate of the former
+mysterious contribution.
+
+The editor then spoke briefly but earnestly.  I regret that I cannot
+recall his exact words, but it appeared that never before, in the
+history of the "Record," had the pressure been so great upon its
+columns.  Matters of paramount importance, deeply affecting the
+material progress of Sierra, questions touching the absolute
+integrity of Calaveras and Tuolumne as social communities, were even
+now waiting expression.  Weeks, nay, months, must elapse before that
+pressure would be removed, and the "Record" could grapple with any
+but the sternest of topics.  Again, the editor had noticed with pain
+the absolute decline of poetry in the foot-hills of the Sierras.
+Even the works of Byron and Moore attracted no attention in Dutch
+Flat, and a prejudice seemed to exist against Tennyson in Grass
+Valley.  But the editor was not without hope for the future.  In the
+course of four or five years, when the country was settled,--
+
+"What would be the cost to print this yer?" interrupted Mr.
+McCorkle, quietly.
+
+"About fifty dollars, as an advertisement," responded the editor
+with cheerful alacrity.
+
+Mr. McCorkle placed the sum in the editor's hand.  "Yer see thet's
+what I sez to Milt, 'Milt,' sez I, 'pay as you go, for you are a
+borned poet.  Hevin no call to write, but doin' it free and
+spontaneous like, in course you pays.  Thet's why Mr. Editor never
+printed your poetry.'"
+
+"What name shall I put to it?" asked the editor.
+
+"Milton."
+
+It was the first word that the born poet had spoken during the
+interview, and his voice was so very sweet and musical that the
+editor looked at him curiously, and wondered if he had a sister.
+
+"Milton; is that all?"
+
+"Thet's his furst name," exclaimed Mr. McCorkle.
+
+The editor here suggested that as there had been another poet of
+that name--
+
+"Milt might be took for him!  Thet's bad," reflected Mr. McCorkle
+with simple gravity.  "Well, put down his hull name,--Milton
+Chubbuck."
+
+The editor made a note of the fact.  "I'll set it up now," he said.
+This was also a hint that the interview was ended.  The poet and
+patron, arm in arm, drew towards the door.  "In next week's paper,"
+said the editor, smilingly, in answer to the childlike look of
+inquiry in the eyes of the poet, and in another moment they were
+gone.
+
+The editor was as good as his word.  He straight-way betook himself
+to his case, and, unrolling the manuscript, began his task.  The
+woodpeckers on the roof recommenced theirs, and in a few moments
+the former sylvan seclusion was restored.  There was no sound in
+the barren, barn-like room but the birds above, and below the click
+of the composing-rule as the editor marshalled the types into lines
+in his stick, and arrayed them in solid column on the galley.
+Whatever might have been his opinion of the copy before him, there
+was no indication of it in his face, which wore the stolid
+indifference of his craft.  Perhaps this was unfortunate, for as
+the day wore on and the level rays of the sun began to pierce the
+adjacent thicket, they sought out and discovered an anxious
+ambushed figure drawn up beside the editor's window,--a figure that
+had sat there motionless for hours.  Within, the editor worked on
+as steadily and impassively as Fate.  And without, the born poet of
+Sierra Flat sat and watched him as waiting its decree.
+
+
+The effect of the poem on Sierra Flat was remarkable and
+unprecedented.  The absolute vileness of its doggerel, the
+gratuitous imbecility of its thought, and above all the crowning
+audacity of the fact that it was the work of a citizen and published
+in the county paper, brought it instantly into popularity.  For many
+months Calaveras had languished for a sensation; since the last
+vigilance committee nothing had transpired to dispel the listless
+ennui begotten of stagnant business and growing civilization.  In
+more prosperous moments the office of the "Record" would have been
+simply gutted and the editor deported; at present the paper was in
+such demand that the edition was speedily exhausted.  In brief, the
+poem of Mr. Milton Chubbuck came like a special providence to Sierra
+Flat.  It was read by camp-fires, in lonely cabins, in flaring
+bar-rooms and noisy saloons, and declaimed from the boxes of
+stagecoaches.  It was sung in Poker Flat with the addition of a
+local chorus, and danced as an unhallowed rhythmic dance by the
+Pyrrhic phalanx of One Horse Gulch, known as "The Festive Stags of
+Calaveras."  Some unhappy ambiguities of expression gave rise to
+many new readings, notes, and commentaries, which, I regret to
+state, were more often marked by ingenuity than delicacy of thought
+or expression.
