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FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS*Ver.04.29.93*END* + + + + + +THE STORY OF A MINE + +by Bret Harte + + + + +UDO BRACHVOGEL, Esq., + +Whose clever translations of my writings have helped to introduce +me to the favor of his countrymen, both here and in Germany, this +little volume is heartily dedicated. + +BRET HARTE. + +New York, December, 1877. + + + + +THE STORY OF A MINE + + +CHAPTER I + +WHO SOUGHT IT + + +It was a steep trail leading over the Monterey Coast Range. Concho +was very tired, Concho was very dusty, Concho was very much +disgusted. To Concho's mind there was but one relief for these +insurmountable difficulties, and that lay in a leathern bottle slung +over the machillas of his saddle. Concho raised the bottle to his +lips, took a long draught, made a wry face, and ejaculated: + +"Carajo!" + +It appeared that the bottle did not contain aguardiente, but had +lately been filled in a tavern near Tres Pinos by an Irishman who +sold had American whisky under that pleasing Castilian title. +Nevertheless Concho had already nearly emptied the bottle, and it +fell back against the saddle as yellow and flaccid as his own +cheeks. Thus reinforced Concho turned to look at the valley behind +him, from which he had climbed since noon. It was a sterile waste +bordered here and there by arable fringes and valdas of meadow +land, but in the main, dusty, dry, and forbidding. His eye rested +for a moment on a low white cloud line on the eastern horizon, but +so mocking and unsubstantial that it seemed to come and go as he +gazed. Concho struck his forehead and winked his hot eyelids. Was +it the Sierras or the cursed American whisky? + +Again he recommenced the ascent. At times the half-worn, half- +visible trail became utterly lost in the bare black outcrop of the +ridge, but his sagacious mule soon found it again, until, stepping +upon a loose boulder, she slipped and fell. In vain Concho tried +to lift her from out the ruin of camp kettles, prospecting pans, +and picks; she remained quietly recumbent, occasionally raising her +head as if to contemplatively glance over the arid plain below. +Then he had recourse to useless blows. Then he essayed profanity +of a secular kind, such as "Assassin," "Thief," "Beast with a pig's +head," "Food for the Bull's Horns," but with no effect. + +Then he had recourse to the curse ecclesiastic: + +"Ah, Judas Iscariot! is it thus, renegade and traitor, thou leavest +me, thy master, a league from camp and supper waiting? Stealer of +the Sacrament, get up!" + +Still no effect. Concho began to feel uneasy; never before had a +mule of pious lineage failed to respond to this kind of exhortation. +He made one more desperate attempt: + +"Ah, defiler of the altar! lie not there! Look!" he threw his hand +into the air, extending the fingers suddenly. "Behold, fiend! I +exorcise thee! Ha! tremblest! Look but a little now,--see! +Apostate! I--I--excommunicate thee,--Mula!" + +"What are you kicking up such a devil of row down there for?" said +a gruff voice from the rocks above. + +Concho shuddered. Could it be that the devil was really going to +fly away with his mule? He dared not look up. + +"Come now," continued the voice, "you just let up on that mule, you +d----d old Greaser. Don't you see she's slipped her shoulder?" + +Alarmed as Concho was at the information, he could not help feeling +to a certain extent relieved. She was lamed, but had not lost her +standing as a good Catholic. + +He ventured to lift his eyes. A stranger--an Americano from his +dress and accent--was descending the rocks toward him. He was a +slight-built man with a dark, smooth face, that would have been +quite commonplace and inexpressive but for his left eye, in which +all that was villainous in him apparently centered. Shut that eye, +and you had the features and expression of an ordinary man; cover +up those features, and the eye shone out like Eblis's own. Nature +had apparently observed this too, and had, by a paralysis of the +nerve, ironically dropped the corner of the upper lid over it like +a curtain, laughed at her handiwork, and turned him loose to prey +upon a credulous world. + +"What are you doing here?" said the stranger after he had assisted +Concho in bringing the mule to her feet, and a helpless halt. + +"Prospecting, Senor." + +The stranger turned his respectable right eye toward Concho, while +his left looked unutterable scorn and wickedness over the landscape. + +"Prospecting, what for?" + +"Gold and silver, Senor,--yet for silver most." + +"Alone?" + +"Of us there are four." + +The stranger looked around. + +"In camp,--a league beyond," explained the Mexican. + +"Found anything?" + +"Of this--much." Concho took from his saddle bags a lump of greyish +iron ore, studded here and there with star points of pyrites. The +stranger said nothing, but his eye looked a diabolical suggestion. + +"You are lucky, friend Greaser." + +"Eh?" + +"It IS silver." + +"How know you this?" + +"It is my business. I'm a metallurgist." + +"And you can say what shall be silver and what is not." + +"Yes,--see here!" The stranger took from his saddle bags a little +leather case containing some half dozen phials. One, enwrapped in +dark-blue paper, he held up to Concho. + +"This contains a preparation of silver." + +Concho's eyes sparkled, but he looked doubtingly at the stranger. + +"Get me some water in your pan." + +Concho emptied his water bottle in his prospecting pan and handed +it to the stranger. He dipped a dried blade of grass in the bottle +and then let a drop fall from its tip in the water. The water +remained unchanged. + +"Now throw a little salt in the water," said the stranger. + +Concho did so. Instantly a white film appeared on the surface, and +presently the whole mass assumed a milky hue. + +Concho crossed himself hastily, "Mother of God, it is magic!" + +"It is chloride of silver, you darned fool." + +Not content with this cheap experiment, the stranger then took +Concho's breath away by reddening some litmus paper with the +nitrate, and then completely knocked over the simple Mexican by +restoring its color by dipping it in the salt water. + +"You shall try me this," said Concho, offering his iron ore to the +stranger;--"you shall use the silver and the salt." + +"Not so fast my friend," answered the stranger; "in the first place +this ore must be melted, and then a chip taken and put in shape +like this,--and that is worth something, my Greaser cherub. No, +sir, a man don't spend all his youth at Freiburg and Heidelburg to +throw away his science gratuitously on the first Greaser he meets." + +"It will cost--eh--how much?" said the Mexican eagerly. + +"Well, I should say it would take about a hundred dollars and +expenses to--to--find silver in that ore. But once you've got it +there--you're all right for tons of it." + +"You shall have it," said the now excited Mexican. "You shall have +it of us,--the four! You shall come to our camp and shall melt +it,--and show the silver, and--enough! Come!" and in his +feverishness he clutched the hand of his companion as if to lead +him forth at once. + +"What are you going to do with your mule?" said the stranger. + +"True, Holy Mother,--what, indeed?" + +"Look yer," said the stranger, with a grim smile, "she won't stray +far, I'll be bound. I've an extra pack mule above here; you can +ride on her, and lead me into camp, and to-morrow come back for +your beast." + +Poor honest Concho's heart sickened at the prospect of leaving +behind the tired servant he had objurgated so strongly a moment +before, but the love of gold was uppermost. "I will come back to +thee, little one, to-morrow, a rich man. Meanwhile, wait thou +here, patient one,--Adios!--thou smallest of mules,--Adios!" + +And, seizing the stranger's hand, he clambered up the rocky ledge +until they reached the summit. Then the stranger turned and gave +one sweep of his malevolent eye over the valley. + +Wherefore, in after years, when their story was related, with the +devotion of true Catholic pioneers, they named the mountain "La +Canada de la Visitacion del Diablo," "The Gulch of the Visitation +of the Devil," the same being now the boundary lines of one of the +famous Mexican land grants. + + +CHAPTER II + +WHO FOUND IT + + +Concho was so impatient to reach the camp and deliver his good news +to his companions that more than once the stranger was obliged to +command him to slacken his pace. "Is it not enough, you infernal +Greaser, that you lame your own mule, but you must try your hand on +mine? Or am I to put Jinny down among the expenses?" he added with +a grin and a slight lifting of his baleful eyelid. + +When they had ridden a mile along the ridge, they began to descend +again toward the valley. Vegetation now sparingly bordered the +trail, clumps of chemisal, an occasional manzanita bush, and one or +two dwarfed "buckeyes" rooted their way between the interstices of +the black-gray rock. Now and then, in crossing some dry gully, +worn by the overflow of winter torrents from above, the grayish +rock gloom was relieved by dull red and brown masses of color, and +almost every overhanging rock bore the mark of a miner's pick. +Presently, as they rounded the curving flank of the mountain, from +a rocky bench below them, a thin ghost-like stream of smoke seemed +to be steadily drawn by invisible hands into the invisible ether. +"It is the camp," said Concho, gleefully; "I will myself forward to +prepare them for the stranger," and before his companion could +detain him, he had disappeared at a sharp canter around the curve +of the trail. + +Left to himself, the stranger took a more leisurely pace, which +left him ample time for reflection. Scamp as he was, there was +something in the simple credulity of poor Concho that made him +uneasy. Not that his moral consciousness was touched, but he +feared that Concho's companions might, knowing Concho's simplicity, +instantly suspect him of trading upon it. He rode on in a deep +study. Was he reviewing his past life? A vagabond by birth and +education, a swindler by profession, an outcast by reputation, +without absolutely turning his back upon respectability, he had +trembled on the perilous edge of criminality ever since his +boyhood. He did not scruple to cheat these Mexicans,--they were a +degraded race,--and for a moment he felt almost an accredited agent +of progress and civilization. We never really understand the +meaning of enlightenment until we begin to use it aggressively. + +A few paces further on four figures appeared in the now gathering +darkness of the trail. The stranger quickly recognized the beaming +smile of Concho, foremost of the party. A quick glance at the +faces of the others satisfied him that while they lacked Concho's +good humor, they certainly did not surpass him in intellect. +"Pedro" was a stout vaquero. "Manuel" was a slim half-breed and +ex-convert of the Mission of San Carmel, and "Miguel" a recent +butcher of Monterey. Under the benign influences of Concho that +suspicion with which the ignorant regard strangers died away, and +the whole party escorted the stranger--who had given his name as +Mr. Joseph Wiles--to their camp-fire. So anxious were they to +begin their experiments that even the instincts of hospitality were +forgotten, and it was not until Mr. Wiles--now known as "Don Jose"-- +sharply reminded them that he wanted some "grub," that they came +to their senses. When the frugal meal of tortillas, frijoles, salt +pork, and chocolate was over, an oven was built of the dark-red +rock brought from the ledge before them, and an earthenware jar, +glazed by some peculiar local process, tightly fitted over it, and +packed with clay and sods. A fire was speedily built of pine +boughs continually brought from a wooded ravine below, and in a few +moments the furnace was in full blast. Mr. Wiles did not participate +in these active preparations, except to give occasional directions +between his teeth, which were contemplatively fixed over a clay pipe +as he lay comfortably on his back on the ground. Whatever enjoyment +the rascal may have had in their useless labors he did not show it, +but it was observed that his left eye often followed the broad +figure of the ex-vaquero, Pedro, and often dwelt on that worthy's +beetling brows and half-savage face. Meeting that baleful glance +once, Pedro growled out an oath, but could not resist a hideous +fascination that caused him again and again to seek it. + +The scene was weird enough without Wiles's eye to add to its wild +picturesqueness. The mountain towered above,--a heavy Rembrandtish +mass of black shadow,--sharply cut here and there against a sky so +inconceivably remote that the world-sick soul must have despaired +of ever reaching so far, or of climbing its steel-blue walls. The +stars were large, keen, and brilliant, but cold and steadfast. +They did not dance nor twinkle in their adamantine setting. The +furnace fire painted the faces of the men an Indian red, glanced on +brightly colored blanket and serape, but was eventually caught and +absorbed in the waiting shadows of the black mountain, scarcely +twenty feet from the furnace door. The low, half-sung, half- +whispered foreign speech of the group, the roaring of the furnace, +and the quick, sharp yelp of a coyote on the plain below were the +only sounds that broke the awful silence of the hills. + +It was almost dawn when it was announced that the ore had fused. +And it was high time, for the pot was slowly sinking into the fast- +crumbling oven. Concho uttered a jubilant "God and Liberty," but +Don Jose Wiles bade him be silent and bring stakes to support the +pot. Then Don Jose bent over the seething mass. It was for a +moment only. But in that moment this accomplished metallurgist, +Mr. Joseph Wiles, had quietly dropped a silver half dollar into the +pot! + +Then he charged them to keep up the fires and went to sleep--all +but one eye. + +Dawn came with dull beacon fires on the near hill tops, and, far in +the East, roses over the Sierran snow. Birds twittering in the +alder fringes a mile below, and the creaking of wagon wheels,--the +wagon itself a mere cloud of dust in the distant road,--were heard +distinctly. Then the melting pot was solemnly broken by Don Jose, +and the glowing incandescent mass turned into the road to cool. + +And then the metallurgist chipped a small fragment from the mass +and pounded it, and chipped another smaller piece and pounded that, +and then subjected it to acid, and then treated it to a salt bath +which became at once milky,--and at last produced a white +something,--mirabile dictu!--two cents' worth of silver! + +Concho shouted with joy; the rest gazed at each other doubtingly +and distrustfully; companions in poverty, they began to diverge and +suspect each other in prosperity. Wiles's left eye glanced +ironically from the one to the other. + +"Here is the hundred dollars, Don Jose," said Pedro, handing the +gold to Wiles with a decidedly brusque intimation that the services +and presence of a stranger were no longer required. + +Wiles took the money with a gracious smile and a wink that sent +Pedro's heart into his boots, and was turning away, when a cry from +Manuel stopped him. "The pot,--the pot,--it has leaked! look! +behold! see!" + +He had been cleaning away the crumbled fragments of the furnace to +get ready for breakfast, and had disclosed a shining pool of +QUICKSILVER! + +Wiles started, cast a rapid glance around the group, saw in a flash +that the metal was unknown to them,--and then said quietly: + +"It is not silver." + +"Pardon, Senor, it is, and still molten." Wiles stooped and ran +his fingers through the shining metal. + +"Mother of God,--what is it then?--magic?" + +"No, only base metal." But here, Concho, emboldened by Wiles's +experiment, attempted to seize a handful of the glistening mass, +that instantly broke through his fingers in a thousand tiny +spherules, and even sent a few globules up his shirt sleeves, until +he danced around in mingled fear and childish pleasure. + +"And it is not worth the taking?" queried Pedro of Wiles. + +Wiles's right eye and bland face were turned toward the speaker, +but his malevolent left was glancing at the dull red-brown rock on +the hill side. + +"No!"--and turning abruptly away, he proceeded to saddle his mule. + +Manuel, Miguel, and Pedro, left to themselves, began talking +earnestly together, while Concho, now mindful of his crippled mule, +made his way back to the trail where he had left her. But she was +no longer there. Constant to her master through beatings and +bullyings, she could not stand incivility and inattention. There +are certain qualities of the sex that belong to all animated +nature. + +Inconsolable, footsore, and remorseful, Concho returned to the camp +and furnace, three miles across the rocky ridge. But what was his +astonishment on arriving to find the place deserted of man, mule, +and camp equipage. Concho called aloud. Only the echoing rocks +grimly answered him. Was it a trick? Concho tried to laugh. Ah-- +yes--a good one,--a joke,--no--no--they HAD deserted him. And then +poor Concho bowed his head to the ground, and falling on his face, +cried as if his honest heart would break. + +The tempest passed in a moment; it was not Concho's nature to +suffer long nor brood over an injury. As he raised his head again +his eye caught the shimmer of the quicksilver,--that pool of merry +antic metal that had so delighted him an hour before. In a few +moments Concho was again disporting with it; chasing it here and +there, rolling it in his palms and laughing with boy-like glee at +its elusive freaks and fancies. "Ah, sprightly one,--skipjack,-- +there thou goest,--come here. This way,--now I have thee, little +one,--come, muchacha,--come and kiss me," until he had quite +forgotten the defection of his companions. And even when he +shouldered his sorry pack, he was fain to carry his playmate away +with him in his empty leathern flask. + +And yet I fancy the sun looked kindly on him as he strode cheerily +down the black mountain side, and his step was none the less free +nor light that he carried with him neither the brilliant prospects +nor the crime of his late comrades. + + +CHAPTER III + +WHO CLAIMED IT + + +The fog had already closed in on Monterey, and was now rolling, a +white, billowy sea above, that soon shut out the blue breakers +below. Once or twice in descending the mountain Concho had +overhung the cliff and looked down upon the curving horse-shoe of a +bay below him,--distant yet many miles. Earlier in the afternoon +he had seen the gilt cross on the white-faced Mission flare in the +sunlight, but now all was gone. By the time he reached the highway +of the town it was quite dark, and he plunged into the first fonda +at the wayside, and endeavored to forget his woes and his weariness +in aguardiente. But Concho's head ached, and his back ached, and +he was so generally distressed that he bethought him of a medico,-- +an American doctor,--lately come into the town, who had once +treated Concho and his mule with apparently the same medicine, and +after the same heroic fashion. Concho reasoned, not illogically, +that if he were to be physicked at all he ought to get the worth of +his money. The grotesque extravagance of life, of fruit and +vegetables, in California was inconsistent with infinitesimal +doses. In Concho's previous illness the doctor had given him a +dozen 4 grain quinine powders. + +The following day the grateful Mexican walked into the Doctor's +office--cured. The Doctor was gratified until, on examination, it +appeared that to save trouble, and because his memory was poor, +Concho had taken all the powders in one dose. The Doctor shrugged +his shoulders and--altered his practice. + +"Well," said Dr. Guild, as Concho sank down exhaustedly in one of +the Doctor's two chairs, "what now? Have you been sleeping again +in the tule marshes, or are you upset with commissary whisky? +Come, have it out." + +But Concho declared that the devil was in his stomach, that Judas +Iscariot had possessed himself of his spine, that imps were in his +forehead, and that his feet had been scourged by Pontius Pilate. + +"That means 'blue mass,'" said the Doctor. And gave it to him,--a +bolus as large as a musket ball, and as heavy. + +Concho took it on the spot, and turned to go. + +"I have no money, Senor Medico." + +"Never mind. It's only a dollar, the price of the medicine." + +Concho looked guilty at having gulped down so much cash. Then he +said timidly: + +"I have no money, but I have got here what is fine and jolly. It +is yours." And he handed over the contents of the precious tin can +he had brought with him. + +Tbe Doctor took it, looked at the shivering volatile mass and said, +"Why this is quicksilver!" + +Concho laughed, "Yes, very quick silver, so!" and he snapped his +fingers to show its sprightliness. + +The Doctor's face grew earnest; "Where did you get this, Concho?" +he finally asked. + +"It ran from the pot in the mountains beyond." + +The Doctor looked incredulous. Then Concho related the whole +story. + +"Could you find that spot again?" + +"Madre de Dios, yes,--I have a mule there; may the devil fly away +with her!" + +"And you say your comrades saw this?" + +"Why not?" + +"And you say they afterwards left you,--deserted you?" + +"They did, ingrates!" + +The Doctor arose and shut his office door. "Hark ye, Concho," he +said, "that bit of medicine I gave you just now was worth a dollar, +it was worth a dollar because the material of which it was composed +was made from the stuff you have in that can,--quicksilver or +mercury. It is one of the most valuable of metals, especially in a +gold-mining country. My good fellow, if you know where to find +enough of it, your fortune is made." + +Concho rose to his feet. + +"Tell me, was the rock you built your furnace of red?" + +"Si, Senor." + +"And brown?" + +"Si, Senor." + +"And crumbled under the heat?" + +"As to nothing." + +"And did you see much of this red rock?" + +"The mountain mother is in travail with it." + +"Are you sure that your comrades have not taken possession of the +mountain mother?" + +"As how?" + +"By claiming its discovery under the mining laws, or by pre-emption?" + +"They shall not." + +"But how will you, single-handed, fight the four; for I doubt not +your scientific friend has a hand in it?" + +"I will fight." + +"Yes, my Concho, but suppose I take the fight off your hands. Now, +here's a proposition: I will get half a dozen Americanos to go in +with you. You will have to get money to work the mine,--you will +need funds. You shall share half with them. They will take the +risk, raise the money, and protect you." + +"I see," said Concho, nodding his head and winking his eyes +rapidly. "Bueno!" + +"I will return in ten minutes," said the Doctor, taking his hat. + +He was as good as his word. In ten minutes he returned with six +original locaters, a board of directors, a president, secretary, +and a deed of incorporation of the 'Blue Mass Quicksilver Mining +Co.' This latter was a delicate compliment to the Doctor, who was +popular. The President added to these necessary articles a +revolver. + +"Take it," he said, handing over the weapon to Concho. "Take it; +my horse is outside; take that, ride like h--l and hang on to the +claim until we come!" + +In another moment Concho was in the saddle. Then the mining +director lapsed into the physician. + +"I hardly know," said Dr. Guild, doubtfully, "if in your present +condition you ought to travel. You have just taken a powerful +medicine," and the Doctor looked hypocritically concerned. + +"Ah,--the devil!" laughed Concho, "what is the quicksilver that is +IN to that which is OUT? Hoopa, la Mula!" and, with a clatter of +hoofs and jingle of spurs, was presently lost in the darkness. + +"You were none too soon, gentlemen," said the American Alcalde, as +he drew up before the Doctor's door. "Another company has just +been incorporated for the same location, I reckon." + +"Who are they?" + +"Three Mexicans,--Pedro, Manuel, and