+
+Never before did poet acquire such sudden local reputation.  From
+the seclusion of McCorkle's cabin and the obscurity of culinary
+labors, he was haled forth into the glowing sunshine of Fame.  The
+name of Chubbuck was written in letters of chalk on unpainted
+walls, and carved with a pick on the sides of tunnels.  A drink
+known variously as "The Chubbuck Tranquillizer," or "The Chubbuck
+Exalter," was dispensed at the bars.  For some weeks a rude design
+for a Chubbuck statue, made up of illustrations from circus and
+melodeon posters, representing the genius of Calaveras in brief
+skirts on a flying steed in the act of crowning the poet Chubbuck,
+was visible at Keeler's Ferry.  The poet himself was overborne with
+invitations to drink and extravagant congratulations.  The meeting
+between Colonel Starbottle of Siskyion and Chubbuck, as previously
+arranged by our "Boston," late of Roaring Camp, is said to have
+been indescribably affecting.  The Colonel embraced him unsteadily.
+"I could not return to my constituents at Siskyion, sir, if this
+hand, which has grasped that of the gifted Prentice and the
+lamented Poe, should not have been honored by the touch of the
+godlike Chubbuck.  Gentlemen, American literature is looking up.
+Thank you, I will take sugar in mine."  It was "Boston" who indited
+letters of congratulations from H. W. Longfellow, Tennyson, and
+Browning, to Mr. Chubbuck, deposited them in the Sierra Flat post-
+office, and obligingly consented to dictate the replies.
+
+The simple faith and unaffected delight with which these
+manifestations were received by the poet and his patron might have
+touched the hearts of these grim masters of irony, but for the
+sudden and equal development in both of the variety of weak
+natures.  Mr. McCorkle basked in the popularity of his protege, and
+became alternately supercilious or patronizing toward the dwellers
+of Sierra Flat; while the poet, with hair carefully oiled and
+curled, and bedecked with cheap jewelry and flaunting neck-
+handkerchief, paraded himself before the single hotel.  As may be
+imagined, this new disclosure of weakness afforded intense
+satisfaction to Sierra Flat, gave another lease of popularity to
+the poet, and suggested another idea to the facetious "Boston."
+
+At that time a young lady popularly and professionally known as the
+"California Pet" was performing to enthusiastic audiences in the
+interior.  Her specialty lay in the personation of youthful
+masculine character; as a gamin of the street she was irresistible,
+as a negro-dancer she carried the honest miner's heart by storm.  A
+saucy, pretty brunette, she had preserved a wonderful moral
+reputation even under the Jove-like advances of showers of gold
+that greeted her appearance on the stage at Sierra Flat.  A
+prominent and delighted member of that audience was Milton
+Chubbuck.  He attended every night.  Every day he lingered at the
+door of the Union Hotel for a glimpse of the "California Pet."  It
+was not long before he received a note from her,--in "Boston's"
+most popular and approved female hand,--acknowledging his
+admiration.  It was not long before "Boston" was called upon to
+indite a suitable reply.  At last, in furtherance of his facetious
+design, it became necessary for "Boston" to call upon the young
+actress herself and secure her personal participation.  To her he
+unfolded a plan, the successful carrying out of which he felt would
+secure his fame to posterity as a practical humorist.  The
+"California Pet's" black eyes sparkled approvingly and mischievously.
+She only stipulated that she should see the man first,--a concession
+to her feminine weakness which years of dancing Juba and wearing
+trousers and boots had not wholly eradicated from her wilful breast.
+By all means, it should be done.  And the interview was arranged for
+the next week.
+
+It must not be supposed that during this interval of popularity Mr.
+Chubbuck had been unmindful of his poetic qualities.  A certain
+portion of each day he was absent from town,--"a communin' with
+natur'," as Mr. McCorkle expressed it,--and actually wandering in
+the mountain trails, or lying on his back under the trees, or
+gathering fragrant herbs and the bright-colored berries of the
+Marzanita.  These and his company he generally brought to the
+editor's office, late in the afternoon, often to that enterprising
+journalist's infinite weariness.  Quiet and uncommunicative, he
+would sit there patiently watching him at his work until the hour
+for closing the office arrived, when he would as quietly depart.
+There was something so humble and unobtrusive in these visits, that
+the editor could not find it in his heart to deny them, and
+accepting them, like the woodpeckers, as a part of his sylvan
+surroundings, often forgot even his presence.  Once or twice, moved
+by some beauty of expression in the moist, shy eyes, he felt like
+seriously admonishing his visitor of his idle folly; but his glance
+falling upon the oiled hair and the gorgeous necktie, he invariably
+thought better of it.  The case was evidently hopeless.
+
+The interview between Mr. Chubbuck and the "California Pet" took
+place in a private room of the Union Hotel; propriety being
+respected by the presence of that arch-humorist, "Boston."  To this
+gentleman we are indebted for the only true account of the meeting.
+However reticent Mr. Chubbuck might have been in the presence of
+his own sex, toward the fairer portion of humanity he was, like
+most poets, exceedingly voluble.  Accustomed as the "California
+Pet" had been to excessive compliment, she was fairly embarrassed
+by the extravagant praises of her visitor.  Her personation of boy
+characters, her dancing of the "champion jig," were particularly
+dwelt upon with fervid but unmistakable admiration.  At last,
+recovering her audacity and emboldened by the presence of "Boston,"
+the "California Pet" electrified her hearers by demanding, half
+jestingly, half viciously, if it were as a boy or a girl that she
+was the subject of his flattering admiration.
+
+"That knocked him out o' time," said the delighted "Boston," in his
+subsequent account of the interview.  "But do you believe the d----d
+fool actually asked her to take him with her; wanted to engage in
+the company."
+
+The plan, as briefly unfolded by "Boston," was to prevail upon Mr.
+Chubbuck to make his appearance in costume (already designed and
+prepared by the inventor) before a Sierra Flat audience, and recite
+an original poem at the Hall immediately on the conclusion of the
+"California Pet's" performance.  At a given signal the audience
+were to rise and deliver a volley of unsavory articles (previously
+provided by the originator of the scheme); then a select few were
+to rush on the stage, seize the poet, and, after marching him in
+triumphal procession through town, were to deposit him beyond its
+uttermost limits, with strict injunctions never to enter it again.
+To the first part of the plan the poet was committed, for the
+latter portion it was easy enough to find participants.
+
+The eventful night came, and with it an audience that packed the
+long narrow room with one dense mass of human beings.  The
+"California Pet" never had been so joyous, so reckless, so
+fascinating and audacious before.  But the applause was tame and
+weak compared to the ironical outburst that greeted the second
+rising of the curtain and the entrance of the born poet of Sierra
+Flat.  Then there was a hush of expectancy, and the poet stepped to
+the foot-lights and stood with his manuscript in his hand.
+
+His face was deadly pale.  Either there was some suggestion of his
+fate in the faces of his audience, or some mysterious instinct told
+him of his danger.  He attempted to speak, but faltered, tottered,
+and staggered to the wings.
+
+Fearful of losing his prey, "Boston" gave the signal and leaped
+upon the stage.  But at the same moment a light figure darted from
+behind the scenes, and delivering a kick that sent the discomfited
+humorist back among the musicians, cut a pigeon-wing, executed a
+double-shuffle, and then advancing to the foot-lights with that
+inimitable look, that audacious swagger and utter abandon which had
+so thrilled and fascinated them a moment before, uttered the
+characteristic speech: "Wot are you goin' to hit a man fur, when
+he's down, s-a-a-y?"
+
+The look, the drawl, the action, the readiness, and above all the
+downright courage of the little woman, had its effect.  A roar of
+sympathetic applause followed the act.  "Cut and run while you
+can," she whispered hurriedly over her one shoulder, without
+altering the other's attitude of pert and saucy defiance toward the
+audience.  But even as she spoke the poet tottered and sank
+fainting upon the stage.  Then she threw a despairing whisper
+behind the scenes, "Ring down the curtain."
+
+There was a slight movement of opposition in the audience, but
+among them rose the burly shoulders of Yuba Bill, the tall, erect
+figure of Henry York of Sandy Bar, and the colorless, determined
+face of John Oakhurst.  The curtain came down.