Miguel, headed by that d----d +cock-eyed Sydney Duck, Wiles." + +"Are they here?" + +"Manuel and Miguel, only. The others are over at Tres Pinos lally- +gaging Roscommon and trying to rope him in to pay off their whisky +bills at his grocery." + +"If that's so we needn't start before sunrise, for they're sure to +get roaring drunk." + +And this legitimate successor of the grave Mexican Alcaldes, having +thus delivered his impartial opinion, rode away. + +Meanwhile, Concho the redoubtable, Concho the fortunate, spared +neither riata nor spur. The way was dark, the trail obscure and at +times even dangerous, and Concho, familiar as he was with these +mountain fastnesses, often regretted his sure-footed Francisquita. +"Care not, O Concho," he would say to himself, "'tis but a little +while, only a little while, and thou shalt have another Francisquita +to bless thee. Eh, skipjack, there was a fine music to thy dancing. +A dollar for an ounce,--'tis as good as silver, and merrier." Yet +for all his good spirits he kept a sharp lookout at certain bends of +the mountain trail; not for assassins or brigands, for Concho was +physically courageous, but for the Evil One, who, in various forms, +was said to lurk in the Santa Cruz Range, to the great discomfort of +all true Catholics. He recalled the incident of Ignacio, a muleteer +of the Franciscan Friars, who, stopping at the Angelus to repeat the +Credo, saw Luzbel plainly in the likeness of a monstrous grizzly +bear, mocking him by sitting on his haunches and lifting his paws, +clasped together, as if in prayer. Nevertheless, with one hand +grasping his reins and his rosary, and the other clutching his +whisky flask and revolver, he fared on so rapidly that he reached +the summit as the earlier streaks of dawn were outlining the far-off +Sierran peaks. Tethering his horse on a strip of tableland, he +descended cautiously afoot until he reached the bench, the wall of +red rock and the crumbled and dismantled furnace. It was as he had +left it that morning; there was no trace of recent human visitation. +Revolver in hand, Concho examined every cave, gully, and recess, +peered behind trees, penetrated copses of buckeye and manzanita, and +listened. There was no sound but the faint soughing of the wind +over the pines below him. For a while he paced backward and forward +with a vague sense of being a sentinel, but his mercurial nature +soon rebelled against this monotony, and soon the fatigues of the +day began to tell upon him. Recourse to his whisky flask only made +him the drowsier, until at last he was fain to lie down and roll +himself up tightly in his blanket. The next moment he was sound +asleep. + +His horse neighed twice from the summit, but Concho heard him not. +Then the brush crackled on the ledge above him, a small fragment of +rock rolled near his feet, but he stirred not. And then two black +figures were outlined on the crags beyond. + +"St-t-t!" whispered a voice. "There is one lying beside the +furnace." The speech was Spanish, but the voice was Wiles's. + +The other figure crept cautiously to the edge of the crag and looked +over. "It is Concho, the imbecile," said Pedro, contemptuously. + +"But if he should not be alone, or if he should waken?" + +"I will watch and wait. Go you and affix the notification." + +Wiles disappeared. Pedro began to creep down the face of the rocky +ledge, supporting himself by chemisal and brush-wood. + +The next moment Pedro stood beside the unconscious man. Then he +looked cautiously around. The figure of his companion was lost in +the shadow of the rocks above; only a slight crackle of brush +betrayed his whereabouts. Suddenly Pedro flung his serape over the +sleeper's head, and then threw his powerful frame and tremendous +weight full upon Concho's upturned face, while his strong arms +clasped the blanket-pinioned limbs of his victim. There was a +momentary upheaval, a spasm, and a struggle; but the tightly-rolled +blanket clung to the unfortunate man like cerements. + +There was no noise, no outcry, no sound of struggle. There was +nothing to be seen but the peaceful, prostrate figures of the two +men darkly outlined on the ledge. They might have been sleeping in +each other's arms. In the black silence the stealthy tread of +Wiles in the brush above was distinctly audible. + +Gradually the struggles grew fainter. Then a whisper from the +crags: + +"I can't see you. What are you doing?" + +"Watching!" + +"Sleeps he?" + +"He sleeps!" + +"Soundly?" + +"Soundly." + +"After the manner of the dead?" + +"After the fashion of the dead!" + +The last tremor had ceased. Pedro rose as Wiles descended. + +"All is ready," said Wiles; "you are a witness of my placing the +notifications?" + +"I am a witness." + +"But of this one?" pointing to Concho. "Shall we leave him here?" + +"A drunken imbecile,--why not?" + +Wiles turned his left eye on the speaker. They chanced to be +standing nearly in the same attitude they had stood the preceding +night. Pedro uttered a cry and an imprecation, "Carramba! Take +your devil's eye from me! What see you? Eh,--what?" + +"Nothing, good Pedro," said Wiles, turning his bland right cheek to +Pedro. The infuriated and half-frightened ex-vaquero returned the +long knife he had half-drawn from its sheath, and growled surlily: +"Go on then! But keep thou on that side, and I will on this." And +so, side by side, listening, watching, distrustful of all things, +but mainly of each other, they stole back and up into those shadows +from which they might like evil spirits have been poetically +evoked. + +A half hour passed, in which the east brightened, flashed, and again +melted into gold. And then the sun came up haughtily, and a fog +that had stolen across the summit in the night arose and fled up the +mountain side, tearing its white robes in its guilty haste, and +leaving them fluttering from tree and crag and scar. A thousand +tiny blades, nestling in the crevices of rocks, nurtured in storms +and rocked by the trade winds, stretched their wan and feeble arms +toward Him; but Concho the strong, Concho the brave, Concho the +light-hearted spake not nor stirred. + + +CHAPTER IV + +WHO TOOK IT + + +There was persistent neighing on the summit. Concho's horse wanted +his breakfast. + +This protestation reached the ears of a party ascending the +mountain from its western face. To one of the party it was +familiar. + +"Why, blank it all, that's Chiquita. That d----d Mexican's lying +drunk somewhere," said the President of the B. M. Co. + +"I don't like the look of this at all," said Dr. Guild, as they +rode up beside the indignant animal. "If it had been an American, +it might have been carelessness, but no Mexican ever forgets his +beast. Drive ahead, boys; we may be too late." + +In half an hour they came in sight of the ledge below, the crumbled +furnace, and the motionless figure of Concho, wrapped in a blanket, +lying prone in the sunlight. + +"I told you so,--drunk!" said the President. + +The Doctor looked grave, but did not speak. They dismounted and +picketed their horses. Then crept on all fours to the ledge above +the furnace. There was a cry from Secretary Gibbs, "Look yer. +Some fellar has been jumping us, boys. See these notices." + +There were two notices on canvas affixed to the rock, claiming the +ground, and signed by Pedro, Manuel, Miguel, Wiles, and Roscommon. + +"This was done, Doctor, while your trustworthy Greaser locater,-- +d--n him,--lay there drunk. What's to be done now?" + +But the Doctor was making his way to the unfortunate cause of their +defeat, lying there quite mute to their reproaches. The others +followed him. + +The Doctor knelt beside Concho, unrolled him, placed his hand upon +his wrist, his ear over his heart, and then said: + +"Dead." + +"Of course. He got medicine of you last night. This comes of your +d----d heroic practice." + +But the Doctor was too much occupied to heed the speaker's +raillery. He had peered into Concho's protuberant eye, opened his +mouth, and gazed at the swollen tongue, and then suddenly rose to +his feet. + +"Tear down those notices, boys, but keep them. Put up your own. +Don't be alarmed, you will not be interfered with, for here is +murder added to robbery." + +"Murder?" + +"Yes," said the Doctor, excitedly, "I'll take my oath on any +inquest that this man was strangled to death. He was surprised +while asleep. Look here." He pointed to the revolver still in +Concho's stiffening hand, which the murdered man had instantly +cocked, but could not use in the struggle. + +"That's so," said the President, "no man goes to sleep with a +cocked revolver. What's to be done?" + +"Everything," said the Doctor. "This deed was committed within the +last two hours; the body is still warm. The murderer did not come +our way, or we should have met him on the trail. He is, if +anywhere, between here and Tres Pinos." + +"Gentlemen," said the President, with a slight preparatory and half +judicial cough, "two of you will stay here and stick! The others +will follow me to Tres Pinos. The law has been outraged. You +understand the Court!" + +By some odd influence the little group of half-cynical, half- +trifling, and wholly reckless men had become suddenly sober, +earnest citizens. They said, "Go on," nodded their heads, and +betook themselves to their horses. + +"Had we not better wait for the inquest and swear out a warrant?" +said the Secretary, cautiously. + +"How many men have we?" + +"Five!" + +"Then," said the President, summing up the Revised Statutes of the +State of California in one strong sentence; "then we don't want no +d----d warrant." + + +CHAPTER V + +WHO HAD A LIEN ON IT + + +It was high noon at Tres Pinos. The three pines from which it +gained its name, in the dusty road and hot air, seemed to smoke +from their balsamic spires. There was a glare from the road, a +glare from the sky, a glare from the rocks, a glare from the white +canvas roofs of the few shanties and cabins which made up the +village. There was even a glare from the unpainted red-wood boards +of Roscommon's grocery and tavern, and a tendency of the warping +floor of the veranda to curl up beneath the feet of the intruder. +A few mules, near the watering trough, had shrunk within the scant +shadow of the corral. + +The grocery business of Mr. Roscommon, although adequate and +sufficient for the village, was not exhausting nor overtaxing to +the proprietor; the refilling of the pork and flour barrel of the +average miner was the work of a brief hour on Saturday nights, but +the daily replenishment of the average miner with whisky was +arduous and incessant. Roscommon spent more time behind his bar +than his grocer's counter. Add to this the fact that a long shed- +like extension or wing bore the legend, "Cosmopolitan Hotel, Board +or Lodging by the Day or Week. M. Roscommon," and you got an idea +of the variety of the proprietor's functions. The "hotel," +however, was more directly under the charge of Mrs. Roscommon, a +lady of thirty years, strong, truculent, and good-hearted. + +Mr. Roscommon had early adopted the theory that most of his +customers were insane, and were to be alternately bullied or +placated, as the case might be. Nothing that occurred, no +extravagance of speech nor act, ever ruffled his equilibrium, which +was as dogged and stubborn as it was outwardly calm. When not +serving liquor, or in the interval while it was being drank, he was +always wiping his counter with an exceedingly dirty towel,--or +indeed anything that came handy. Miners, noticing this purely +perfunctory habit, occasionally supplied him slily with articles +inconsistent with their service,--fragments of their shirts and +underclothing, flour sacking, tow, and once with a flannel +petticoat of his wife's, stolen from the line in the back-yard. +Roscommon would continue his wiping without looking up, but yet +conscious of the presence of each customer. "And it's not another +dhrop ye'll git, Jack Brown, until ye've wiped out the black score +that stands agin ye." "And it's there ye are, darlint, and it's +here's the bottle that's been lukin' for ye sins Saturday." "And +fwhot hev you done with the last I sent ye, ye divil of a McCorkle, +and here's me back that's bruk entoirely wid dipping intil the pork +barl to giv ye the best sides, and ye spending yur last cint on a +tare into Gilroy. Whist! and if it's fer foighting ye are, boys, +there's an illigant bit of sod beyant the corral, and it may be +meself'll come out with a shtick and be sociable." + +On this particular day, however, Mr. Roscommon was not in his usual +spirits, and when the clatter of horses' hoofs before the door +announced the approach of strangers, he absolutely ceased wiping +his counter and looked up as Dr. Guild, the President, and +Secretary of the new Company strode into the shop. + +"We are looking," said the President, "for a man by the name of +Wiles, and three Mexicans known as Pedro, Manuel, and Miguel." + +"Ye are?" + +"We are!" + +"Faix, and I hope ye'll foind 'em. And if ye'll git from 'em the +score I've got agin 'em, darlint, I'll add a blessing to it." + +There was a laugh at this from the bystanders, who, somehow, +resented the intrusion of these strangers. + +"I fear you will find it no laughing matter, gentlemen," said Dr. +Guild, a little stiffly, "when I tell you that a murder has been +committed, and the men I am seeking within an hour of that murder +put up that notice signed by their names," and Dr. Guild displayed +the paper. + +There was a breathless silence among the crowd as they eagerly +pressed around the Doctor. Only Roscommon kept on wiping his +counter. + +"You will observe, gentlemen, that the name of Roscommon also +appears on this paper as one of the original beaters." + +"And sure, darlint," said Roscommon, without looking up, "if ye've +no better ividince agin them boys then you have forninst me, it's +home ye'd bether be riding to wanst. For it's meself as hasn't +sturred fut out of the store the day and noight,--more betoken as +the boys I've sarved kin testify." + +"That's so, Ross, right," chorused the crowd, "We've been running +the old man all night." + +"Then how comes your name on this paper?" + +"O murdher! will ye listen to him, boys? As if every felly that +owed me a whisky bill didn't come to me and say, 'Ah, Misther +Roscommon,' or 'Moike,' as the case moight be, sure it's an +illigant sthrike I've made this day, and it's meself that has put +down your name as an original locater, and yer fortune's made, Mr. +Roscommon, and will yer fill me up another quart for the good luck +betune you and me. Ah, but ask Jack Brown over yar if it isn't +sick that I am of his original locations." + +The laugh that followed this speech, and its practical application, +convinced the party that they had blundered, that they could obtain +no clue to the real culprits here, and that any attempt by threats +would meet violent opposition. Nevertheless the Doctor was +persistent: + +"When did you see these men last?" + +"When did I see them, is it? Bedad, what with sarvin up the liquor +and keeping me counters dry and swate, I never see them at all." + +"That's so, Ross," chorused the crowd again, to whom the whole +proceeding was delightfully farcical. + +"Then I can tell you, gentlemen," said the Doctor, stiffly, "that +they were in Monterey last night, that they did not return on that +trail this morning, and that they must have passed here at +daybreak." + +With these words, which the Doctor regretted as soon as delivered, +the party rode away. + +Mr. Roscommon resumed his service and counter wiping. But late +that night, when the bar was closed and the last loiterer was +summarily ejected, Mr. Roscommon, in the conjugal privacy of his +chamber, produced a legal-looking paper. "Read it, Maggie, +darlint, for it's meself never had the larning nor the parts." + +Mistress Roscommon took the paper: + +"Shure, it's law papers, making over some property to yis. O Moike! +ye havn't been spekilating!" + +"Whist! and fwhotz that durty gray paper wid the sales and +flourishes?" + +"Faix, it bothers me intoirely. Shure it oin't in English." + +"Whist! Maggie, it's a Spanish grant!" + +"A Spanish grant? O Moike, and what did ye giv for it?" + +Mr. Roscommon laid his finger beside his nose and said softly, +"Whishky!" + + + +PART II.--IN THE COURTS + + +CHAPTER VI + +HOW A GRANT WAS GOT FOR IT + + +While the Blue Mass Company, with more zeal than discretion, were +actively pursuing Pedro and Wiles over the road to Tres Pinos, +Senors Miguel and Manuel were comfortably seated in a fonda at +Monterey, smoking cigarritos and discussing their late discovery. +But they were in no better mood than their late companions, and it +appeared from their conversation that in an evil moment they had +sold out their interest in the alleged silver mine to Wiles and +Pedro for a few hundred dollars,--succumbing to what they were +assured would be an active opposition on the part of the Americanos. +The astute reader will easily understand that the accomplished Mr. +Wiles did not inform them of its value as a quicksilver mine, +although he was obliged to impart his secret to Pedro as a necessary +accomplice and reckless coadjutor. That Pedro felt no qualms of +conscience in thus betraying his two comrades may be inferred from +his recent direct and sincere treatment of Concho, and that he +would, if occasion offered or policy made it expedient, as calmly +obliterate Mr. Wiles, that gentleman himself never for a moment +doubted. + +"If we had waited but a little he would have given more,--this +cock-eye!" regretted Manuel querulously. + +"Not a peso," said Miguel, firmly. + +"And why, my Miguel? Thou knowest we could have worked the mine +ourselves." + +"Good, and lost even that labor. Look you, little brother. Show +to me now the Mexican that has ever made a real of a mine in +California. How many, eh? None! Not a one. Who owns the +Mexican's mine, eh? Americanos! Who takes the money from the +Mexican's mine? Americanos! Thou rememberest Briones, who spent a +gold mine to make a silver one? Who has the lands and house of +Briones? Americanos! Who has the cattle of Briones? Americanos! +Who has the mine of Briones? Americanos! Who has the silver +Briones never found? Americanos! Always the same! Forever! Ah! +carramba!" + +Then the Evil One evidently took it into his head and horns to +worry and toss these men--comparatively innocent as they were-- +still further, for a purpose. For presently to them appeared one +Victor Garcia, whilom a clerk of the Ayuntamiento, who rallied them +over aguardiente, and told them the story of the quicksilver +discovery, and the two mining claims taken out that night by Concho +and Wiles. Whereat Manuel exploded with profanity and burnt blue +with sulphurous malediction; but Miguel, the recent ecclesiastic, +sat livid and thoughtful. + +Finally came a pause in Manuel's bombardment, and something like +this conversation took place between the cooler actors: + +Miguel (thoughtfully). "When was it thou didst petition for lands +in the valley, friend Victor?" + +Victor (amazedly). "Never! It is a sterile waste. Am I a fool?" + +Miguel (softly). "Thou didst. Of thy Governor, Micheltorena. I +have seen the application." + +Victor (beginning to appreciate a rodential odor). "Si! I had +forgotten. Art thou sure it was in the valley?" + +Miguel (persuasively). "In the valley and up the falda."* + + +* Falda, or valda, i. e., that part of the skirt of a woman's robe +that breaks upon the ground, and is also applied to the final slope +of a hill, from the angle that it makes upon the level plain. + + +Victor (with decision). "Certainly. Of a verity,--the falda +likewise." + +Miguel (eying Victor). "And yet thou hadst not the grant. Painful +is it that it should have been burned with the destruction of the +other archives, by the Americanos at Monterey." + +Victor (cautiously feeling his way). "Possiblemente." + +Miguel. "It might be wise to look into it." + +Victor (bluntly). "As why?" + +Miguel. "For our good and thine, friend Victor. We bring thee a +discovery; thou bringest us thy skill, thy experience, thy +government knowledge,--thy Custom House paper."* + + +* Grants, applications, and official notifications, under the +Spanish Government, were drawn on a stamped paper known as custom +House paper. + + +Manuel (breaking in drunkenly). "But for what? We are Mexicans. +Are we not fated? We shall lose. Who shall keep the Americanos +off?" + +Miguel. "We shall take ONE American in! Ha! seest thou? This +American comrade shall bribe his courts, his corregidores. After a +little he shall supply the men who invent the machine of steam, the +mill, the furnace, eh?" + +Victor. "But who is he,--not to steal?" + +Miguel. "He is that man of Ireland, a good Catholic, at Tres Pinos." + +Victor and Manuel (omnes). "Roscommon?" + +Miguel. "Of the same. We shall give him a share for the +provisions, for the tools, for the aguardiente. It is of the Irish +that the Americanos have great fear. It is of them that the votes +are made,--that the President is chosen. It is of him that they +make the Alcalde in San Francisco. And we are of the Church like +him." + +They said "Bueno" altogether, and for the moment appeared to be +upheld by a religious enthusiasm,--a joint confession of faith that +meant death, destruction, and possibly forgery, as against the men +who thought otherwise. + +This spiritual harmony did away with all practical consideration +and doubt. "I have a little niece," said Victor, "whose work with +the pen is marvellous. If one says to her, 'Carmen, copy me this, +or the other one,'--even if it be copper-plate,--look you it is +done, and you cannot know of which is the original. Madre de Dios! +the other day she makes me a rubric* of the Governor, Pio Pico, the +same, identical. Thou knowest her, Miguel. She asked concerning +thee yesterday." + + +* The Spanish "rubric" is the complicated flourish attached to a +signature, and is as individual and characteristic as the +handwriting. + + +With the embarrassment of an underbred man, Miguel tried to appear +unconcerned, but failed dismally. Indeed, I fear that the black +eyes of Carmen had already done their perfect and accepted work, +and had partly induced the application for Victor's aid. He, +however, dissembled so far as to ask: + +"But will she not know?" + +"She is a child." + +"But will she not talk?" + +"Not if I say nay, and if thou--eh, Miguel?" + +This bit of flattery (which, by the way, was a lie, for Victor's +niece did not incline favorably to Miguel, had its effect. They +shook hands over the table. "But," said Miguel, "what is to be +done must be done now." "At the moment," said Victor, "and thou +shalt see it done. Eh? Does it content thee? then come!" + +Miguel nodded to Manuel. "We will return in an hour; wait thou +here." + +They filed out into the dark, irregular street. Fate led them to +pass the office of Dr. Guild at the moment that Concho mounted his +horse. The shadows concealed them from their rival, but they +overheard the last injunctions of the President to the unlucky +Concho. + +"Thou hearest?" said Miguel, clutching his companion's arm. + +"Yes," said Victor. "But let him ride, my friend; in one hour we +shall have that that shall arrive YEARS before him," and with a +complacent chuckle they passed unseen and unheard until, abruptly +turning a corner, they stopped before a low adobe house. + +It had once been a somewhat pretentious dwelling, but had evidently +followed the fortunes of its late owner, Don Juan Briones, who had +offered it as a last sop to the three-headed Cerberus that guarded +the El Refugio Plutonean treasures, and who had swallowed it in a +single gulp. It was in very bad case. The furrows of its red- +tiled roof looked as if they were the results of age and decrepitude. +Its best room had a musty smell; there was the dampness of +deliquescence in its slow decay, but the Spanish Californians were +sensible architects, and its massive walls and partitions defied the +earthquake thrill, and all the year round kept an even temperature +within. + +Victor