+
+Behind it knelt the "California Pet" beside the prostrate poet.
+"Bring me some water.  Run for a doctor.  Stop!!  CLEAR OUT, ALL OF
+YOU!"
+
+She had unloosed the gaudy cravat and opened the shirt-collar of
+the insensible figure before her.  Then she burst into an
+hysterical laugh.
+
+"Manuela!"
+
+Her tiring-woman, a Mexican half-breed, came toward her.
+
+"Help me with him to my dressing-room, quick; then stand outside
+and wait.  If any one questions you, tell them he's gone.  Do you
+hear?  HE's gone."
+
+The old woman did as she was bade.  In a few moments the audience
+had departed.  Before morning so also had the "California Pet,"
+Manuela, and--the poet of Sierra Flat.
+
+But, alas! with them also had departed the fair fame of the
+"California Pet."  Only a few, and these it is to be feared of not
+the best moral character themselves, still had faith in the
+stainless honor of their favorite actress.  "It was a mighty
+foolish thing to do, but it'll all come out right yet."  On the
+other hand, a majority gave her full credit and approbation for her
+undoubted pluck and gallantry, but deplored that she should have
+thrown it away upon a worthless object.  To elect for a lover the
+despised and ridiculed vagrant of Sierra Flat, who had not even the
+manliness to stand up in his own defence, was not only evidence of
+inherent moral depravity, but was an insult to the community.
+Colonel Starbottle saw in it only another instance of the extreme
+frailty of the sex; he had known similar cases; and remembered
+distinctly, sir, how a well-known Philadelphia heiress, one of the
+finest women that ever rode in her kerridge, that, gad, sir! had
+thrown over a Southern member of Congress to consort with a d----d
+nigger.  The Colonel had also noticed a singular look in the dog's
+eye which he did not entirely fancy.  He would not say anything
+against the lady, sir, but he had noticed--  And here haply the
+Colonel became so mysterious and darkly confidential as to be
+unintelligible and inaudible to the bystanders.
+
+A few days after the disappearance of Mr. Chubbuck a singular
+report reached Sierra Flat, and it was noticed that "Boston," who
+since the failure of his elaborate joke had been even more
+depressed in spirits than is habitual with great humorists,
+suddenly found that his presence was required in San Francisco.
+But as yet nothing but the vaguest surmises were afloat, and
+nothing definite was known.
+
+It was a pleasant afternoon when the editor of the "Sierra Flat
+Record" looked up from his case and beheld the figure of Mr. Morgan
+McCorkle standing in the doorway.  There was a distressed look on
+the face of that worthy gentleman that at once enlisted the
+editor's sympathizing attention.  He held an open letter in his
+hand, as he advanced toward the middle of the room.
+
+"As a man as has allers borne a fair reputation," began Mr.
+McCorkle slowly, "I should like, if so be as I could, Mister
+Editor, to make a correction in the columns of your valooable
+paper."
+
+Mr. Editor begged him to proceed.
+
+"Ye may not disremember that about a month ago I fetched here what
+so be as we'll call a young man whose name might be as it were
+Milton--Milton Chubbuck."
+
+Mr. Editor remembered perfectly.
+
+"Thet same party I'd knowed better nor fower year, two on 'em
+campin' out together.  Not that I'd known him all the time, fur he
+war shy and strange at spells and had odd ways that I took war
+nat'ral to a borned poet.  Ye may remember that I said he was a
+borned poet?"
+
+The editor distinctly did.
+
+"I picked this same party up in St. Jo., takin' a fancy to his
+face, and kinder calklating he'd runn'd away from home,--for I'm a
+married man, Mr. Editor, and hev children of my own,--and thinkin'
+belike he was a borned poet."
+
+"Well?" said the editor.
+
+"And as I said before, I should like now to make a correction in
+the columns of your valooable paper."
+
+"What correction!" asked the editor.
+
+"I said, ef you remember my words, as how he was a borned poet."
+
+"Yes."
+
+"From statements in this yer letter it seems as how I war wrong."
+
+"Well!"
+
+"She war a woman."
+
+
+
+THE CHRISTMAS GIFT THAT CAME TO RUPERT.