led Miguel through a low anteroom into a plainly-furnished +chamber, where Carmen sat painting. + +Now Mistress Carmen was a bit of a painter, in a pretty little way, +with all the vague longings of an artist, but without, I fear, the +artist's steadfast soul. She recognized beauty and form as a child +might, without understanding their meaning, and somehow failed to +make them even interpret her woman's moods, which surely were +nature's too. So she painted everything with this innocent lust of +the eye,--flowers, birds, insects, landscapes, and figures,--with a +joyous fidelity, but no particular poetry. The bird never sang to +her but one song, the flowers or trees spake but one language, and +her skies never brightened except in color. She came out strong on +the Catholic saints, and would toss you up a cleanly-shaven +Aloysius, sweetly destitute of expression, or a dropsical, lethargic +Madonna that you couldn't have told from an old master, so bad it +was. Her faculty of faithful reproduction even showed itself in +fanciful lettering,--and latterly in the imitation of fabrics and +signatures. Indeed, with her eye for beauty of form, she had always +excelled in penmanship at the Convent,--an accomplishment which the +good sisters held in great repute. + +In person she was petite, with a still unformed girlish figure, +perhaps a little too flat across the back, and with possibly a too +great tendency to a boyish stride in walking. Her brow, covered by +blue-black hair, was low and frank and honest; her eyes, a very +dark hazel, were not particularly large, but rather heavily +freighted in their melancholy lids with sleeping passion; her nose +was of that unimportant character which no man remembers; her mouth +was small and straight; her teeth, white and regular. The whole +expression of her face was piquancy that might be subdued by +tenderness or made malevolent by anger. At present it was a salad +in which the oil and vinegar were deftly combined. The astute +feminine reader will of course understand that this is the ordinary +superficial masculine criticism, and at once make up her mind both +as to the character of the young lady and the competency of the +critic. I only know that I rather liked her. And her functions +are somewhat important in this veracious history. + +She looked up, started to her feet, leveled her black brows at the +intruder, but, at a sign from her uncle, showed her white teeth and +spake. + +It was only a sentence, and a rather common-place one at that; but +if she could have put her voice upon her canvas, she might have +retrieved the Garcia fortunes. For it was so musical, so tender, +so sympathizing, so melodious, so replete with the graciousness of +womanhood, that she seemed to have invented the language. And yet +that sentence was only an exaggerated form of the 'How d'ye do,' +whined out, doled out, lisped out, or shot out from the pretty +mouths of my fair countrywomen. + +Miguel admired the paintings. He was struck particularly with a +crayon drawing of a mule. "Mother of God, it is the mule itself! +observe how it will not go." Then the crafty Victor broke in with, +"But it is nothing to her writing; look, you shall tell to me which +is the handwriting of Pio Pico;" and, from a drawer in the +secretary, he drew forth two signatures. One was affixed to a +yellowish paper, the other drawn on plain white foolscap. Of +course Miguel took the more modern one with lover-like gallantry. +"It is this is genuine!" Victor laughed triumphantly; Carmen +echoed the laugh melodiously in child-like glee, and added, with a +slight toss of her piquant head, "It is mine!" The best of the sex +will not refuse a just and overdue compliment from even the man +they dislike. It's the principle they're after, not the sentiment. + +But Victor was not satisfied with this proof of his niece's skill. +"Say to her," he demanded of Miguel, "what name thou likest, and it +shall be done before thee here." Miguel was not so much in love +but he perceived the drift of Victor's suggestion, and remarked +that the rubric of Governor Micheltorena was exceedingly +complicated and difficult. "She shall do it!" responded Victor, +with decision. + +From a file of old departmental papers the Governor's signature and +that involved rubric, which must have cost his late Excellency many +youthful days of anxiety, was produced and laid before Carmen. + +Carmen took her pen in her hand, looked at the brownish-looking +document, and then at the virgin whiteness of the foolscap before +her. "But," she said, pouting prettily, "I should have to first +paint this white paper brown. And it will absorb the ink more +quickly than that. When I painted the San Antonio of the Mission +San Gabriel for Father Acolti, I had to put the decay in with my +oils and brushes before the good Padre would accept it." + +The two scamps looked at each other. It was their supreme moment. +"I think I have," said Victor, with assumed carelessness, "I think I +have some of the old Custom-House paper." He produced from the +secretary a sheet of brown paper with a stamp. "Try it on that." + +Carmen smiled with childish delight, tried it, and produced a +marvel! "It is as magic," said Miguel, feigning to cross himself. + +Victor's role was more serious. He affected to be deeply touched, +took the paper, folded it, and placed it in his breast. "I shall +make a good fool of Don Jose Castro," he said; "he will declare it +is the Governor's own signature, for he was his friend; but have a +care, Carmen! that you spoil it not by the opening of your red +lips. When he is fooled, I will tell him of this marvel,--this +niece of mine, and he shall buy her pictures. Eh, little one?" and +he gave her the avuncular caress, i. e., a pat of the hand on +either cheek, and a kiss. Miguel envied him, but cupidity +outgeneraled Cupid, and presently the conversation flagged, until a +convenient recollection of Victor's--that himself and comrade were +due at the Posada del Toros at 10 o'clock--gave them the +opportunity to retire. But not without a chance shot from Carmen. +"Tell to me," she said, half to Victor and half to Miguel, "what +has chanced with Concho? He was ever ready to bring to me flowers +from the mountain, and insects and birds. Thou knowest how he +would sit, oh, my uncle, and talk to me of the rare rocks he had +seen, and the bears and the evil spirits, and now he comes no +longer, my Concho! How is this? Nothing evil has befallen him, +surely?" and her drooping lids closed half-pathetically. + +Miguel's jealousy took fire. "He is drunk, Senorita, doubtless, +and has forgotten not only thee but, mayhap, his mule and pack! It +is his custom, ha! ha!" + +The red died out of Carmen's ripe lips, and she shut them together +with a snap like a steel purse. The dove had suddenly changed to a +hawk; the child-girl into an antique virago; the spirit hitherto +dimly outlined in her face, of some shrewish Garcia ancestress, +came to the fore. She darted a quick look at her uncle, and then, +with her little hands on her rigid lips, strode with two steps up +to Miguel. + +"Possibly, O Senor Miguel Dominguez Perez (a profound courtesy +here), it is as thou sayest. Drunkard Concho may be; but, drunk or +sober, he never turned his back on his friend--or--(the words +grated a little here)--his enemy." + +Miguel would have replied, but Victor was ready. "Fool," he said, +pinching his arm, "'tis an old friend. And--and--the application +is still to be filled up. Are you crazy?" + +But on this point Miguel was not, and with the revenge of a rival +added to his other instincts, he permitted Victor to lead him away. + +On their return to the fonda, they found Master Manuel too far gone +with aguardiente, and a general animosity to the average Americano, +to be of any service. So they worked alone, with pen, ink, and +paper, in the stuffy, cigarrito-clouded back room of the fonda. It +was midnight, two hours after Concho had started, that Miguel +clapped spurs to his horse for the village of Tres Pinos, with an +application to Governor Micheltorena for a grant to the "Rancho of +the Red Rocks" comfortably bestowed in his pocket. + + +CHAPTER VII + +WHO PLEAD FOR IT + + +There can be little doubt the coroner's jury of Fresno would have +returned a verdict of "death from alcoholism," as the result of +their inquest into the cause of Concho's death, had not Dr. Guild +fought nobly in support of the law and his own convictions. A +majority of the jury objected to there being any inquest at all. A +sincere juryman thought it hard that whenever a Greaser pegged out +in a sneakin' kind o' way, American citizens should be taken from +their business to find out what ailed him. "S'pose he was killed," +said another, "thar ain't no time this thirty year he weren't, so +to speak, just sufferin' for it, ez his nat'ral right ez a +Mexican." The jury at last compromised by bringing in a verdict of +homicide against certain parties unknown. Yet it was understood +tacitly that these unknown parties were severally Wiles and Pedro; +Manuel, Miguel, and Roscommon proving an unmistakable alibi. Wiles +and Pedro had fled to lower California, and Manuel, Miguel, and +Roscommon deemed it advisable, in the then excited state of the +public mind, to withhold the forged application and claim from the +courts and the public comment. So that for a year after the murder +of Concho and the flight of his assassins "The Blue Mass Mining +Company" remained in undisturbed and actual possession of the mine, +and reigned in their stead. + +But the spirit of the murdered Concho would not down any more than +that of the murdered Banquo, and so wrought, no doubt, in a quiet, +Concho-like way, sore trouble with the "Blue Mass Company." For a +great Capitalist and Master of Avarice came down to the mine and +found it fair, and taking one of the Company aside, offered to lend +his name and a certain amount of coin for a controlling interest, +accompanying the generous offer with a suggestion that if it were +not acceded to he would be compelled to buy up various Mexican +mines and flood the market with quicksilver to the great detriment +of the "Blue Mass Company," which thoughtful suggestion, offered by +a man frequently alluded to as one of "California's great mining +princes," and as one who had "done much to develop the resources of +the State," was not to be lightly considered; and so, after a +cautious non-consultation with the Company, and a commendable +secrecy, the stockholder sold out. Whereat it was speedily spread +abroad that the great Capitalist had taken hold of "Blue Mass," and +the stock went up, and the other stockholders rejoiced--until the +great Capitalist found that it was necessary to put up expensive +mills, to employ a high salaried Superintendent, in fact, to +develop the mine by the spending of its earnings, so that the stock +quoted at 112 was finally saddled with an assessment of $50 per +share. Another assessment of $50 to enable the Superintendent to +proceed to Russia and Spain and examine into the workings of the +quicksilver mines there, and also a general commission to the +gifted and scientific Pillageman to examine into the various +component parts of quicksilver, and report if it could not be +manufactured from ordinary sand-stone by steam or electricity, +speedily brought the other stockholders to their senses. It was at +this time the good fellow "Tom," the serious-minded "Dick," and the +speculative but fortunate "Harry," brokers of the Great Capitalist, +found it convenient to buy up, for the Great Capitalist aforesaid, +the various other shares at great sacrifice. + +I fear that I have bored my readers in thus giving the tiresome +details of that ingenuous American pastime which my countrymen +dismiss in their epigrammatic way as the "freezing-out process." +And lest any reader should question the ethics of the proceeding, I +beg him to remember that one gentleman accomplished in this art was +always a sincere and direct opponent of the late Mr. John Oakhurst, +gambler. + +But for once the Great Master of Avarice had not taken into +sufficient account the avarice of others, and was suddenly and +virtuously shocked to learn that an application for a patent for +certain lands, known as the "Red-Rock Rancho," was about to be +offered before the United States Land Commission. This claim +covered his mining property. But the information came quietly and +secretly, as all of the Great Master's information was obtained, +and he took the opportunity to sell out his clouded title and his +proprietorship to the only remaining member of the original "Blue +Mass Company," a young fellow of pith, before many-tongued rumor +had voiced the news far and wide. The blow was a heavy one to the +party left in possession. Saddled by the enormous debts and +expenses of the Great Capitalist, with a credit now further injured +by the defection of this lucky magnate, who was admired for his +skill in anticipating a loss, and whose relinquishment of any +project meant ruin to it, the single-handed, impoverished possessor +of the mine, whose title was contested, and whose reputation was +yet to be made,--poor Biggs, first secretary and only remaining +officer of the "Blue Mass Company," looked ruefully over his books +and his last transfer, and sighed. But I have before intimated +that he was built of good stuff, and that he believed in his work,-- +which was well,--and in himself, which was better; and so, having +faith even as a grain of mustard seed, I doubt not he would have +been able to remove that mountain of quicksilver beyond the +overlapping of fraudulent grants. And, again, Providence--having +disposed of these several scamps--raised up to him a friend. But +that friend is of sufficient importance to this veracious history +to deserve a paragraph to himself. + +The Pylades of this Orestes was known of ordinary mortals as Royal +Thatcher. His genealogy, birth, and education are, I take it, of +little account to this chronicle, which is only concerned with his +friendship for Biggs and the result thereof. He had known Biggs a +year or two previously; they had shared each other's purses, bunks, +cabins, provisions, and often friends, with that perfect freedom +from obligation which belonged to the pioneer life. The varying +tide of fortune had just then stranded Thatcher on a desert sand +hill in San Francisco, with an uninsured cargo of Expectations, +while to Thatcher's active but not curious fancy it had apparently +lifted his friend's bark over the bar in the Monterey mountains +into an open quicksilver sea. So that he was considerably +surprised on receiving a note from Biggs to this purport: + + +"DEAR ROY--Run down here and help a fellow. I've too much of a +load for one. Maybe we can make a team and pull 'Blue Mass' out +yet. BIGGSEY." + + +Thatcher, sitting in his scantily furnished lodgings, doubtful of +his next meal and in arrears for rent, heard this Macedonian cry as +St. Paul did. He wrote a promissory and soothing note to his +landlady, but fearing the "sweet sorrow" of personal parting, let +his collapsed valise down from his window by a cord, and, by means +of an economical combination of stage riding and pedestrianism, he +presented himself, at the close of the third day, at Biggs's door. +In a few moments he was in possession of the story; half an hour +later in possession of half the mine, its infelix past and its +doubtful future, equally with his friend. + +Business over, Biggs turned to look at his partner. "You've aged +some since I saw you last," he said. "Starvation luck, I s'pose. +I'd know your eyes, old fellow, if I saw them among ten thousand; +but your lips are parched, and your mouth's grimmer than it used to +be." Thatcher smiled to show that he could still do so, but did +not say, as he might have said, that self-control, suppressed +resentment, disappointment, and occasional hunger had done +something in the way of correcting Nature's obvious mistakes, and +shutting up a kindly mouth. He only took off his threadbare coat, +rolled up his sleeves, and saying, "We've got lots of work and some +fighting before us," pitched into the "affairs" of the "Blue Mass +Company" on the instant. + + +CHAPTER VIII + +OF COUNSEL FOR IT + + +Meanwhile Roscommon had waited. Then, in Garcia's name, and backed +by him, he laid his case before the Land Commissioner, filing the +application (with forged indorsements) to Governor Micheltorena, +and alleging that the original grant was destroyed by fire. And +why? + +It seemed there was a limit to Miss Carmen's imitative talent. +Admirable as it was, it did not reach to the reproduction of that +official seal, which would have been a necessary appendage to the +Governor's grant. But there were letters written on stamped paper +by Governor Micheltorena to himself, Garcia, and to Miguel, and to +Manuel's father, all of which were duly signed by the sign manual +and rubric of Mrs.-Governor-Micheltorena-Carmen-de-Haro. And then +there was "parol" evidence, and plenty of it; witnesses who +remembered everything about it,--namely, Manuel, Miguel, and the +all-recollecting De Haro; here were details, poetical and +suggestive; and Dame-Quicklyish, as when his late Excellency, +sitting not "by a sea-coal fire," but with aguardiente and +cigarros, had sworn to him, the ex-ecclesiastic Miguel, that he +should grant, and had granted, Garcia's request. There were clouds +of witnesses, conversations, letters, and records, glib and pat to +the occasion. In brief, there was nothing wanted but the seal of +his Excellency. The only copy of that was in the possession of a +rival school of renaissant art and the restoration of antiques, +then doing business before the Land Commission. + +And yet the claim was rejected! Having lately recommended two +separate claimants to a patent for the same land, the Land +Commission became cautious and conservative. + +Roscommon was at first astounded, then indignant, and then +warlike,--he was for an "appale to onst!" + +With the reader's previous knowledge of Roscommon's disposition +this may seem somewhat inconsistent; but there are certain natures +to whom litigation has all the excitement of gambling, and it +should be borne in mind that this was his first lawsuit. So that +his lawyer, Mr. Saponaceous Wood, found him in that belligerent +mood to which counsel are obliged to hypocritically bring all the +sophistries of their profession. + +"Of course you have your right to an appeal, but calm yourself, my +dear sir, and consider. The case was presented strongly, the +evidence overwhelming on our side, but we happened to be fighting +previous decisions of the Land Commission that had brought them +into trouble; so that if Micheltorena had himself appeared in Court +and testified to his giving you the grant, it would have made no +difference,--no Spanish grant had a show then, nor will it have for +the next six months. You see, my dear sir, the Government sent out +one of its big Washington lawyers to look into this business, and +he reported frauds, sir, frauds, in a majority of the Spanish +claims. And why, sir? why? He was bought, sir, bought--body and +soul--by the Ring!" + +"And fwhot's the Ring?" asked his client sharply. + +"The Ring is--ahem! a combination of unprincipled but wealthy +persons to defeat the ends of justice." + +"And sure, fwhot's the Ring to do wid me grant as that thaving +Mexican gave me as the collatherals for the bourd he was owin' me? +Eh, mind that now!" + +"The Ring, my dear sir, is the other side. It is--ahem! always the +Other Side." + +"And why the divel haven't we a Ring too? And ain't I payin' ye +five hundred dollars,--and the divel of Ring ye have, at all, at +all? Fwhot am I payin' ye fur, eh?" + +"That a judicious expenditure of money," began Mr. Wood, "outside +of actual disbursements, may not be of infinite service to you I am +not prepared to deny,--but--" + +"Look ye, Mr. Sappy Wood, it's the 'appale' I want, and the grant +I'll have, more betoken as the old woman's har-rut and me own is +set on it entoirely. Get me the land and I'll give ye the half of +it,--and it's a bargain!" + +"But my dear sir, there are some rules in our profession,-- +technical though they may be--" + +"The divel fly away wid yer profession. Sure is it better nor me +own? If I've risked me provisions and me whisky, that cost me +solid goold in Frisco, on that thafe Garcia's claim, bedad! the +loikes of ye can risk yer law." + +"Well," said Wood, with an awkward smile, "I suppose that a deed +for one half, on the consideration of friendship, my dear sir, and +a dollar in hand paid by me, might be reconcilable." + +"Now it's talkin' ye are. But who's the felly we're foighten, +that's got the Ring?" + +"Ah, my dear sir, it's the United States," said the lawyer with +gravity. + +"The States! the Government is it? And is't that ye're afeared of? +Sure it's the Government that I fought in me own counthree, it was +the Government that druv me to Ameriky, and is it now that I'm +going back on me principles?" + +"Your political sentiments do you great credit," began Mr. Wood. + +"But fwhot's the Government to do wid the appale?" + +"The Government," said Mr. Wood significantly, "will be represented +by the District Attorney." + +"And who's the spalpeen?" + +"It is rumored," said Mr. Wood, slowly, "that a new one is to be +appointed. I, myself, have had some ambition that way." + +His client bent a pair of cunning but not over-wise grey eyes on +his American lawyer. But he only said, "Ye have, eh?" + +"Yes," said Wood, answering the look boldly; "and if I had the +support of a number of your prominent countrymen, who are so +powerful with ALL parties,--men like YOU, my dear sir,--why, I +think you might in time become a conservative, at least more +resigned to the Government." + +Then the lesser and the greater scamp looked at each other, and for +a moment or two felt a warm, sympathetic, friendly emotion for each +other, and quietly shook hands. + +Depend upon it there is a great deal more kindly human sympathy +between two openly-confessed scamps than there is in that calm, +respectable recognition that you and I, dear reader, exhibit when +we happen to oppose each other with our respective virtues. + +"And ye'll get the appale?" + +"I will." + +And he DID! And by a singular coincidence got the District +Attorneyship also. And with a deed for one half of the "Red-Rock +Rancho" in his pocket, sent a brother lawyer in court to appear for +his client, the United States, as against HIMSELF, Roscommon, +Garcia, et al. Wild horses could not have torn him from this noble +resolution. There is an indescribable delicacy in the legal +profession which we literary folk ought to imitate. + +The United States lost! Which meant ruin and destruction to the +"Blue Mass Company," who had bought from a paternal and beneficent +Government lands which didn't belong to it. The Mexican grant, of +course, antedated the occupation of the mine by Concho, Wiles, +Pedro, et al., as well as by the "Blue Mass Company," and the +solitary partners, Biggs and Thatcher. More than that, it swallowed +up their improvements. It made Biggs and Thatcher responsible to +Garcia for all the money the Grand Master of Avarice had made out of +it. Mr. District Attorney was apparently distressed, but resigned. +Messrs. Biggs and Thatcher were really distressed and combative. + +And then, to advance a few years in this chronicle, began real +litigation with earnestness, vigor, courage, zeal, and belief on +the part of Biggs and Thatcher, and technicalities, delay, +equivocation, and a general Fabian-like policy on the part of +Garcia, Roscommon, et al. Of all these tedious processes I note +but one, which for originality and audacity of conception appears +to me to indicate more clearly the temper and civilization of the +epoch. A subordinate officer of the District Court refused to obey +the mandate ordering a transcript of the record to be sent up to +the United States Supreme Court. It is to be regretted that the +name of this Ephesian youth, who thus fired the dome of our +constitutional liberties, should have been otherwise so unimportant +as to be confined to the dusty records of that doubtful court of +which he was a doubtful servitor, and that his claim to immortality +ceased with his double-feed service. But there still stands on +record a letter by this young gentleman, arraigning the legal +wisdom of the land, which is not entirely devoid of amusement or +even instruction to young men desirous of obtaining publicity and +capital. Howbeit, the Supreme Court was obliged to protect itself +by procuring the legislation of his functions out of his local +fingers into the larger palm of its own attorney. + +These various processes of law and equity, which, when exercised +practically in the affairs of ordinary business, might have +occupied a few months' time, dragged, clung, retrograded, or +advanced slowly during a period of eight or nine years. But the +strong arms of Biggs and Thatcher held POSSESSION, and possibly, by +the same tactics employed on the other side, arrested or delayed +ejectment, and so made and sold quicksilver, while their opponents +were spending gold, until Biggs, sorely hit in the interlacings of +his armor, fell in the lists, his cheek growing waxen and his +strong arm feeble, and finding himself in this sore condition, and +passing, as it were, made over his share in trust to his comrade, +and died. Whereat, from that time henceforward, Royal Thatcher +reigned in his stead. + +And so, having anticipated the legal record, we will go back to the +various human interests that helped to make it up. + +To begin with Roscommon: To do justice to his later conduct and +expressions, it must be remembered that when he accepted the claim +for the "Red-Rock Rancho," yet unquestioned, from the hands of +Garcia, he was careless, or at least unsuspicious of fraud. It was +not until he had experienced the intoxication of litigation that he +felt, somehow, that he was a wronged and defrauded man, but with +the obstinacy of defrauded men, preferred to arraign some one fact +or individual as the impelling cause of his wrong, rather than the +various circumstances that led to it. To his simple mind it was +made patent that the "Blue Mass Company" were making money out of a +mine which he claimed, and which was not yet adjudged to them. +Every dollar they took out was a fresh count in this general +indictment. Every delay towards this adjustment of rights-- +although made by his own lawyer--was a personal wrong. The mere +fact that there never was nor had been any quid pro quo for this +immense property--that it had fallen to him for a mere song--only +added zest to his struggle. The possibility of his losing this +mere speculation affected him more strongly than if he had already +paid down the million he expected to get from the mine. I don't +know that I have indicated as plainly as I might that universal +preference on the part of mankind to get something from nothing, +and to acquire the largest return for the least possible expenditure, +but I question my right to say that Roscommon was much more +reprehensible than his fellows. + +But it told upon him as it did upon all over whom the spirit of the +murdered Concho brooded,--upon all whom avarice alternately +flattered and tortured. From his quiet gains in his legitimate +business, from the little capital accumulated through industry and +economy, he lavished thousands on this chimera of his fancy. He +grew grizzled and worn over his self-imposed delusion; he no longer +jested with his customers, regardless of quality or station or +importance; he had cliques to mollify, enemies to placate, friends +to reward. The grocery suffered; through giving food and lodgment +to clouds of unimpeachable witnesses before the Land Commission and +the District Court, "Mrs. Ros." found herself losing money. Even +the bar failed; there was a party of "Blue Mass" employees who +drank at the opposite fonda, and cursed the Roscommon claim over +the liquor. The calm, mechanical indifference with which Roscommon +had served his customers was gone. The towel was no longer used +after its perfunctory fashion; the counter remained unwiped; the +disks of countless glasses marked its surface, and indicated other +preoccupation on the part of the proprietor. The keen grey eyes of +the claimant of the "Red-Rock Rancho" were always on the lookout +for friend or enemy. + +Garcia comes next. That gentleman's inborn talent for historic +misrepresentation culminated unpleasantly through a defective +memory; a year or two after he had sworn in his application for the +"Rancho," being engaged in another case, some trifling inconsistency +was discovered in his statements, which had the effect of throwing +the weight of evidence to the party who had paid him most, but was +instantly detected by the weaker party. Garcia's preeminence as a +witness, an expert and general historian began to decline. He was +obliged to be corroborated, and this required a liberal outlay of +his fee. With the loss of his credibility as a witness bad habits +supervened. He was frequently drunk, he lost his position, he lost +his house, and Carmen, removed to San Francisco, supported him with +her brush. + +And this brings us once more to that pretty painter and innocent +forger whose unconscious act bore such baleful fruit on the barren +hill-sides of the "Red-Rock Rancho," and also to a later blossom of +her life, that opened, however, in kindlier sunshine. + + +CHAPTER IX + +WHAT THE FAIR HAD TO DO ABOUT IT + + +The house that Royal Thatcher so informally quitted in his exodus +to the promised land of Biggs was one of those oversized, under- +calculated dwellings conceived and erected in the extravagance of +the San Francisco builder's hopes, and occupied finally in his +despair. Intended originally as the palace of some inchoate +California Aladdin, it usually ended as a lodging house in which +some helpless widow or hopeless spinster managed to combine +respectability with the hard task of bread getting. + +Thatcher's landlady was one of the former class. She had +unfortunately survived not only her husband but his property, and, +living in some deserted chamber, had, after the fashion of the +Italian nobility, let out the rest of the ruin. A tendency to dwell +upon these facts gave her conversation a peculiar significance on +the first of each month. Thatcher had noticed this with the +sensitiveness of an impoverished gentleman. But when, a few days +after her lodger's sudden disappearance, a note came from him +containing a draft in noble excess of all arrears and charges, the +widow's heart was lifted, and the rock smitten with the golden wand +gushed beneficence that shone in a new gown for the widow and a new +suit for "Johnny," her son, a new oil cloth in the hall, better +service to the lodgers, and, let us be thankful, a kindlier +consideration for the poor little black-eyed painter from Monterey, +then dreadfully behind in her room rent. For, to tell the truth, +the calls upon Miss De Haro's scant purse by her uncle had lately +been frequent, perjury having declined in the Monterey market, +through excessive and injudicious supply, until the line of +demarcation between it and absolute verity was so finely drawn that +Victor Garcia had remarked that "he might as well tell the truth at +once and save his soul, since the devil was in the market." + +Mistress Plodgitt, the landlady, could not resist the desire to +acquaint Carmen De Haro with her good fortune. "He was always a +friend of yours, my dear,--and I know him to be a gentleman that +would never let a poor widow suffer; and see what he says about +you!" Here she produced Thatcher's note and read: "Tell my little +neighbor that I shall come back soon to carry her and her sketching +tools off by force, and I shall not let her return until she has +caught the black mountains and the red rocks she used to talk +about, and put the 'Blue Mass' mill in the foreground of the +picture I shall order." + +What is this, little one? Surely, Carmen, thou needst not blush at +this, thy first grand offer. Holy Virgin! is it of a necessity +that thou shouldst stick the wrong end of thy brush in thy mouth, +and then drop it in thy lap? Or was it taught thee by the good +Sisters at the convent to stride in that boyish fashion to the side +of thy elders and snatch from their hands the missive thou wouldst +read? More of this we would know, O Carmen,--smallest of +brunettes,--speak, little one, even in thine own melodious speech, +that I may commend thee and thy rare discretion to my own fair +countrywomen. + +Alas, neither the present chronicler nor Mistress Plodgitt got any +further information from the prudent Carmen, and must fain +speculate upon certain facts that were already known. + +Mistress Carmen's little room was opposite to Thatcher's, and once +or twice, the doors being open, Thatcher had a glimpse across the +passage of a black-haired and a sturdy, boyish little figure in a +great blue apron, perched on a stool before an easel, and on the +other hand, Carmen had often been conscious of the fumes of a +tobacco pipe penetrating her cloistered seclusion, and had seen +across the passage, vaguely enveloped in the same nicotine cloud, +an American Olympian, in a rocking chair, with his feet on the +mantel shelf. They had once or twice met on the staircase, on +which occasion Thatcher had greeted her with a word or two of +respectful yet half-humorous courtesy,--a courtesy which never +really offends a true woman, although it often piques her self- +aplomb by the slight assumption of superiority in the humorist. +A woman is quick to recognize the fact that the great and more +dangerous passions are always SERIOUS, and may be excused if in +self-respect she is often induced to try if there be not somewhere +under the skin of this laughing Mercutio the flesh and blood of a +Romeo. Thatcher was by nature a defender and protector; weakness, +and weakness alone, stirred the depths of his tenderness,--often, I +fear, only through its half-humorous aspects,--and on this plane he +was pleased to place women and children. I mention this fact for +the benefit of the more youthful members of my species, and am +satisfied that an unconditional surrender and the complete laying +down at the feet of Beauty of all strong masculinity is a cheap +Gallicism that is untranslatable to most women worthy the winning. +For a woman MUST always look up to the man she truly loves,--even +if she has to go down on her knees to do it. + +Only the masculine reader will infer from this that Carmen was in +love with Thatcher; the more critical and analytical feminine eye +will see nothing herein that might not have happened consistently +with friendship. For Thatcher was no sentimentalist; he had hardly +paid a compliment to the girl,--even in the unspoken but most +delicate form of attention. There were days when his room door was +closed; there were days succeeding these blanks when he met her as +frankly and naturally as if he had seen her yesterday. Indeed, on +those days following his flight the simple-minded Carmen, being +aware--heaven knows how--that he had not opened his door during +that period, and fearing sickness, sudden death, or perhaps +suicide, by her appeals to the landlady, assisted unwittingly in +discovering his flight and defection. As she was for a few moments +as indignant as Mrs. Plodgitt, it is evident that she had but +little sympathy with the delinquent. And besides, hitherto she had +known only Concho, her earliest friend, and was true to his memory, +as against all Americanos, whom she firmly believed to be his +murderers. + +So she dismissed the offer and the man from her mind, and went back +to her painting,--a fancy portrait of the good Padre Junipero +Serra, a great missionary, who, haply for the integrity of his +bones and character, died some hundred years before the Americans +took possession of California. The picture was fair but +unsaleable, and she began to think seriously of sign painting, +which was then much more popular and marketable. An unfinished +head of San Juan de Bautista, artificially framed in clouds, she +disposed of to a prominent druggist for $50, where it did good +service as exhibiting the effect of four bottles of "Jones's +Freckle Eradicator," and in a pleasant and unobtrusive way revived +the memory of the saint. Still, she felt weary and was growing +despondent, and had a longing for the good Sisters and the +blameless lethargy of conventual life, and then-- + +He came! + +But not as the Prince should come, on a white charger, to carry +away this cruelly-abused and enchanted damsel. He was sunburned, +he was bearded like "the pard"; he was a little careless as to his +dress, and pre-occupied in his ways. But his mouth and eyes were +the same; and when he repeated in his old frank, half-mischievous +way the invitation of his letter, poor little Carmen could only +hesitate and blush. + +A thought struck him and sent the color to his face. Your +gentleman born is always as modest as a woman. He ran down stairs, +and seizing the widowed Plodgitt, said hastily: + +"You're just killing yourself here. Take a change. Come down to +Monterey for a day or two with me, and bring miss De Haro with you +for company." + +The old lady recognized the situation. Thatcher was now a man of +vast possibilities. In all maternal daughters of Eve there is the +slightest bit of the chaperone and match-maker. It is the last way +of reviving the past. + +She consented, and Carmen De Haro could not well refuse. + +The ladies found the "Blue Mass" mills very much as Thatcher had +previously delivered it to them, "a trifle rough and mannish." But +he made over to them the one tenement reserved for himself, and +slept with his men, or more likely under the trees. At first Mrs. +Plodgitt missed gas and running water, and these several +conveniences of civilization, among which I fear may be mentioned +sheets and pillow cases; but the balsam of the mountain air soothed +her neuralgia and her temper. As for Carmen, she rioted in the +unlimited license of her absolute freedom from conventional +restraint and the indulgence of her child-like impulses. She +scoured the ledges far and wide alone; she dipped into dark copses, +and scrambled over sterile patches of chemisal, and came back laden +with the spoil of buckeye blossoms, manzanita berries and laurel. +But she would not make a sketch of the "Blue Mass Company's" mills +on a Mercator's projection--something that could be afterwards +lithographed or chromoed, with the mills turning out tons of +quicksilver through the energies of a happy and picturesque +assemblage of miners--even to please her padrone, Don Royal +Thatcher. On the contrary, she made a study of the ruins of the +crumbled and decayed red-rock furnace, with the black mountain +above it, and the light of a dying camp fire shining upon it, and +the dull-red excavations in the ledge. But even this did not +satisfy her until she had made some alterations; and when she +finally brought her finished study to Don Royal, she looked at him +a little defiantly. Thatcher admired honestly, and then criticised +a little humorously and dishonestly. "But couldn't you, for a +consideration, put up a sign-board on that rock with the +inscription, 'Road to the Blue Mass Company's new mills to the +right,' and combine business with art? That's the fault of you +geniuses. But what's this blanketed figure doing here, lying +before the furnace? You never saw one of my miners there,--and a +Mexican, too, by his serape." "That," quoth Mistress Carmen, +coolly, "was put in to fill up the foreground,--I wanted something +there to balance the picture." "But," continued Thatcher, dropping +into unconscious admiration again, "it's drawn to the life. Tell +me, Miss De Haro, before I ask the aid and counsel of Mrs. +Plodgitt, who is my hated rival, and your lay figure and model?" +"Oh," said Carmen, with a little sigh, "It's only poor Coucho." +"And where is Concho?" (a little impatiently.) "He's dead, Don +Royal." "Dead?" "Of a verity,--very dead,--murdered by your +countrymen." "I see,--and you know him?" "He was my friend." + +"Oh!" + +"Truly." + +"But" (wickedly), "isn't this a rather ghastly advertisement-- +outside of an illustrated newspaper--of my property?" + +"Ghastly, Don Royal. Look you, he sleeps." + +"Ay" (in Spanish), "as the dead." + +Carmen (crossing herself hastily), "After the fashion of the dead." + +They were both feeling uncomfortable. Carmen was shivering. But, +being a woman, and tactful, she recovered her head first. "It is a +study for myself, Don Royal; I shall make you another." + +And she slipped away, as she thought, out of the subject and his +presence. + +But she was mistaken; in the evening he renewed the conversation. +Carmen began to fence, not from cowardice or deceit, as the +masculine reader would readily infer, but from some wonderful +feminine instinct that told her to be cautious. But he got from +her the fact, to him before unknown, that she was the niece of his +main antagonist, and, being a gentleman, so redoubled his +attentions and his courtesy that Mrs. Plodgitt made up her mind +that it was a foregone conclusion, and seriously reflected as to +what she should wear on the momentous occasion. But that night +poor Carmen cried herself to sleep, resolving that she would +hereafter cast aside her wicked uncle for this good-hearted +Americano, yet never once connected her innocent penmanship with +the deadly feud between them. Women--the best of them--are strong +as to collateral facts, swift of deduction, but vague as children +are to the exact statement or recognition of premises. It is +hardly necessary to say that Carmen had never thought of connecting +any act of hers with the claims of her uncle, and the circumstance +of the signature she had totally forgotten. + +The masculine reader will now understand Carmen's confusion and +blushes, and believe himself an ass to have thought them a +confession of original affection. The feminine reader will, by +this time, become satisfied that the deceitful minx's sole idea was +to gain the affections of Thatcher. And really I don't know who is +right. + +Nevertheless she painted a sketch of Thatcher,--which now adorns +the Company's office in San Francisco,--in which the property is +laid out in pleasing geometrical lines, and the rosy promise of the +future instinct in every touch of the brush. Then, having earned +her "wage," as she believed, she became somewhat cold and shy to +Thatcher. Whereat that gentleman redoubled his attentions, seeing +only in her presence a certain meprise, which concerned her more +than himself. The niece of his enemy meant nothing more to him +than an interesting girl,--to be protected always,--to be feared, +never. But even suspicion may be insidiously placed in noble +minds. + +Mistress Plodgitt, thus early estopped of matchmaking, of course +put the blame on her own sex, and went over to the stronger side-- +the man's. + +"It's a great pity gals should be so curious," she said, sotto +voce, to Thatcher, when Carmen was in one of her sullen moods. +"Yet I s'pose it's in her blood. Them Spaniards is always +revengeful,--like the Eyetalians." + +Thatcher honestly looked his surprise. + +"Why, don't you see, she's thinking how all these lands might have +been her uncle's but for you. And instead of trying to be sweet +and--" here she stopped to cough. + +"Good God!" said Thatcher in great concern, "I never thought of +that." He stopped for a moment, and then added with decision, "I +can't believe it; it isn't like her." + +Mrs. P. was piqued. She walked away, delivering, however, this +Parthian arrow: "Well, I hope 'TAINT NOTHING WORSE." + +Thatcher chuckled, then felt uneasy. When he next met Carmen, she +found his grey eyes fixed on hers with a curious, half- +inquisitorial look she had never noticed before. This only added +fuel to the fire. Forgetting their relations of host and guest, +she was absolutely rude. Thatcher was quiet but watchful; got the +Plodgitt to bed early, and, under cover of showing a moonlight view +of the "Lost Chance Mill," decoyed Carmen out of ear-shot, as far +as the dismantled furnace. + +"What is the matter, Miss De Haro; have I offended you?" + +Miss Carmen was not aware that anything was the matter. If Don +Royal preferred old friends, whose loyalty of course he knew, and +who were above speaking ill against a gentleman in his adversity-- +(oh, Carmen! fie!) if he preferred THEIR company to LATER FRIENDS-- +why--(the masculine reader will observe this tremendous climax and +tremble)--why she didn't know why HE should blame HER. + +They turned and faced each other. The conditions for a perfect +misunderstanding could not have been better arranged between two +people. Thatcher was a masculine reasoner, Carmen a feminine +feeler,--if I may be pardoned the expression. Thatcher wanted to +get at certain facts, and argue therefrom. Carmen wanted to get at +certain feelings, and then fit the facts to THEM. + +"But I am NOT blaming you, Miss Carmen," he said gravely. "It WAS +stupid in me to confront you here with the property claimed by your +uncle and occupied by me, but it was a mistake,--no!" he added +hastily, "it was not a mistake. You knew it, and I didn't. You +overlooked it before you came, and I was too glad to overlook it +after you were here." + +"Of course," said Carmen pettishly, "I am the only one to be +blamed. It's like you MEN!" (Mem. She was just fifteen, and +uttered this awful 'resume' of experience just as if it hadn't been +taught to her in her cradle.) + +Feminine generalities always stagger a man. Thatcher said nothing. +Carmen became more enraged. + +"Why did you want to take Uncle Victor's property, then?" she asked +triumphantly. + +"I don't know that it is your uncle's property." + +"You--don't--know? Have you seen the application with Governor +Micheltorena's indorsement? Have you heard the witnesses?" she +said passionately. + +"Signatures may be forged and witnesses lie," said Thatcher +quietly. + +"What is it you call 'forged'?" + +Thatcher instantly recalled the fact that the Spanish language held +no synonym for "forgery." The act was apparently an invention of +el Diablo Americano. So he said, with a slight smile in his kindly +eyes: + +"Anybody wicked enough and dexterous enough can imitate another's +handwriting. When this is used to benefit fraud, we call it +'forgery.' I beg your pardon,--Miss De Haro, Miss Carmen,--what is +the matter?" + +She had suddenly lapsed against a tree, quite helpless, nerveless, +and with staring eyes fixed on his. As yet an embryo woman, +inexperienced and ignorant, the sex's instinct was potential; she +had in one plunge fathomed all that his reason had been years +groping for. + +Thatcher saw only that she was pained, that she was helpless: that +was enough. "It is possible that your uncle may have been +deceived," he began; "many honest men have been fooled by clever +but deceitful tricksters, men and women--" + +"Stop! Madre de Dios! WILL YOU STOP?" + +Thatcher for an instant recoiled from the flashing eyes and white +face of the little figure that had, with menacing and clenched baby +fingers, strode to his side. He stopped. "Where is this +application,--this forgery?" she asked. "Show it to me!" + +Thatcher felt relieved, and smiled the superior smile of our sex +over feminine ignorance. "You could hardly expect me to be trusted +with your uncle's vouchers. His papers of course are in the hands +of his counsel." + +"And when can I leave this place?" she asked passionately. + +"If you consult my wishes you will stay, if only long enough to +forgive me. But if I have offended you unknowingly, and you are +implacable--" + +"I can go to-morrow at sunrise if I like?" + +"As you will," returned Thatcher gravely. + +"Gracias, Senor." + +They walked slowly back to the house, Thatcher with a masculine +sense of being unreasonably afflicted, Carmen with a woman's +instinct of being hopelessly crushed. No word was spoken until +they reached the door. Then Carmen suddenly, in her old, impulsive +way, and in a childlike treble, sang out merrily, "Good night, O +Don Royal, and pleasant dreams. Hasta manana." + +Thatcher stood dumb and astounded at this capricious girl. She +saw his mystification instantly. "It is for the old Cat!" she +whispered, jerking her thumb over her shoulder in the direction of +the sleeping Mrs. P. "Good night,--go!" + +He went to give orders for a peon to attend the ladies and their +equipage the next day. He awoke to find Miss De Haro gone, with +her escort, towards Monterey. And without the Plodgitt. + +He could not conceal his surprise from the latter lady. She, left +alone,--a not altogether unavailable victim to the wiles of our +sex,--was embarrassed. But not so much that she could not say to +Thatcher: "I told you so,--gone to her uncle. . . . To tell him +ALL!" + +"All. D--n it, WHAT can she tell him?" roared Thatcher, stung out +of his self-control. + +"Nothing, I hope, that she should not," said Mrs. P., and chastely +retired. + +She was right. Miss Carmen posted to Monterey, running her horse +nearly off its legs to do it, and then sent back her beast and +escort, saying she would rejoin Mrs. Plodgitt by steamer at San +Francisco. Then she went boldly to the law office of Saponaceous +Wood, District Attorney and whilom solicitor of her uncle. + +With the majority of masculine Monterey Miss Carmen was known and +respectfully admired, despite the infelix reputation of her +kinsman. Mr. Wood was glad to see her, and awkwardly gallant. +Miss Carmen was cool and business-like; she had come from her uncle +to "regard" the papers in the "Red-Rock Rancho" case. They were +instantly produced. Carmen turned to the application for the +grant. Her cheek paled slightly. With her clear memory and +wonderful fidelity of perception she could not be mistaken. THE +SIGNATURE OF MICHELTORENA WAS IN HER OWN HANDWRITING! + +Yet she looked up to the lawyer with a smile: "May I take these +papers for an hour to my uncle?" + +Even an older and better man than the District Attorney could not +have resisted those drooping lids and that gentle voice. + +"Certainly." + +"I will return them in an hour." + +She was as good as her word, and within the hour dropped the papers +and a little courtesy to her uncle's legal advocate, and that night +took the steamer to San Francisco. + +The next morning Victor Garcia, a little the worse for the previous +night's dissipation, reeled into Wood's office. "I have fears for +my niece Carmen. She is with the enemy," he said thickly. "Look +you at this." + +It was an anonymous letter (in Mrs. Plodgitt's own awkward fist) +advising him of the fact that his niece was bought by the enemy, +and cautioning him against her. + +"Impossible," said the lawyer; "it was only last week she sent thee +$50." + +Victor blushed, even through his ensanguined cheeks, and made an +impatient gesture with his hand. + +"Besides," added the lawyer coolly, "she has been here to examine +the papers at thy request, and returned them of yesterday." + +Victor gasped: "And-you-you-gave them to her?" + +"Of course!" + +"All? Even the application and the signature?" + +"Certainly,--you sent her." + +"Sent her? The devil's own daughter?" shrieked Garcia. "No! A +hundred million times, no! Quick, before it is too late. Give to +me the papers." + +Mr. Wood reproduced the file. Garcia ran over it with trembling +fingers until at last he clutched the fateful document. Not +content with opening it and glancing at its text and signature, he +took it to the window. + +"It is the same," he muttered with a sigh of relief. + +"Of course it is," said Mr. Wood sharply. "The papers are all +there. You're a fool, Victor Garcia!" + +And so he was. And, for the matter of that, so was Mr. Saponaceous +Wood, of counsel. + +Meanwhile Miss De Haro returned to San Francisco and resumed her +work. A day or two later she was joined by her landlady. Mrs. P. +had too large a nature to permit an anonymous letter, written by +her own hand, to stand between her and her demeanor to her little +lodger. So she coddled her and flattered her and depicted in +slightly exaggerated colors the grief of Don Royal at her sudden +departure. All of which Miss Carmen received in a demure, kitten- +like way, but still kept quietly at her work. In due time Don +Royal's order was completed; still she had leisure and inclination +enough to add certain touches to her ghastly sketch of the +crumbling furnace. + +Nevertheless, as Don Royal did not return, through excess of +business, Mrs. Plodgitt turned an honest penny by letting his room, +temporarily, to two quiet Mexicans, who, but for a beastly habit of +cigarrito smoking which tainted the whole house, were fair enough +lodgers. If they failed in making the acquaintance of their fair +countrywoman, Miss De Haro, it was through the lady's pre- +occupation in her own work, and not through their ostentatious +endeavors. + +"Miss De Haro is peculiar," explained the politic Mrs. Plodgitt to +her guests; "she makes no acquaintances, which I consider bad for +her business. If it had not been for me, she would not have known +Royal Thatcher, the great quicksilver miner,--and had his order for +a picture of his mine!" + +The two foreign gentlemen exchanged glances. One said, "Ah, God! +this is bad," and the other, "It is not possible;" and then, when +the landlady's back was turned, introduced themselves with a +skeleton key into the then vacant bedroom and studio of their fair +countrywoman, who was absent sketching. "Thou observest," said Mr. +Pedro, refugee, to Miguel, ex-ecclesiastic, "that this Americano is +all-powerful, and that this Victor, drunkard as he is, is right in +his suspicions." + +"Of a verity, yes," replied Miguel, "thou dost remember it was +Jovita Castro who, for her Americano lover, betrayed the Sobriente +claim. It is only with us, my Pedro, that the Mexican spirit, the +real God and Liberty, yet lives!" + +They shook hands nobly and with sentimental fervor, and then went +to work, i. e., the rummaging over the trunks, drawers, and +portmanteaus of the poor little painter, Carmen de Haro, and even +ripped up the mattress of her virginal cot. But they found not +what they sought. + +"What is that yonder on the easel, covered with a cloth?" said +Miguel: "it is a trick of these artists to put their valuables +together." + +Pedro strode to the easel and tore away the muslin curtain that +veiled it; then uttered a shriek that appalled his comrade and +brought him to his side. + +"In the name of God," said Miguel hastily, "are you trying to alarm +the house?" + +The ex-vaquero was trembling like a child. "Look," he said +hoarsely, "look, do you see? It is the hand of God," and fainted +on the floor! + +Miguel looked. It was Carmen's partly-finished sketch of the +deserted furnace. The figure of Concho, thrown out strongly by the +camp fire, occupied the left foreground. But to balance her +picture she had evidently been obliged to introduce another,--the +face and figure of Pedro, on all fours, creeping towards the +sleeping man. + + + +PART III.--IN CONGRESS + + +CHAPTER X + +WHO LOBBIED FOR IT + + +It was a midsummer's day in Washington. Even at early morning, +while the sun was yet level with the faces of pedestrians in its +broad, shadeless avenues, it was insufferably hot. Later the +avenues themselves shone like the diverging rays of another sun,-- +the Capitol,--a thing to be feared by the naked eye. Later yet it +grew hotter, and then a mist arose from the Potomac, and blotted +out the blazing arch above, and presently piled up along the +horizon delusive thunder clouds, that spent their strength and +substance elsewhere, and left it hotter than before. Towards +evening the sun came out invigorated, having cleared the heavenly +brow of perspiration, but leaving its fever unabated. + +The city was deserted. The few who remained apparently buried +themselves from the garish light of day in some dim, cloistered +recess of shop, hotel, or restaurant; and the perspiring stranger, +dazed by the outer glare, who broke in upon their quiet, +sequestered repose, confronted collarless and coatless specters of +the past, with fans in their hands, who, after dreamily going +through some perfunctory business, immediately retired to sleep +after the stranger had gone. Congressmen and Senators had long +since returned to their several constituencies with the various +information that the country was going to ruin, or that the outlook +never was more hopeful and cheering, as the tastes of their +constituency indicated. A few Cabinet officers still lingered, +having by this time become convinced that they could do nothing +their own way, or indeed in any way but the old way, and getting +gloomily resigned to their situation. A body of learned, +cultivated men, representing the highest legal tribunal in the +land, still lingered in a vague idea of earning the scant salary +bestowed upon them by the economical founders of the Government, +and listened patiently to the arguments of counsel, whose fees for +advocacy of claims before them would have paid the life income of +half the bench. There was Mr. Attorney-General and his assistants +still protecting the Government's millions from rapacious hands, +and drawing the yearly public pittance that their wealthier private +antagonists would have scarce given as a retainer to their junior +counsel. The little standing army of departmental employes,-- +the helpless victims of the most senseless and idiotic form of +discipline the world has known,--a discipline so made up of caprice, +expediency, cowardice, and tyranny that its reform meant revolution, +not to be tolerated by legislators and lawgivers, or a despotism in +which half a dozen accidentally-chosen men interpreted their +prejudices or preferences as being that Reform. Administration +after administration and Party after Party had persisted in their +desperate attempts to fit the youthful colonial garments, made by +our Fathers after a by-gone fashion, over the expanded limits and +generous outline of a matured nation. There were patches here and +there; there were grievous rents and holes here and there; there +were ludicrous and painful exposures of growing limbs everywhere; +and the Party in Power and the Party out of Power could do nothing +but mend and patch, and revamp and cleanse and scour, and +occasionally, in the wildness of despair, suggest even the cutting +off the rebellious limbs that persisted in growing beyond the +swaddling clothes of its infancy. + +It was a capital of Contradictions and Inconsistencies. At one end +of the Avenue sat the responsible High Keeper of the military +honor, valor, and war-like prestige of a great nation, without the +power to pay his own troops their legal dues until some selfish +quarrel between Party and Party was settled. Hard by sat another +Secretary, whose established functions seemed to be the +misrepresentation of the nation abroad by the least characteristic +of its classes, the politicians,--and only then when they had been +defeated as politicians, and when their constituents had declared +them no longer worthy to be even THEIR representatives. This +National Absurdity was only equaled by another, wherein an ex- +Politician was for four years expected to uphold the honor of a +flag of a great nation over an ocean he had never tempted, with a +discipline the rudiments of which he could scarcely acquire before +he was removed, or his term of office expired, receiving his orders +from a superior officer as ignorant of his special duties as +himself, and subjected to the revision of a Congress cognizant of +him only as a politician. At the farther end of the Avenue was +another department so vast in its extent and so varied in its +functions that few of the really great practical workers of the +land would have accepted its responsibility for ten times its +salary, but which the most perfect constitution in the world handed +over to men who were obliged to make it a stepping stone to future +preferment. There was another department, more suggestive of its +financial functions from the occasional extravagances or economies +exhibited in its payrolls,--successive Congresses having taken +other matters out of its hands,--presided over by an official who +bore the title and responsibility of the Custodian and Disburser of +the Nation's Purse, and received a salary that a bank-President +would have sniffed at. For it was part of this Constitutional +Inconsistency and Administrative Absurdity that in the matter of +honor, justice, fidelity to trust, and even business integrity, the +official was always expected to be the superior of the Government +he represented. Yet the crowning Inconsistency was that, from time +to time, it was submitted to the sovereign people to declare if +these various Inconsistencies were not really the perfect +expression of the most perfect Government the world had known. And +it is to be recorded that the unanimous voices of Representative, +Orator, and Unfettered Poetry were that it was! + +Even the public press lent itself to the Great Inconsistency. It +was as clear as crystal to the journal on one side of the Avenue +that the country was going to the dogs unless the SPIRIT of the +Fathers once more reanimated the public; it was equally clear to +the journal on the other side of the Avenue that only a rigid +adherence to the LETTER of the Fathers would save the nation from +decline. It was obvious to the first-named journal that the +"letter" meant Government patronage to the other journal; it was +patent to that journal that the "shekels" of Senator X really +animated the spirit of the Fathers. Yet all agreed it was a great +and good and perfect government,--subject only to the predatory +incursions of a Hydra-headed monster known as a "Ring." The Ring's +origin was wrapped in secrecy, its fecundity was alarming; but +although its rapacity was preternatural, its digestion was perfect +and easy. It circumvolved all affairs in an atmosphere of mystery; +it clouded all things with the dust and ashes of distrust. All +disappointment of place, of avarice, of incompetency or ambition, +was clearly attributable to it. It even permeated private and +social life; there were Rings in our kitchen and household service; +in our public schools, that kept the active intelligences of our +children passive; there were Rings of engaging, handsome, dissolute +young fellows, who kept us moral but unengaging seniors from the +favors of the fair; there were subtle, conspiring Rings among our +creditors, which sent us into bankruptcy and restricted our credit. +In fact it would not be hazardous to say that all that was +calamitous in public and private experience was clearly traceable +to that combination of power in a minority over weakness in a +majority--known as a Ring. + +Haply there was a body of demigods, as yet uninvoked, who should +speedily settle all that. When Smith of Minnesota, Robinson of +Vermont, and Jones of Georgia returned to Congress from these rural +seclusions so potent with information and so freed from local +prejudices, it was understood, vaguely, that great things would be +done. This was always understood. There never was a time in the +history of American politics when, to use the expression of the +journals before alluded to, "the present session of Congress" did +not "bid fair to be the most momentous in our history," and did +not, as far as the facts go, leave a vast amount of unfinished +important business lying hopelessly upon its desks, having "bolted" +the rest as rashly and with as little regard to digestion or +assimilation as the American traveller has for his railway +refreshment. + +In this capital, on this languid midsummer day, in an upper room of +one of its second-rate hotels, the Honorable Pratt C. Gashwiler sat +at his writing-table. There are certain large, fleshy men with +whom the omission of even a necktie or collar has all the effect of +an indecent exposure. The Hon. Mr. Gashwiler, in his trousers and +shirt, was a sight to be avoided by the modest eye. There were +such palpable suggestions of vast extents of unctuous flesh in the +slight glimpse offered by his open throat that his dishabille +should have been as private as his business. Nevertheless, when +there was a knock at his door he unhesitatingly said, "Come in!"-- +pushing away a goblet crowned with a certain aromatic herb with his +right hand, while he drew towards him with his left a few proof +slips of his forthcoming speech. The Gashwiler brow became, as it +were, intelligently abstracted. + +The intruder regarded Gashwiler with a glance of familiar +recognition from his right eye, while his left took in a rapid +survey of the papers on the table, and gleamed sardonically. + +"You are at work, I see," he said apologetically. + +"Yes," replied the Congressman, with an air of perfunctory +weariness,--"one of my speeches. Those d----d printers make +such a mess of it; I suppose I don't write a very fine hand." + +If the gifted Gashwiler had added that he did not write a very +intelligent hand, or a very grammatical hand, and that his spelling +was faulty, he would have been truthful, although the copy and +proof before him might not have borne him out. The near fact was +that the speech was composed and written by one Expectant Dobbs, a +poor retainer of Gashwiler, and the honorable member's labor as a +proof-reader was confined to the introduction of such words as +"anarchy," "oligarchy," "satrap," "palladium," and "Argus-eyed" in +the proof, with little relevancy as to position or place, and no +perceptible effect as to argument. + +The stranger saw all this with his wicked left eye, but continued +to beam mildly with his right. Removing the coat and waistcoat of +Gashwiler from a chair, he drew it towards the table, pushing aside +a portly, loud-ticking watch,--the very image of Gashwiler,--that +lay beside him, and, resting his elbows on the proofs, said: + +"Well?" + +"Have you anything new?" asked the parliamentary Gashwiler. + +"Much! a woman!" replied the stranger. + +The astute Gashwiler, waiting further information, concluded to +receive this fact gaily and gallantly. "A woman?--my dear Mr. +Wiles,--of course! The dear creatures," he continued, with a fat, +offensive chuckle, "somehow are always making their charming +presence felt. Ha! ha! A man, sir, in public life becomes +accustomed to that sort of thing, and knows when he must be +agreeable,--agreeable, sir, but firm! I've had my experience, +sir,--my OWN experience,"--and the Congressman leaned back in his +chair, not unlike a robust St. Anthony who had withstood one +temptation to thrive on another. + +"Yes," said Wiles impatiently, "but d--n it, she's on the OTHER +SIDE." + +"The other side!" repeated Gashwiler vacantly. + +"Yes, she's a niece of Garcia's. A little she devil." + +"But Garcia's on our side," rejoined Gashwiler. + +"Yes, but she is bought by the Ring." + +"A woman!" sneered Mr. Gashwiler; "what can she do with men who +won't be made fools of? Is she so handsome?" + +"I never saw any great beauty in her," said Wiles shortly, +"although they say that she's rather caught that d----d Thatcher, +in spite of his coldness. At any rate, she is his protegee. But +she isn't the sort you're thinking of, Gashwiler. They say she +knows, or pretends to know, something about the grant. She may +have got hold of some of her uncle's papers. Those Greasers were +always d----d fools; and, if he did anything foolish, like as not +he bungled or didn't cover up his tracks. And with his knowledge +and facilities too! Why, if I'd--" but here Mr. Wiles stopped to +sigh over the inequalities of fortune that wasted opportunities on +the less skillful scamp. + +Mr. Gashwiler became dignified. "She can do nothing with us," he +said potentially. + +Wiles turned his wicked eye on him. "Manuel and Miguel, who sold +out to our man, are afraid of her. They were our witnesses. I +verily believe they'd take back everything if she got after them. +And as for Pedro, he thinks she holds the power of life and death +over him." + +"Pedro! life and death,--what's all this?" said the astonished +Gashwiler. + +Wiles saw his blunder, but saw also that he had gone too far to +stop. "Pedro," he said, "was strongly suspected of having murdered +Concho, one of the original locators." + +Mr. Gashwiler turned white as a sheet, and then flushed again into +an apoplectic glow. "Do you dare to say," he began as soon as he +could find his tongue and his legs, for in the exercise of his +congressional functions these extreme members supported each +other,--"do you mean to say," he stammered in rising rage, "that +you have dared to deceive an American lawgiver into legislating +upon a measure connected with a capital offense? Do I understand +you to say, sir, that murder stands upon the record--stands upon +the record, sir,--of this cause to which, as a representative of +Remus, I have lent my official aid? Do you mean to say that you +have deceived my constituency, whose sacred trust I hold, in +inveigling me to hiding a crime from the Argus eyes of justice?" +And Mr. Gashwiler looked towards the bell-pull as if about to +summon a servant to witness this outrage against the established +judiciary. + +"The murder, if it WAS a murder, took place before Garcia entered +upon this claim, or had a footing in this court," returned Wiles +blandly, "and is no part of the record." + +"You are sure it is not spread upon the record?" + +"I am. You can judge for yourself." + +Mr. Gashwiler walked to the window, returned to the table, finished +his liquor in a single gulp, and then, with a slight resumption of +dignity, said: + +"That alters the case." + +Wiles glanced with his left eye at the Congressman. The right +placidly looked out of the window. Presently he said quietly, +"I've brought you the certificates of stock; do you wish them made +out in your own name?" + +Mr. Gashwiler tried hard to look as if he were trying to recall the +meaning of Wiles's words. "Oh!--ah!--umph!--let me see,--oh, yes, +the certificates,--certainly! Of course you will make them out in +the name of my secretary, Mr. Expectant Dobbs. They will perhaps +repay him for the extra clerical labor required in the prosecution +of your claim. He is a worthy young man. Although not a public +officer, yet he is so near to me that perhaps I am wrong in +permitting him to accept a fee for private interests. An American +representative cannot be too cautious, Mr. Wiles. Perhaps you had +better have also a blank transfer. The stock is, I understand, yet +in the future. Mr. Dobbs, though talented and praiseworthy, is +poor; he may wish to realize. If some--ahem! some FRIEND--better +circumstanced should choose to advance the cash to him and run the +risk,--why, it would only be an act of kindness." + +"You are proverbially generous, Mr. Gashwiler," said Wiles, opening +and shutting his left eye like a dark lantern on the benevolent +representative. + +"Youth, when faithful and painstaking, should be encouraged," +replied Mr. Gashwiler. "I lately had occasion to point this out in +a few remarks I had to make before the Sabbath school reunion at +Remus. Thank you, I will see that they are--ahem!