+
+
+A STORY FOR LITTLE SOLDIERS.
+
+
+It was the Christmas season in California,--a season of falling
+rain and springing grasses.  There were intervals when, through
+driving clouds and flying scud, the sun visited the haggard hills
+with a miracle, and death and resurrection were as one, and out of
+the very throes of decay a joyous life struggled outward and
+upward.  Even the storms that swept down the dead leaves nurtured
+the tender buds that took their places.  There were no episodes of
+snowy silence; over the quickening fields the farmer's ploughshare
+hard followed the furrows left by the latest rains.  Perhaps it was
+for this reason that the Christmas evergreens which decorated the
+drawing-room took upon themselves a foreign aspect, and offered a
+weird contrast to the roses, seen dimly through the windows, as the
+southwest wind beat their soft faces against the panes.
+
+
+"Now," said the Doctor, drawing his chair closer to the fire, and
+looking mildly but firmly at the semicircle of flaxen heads around
+him, "I want it distinctly understood before I begin my story, that
+I am not to be interrupted by any ridiculous questions.  At the
+first one I shall stop.  At the second, I shall feel it my duty to
+administer a dose of castor-oil, all around.  The boy that moves
+his legs or arms will be understood to invite amputation.  I have
+brought my instruments with me, and never allow pleasure to
+interfere with my business.  Do you promise?"
+
+"Yes, sir," said six small voices, simultaneously.  The volley was,
+however, followed by half a dozen dropping questions.
+
+"Silence!  Bob, put your feet down, and stop rattling that sword.
+Flora shall sit by my side, like a little lady, and be an example
+to the rest.  Fung Tang shall stay, too, if he likes.  Now, turn
+down the gas a little; there, that will do,--just enough to make
+the fire look brighter, and to show off the Christmas candles.
+Silence, everybody!  The boy who cracks an almond, or breathes too
+loud over his raisins, will be put out of the room?"
+
+There was a profound silence.  Bob laid his sword tenderly aside,
+and nursed his leg thoughtfully.  Flora, after coquettishly
+adjusting the pocket of her little apron, put her arm upon the
+Doctor's shoulder, and permitted herself to be drawn beside him.
+Fung Tang, the little heathen page, who was permitted, on this rare
+occasion, to share the Christian revels in the drawing-room,
+surveyed the group with a smile that was at once sweet and
+philosophical.  The light ticking of a French clock on the mantel,
+supported by a young shepherdess of bronze complexion and great
+symmetry of limb, was the only sound that disturbed the Christmas-
+like peace of the apartment,--a peace which held the odors of
+evergreens, new toys, cedar-boxes, glue, and varnish in an
+harmonious combination that passed all understanding.
+
+"About four years ago at this time," began the Doctor, "I attended
+a course of lectures in a certain city.  One of the professors, who
+was a sociable, kindly man,--though somewhat practical and hard-
+headed,--invited me to his house on Christmas night.  I was very
+glad to go, as I was anxious to see one of his sons, who, though
+only twelve years old, was said to be very clever.  I dare not tell
+you how many Latin verses this little fellow could recite, or how
+many English ones he had composed.  In the first place, you'd want
+me to repeat them; secondly, I'm not a judge of poetry, Latin or
+English.  But there were judges who said they were wonderful for a
+boy, and everybody predicted a splendid future for him.  Everybody
+but his father.  He shook his head doubtingly, whenever it was
+mentioned, for, as I have told you, he was a practical, matter-of-
+fact man.
+
+"There was a pleasant party at the Professor's that night.  All the
+children of the neighborhood were there, and among them the
+Professor's clever son, Rupert, as they called him,--a thin little
+chap, about as tall as Bobby there, and as fair and delicate as
+Flora by my side.  His health was feeble, his father said; he
+seldom ran about and played with other boys, preferring to stay at
+home and brood over his books, and compose what he called his
+verses.
+
+"Well, we had a Christmas-tree just like this, and we had been
+laughing and talking, calling off the names of the children who had
+presents on the tree, and everybody was very happy and joyous, when
+one of the children suddenly uttered a cry of mingled surprise and
+hilarity, and said, 'Here's something for Rupert; and what do you
+think it is?'
+
+"We all guessed.  'A desk'; 'A copy of Milton'; 'A gold pen'; 'A
+rhyming dictionary?  'No? what then?'
+
+"'A drum!'
+
+"'A what?' asked everybody.
+
+"'A drum! with Rupert's name on it?'
+
+"Sure enough there it was.  A good-sized, bright, new, brass-bound
+drum, with a slip of paper on it, with the inscription, 'FOR
+RUPERT.'
+
+"Of course we all laughed, and thought it a good joke.  'You see
+you're to make a noise in the world, Rupert!' said one.  'Here's
+parchment for the poet,' said another.  'Rupert's last work in
+sheepskin covers,' said a third.  'Give us a classical tune,
+Rupert,' said a fourth; and so on.  But Rupert seemed too mortified
+to speak; he changed color, bit his lips, and finally burst into a
+passionate fit of crying, and left the room.  Then those who had
+joked him felt ashamed, and everybody began to ask who had put the
+drum there.  But no one knew, or if they did, the unexpected
+sympathy awakened for the sensitive boy kept them silent.  Even the
+servants were called up and questioned, but no one could give any
+idea where it came from.  And, what was still more singular,
+everybody declared that up to the moment it was produced, no one
+had seen it hanging on the tree.  What do I think?  Well, I have my
+own opinion.  But no questions!  Enough for you to know that Rupert
+did not come down stairs again that night, and the party soon after
+broke up.
+
+"I had almost forgotten those things, for the war of the Rebellion
+broke out the next spring, and I was appointed surgeon in one of
+the new regiments, and was on my way to the seat of war.  But I had
+to pass through the city where the Professor lived, and there I met
+him.  My first question was about Rupert.  The Professor shook his
+head sadly.  'He's not so well,' he said; 'he has been declining
+since last Christmas, when you saw him.  A very strange case,' he
+added, giving it a long Latin name,--'a very singular case.  But go
+and see him yourself,' he urged; 'it may distract his mind and do
+him good?'
+
+"I went accordingly to the Professor's house, and found Rupert
+lying on a sofa, propped up with pillows.  Around him were
+scattered his books, and, what seemed in singular contrast, that
+drum I told you about was hanging on a nail, just above his head.
+His face was thin and wasted; there was a red spot on either cheek,
+and his eyes were very bright and widely opened.  He was glad to
+see me, and when I told him where I was going, he asked a thousand
+questions about the war.  I thought I had thoroughly diverted his
+mind from its sick and languid fancies, when he suddenly grasped my
+hand and drew me toward him.
+
+"'Doctor,' said he, in a low whisper, 'you won't laugh at me if I
+tell you something?'
+
+"'No, certainly not,' I said.
+
+"'You remember that drum?' he said, pointing to the glittering toy
+that hung against the wall.  'You know, too, how it came to me.  A
+few weeks after Christmas, I was lying half asleep here, and the
+drum was hanging on the wall, when suddenly I heard it beaten; at
+first, low and slowly, then faster and louder, until its rolling
+filled the house.  In the middle of the night, I heard it again.  I
+did not dare to tell anybody about it, but I have heard it every
+night ever since.'
+
+"He paused and looked anxiously in my face.  'Sometimes,' he
+continued, 'it is played softly, sometimes loudly, but always
+quickening to a long-roll, so loud and alarming that I have looked
+to see people coming into my room to ask what was the matter.  But
+I think, Doctor,--I think,' he repeated slowly, looking up with
+painful interest into my face, 'that no one hears it but myself.'
+
+"I thought so, too, but I asked him if he had heard it at any other
+time.
+
+"'Once or twice in the daytime,' he replied, 'when I have been
+reading or writing; then very loudly, as though it were angry, and
+tried in that way to attract my attention away from my books.'
+
+"I looked into his face, and placed my hand upon his pulse.  His
+eyes were very bright, and his pulse a little flurried and quick.
+I then tried to explain to him that he was very weak, and that his
+senses were very acute, as most weak people's are; and how that
+when he read, or grew interested and excited, or when he was tired
+at night, the throbbing of a big artery made the beating sound he
+heard.  He listened to me with a sad smile of unbelief, but thanked
+me, and in a little while I went away.  But as I was going down
+stairs, I met the Professor.  I gave him my opinion of the case,--
+well, no matter what it was.