--conveyed to +him. I shall give them to him with my own hand," he concluded, +falling back in his chair, as if the better to contemplate the +perspective of his own generosity and condescension. Mr. Wiles +took his hat and turned to go. Before he reached the door Mr. +Gashwiler returned to the social level with a chuckle: + +"You say this woman, this Garcia's niece, is handsome and smart?" + +"Yes." + +"I can set another woman on the track that'll euchre her every +time!" + +Mr. Wiles was too clever to appear to notice the sudden lapse in +the Congressman's dignity, and only said, with his right eye: + +"Can you?" + +"By G-d, I WILL, or I don't know how to represent Remus." + +Mr. Wiles thanked him with his right eye, and looked a dagger with +his left. "Good," he said, and added persuasively: "Does she live +here?" + +The Congressman nodded assent. "An awfully handsome woman,--a +particular friend of mine!" Mr. Gashwiler here looked as if he +would not mind to have been rallied a little over his intimacy with +the fair one; but the astute Mr. Wiles was at the same moment +making up his mind, after interpreting the Congressman's look and +manner, that he must know this fair incognita if he wished to sway +Gashwiler. He determined to bide his time, and withdrew. + +The door was scarcely closed upon him when another knock diverted +Mr. Gashwiler's attention from his proofs. The door opened to a +young man with sandy hair and anxious face. He entered the room +deprecatingly, as if conscious of the presence of a powerful being, +to be supplicated and feared. Mr. Gashwiler did not attempt to +disabuse his mind. "Busy, you see," he said shortly, "correcting +your work!" + +"I hope it is acceptable?" said the young man timidly. + +"Well--yes--it will do," said Gashwiler; "indeed I may say it is +satisfactory on the whole," he added with the appearance of a large +generosity; "quite satisfactory." + +"You have no news, I suppose," continued the young man, with a +slight flush, born of pride or expectation. + +"No, nothing as yet." Mr. Gashwiler paused as if a thought had +struck him. + +"I have thought," he said, finally, "that some position--such as a +secretaryship with me--would help you to a better appointment. +Now, supposing that I make you my private secretary, giving you +some important and confidential business. Eh?" + +Dobbs looked at his patron with a certain wistful, dog-like +expectancy, moved himself excitedly on his chair seat in a peculiar +canine-like anticipation of gratitude, strongly suggesting that he +would have wagged his tail if he had one. At which Mr. Gashwiler +became more impressive. + +"Indeed, I may say I anticipated it by certain papers I have put in +your charge and in your name, only taking from you a transfer that +might enable me to satisfy my conscience hereafter in recommending +you as my--ahem!--private secretary. Perhaps, as a mere form, you +might now, while you are here, put your name to these transfers, +and, so to speak, begin your duties at once." + +The glow of pride and hope that mantled the cheek of poor Dobbs +might have melted a harder heart than Gashwiler's. But the +senatorial toga had invested Mr. Gashwiler with a more than Roman +stoicism towards the feelings of others, and he only fell back in +his chair in the pose of conscious rectitude as Dobbs hurriedly +signed the paper. + +"I shall place them in my portman-tell," said Gashwiler, suiting +the word to the action, "for safe keeping. I need not inform you, +who are now, as it were, on the threshold of official life, that +perfect and inviolable secrecy in all affairs of State"--Mr. G. +here motioned toward his portmanteau as if it contained a treaty at +least--"is most essential and necessary." + +Dobbs assented. "Then my duties will keep me with you here?" he +asked doubtfully. + +"No, no," said Gashwiler hastily; then, correcting himself, he +added: "that is--for the present--no!" + +Poor Dobbs's face fell. The near fact was that he had lately had +notice to quit his present lodgings in consequence of arrears in +his rent, and he had a hopeful reliance that his confidential +occupation would carry bread and lodging with it. But he only +asked if there were any new papers to make out. + +"Ahem! not at present; the fact is I am obliged to give so much of +my time to callers--I have to-day been obliged to see half a dozen-- +that I must lock myself up and say 'Not at home' for the rest of +the day." Feeling that this was an intimation that the interview +was over, the new private secretary, a little dashed as to his near +hopes, but still sanguine of the future, humbly took his leave. + +But here a certain Providence, perhaps mindful of poor Dobbs, threw +into his simple hands--to be used or not, if he were worthy or +capable of using it--a certain power and advantage. He had +descended the staircase, and was passing through the lower +corridor, when he was made the unwilling witness of a remarkable +assault. + +It appeared that Mr. Wiles, who had quitted Gashwiler's presence as +Dobbs was announced, had other business in the hotel, and in +pursuance of it had knocked at room No. 90. In response to the +gruff voice that bade him enter, Mr. Wiles opened the door, and +espied the figure of a tall, muscular, fiery-bearded man extended +on the bed, with the bedclothes carefully tucked under his chin, +and his arms lying flat by his side. + +Mr. Wiles beamed with his right cheek, and advanced to the bed as +if to take the hand of the stranger, who, however, neither by word +or sign responded to his salutation. + +"Perhaps I'm intruding?" said Mr. Wiles blandly. + +"Perhaps you are," said Red Beard dryly. + +Mr. Wiles forced a smile on his right cheek, which he turned to the +smiter, but permitted the left to indulge in unlimited malevolence. +"I wanted merely to know if you have looked into that matter?" he +said meekly. + +"I've looked into it and round it and across it and over it and +through it," responded the man gravely, with his eyes fixed on +Wiles. + +"And you have perused all the papers?" continued Mr. Wiles. + +"I've read every paper, every speech, every affidavit, every +decision, every argument," said the stranger as if repeating a +formula. + +Mr. Wiles attempted to conceal his embarrassment by an easy, right- +handed smile, that went off sardonically on the left, and +continued: "Then I hope, my dear sir, that, having thoroughly +mastered the case, you are inclined to be favorable to us?" + +The gentleman in the bed did not reply, but apparently nestled more +closely beneath the coverlids. + +"I have brought the shares I spoke of," continued Mr. Wiles, +insinuatingly. + +"Hev you a friend within call?" interrupted the recumbent man +gently. + +"I don't quite understand!" smiled Mr. Wiles. "Of course any name +you might suggest--" + +"Hev you a friend, any chap that you might waltz in here at a +moment's call?" continued the man in bed. "No? Do you know any of +them waiters in the house? Thar's a bell over yan!" and he +motioned with his eyes towards the wall, but did not otherwise move +his body. + +"No," said Wiles, becoming slightly suspicious and wrathful. + +"Mebbe a stranger might do? I reckon thar's one passin' in the +hall. Call him in,--he'll do!" + +Wiles opened the door a little impatiently, yet inquisitively, as +Dobbs passed. The man in bed called out, "Oh, stranger!" and, as +Dobbs stopped, said, "Come yar." + +Dobbs entered a little timidly, as was his habit with strangers. + +"I don't know who you be--nor care, I reckon," said the stranger. +"This yer man"--pointing to Wiles--"is Wiles. I'm Josh Sibblee of +Fresno, Member of Congress from the 4th Congressional District of +Californy. I'm jist lying here, with a derringer into each hand,-- +jist lying here kivered up and holdin' in on'y to keep from blowin' +the top o' this d----d skunk's head off. I kinder feel I can't +hold in any longer. What I want to say to ye, stranger, is that +this yer skunk--which his name is Wiles--hez bin tryin' his d--dest +to get a bribe onto Josh, and Josh, outo respect for his +constituents, is jist waitin' for some stranger to waltz in and +stop the d--dest fight--" + +"But, my dear Mr. Sibblee, there must be some mistake," said Wiles +earnestly. + +"Mistake? Strip me!" + +"No! No!" said Wiles, hurriedly, as the simple-minded Dobbs was +about to draw down the coverlid. + +"Take him away," said the Hon. Mr. Sibblee, "before I disgrace my +constituency. They said I'd be in jail afore I get through the +session. Ef you've got any humanity, stranger, snake him out, and +pow'ful quick, too." + +Dobbs, quite white and aghast, looked at Wiles and hesitated. +There was a slight movement in the bed. Both men started for the +door; and the next minute it closed very decidedly on the member +from Fresno. + + +CHAPTER XI + +HOW IT WAS LOBBIED FOR + + +The Hon. Pratt C. Gashwiler, M.C., was of course unaware of the +incident described in the last chapter. His secret, even if it had +been discovered by Dobbs, was safe in that gentleman's innocent and +honorable hands, and certainly was not of a quality that Mr. Wiles, +at present, would have cared to expose. For, in spite of Mr. +Wiles's discomfiture, he still had enough experience of character +to know that the irate member from Fresno would be satisfied with +his own peculiar manner of vindicating his own personal integrity, +and would not make a public scandal of it. Again, Wiles was +convinced that Dobbs was equally implicated with Gashwiler, and +would be silent for his own sake. So that poor Dobbs, as is too +often the fate of simple but weak natures, had full credit for +duplicity by every rascal in the land. + +From which it may be inferred that nothing occurred to disturb the +security of Gashwiler. When the door closed upon Mr. Wiles, he +indited a note which, with a costly but exceedingly distasteful +bouquet,--rearranged by his own fat fingers, and discord and +incongruity visible in every combination of color,--he sent off by +a special messenger. Then he proceeded to make his toilet,--an +operation rarely graceful or picturesque in our sex, and an insult +to the spectator when obesity is superadded. When he had put on a +clean shirt, of which there was grossly too much, and added a white +waistcoat, that seemed to accent his rotundity, he completed his +attire with a black frock coat of the latest style, and surveyed +himself complacently before a mirror. It is to be recorded that, +however satisfactory the result might have been to Mr. Gashwiler, +it was not so to the disinterested spectator. There are some men +on whom "that deformed thief, Fashion," avenges himself by making +their clothes appear perennially new. The gloss of the tailor's +iron never disappears; the creases of the shelf perpetually rise in +judgment against the wearer. Novelty was the general suggestion of +Mr. Gashwiler's full-dress,--it was never his HABITUDE;--and "Our +own Make," "Nobby," and the "Latest Style, only $15," was as patent +on the legislator's broad back as if it still retained the shop- +man's ticket. + +Thus arrayed, within an hour he complacently followed the note and +his floral offering. The house he sought had been once the +residence of a foreign Ambassador, who had loyally represented his +government in a single unimportant treaty, now forgotten, and in +various receptions and dinners, still actively remembered by +occasional visits to its salon; now the average dreary American +parlor. "Dear me," the fascinating Mr. X would say, "but do you +know, love, in this very room I remember meeting the distinguished +Marquis of Monte Pio;" or perhaps the fashionable Jones of the +State Department instantly crushed the decayed friend he was +perfunctorily visiting by saying, "'Pon my soul, YOU here;--why, +the last time I was in this room I gossiped for an hour with the +Countess de Castenet in that very corner." For, with the recall of +the aforesaid Ambassador, the mansion had become a boarding-place, +kept by the wife of a departmental clerk. + +Perhaps there was nothing in the history of the house more quaint +and philosophic than the story of its present occupant. Roger +Fauquier had been a departmental clerk for forty years. It was at +once his practical good luck and his misfortune to have been early +appointed to a position which required a thorough and complete +knowledge of the formulas and routine of a department that expended +millions of the public funds. Fauquier, on a poor salary, +diminishing instead of increasing with his service, had seen +successive administrations bud and blossom and decay, but had kept +his position through the fact that his knowledge was a necessity to +the successive chiefs and employes. Once it was true that he had +been summarily removed by a new Secretary, to make room for a camp +follower, whose exhaustive and intellectual services in a political +campaign had made him eminently fit for anything; but the alarming +discovery that the new clerk's knowledge of grammar and etymology +was even worse than that of the Secretary himself, and that, +through ignorance of detail, the business of that department was +retarded to a damage to the Government of over half a million of +dollars, led to the reinstatement of Mr. Fauquier--AT A LOWER +SALARY. For it was felt that something was wrong somewhere, and as +it had always been the custom of Congress and the administration to +cut down salaries as the first step to reform, they made of Mr. +Fauquier a moral example. A gentleman born, of somewhat expensive +tastes, having lived up to his former salary, this change brought +another bread-winner into the field, Mrs. Fauquier, who tried, more +or less unsuccessfully, to turn her old Southern habits of +hospitality to remunerative account. But as poor Fauquier could +never be prevailed upon to present a bill to a gentleman, sir, and +as some of the scions of the best Southern families were still +waiting for, or had been recently dismissed from, a position, the +experiment was a pecuniary failure. Yet the house was of excellent +repute and well patronized; indeed, it was worth something to see +old Fauquier sitting at the head of his own table, in something of +his ancestral style, relating anecdotes of great men now dead and +gone, interrupted only by occasional visits from importunate +tradesmen. + +Prominent among what Mr. Fauquier called his "little family" was a +black-eyed lady of great powers of fascination, and considerable +local reputation as a flirt. Nevertheless, these social +aberrations were amply condoned by a facile and complacent husband, +who looked with a lenient and even admiring eye upon the little +lady's amusement, and to a certain extent lent a tacit indorsement +to her conduct. Nobody minded Hopkinson; in the blaze of Mrs. +Hopkinson's fascinations he was completely lost sight of. A few +married women with unduly sensitive husbands, and several single +ladies of the best and longest standing, reflected severely on her +conduct. The younger men of course admired her, but I think she +got her chief support from old fogies like ourselves. For it is +your quiet, self-conceited, complacent, philosophic, broad-waisted +paterfamilias who, after all, is the one to whom the gay and giddy +of the proverbially impulsive, unselfish sex owe their place in the +social firmament. We are never inclined to be captious; we laugh +at as a folly what our wives and daughters condemn as a fault; OUR +"withers are unwrung," yet we still confess to the fascinations of +a pretty face. We know, bless us, from dear experience, the exact +value of one woman's opinion of another; we want our brilliant +little friend to shine; it is only the moths who will burn their +two-penny immature wings in the flame! And why should they not? +Nature has been pleased to supply more moths than candles! Go to!-- +give the pretty creature--be she maid, wife, or widow--a show! +And so, my dear sir, while mater-familias bends her black brows in +disgust, we smile our superior little smile, and extend to Mistress +Anonyma our gracious indorsement. And if giddiness is grateful, or +if folly is friendly,--well, of course, we can't help that. Indeed +it rather proves our theory. + +I had intended to say something about Hopkinson; but really there +is very little to say. He was invariably good humored. A few +ladies once tried to show him that he really ought to feel worse +than he did about the conduct of his wife; and it is recorded that +Hopkinson, in an excess of good humor and kindliness, promised to +do so. Indeed the good fellow was so accessible that it is said +that young DeLancy of the Tape Department confided to Hopkinson his +jealousy of a rival; and revealed the awful secret that he +(DeLancy) had reason to expect more loyalty from his (Hopkinson's) +wife. The good fellow is reported to have been very sympathetic, +and to have promised Delaney to lend whatever influence he had with +Mrs. Hopkinson in his favor. "You see," he said explanatorily to +DeLancy, "she has a good deal to attend to lately, and I suppose +has got rather careless,--that's women's ways. But if I can't +bring her round I'll speak to Gashwiler,--I'll get him to use his +influence with Mrs. Hop. So cheer up, my boy, HE'LL make it all +right." + +The appearance of a bouquet on the table of Mrs. Hopkinson was no +rare event; nevertheless, Mr. Gashwiler's was not there. Its +hideous contrasts had offended her woman's eye,--it is observable +that good taste survives the wreck of all the other feminine +virtues,--and she had distributed it to make boutonnieres for other +gentlemen. Yet, when he appeared, she said to him hastily, putting +her little hand over the cardiac region: + +"I'm so glad you came. But you gave me SUCH a fright an hour ago." + +Mr. Gashwiler was both pleased and astounded. "What have I done, +my dear Mrs. Hopkinson?" he began. + +"Oh, don't talk," she said sadly. "What have you done, indeed! +Why, you sent me that beautiful bouquet. I could not mistake your +taste in the arrangement of the flowers;--but my husband was here. +You know his jealousy. I was obliged to conceal it from him. +never--promise me now--NEVER do it again." + +Mr. Gashwiler gallantly protested. + +"No! I am serious! I was so agitated: he must have seen me blush." + +Nothing but the gross flattery to this speech could have clouded +its manifest absurdity to the Gashwiler consciousness. But Mr. +Gashwiler had already succumbed to the girlish half-timidity with +which it was uttered. Nevertheless, he could not help saying: + +"But why should he be so jealous now? Only day before yesterday I +saw Simpson of Duluth hand you a nosegay right before him!" + +"Ah," returned the lady, "he was outwardly calm THEN, but you know +nothing of the scene that occurred between us after you left." + +"But," gasped the practical Gashwiler, "Simpson had given your +husband that contract,--a cool fifty thousand in his pocket!" + +Mrs. Hopkinson looked as dignifiedly at Gashwiler as was consistent +with five feet three (the extra three inches being a pyramidal +structure of straw-colored hair), a frond of faint curls, a pair of +laughing blue eyes, and a small belted waist. Then she said, with +a casting down of her lids: + +"You forget that my husband loves me." And for once the minx +appeared to look penitent. It was becoming; but as it had been +originally practiced in a simple white dress, relieved only with +pale-blue ribbons, it was not entirely in keeping with be-flounced +lavender and rose-colored trimmings. Yet the woman who hesitates +between her moral expression and the harmony of her dress is lost. +And Mrs. Hopkinson was victrix by her very audacity. + +Mr. Gashwiler was flattered. The most dissolute man likes the +appearance of virtue. "But graces and accomplishments like yours, +dear Mrs. Hopkinson," he said oleaginously, "belong to the whole +country." Which, with something between a courtesy and a strut, he +endeavored to represent. "And I shall want to avail myself of +all," he added, "in the matter of the Castro claim. A little +supper at Welcker's, a glass or two of champagne, and a single +flash of those bright eyes, and the thing is done." + +"But," said Mrs. Hopkinson, "I've promised Josiah that I would give +up all those frivolities, and although my conscience is clear, you +know how people talk! Josiah hears it. Why, only last night, at a +reception at the Patagonian Minister's, every woman in the room +gossiped about me because I led the german with him. As if a +married woman, whose husband was interested in the Government, +could not be civil to the representative of a friendly power?" + +Mr. Gashwiler did not see how Mr. Hopkinson's late contract for +supplying salt pork and canned provisions to the army of the United +States should make his wife susceptible to the advances of foreign +princes; but he prudently kept that to himself. Still, not being +himself a diplomat, he could not help saying: + +"But I understood that Mr. Hopkinson did not object to your +interesting yourself in this claim, and you know some of the +stock--" + +The lady started, and said: + +"Stock! Dear Mr. Gashwiler, for Heaven's sake don't mention that +hideous name to me. Stock, I am sick of it! Have you gentlemen no +other topic for a lady?" + +She punctuated her sentence with a mischievous look at her +interlocutor. For a second time I regret to say that Mr. Gashwiler +succumbed. The Roman constituency at Remus, it is to be hoped, +were happily ignorant of this last defection of their great +legislator. Mr. Gashwiler instantly forgot his theme,--began to +ply the lady with a certain bovine-like gallantry, which it is to +be said to her credit she parried with a playful, terrier-like +dexterity, when the servant suddenly announced, "Mr. Wiles." + +Gashwiler started. Not so Mrs. Hopkinson, who, however, prudently +and quietly removed her own chair several inches from Gashwiler's. + +"Do you know Mr. Wiles?" she asked pleasantly. + +"No! That is, I--ah--yes, I may say I have had some business +relations with him," responded Gashwiler rising. + +"Won't you stay?" she added pleadingly. "Do!" + +Mr. Gashwiler's prudence always got the better of his gallantry. +"Not now," he responded in some nervousness. "Perhaps I had better +go now, in view of what you have just said about gossip. You need +not mention my name to this-er--this--Mr. Wiles." And with one eye +on the door, and an awkward dash of his lips at the lady's fingers, +he withdrew. + +There was no introductory formula to Mr. Wiles's interview. He +dashed at once in medias res. "Gashwiler knows a woman that, he +says, can help us against that Spanish girl who is coming here with +proofs, prettiness, fascination, and what not! You must find her +out." + +"Why?" asked the lady laughingly. + +"Because I don't trust that Gashwiler. A woman with a pretty face +and an ounce of brains could sell him out; aye, and US with him." + +"Oh, say TWO ounces of brains. Mr. Wiles, Mr. Gashwiler is no +fool." + +"Possibly, except when your sex is concerned, and it is very likely +that the woman is his superior." + +"I should think so," said Mrs. Hopkinson with a mischievous look. + +"Ah, you know her, then?" + +"Not so well as I know him," said Mrs. H. quite seriously. "I wish +I did." + +"Well, you'll find out if she's to be trusted! You are laughing,-- +it is a serious matter! This woman--" + +Mrs. Hopkinson dropped him a charming courtesy and said, + +"C'est moi!" + + +CHAPTER XII + +A RACE FOR IT + + +Royal Thatcher worked hard. That the boyish little painter who +shared his hospitality at the "Blue Mass" mine should afterward +have little part in his active life seemed not inconsistent with +his habits. At present the mine was his only mistress, claiming +his entire time, exasperating him with fickleness, but still +requiring that supreme devotion of which his nature was capable. +It is possible that Miss Carmen saw this too, and so set about with +feminine tact, if not to supplement, at least to make her rival +less pertinacious and absorbing. Apart from this object, she +zealously labored in her profession, yet with small pecuniary +result, I fear. Local art was at a discount in California. The +scenery of the country had not yet become famous; rather it was +reserved for a certain Eastern artist, already famous, to make it +so; and people cared little for the reproduction, under their very +noses, of that which they saw continually with their own eyes, and +valued not. So that little Mistress Carmen was fain to divert her +artist soul to support her plump little material body; and made +divers excursions into the regions of ceramic art, painting on +velvet, illuminating missals, decorating china, and the like. I +have in my possession some wax flowers--a startling fuchsia and a +bewildering dahlia--sold for a mere pittance by this little lady, +whose pictures lately took the prize at a foreign exhibition, +shortly after she had been half starved by a California public, and +claimed by a California press as its fostered child of genius. + +Of these struggles and triumphs Thatcher had no knowledge; yet he +was perhaps more startled than he would own to himself when, one +December day, he received this despatch: "Come to Washington at +once.--Carmen de Haro." + +"Carmen de Haro!" I grieve to state that such was the preoccupation +of this man, elected by fate to be the hero of the solitary amatory +episode of his story, that for a moment he could not recall her. +When the honest little figure that had so manfully stood up against +him, and had proved her sex by afterwards running away from him, +came back at last to his memory, he was at first mystified and then +self-reproachful. He had been, he felt vaguely, untrue to himself. +He had been remiss to the self-confessed daughter of his enemy. +Yet why should she telegraph to him, and what was she doing in +Washington? To all these speculations it is to be said to his +credit that he looked for no sentimental or romantic answer. +Royal Thatcher was naturally modest and self-depreciating in his +relations to the other sex, as indeed most men who are apt to be +successful with women generally are, despite a vast degree of +superannuated bosh to the contrary. To the half dozen women who are +startled by sheer audacity into submission there are scores who are +piqued by a self-respectful patience; and where a women has to do +half the wooing, she generally makes a pretty sure thing of it. + +In his bewilderment Thatcher had overlooked a letter lying on his +table. It was from his Washington lawyer. The concluding +paragraph caught his eye,--"Perhaps it would be well if you came +here yourself. Roscommon is here; and they say there is a niece of +Garcia's, lately appeared, who is likely to get up a strong social +sympathy for the old Mexican. I don't know that they expect to +prove anything by her; but I'm told she is attractive and clever, +and has enlisted the sympathies of the delegation." Thatcher laid +the letter down a little indignantly. Strong men are quite as +liable as weak women are to sudden inconsistencies on any question +they may have in common. What right had this poor little bud he +had cherished,--he was quite satisfied now that he had cherished +her, and really had suffered from her absence,--what right had she +to suddenly blossom in the sunshine of power to be, perhaps, +plucked and worn by one of his enemies? He did not agree with his +lawyer that she was in any way connected with his enemies: he +trusted to her masculine loyalty that far. But here was something +vaguely dangerous to the feminine mind,--position, flattery, power. +He was almost as firmly satisfied now that he had been wronged and +neglected as he had been positive a few moments before that he had +been remiss in his attention. The irritation, although momentary, +was enough to decide this strong man. He telegraphed to San +Francisco; and, having missed the steamer, secured an overland +passage to Washington; thought better of it, and partly changed his +mind an hour after the ticket was purchased; but, manlike, having +once made a practical step in a wrong direction, he kept on rather +than admit an inconsistency to himself. Yet he was not entirely +satisfied that his journey was a business one. The impulsive, weak +little Mistress Carmen had prudently scored one against the strong +man. + +Only a small part of the present great trans-continental railway at +this time had been built, and was but piers at either end of a +desolate and wild expanse as yet unbridged. When the overland +traveller left the rail at Reno, he left, as it were, civilization +with it; and, until he reached the Nebraska frontier, the rest of +his road was only the old emigrant trail traversed by the coaches +of the Overland Company. Excepting a part of "Devil's Canyon," the +way was unpicturesque and flat; and the passage of the Rocky +Mountains, far from suggesting the alleged poetry of that region, +was only a reminder of those sterile distances of a level New +England landscape. + +The journey was a dreary monotony that was scarcely enlivened by +its discomforts, never amounting to actual accident or incident, +but utterly destructive to all nervous tissue. Insanity often +supervened. "On the third day out," said Hank Monk, driver, +speaking casually but charitably of a "fare,"--"on the third day +out, after axing no end of questions and getting no answers, he +took to chewing straws that he picked outer the cushion, and +kussin' to hisself. From that very day I knew it was all over with +him, and I handed him over to his friends at 'Shy Ann,' strapped to +the back seat, and ravin' and cussin' at Ben Holliday, the +gent'manly proprietor." It is presumed that the unfortunate +tourist's indignation was excited at the late Mr. Benjamin +Holliday, then the proprietor of the line,--an evidence of his +insanity that no one who knew that large-hearted, fastidious, and +elegantly-cultured Californian, since allied to foreign nobility, +will for a moment doubt. + +Mr. Royal Thatcher was too old and experienced a mountaineer to do +aught but accept patiently and cynically his brother Californian's +method of increasing his profits. As it was generally understood +that any one who came from California by that route had some dark +design, the victim received little sympathy. Thatcher's equable +temperament and indomitable will stood him in good stead, and +helped him cheerfully in this emergency. He ate his scant meals, +and otherwise took care of the functions of his weak human nature, +when and where he could, without grumbling, and at times earned +even the praise of his driver by his ability to "rough it." Which +"roughing it," by the way, meant the ability of the passengers to +accept the incompetency of the Company. It is true there were +times when he regretted that he had not taken the steamer; but then +he reflected that he was one of a Vigilance Committee, sworn to +hang that admirable man, the late Commodore Cornelius Vanderbilt, +for certain practices and cruelties done upon the bodies of certain +steerage passengers by his line, and for divers irregularities in +their transportation. I mention this fact merely to show how so +practical and stout a voyager as Thatcher might have confounded the +perplexities attending the administration of a great steamship +company with selfish greed and brutality; and that he, with other +Californians, may not have known the fact, since recorded by the +Commodore's family clergyman, that the great millionaire was always +true to the hymns of his childhood. + +Nevertheless, Thatcher found time to be cheerful and helpful to his +fellow passengers, and even to be so far interesting to "Yuba +Bill," the driver, as to have the box seat placed at his disposal. +"But," said Thatcher, in some concern, "the box seat was purchased +by that other gentleman in Sacramento. He paid extra for it, and +his name's on your way-bill!" "That," said Yuba Bill, scornfully, +"don't fetch me even ef he'd chartered the whole shebang. Look +yar, do you reckon I'm goin' to spile my temper by setting next to +a man with a game eye? And such an eye! Gewhillikins! Why, darn +my skin, the other day when we war watering at Webster's, he got +down and passed in front of the off-leader,--that yer pinto colt +that's bin accustomed to injins, grizzlies, and buffalo, and I'm +bless ef, when her eye tackled his, ef she didn't jist git up and +rar round that I reckoned I'd hev to go down and take them blinders +off from HER eyes and clap on HIS." "But he paid the money, and is +entitled to his seat," persisted Thatcher. "Mebbe he is--in the +office of the Kempeny," growled Yuba Bill; "but it's time some +folks knowed that out in the plains I run this yer team myself."--A +fact which was self-evident to most of the passengers. "I suppose +his authority is as absolute on this dreary waste as a ship +captain's in mid ocean," exclaimed Thatcher to the baleful-eyed +stranger. Mr. Wiles--whom the reader has recognized--assented with +the public side of his face, but looked vengeance at Yuba Bill with +the other, while Thatcher, innocent of the presence of one of his +worst enemies, placated Bill so far as to restore Wiles to his +rights. Wiles thanked him. "Shall I have the pleasure of your +company far?" Wiles asked insinuatingly. "To Washington," replied +Thatcher frankly. "Washington is a gay city during the session," +again suggested the stranger. "I'm going on business," said +Thatcher bluntly. + +A trifling incident occurred at Pine-Tree Crossing which did not +heighten Yuba Bill's admiration of the stranger. As Bill opened +the double-locked box in the "boot" of the coach--sacred to Wells, +Fargo & Co.'s Express and the Overland Company's treasures--Mr. +Wiles perceived a small, black morocco portemanteau among the +parcels. "Ah, you carry baggage there too?" he said sweetly. "Not +often," responded Yuba Bill shortly. "Ah, this then contains +valuables?" "It belongs to that man whose seat you've got," said +Yuba Bill, who, for insulting purposes of his own, preferred to +establish the fiction that Wiles was an interloper; "and ef he +reckons, in a sorter mixed kempeny like this, to lock up his +portmantle, I don't know who's business it is. Who?" continued +Bill, lashing himself into a simulated rage, "who, in blank, is +running this yer team? Hey? Mebbe you think, sittin' up thar on +the box seat, you are. Mebbe you think you kin see round corners +with that thar eye, and kin pull up for teams round corners, on +down grades, a mile ahead?" But here Thatcher, who, with something +of Lancelot's concern for Modred, had a noble pity for all +infirmities, interfered so sternly that Yuba Bill stopped. + +On the fourth day they struck a blinding snow-storm, while +ascending the dreary plateau that henceforward for six hundred +miles was to be their roadbed. The horses, after floundering +through the drift, gave out completely on reaching the next +station, and the prospects ahead, to all but the experienced eye, +looked doubtful. A few passengers advised taking to sledges, +others a postponement of the journey until the weather changed. +Yuba Bill alone was for pressing forward as they were. "Two miles +more and we're on the high grade, whar the wind is strong enough to +blow you through the windy, and jist peart enough to pack away over +them cliffs every inch of snow that falls. I'll jist skirmish +round in and out o' them drifts on these four wheels whar ye can't +drag one o' them flat-bottomed dry-goods boxes through a drift." +Bill had a California whip's contempt for a sledge. But he was +warmly seconded by Thatcher, who had the next best thing to +experience, the instinct that taught him to read character, and +take advantage of another man's experience. "Them that wants to +stop kin do so," said Bill authoritatively, cutting the Gordian +knot; "them as wants to take a sledge can do so,--thar's one in the +barn. Them as wants to go on with me and the relay will come on." +Mr. Wiles selected the sledge and a driver, a few remained for the +next stage, and Thatcher, with two others, decided to accompany +Yuba Bill. These changes took up some valuable time; and the storm +continuing, the stage was run under the shed, the passengers +gathering around the station fire; and not until after midnight did +Yuba Bill put in the relays. "I wish you a good journey," said +Wiles, as he drove from the shed as Bill entered. Bill vouchsafed +no reply, but, addressing himself to the driver, said curtly, as if +giving an order for the delivery of goods, "Shove him out at +Rawlings," and passed contemptuously around to the tail board of +the sled, and returned to the harnessing of his relay. + +The moon came out and shone high as Yuba Bill once more took the +reins in his hands. The wind, which instantly attacked them as +they reached the level, seemed to make the driver's theory +plausible, and for half a mile the roadbed was swept clean, and +frozen hard. Further on a tongue of snow, extending from a boulder +to the right, reached across their path to the height of two or +three feet. But Yuba Bill dashed through a part of it, and by +skillful maneuvering circumvented the rest. But even as the +obstacle was passed, the coach dropped with an ominous lurch on one +side, and the off fore wheel flew off in the darkness. Bill threw +the horses back on their haunches; but, before their momentum could +be checked, the near hind wheel slipped away, the vehicle rocked +violently, plunged backwards and forwards, and stopped. + +Yuba Bill was on the road in an instant with his lantern. Then +followed an outbreak of profanity which I regret, for artistic +purposes, exceeds that generous limit which a sympathizing public +has already extended to me in the explication of character. Let me +state, therefore, that in a very few moments he succeeded in +disparaging the characters of his employers, their male and female +relatives, the coach builder, the station keeper, the road on which +he travelled, and the travellers themselves, with occasional broad +expletives addressed to himself and his own relatives. For the +spirit of this and a more cultivated poetry of expression, I beg to +refer the temperate reader to the 3d chapter of Job. + +The passengers knew Bill, and sat, conservative, patient, and +expectant. As yet the cause of the catastrophe was not known. +At last Thatcher's voice came from the box seat: + +"What's up, Bill?" + +"Not a blank lynch pin in the whole blank coach," was the answer. + +There was a dead silence. Yuba Bill executed a wild war dance of +helpless rage. + +"Blank the blank ENCHANTED thing to blank!" + +(I beg here to refer the fastidious and cultivated reader to the +only adjective I have dared transcribe of this actual oath which I +once had the honor of hearing. He will I trust not fail to +recognize the old classic daemon in this wild western objurgation.) + +"Who did it?" asked Thatcher. + +Yuba Bill did not reply, but dashed up again to the box, unlocked +the "boot," and screamed out: + +"The man that stole your portmantle,--Wiles!" + +Thatcher laughed: + +"Don't worry about that, Bill. A 'biled' shirt, an extra collar, +and a few papers. Nothing more." + +Yuba Bill slowly descended. When he reached the ground, he plucked +Thatcher aside by his coat sleeve: + +"Ye don't mean to say ye had nothing in that bag ye was trying to +get away with?" + +"No," said the laughing Thatcher frankly. + +"And that Wiles warn't one o' them detectives?" + +"Not to my knowledge, certainly." + +Yuba Bill sighed sadly, and returned to assist in the replacing of +the coach on its wheels again. + +"Never mind, Bill," said one of the passengers sympathizingly, +"we'll catch that man Wiles at Rawlings sure;" and he looked around +at the inchoate vigilance committee, already "rounding into form" +about him. + +"Ketch him!" returned Yuba Bill, derisively, "why we've got to go +back to the station; and afore we're off agin he's pinted fur +Clarmont on the relay we lose. Ketch him! H-ll's full of such +ketches!" + +There was clearly nothing to do but to go back to the station to +await the repairing of the coach. While this was being done Yuba +Bill again drew Thatcher aside: + +"I allers suspected that chap's game eye, but I didn't somehow +allow for anything like this. I reckoned it was only the square +thing to look arter things gen'rally, and 'specially your traps. +So, to purvent troubil, and keep things about ekal, ez he was goin' +away, I sorter lifted this yer bag of hiz outer the tail board of +his sleigh. I don't know as it is any exchange or compensation, +but it may give ye a chance to spot him agin, or him you. It +strikes me as bein' far-minded and squar';" and with these words +he deposited at the feet of the astounded Thatcher the black +travelling bag of Mr. Wiles. + +"But, Bill,--see here! I can't take this!" interrupted Thatcher +hastily. "You can't swear that he's taken my bag,--and--and,-- +blank it all,--this won't do, you know. I've no right to this +man's things, even if--" + +"Hold your hosses," said Bill gravely; "I ondertook to take charge +o' your traps. I didn't--at least that d----d wall-eyed-- Thar's +a portmantle! I don't know who's it is. Take it." + +Half amused, half embarrassed, yet still protesting, Thatcher took +the bag in his hands. + +"Ye might open it in my presence," suggested Yuba Bill gravely. + +Thatcher, half laughingly, did so. It was full of papers and semi- +legal-looking documents. Thatcher's own name on one of them caught +his eye; he opened the paper hastily and perused it. The smile +faded from his lips. + +"Well," said Yuba Bill, "suppose we call it a fair exchange at +present." + +Thatcher was still examining the papers. Suddenly this cautious, +strong-minded man looked up into Yuba Bill's waiting face, and said +quietly, in the despicable slang of the epoch and region: + +"It's a go! Suppose we do." + + +CHAPTER XIII + +HOW IT BECAME FAMOUS + + +Yuba Bill was right in believing that Wiles would lose no time at +Rawlings. He left there on a fleet horse before Bill had returned +with the broken-down coach to the last station, and distanced the +telegram sent to detain him two hours. Leaving the stage road and +its dangerous telegraphic stations, he pushed southward to Denver +over the army trail, in company with a half-breed packer, crossing +the Missouri before Thatcher had reached Julesburg. When Thatcher +was at Omaha, Wiles was already in St. Louis; and as the Pullman +car containing the hero of the "Blue Mass" mine rolled into +Chicago, Wiles was already walking the streets of the national +capital. Nevertheless, he had time en route to sink in the waters +of the North Platte, with many expressions of disgust, the little +black portmanteau belonging to Thatcher, containing his dressing +case, a few unimportant letters, and an extra shirt, to wonder why +simple men did not travel with their important documents and +valuables, and to set on foot some prudent and cautious inquiries +regarding his own lost carpet bag and its important contents. + +But for these trifles he had every reason to be satisfied with the +progress of his plans. "It's all right," said Mrs. Hopkinson +merrily; "while you and Gashwiler have been working with your +'stock,' and treating the whole world as if it could be bribed, +I've done more with that earnest, self-believing, self-deceiving, +and perfectly pathetic Roscommon than all you fellows put together. +Why, I've told his pitiful story, and drawn tears from the eyes of +Senators and Cabinet Ministers. More than that, I've introduced +him into society, put him in a dress coat,--such a figure!--and you +know how the best folk worship everything that is outre as the +sincere thing. I've made him a complete success. Why, only the +other night, when Senator Misnancy and Judge Fitzdawdle were here, +after making him tell his story,--which you know I think he really +believes,--I sang 'There came to the beach a poor Exile of Erin,' +and my husband told me afterwards it was worth at least a dozen +votes." + +"But about this rival of yours,--this niece of Garcia's?" + +"Another of your blunders; you men know nothing of women. Firstly, +she's a swarthy little brunette, with dots for eyes; and strides +like a man, dresses like a dowdy, don't wear stays, and has no +style. Then, she's a single woman, and alone; and, although she +affects to be an artist, and has Bohemian ways, don't you see she +can't go into society without a chaperon or somebody to go with +her? Nonsense." + +"But," persisted Wiles, "she must have some power; there's Judge +Mason and Senator Peabody, who are constantly talking about her; +and Dinwiddie of Virginia escorted her through the Capitol the +other day." + +Mistress Hopkinson laughed. "Mason and Peabody aspire to be +thought literary and artistic, and Dinwiddie wanted to pique ME!" + +"But Thatcher is no fool--" + +"Is Thatcher a lady's man?" queried the lady suddenly. + +"Hardly, I should say," responded Wiles. "He pretends to be +absorbed in his swindle and devoted to his mine; and I don't think +that even you--" he stopped with a slight sneer. + +"There, you are misunderstanding me again, and, what is worse, you +are misunderstanding your case. Thatcher is pleased with her +because he has probably seen no one else. Wait till he comes to +Washington and has an opportunity for comparison;" and she cast a +frank glance at her mirror, where Wiles, with a sardonic bow, left +her standing. + +Mr. Gashwiler was quite as confident of his own success with +Congress. "We are within a few days of the end of the session. +We will manage to have it taken up and rushed through before that +fellow Thatcher knows what he is about." + +"If it could be done before he gets here," said Wiles, "it's a +reasonably sure thing. He is delayed two days: he might have been +delayed longer." Here Mr. Wiles sighed. If the accident had +happened on a mountain road, and the stage had been precipitated +over the abyss, what valuable time would have been saved, and +success become a surety. But Mr. Wiles's functions as an advocate +did not include murder; at least, he was doubtful if it could be +taxed as costs. + +"We need have no fears, sir," resumed Mr. Gashwiler; "The matter is +now in the hands of the highest tribunal of appeal in the country. +It will meet, sir, with inflexible justice. I have already +prepared some remarks--" + +"By the way," interrupted Wiles infelicitously, "where's your young +man,--your private secretary,--Dobbs?" + +The Congressman for a moment looked confused. "He is not here. +And I must correct your error in applying that term to him. I have +never put my confidence in the hands of any one." + +"But you introduced him to me as your secretary?" + +"A mere honorary title, sir. A brevet rank. I might, it is true, +have thought to repose such a trust in him. But I was deceived, +sir, as I fear I am too apt to be when I permit my feelings as a +man to overcome my duty as an American legislator. Mr. Dobbs +enjoyed my patronage and the opportunity it gave me to introduce +him into public life only to abuse it. He became, I fear, deeply +indebted. His extravagance was unlimited, his ambition unbounded, +but without, sir, a cash basis. I advanced money to him from time +to time upon the little property you so generously extended to him +for his services. But it was quickly dissipated. Yet, sir, such +is the ingratitude of man that his family lately appealed to me for +assistance. I felt it was necessary to be stern, and I refused. I +would not for the sake of his family say anything, but I have +missed, sir, books from my library. On the day after he left, two +volumes of Patent Office reports and a Blue Book of Congress, +purchased that day by me at a store on Pennsylvania avenue, were +MISSING,--missing! I had difficulty, sir, great difficulty in +keeping it from the papers!" + +As Mr. Wiles had heard the story already from Gashwiler's +acquaintances, with more or less free comment on the gifted +legislator's economy, he could not help thinking that the difficulty +had been great indeed. But he only fixed his malevolent eye on +Gashwiler and said: + +"So he is gone, eh?" + +"Yes." + +"And you've made an enemy of him? That's bad." + +Mr. Gashwiler tried to look dignifiedly unconcerned; but something +in his visitor's manner made him uneasy. + +"I say it is bad, if you have. Listen. Before I left here, I +found at a boardinghouse where he had boarded, and still owed a +bill, a trunk which the landlord retained. Opening it, I found +some letters and papers to yours, with certain memoranda of his, +which I thought ought to be in YOUR possession. As an alleged +friend of his, I redeemed the trunk by paying the amount of his +bill, and secured the more valuable papers." + +Gashwiler, whose face had grown apoplectically suffused as Wiles +went on, at last gasped: "But you got the trunk, and have the +papers?" + +"Unfortunately, no; and that's why it's bad." + +"But, good God! what have you done with them?" + +"I've lost them somewhere on the Overland Road." + +Mr. Gashwiler sat for a few moments