+
+"'He wants fresh air and exercise,' said the Professor, 'and some
+practical experience of life, sir?'  The Professor was not a bad
+man, but he was a little worried and impatient, and thought--as
+clever people are apt to think--that things which he didn't
+understand were either silly or improper.
+
+"I left the city that very day, and in the excitement of battle-
+fields and hospitals, I forgot all about little Rupert, nor did I
+hear of him again, until one day, meeting an old classmate in the
+army, who had known the Professor, he told me that Rupert had
+become quite insane, and that in one of his paroxysms he had
+escaped from the house, and as he had never been found, it was
+feared that he had fallen in the river and was drowned.  I was
+terribly shocked for the moment, as you may imagine; but, dear me,
+I was living just then among scenes as terrible and shocking, and I
+had little time to spare to mourn over poor Rupert.
+
+"It was not long after receiving this intelligence that we had a
+terrible battle, in which a portion of our army was surprised and
+driven back with great slaughter.  I was detached from my brigade
+to ride over to the battle-field and assist the surgeons of the
+beaten division, who had more on their hands than they could attend
+to.  When I reached the barn that served for a temporary hospital,
+I went at once to work.  Ah, Bob," said the Doctor, thoughtfully
+taking the bright sword from the hands of the half-frightened Bob,
+and holding it gravely before him, "these pretty playthings are
+symbols of cruel, ugly realities.
+
+"I turned to a tall, stout Vermonter," he continued very slowly,
+tracing a pattern on the rug with the point of the scabbard, "who
+was badly wounded in both thighs, but he held up his hands and
+begged me to help others first who needed it more than he.  I did
+not at first heed his request, for this kind of unselfishness was
+very common in the army; but he went on, 'For God's sake, Doctor,
+leave me here; there is a drummer-boy of our regiment--a mere
+child--dying, if he isn't dead now.  Go, and see him first.  He
+lies over there.  He saved more than one life.  He was at his post
+in the panic this morning, and saved the honor of the regiment.'  I
+was so much more impressed by the man's manner than by the
+substance of his speech, which was, however, corroborated by the
+other poor fellows stretched around me, that I passed over to where
+the drummer lay, with his drum beside him.  I gave one glance at
+his face--and--yes, Bob--yes, my children--it WAS Rupert.
+
+"Well! well! it needed not the chalked cross which my brother-
+surgeons had left upon the rough board whereon he lay to show how
+urgent was the relief he sought; it needed not the prophetic words
+of the Vermonter, nor the damp that mingled with the brown curls
+that clung to his pale forehead, to show how hopeless it was now.
+I called him by name.  He opened his eyes--larger, I thought, in
+the new vision that was beginning to dawn upon him--and recognized
+me.  He whispered, 'I'm glad you are come, but I don't think you
+can do me any good.'
+
+"I could not tell him a lie.  I could not say anything.  I only
+pressed his hand in mine, as he went on.
+
+"'But you will see father, and ask him to forgive me.  Nobody is to
+blame but myself.  It was a long time before I understood why the
+drum came to me that Christmas night, and why it kept calling to me
+every night, and what it said.  I know it now.  The work is done,
+and I am content.  Tell father it is better as it is.  I should
+have lived only to worry and perplex him, and something in me tells
+me this is right.'
+
+"He lay still for a moment, and then, grasping my hand, said,--
+
+"'Hark!'
+
+"I listened, but heard nothing but the suppressed moans of the
+wounded men around me.  'The drum,' he said faintly; 'don't you
+hear it?  The drum is calling me.'
+
+"He reached out his arm to where it lay, as though he would embrace
+it.
+
+"'Listen,' he went on, 'it's the reveille.  There are the ranks
+drawn up in review.  Don't you see the sunlight flash down the long
+line of bayonets?  Their faces are shining,--they present arms,--
+there comes the General; but his face I cannot look at, for the
+glory round his head.  He sees me; he smiles, it is--'  And with a
+name upon his lips that he had learned long ago, he stretched
+himself wearily upon the planks, and lay quite still.
+
+
+"That's all.  No questions now; never mind what became of the drum.
+Who's that snivelling?  Bless my soul, where's my pill-box?"
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg Etext of Mrs. Skaggs's Husbands, by Bret Harte
+
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