speechless, vacillating between +a purple rage and a pallid fear. Then he said hoarsely: + +"They are all blank forgeries,--every one of them." + +"Oh, no!" said Wiles, smiling blandly on his dexter side, and +enjoying the whole scene malevolently with his sinister eye. "YOUR +papers are all genuine, and I won't say are not all right, but +unfortunately I had in the same bag some memoranda of my own for +the use of my client, that, you understand, might be put to some +bad use if found by a clever man." + +The two rascals looked at each other. There is on the whole really +very little "honor among thieves,"--at least great ones,--and the +inferior rascal succumbed at the reflection of what HE might do if +he were in the other rascal's place. "See here, Wiles," he said, +relaxing his dignity with the perspiration that oozed from every +pore, and made the collar of his shirt a mere limp rag. "See here, +WE"--this first use of the plural was equivalent to a confession-- +"we must get them papers." + +"Of course," said Wiles coolly, "if we CAN, and if Thatcher doesn't +get wind of them." + +"He cannot." + +"He was on the coach when I lost them, coming East." + +Mr. Gashwiler paled again. In the emergency he had recourse to the +sideboard and a bottle, forgetting Wiles. Ten minutes before Wiles +would have remained seated; but it is recorded that he rose, took +the bottle from the gifted Gashwiler's fingers, helped himself +FIRST, and then sat down. + +"Yes, but, my boy," said Gashwiler, now rapidly changing situations +with the cooler Wiles; "yes, but, old fellow," he added, poking +Wiles with a fat forefinger, "don't you see the whole thing will be +up before he gets here?" + +"Yes," said Wiles gloomily, "but those lazy, easy, honest men have +a way of popping up just at the nick of time. They never need +hurry; all things wait for them. Why, don't you remember that on +the very day Mrs. Hopkinson and I and you got the President to sign +that patent, that very day one of them d--n fellows turns up from +San Francisco or Australia, having taken his own time to get here,-- +gets here about half an hour after the President had signed the +patent and sent it over to the office, finds the right man to +introduce him to the President, has a talk with him, makes him sign +an order countermanding its issuance, and undoes all that has been +done in six years in one hour." + +"Yes, but Congress is a tribunal that does not revoke its decrees," +said Gashwiler with a return of his old manner; "at least," he +added, observing an incredulous shrug in the shoulder of his +companion, "at least DURING THE SESSION." + +"We shall see," said Wiles, quietly taking his hat. + +"We shall see, sir," said the member from Remus with dignity. + + +CHAPTER XIV + +WHAT CULTURE DID FOR IT + + +There was at this time in the Senate of the United States an +eminent and respected gentleman, scholarly, orderly, honorable, +and radical,--the fit representative of a scholarly, orderly, +honorable, and radical Commonwealth. For many years he had held +his trust with conscious rectitude, and a slight depreciation of +other forms of merit; and for as many years had been as regularly +returned to his seat by his constituency with equally conscious +rectitude in themselves and an equal skepticism regarding others. +Removed by his nature beyond the reach of certain temptations, and +by circumstances beyond even the knowledge of others, his social +and political integrity was spotless. An orator and practical +debater, his refined tastes kept him from personality, and the +public recognition of the complete unselfishness of his motives and +the magnitude of his dogmas protected him from scurrility. His +principles had never been appealed to by a bribe; he had rarely +been approached by an emotion. + +A man of polished taste in art and literature, and possessing the +means to gratify it, his luxurious home was filled with treasures +he had himself collected, and further enhanced by the stamp of his +appreciation. His library had not only the elegance of adornment +that his wealth could bring and his taste approve, but a certain +refined negligence of habitual use, and the easy disorder of the +artist's workshop. All this was quickly noted by a young girl who +stood on its threshold at the close of a dull January day. + +The card that had been brought to the Senator bore the name of +"Carmen de Haro"; and modestly in the right hand corner, in almost +microscopic script, the further description of herself as "Artist." +Perhaps the picturesqueness of the name, and its historic +suggestion caught the scholar's taste, for when to his request, +through his servant, that she would be kind enough to state her +business, she replied as frankly that her business was personal to +himself, he directed that she should be admitted. Then entrenching +himself behind his library table, overlooking a bastion of books, +and a glacis of pamphlets and papers, and throwing into his +forehead and eyes an expression of utter disqualification for +anything but the business before him, he calmly awaited the +intruder. + +She came, and for an instant stood, hesitatingly, framing herself +as a picture in the door. Mrs. Hopkinson was right,--she had "no +style," unless an original and half-foreign quaintness could be +called so. There was a desperate attempt visible to combine an +American shawl with the habits of a mantilla, and it was always +slipping from one shoulder, that was so supple and vivacious as to +betray the deficiencies of an education in stays. There was a +cluster of black curls around her low forehead, fitting her so +closely as to seem to be a part of the seal-skin cap she wore. + +Once, from the force of habit, she attempted to put her shawl over +her head and talk through the folds gathered under her chin, but +an astonished look from the Senator checked her. Nevertheless, +he felt relieved, and rising, motioned her to a chair with a +heartiness he would have scarcely shown to a Parisian toilleta. +And when, with two or three quick, long steps, she reached his +side, and showed, a frank, innocent, but strong and determined +little face, feminine only in its flash of eye and beauty of lip +and chin curves, he put down the pamphlet he had taken up somewhat +ostentatiously, and gently begged to know her business. + +I think I have once before spoken of her voice,--an organ more +often cultivated by my fair country-women for singing than for +speaking, which, considering that much of our practical relations +with the sex are carried on without the aid of an opera score, +seems a mistaken notion of theirs,--and of its sweetness, gentle +inflexion, and musical emphasis. She had the advantage of having +been trained in a musical language, and came of a race with whom +catarrhs and sore throats were rare. So that in a few brief +phrases she sang the Senator into acquiescence as she imparted the +plain libretto of her business,--namely, a "desire to see some of +his rare engravings." + +Now the engravings in question were certain etchings of the early +Great Apprentices of the art, and were, I am happy to believe, +extremely rare. From my unprofessional view they were exceedingly +bad,--showing the mere genesis of something since perfected, but +dear, of course, to the true collector's soul. I don't believe +that Carmen really admired them either. But the minx knew that the +Senator prided himself on having the only "pot-hooks" of the great +"A," or the first artistic efforts of "B,"--I leave the real names +to be filled in by the connoisseur,--and the Senator became +interested. For the last year, two or three of these abominations +had been hanging in his study, utterly ignored by the casual +visitor. But here was appreciation! "She was," she added, "only a +poor young artist, unable to purchase such treasures, but equally +unable to resist the opportunity afforded her, even at the risk of +seeming bold, or of obtruding upon a great man's privacy," &c. &c. + +This flattery, which, if offered in the usual legal tender of the +country, would have been looked upon as counterfeit, delivered here +in a foreign accent, with a slightly tropical warmth, was accepted +by the Senator as genuine. These children of the Sun are so +impulsive! We, of course, feel a little pity for the person who +thus transcends our standard of good taste and violates our +conventional canon,--but they are always sincere. The cold New +Englander saw nothing wrong in one or two direct and extravagant +compliments, that would have insured his visitor's early dismissal +if tendered in the clipped metallic phrases of the Commonwealth he +represented. + +So that in a few moments the black, curly head of the little artist +and the white, flowing locks of the Senator were close together +bending over the rack that contained the engravings. It was then +that Carmen, listening to a graphic description of the early rise +of Art in the Netherlands, forgot herself and put her shawl around +her head, holding its folds in her little brown hand. In this +situation they were, at different times during the next two hours, +interrupted by five Congressmen, three Senators, a Cabinet officer, +and a Judge of the Supreme Bench,--each of whom was quickly but +courteously dismissed. Popular sentiment, however, broke out in +the hall. + +"Well, I'm blanked, but this gets me." (The speaker was a +Territorial delegate.) + +"At his time o' life, too, lookin' over pictures with a gal young +enough to be his grandchild." (This from a venerable official, +since suspected of various erotic irregularities.) + +"She don't handsome any." (The honorable member from Dakota.) + +"This accounts for his protracted silence during the sessions." (A +serious colleague from the Senator's own State.) + +"Oh, blank it all!" (Omnes.) + +Four went home to tell their wives. There are few things more +touching in the matrimonial compact than the superb frankness with +which each confides to each the various irregularities of their +friends. It is upon these sacred confidences that the firm +foundations of marriage rest unshaken. + +Of course the objects of this comment, at least ONE of them, were +quite oblivious. "I trust," said Carmen, timidly, when they had +for the fourth time regarded in rapt admiration an abominable +something by some Dutch wood-chopper, "I trust I am not keeping you +from your great friends:"--her pretty eyelids were cast down in +tremulous distress:--"I should never forgive myself. Perhaps it is +important business of the State?" + +"Oh, dear, no! THEY will come again,--it's THEIR business." + +The Senator meant it kindly. It was as near the perilous edge of a +compliment as your average cultivated Boston man ever ventures, and +Carmen picked it up, femininely, by its sentimental end. "And I +suppose I shall not trouble you again?" + +"I shall always be proud to place the portfolio at your disposal. +Command me at any time," said the Senator, with dignity. + +"You are kind. You are good," said Carmen, "and I--I'm but,--look +you,--only a poor girl from California, that you know not." + +"Pardon me, I know your country well." And indeed he could have +told her the exact number of bushels of wheat to the acre in her +own county of Monterey, its voting population, its political bias. +Yet of the more important product before him, after the manner of +book-read men, he knew nothing. + +Carmen was astonished, but respectful. It transpired presently +that she was not aware of the rapid growth of the silk worm in her +own district, knew nothing of the Chinese question, and very little +of the American mining laws. Upon these questions the Senator +enlightened her fully. "Your name is historic, by the way," he +said pleasantly. "There was a Knight of Alcantara, a "De Haro," +one of the emigrants with Las Casas." + +Carmen nodded her head quickly, "Yes; my great-great-great-g-r-e-a-t +grandfather!" + +The Senator stared. + +"Oh, yes. I am the niece of Victor Castro, who married my father's +sister." + +"The Victor Castro of the 'Blue Mass' mine?" asked the Senator +abruptly. + +"Yes," she said quietly. + +Had the Senator been of the Gashwiler type, he would have expressed +himself, after the average masculine fashion, by a long-drawn +whistle. But his only perceptible appreciation of a sudden +astonishment and suspicion in his mind was a lowering of the social +thermometer of the room so decided that poor Carmen looked up +innocently, chilled, and drew her shawl closer around her shoulders. + +"I have something more to ask," said Carmen, hanging her head,--"it +is a great, oh, a very great favor." + +The Senator had retreated behind his bastion of books again, and +was visibly preparing for an assault. He saw it all now. He had +been, in some vague way, deluded. He had given confidential +audience to the niece of one of the Great Claimants before +Congress. The inevitable axe had come to the grindstone. What +might not this woman dare ask of him? He was the more implacable +that he felt he had already been prepossessed--and honestly +prepossessed--in her favor. He was angry with her for having +pleased him. Under the icy polish of his manner there were certain +Puritan callosities caused by early straight-lacing. He was not +yet quite free from his ancestor's cheerful ethics that Nature, as +represented by an Impulse, was as much to be restrained as Order +represented by a Quaker. + +Without apparently noticing his manner, Carmen went on, with a +certain potential freedom of style, gesture, and manner scarcely to +be indicated in her mere words. "You know, then, I am of Spanish +blood, and that, what was my adopted country, our motto was, 'God +and Liberty.' It was of you, sir,--the great Emancipator,--the +apostle of that Liberty,--the friend of the down-trodden and +oppressed,--that I, as a child, first knew. In the histories of +this great country I have read of you, I have learned your +orations. I have longed to hear you in your own pulpit deliver the +creed of my ancestors. To hear you, of yourself, speak, ah! Madre +de Dios! what shall I say,--speak the oration eloquent,--to make +the--what you call--the debate, that is what I have for so long +hoped. Eh! Pardon,--you are thinking me foolish,--wild, eh?--a +small child,--eh?" + +Becoming more and more dialectical as she went on, she said +suddenly, "I have you of myself offended. You are mad of me as a +bold, bad child? It is so?" + +The Senator, as visibly becoming limp and weak again behind his +entrenchments, managed to say, "Oh, no!" then, "really!" and +finally, "Tha-a-nks!" + +"I am here but for a day. I return to California in a day, as it +were to-morrow. I shall never, never hear you speak in your place +in the Capitol of this great country?" + +The Senator said hastily that he feared--he in fact was convinced-- +that his duty during this session was required more at his desk, in +the committee work, than in speaking, &c., &c. + +"Ah," said Carmen sadly, "it is true, then, all this that I have +heard. It is true that what they have told me,--that you have +given up the great party,--that your voice is not longer heard in +the old--what you call this--eh--the old ISSUES?" + +"If any one has told you that, Miss De Haro," responded the Senator +sharply, "he has spoken foolishly. You have been misinformed. May +I ask who--" + +"Ah!" said Carmen, "I know not! It is in the air! I am a stranger. +Perhaps I am deceived. But it is of all. I say to them, When +shall I hear him speak? I go day after day to the Capitol, I watch +him,--the great Emancipator,--but it is of business, eh?--it is the +claim of that one, it is the tax, eh? it is the impost, it is the +post-office, but it is the great speech of human rights--never, +NEVER. I say, 'How arrives all this?' And some say, and shake +their heads, 'never again he speaks.' He is what you call 'played-- +yes, it is so, eh?--played out.' I know it not,--it is a word from +Bos-ton, perhaps? They say he has--eh, I speak not the English +well--the party he has shaken, 'shook,'-- yes,--he has the party +'shaken,' eh? It is right,--it is the language of Bos-ton, eh?" + +"Permit me to say, Miss De Haro," returned the Senator, rising with +some asperity, "that you seem to have been unfortunate in your +selection of acquaintances, and still more so in your ideas of the +derivations of the English tongue. The--er--the--er--expressions +you have quoted are not common to Boston, but emanate, I believe, +from the West." + +Carmen de Haro contritely buried everything but her black eyes in +her shawl. + +"No one," he continued, more gently, sitting down again, "has the +right to forecast from my past what I intend to do in the future, +or designate the means I may choose to serve the principles I hold +or the party I represent. Those are MY functions. At the same +time, should occasion--or opportunity--for we are within a day or +two of the close of the Session--" + +"Yes," interrupted Carmen, sadly, "I see,--it will be some business, +some claim, something for somebody,--ah! Madre de Dios,--you will +not speak, and I--" + +"When do you think of returning?" asked the Senator, with grave +politeness; "when are we to lose you?" + +"I shall stay to the last,--to the end of the Session," said +Carmen. "And NOW I shall go." She got up and pulled her shawl +viciously over her shoulders, with a pretty pettishness, perhaps +the most feminine thing she had done that evening. Possibly, the +most genuine. + +The Senator smiled affably: "You do not deserve to be disappointed +in either case; but it is later than you imagine; let me help you +on the shorter distance in my carriage; it is at the door." + +He accompanied her gravely to the carriage. As it rolled away, she +buried her little figure in its ample cushions and chuckled to +herself, albeit a little hysterically. When she had reached her +destination, she found herself crying, and hastily, and somewhat +angrily, dried her eyes as she drew up at the door of her lodgings. + +"How have you prospered?" asked Mr. Harlowe, of counsel for Royal +Thatcher, as he gallantly assisted her from the carriage. "I have +been waiting here for two hours; your interview must have been +prolonged,--that was a good sign." + +"Don't ask me now," said Carmen, a little savagely, "I'm worn out +and tired." + +Mr. Harlowe bowed. "I trust you will be better to-morrow, for we +expect our friend, Mr. Thatcher." + +Carmen's brown cheek flushed slightly. "He should have been here +before. Where is he? What was he doing?" + +"He was snowed up on the plains. He is coming as fast as steam can +carry him; but he may be too late." + +Carmen did not reply. + +The lawyer lingered. "How did you find the great New-England +Senator?" he asked with a slight professional levity. + +Carmen was tired, Carmen was worried, Carmen was a little self- +reproachful, and she kindled easily. Consequently she said icily: + +"I found him A GENTLEMAN!" + + +CHAPTER XV + +HOW IT BECAME UNFINISHED BUSINESS + + +The closing of the ---- Congress was not unlike the closing of the +several preceding Congresses. There was the same unbusiness-like, +impractical haste; the same hurried, unjust, and utterly inadequate +adjustment of unfinished, ill-digested business, that would not have +been tolerated for a moment by the sovereign people in any private +interest they controlled. There were frauds rushed through; there +were long-suffering, righteous demands shelved; there were honest, +unpaid debts dishonored by scant appropriations; there were closing +scenes which only the saving sense of American humor kept from being +utterly vile. The actors, the legislators themselves, knew it, and +laughed at it; the commentators, the Press, knew it and laughed at +it; the audience, the great American people, knew it and laughed at +it. And nobody for an instant conceived that it ever, under any +circumstances, might be otherwise. + +The claim of Roscommon was among the Unfinished Business. The +claimant himself, haggard, pathetic, importunate, and obstinate, +was among the Unfinished Business. Various Congressmen, more or +less interested in the success of the claim, were among the +Unfinished Business. The member from Fresno, who had changed his +derringer for a speech against the claimant, was among the +Unfinished Business. The gifted Gashwiler, uneasy in his soul over +certain other Unfinished Business in the shape of his missing +letters, but dropping oil and honey as he mingled with his +brothers, was King of Misrule and Lord of the Unfinished Business. +Pretty Mrs. Hopkinson, prudently escorted by her husband, but +imprudently ogled by admiring Congressmen, lent the charm of her +presence to the finishing of Unfinished Business. One or two +editors, who had dreams of a finished financial business, arising +out of Unfinished Business, were there also, like ancient bards, to +record with paean or threnody the completion of Unfinished +Business. Various unclean birds, scenting carrion in Unfinished +Business, hovered in the halls or roosted in the Lobby. + +The lower house, under the tutelage of the gifted Gashwiler, drank +deeply of Roscommon and his intoxicating claim, and passed the +half-empty bottle to the Senate as Unfinished Business. But, alas! +in the very rush, and storm, and tempest of the unfinishing +business, an unlooked-for interruption arose in the person of a +great Senator whose power none could oppose, whose right to free +and extended utterance at all times none could gainsay. A claim +for poultry, violently seized by the army of Sherman during his +march through Georgia, from the hen-coop of an alleged loyal +Irishman, opened a constitutional question, and with it the lips +of the great Senator. + +For seven hours he spoke eloquently, earnestly, convincingly. For +seven hours the old issues of party and policy were severally taken +up and dismissed in the old forcible rhetoric that had early made +him famous. Interruptions from other Senators, now forgetful +of Unfinished Business, and wild with reanimated party zeal; +interruptions from certain Senators mindful of Unfinished Business, +and unable to pass the Roscommon bottle, only spurred him to fresh +exertion. The tocsin sounded in the Senate was heard in the lower +house. Highly-excited members congregated at the doors of the +Senate, and left Unfinished Business to take care of itself. + +Left to itself for seven hours, Unfinished Business gnashed its +false teeth and tore its wig in impotent fury in corridor and hall. +For seven hours the gifted Gashwiler had continued the manufacture +of oil and honey, whose sweetness, however, was slowly palling upon +the congressional lip; for seven hours Roscommon and friends beat +with impatient feet the lobby, and shook fists, more or less +discolored, at the distinguished Senator. For seven hours the one +or two editors were obliged to sit and calmly compliment the great +speech which that night flashed over the wires of a continent with +the old electric thrill. And, worse than all, they were obliged to +record with it the closing of the ---- Congress, with more than the +usual amount of Unfinished Business. + +A little group of friends surrounded the great Senator with hymns +of praise and congratulations. Old adversaries saluted him +courteously as they passed by with the respect of strong men. A +little woman with a shawl drawn over her shoulders, and held with +one small brown hand, approached him timidly: + +"I speak not the English well," she said gently, "but I have read +much. I have read in the plays of your Shakspeare. I would like +to say to you the words of Rosalind to Orlando when he did fight: +'Sir you have wrestled well, and have overthrown more than your +enemies.'" And with these words she was gone. + +Yet not so quickly but that pretty Mrs. Hopkinson, coming,--as +Victrix always comes to Victor, to thank the great Senator, albeit +the faces of her escorts were shrouded in gloom,--saw the shawled +figure disappear. + +"There," she said, pinching Wiles mischievously, "there! that's the +woman you were afraid of. Look at her. Look at that dress. Ah, +Heavens! look at that shawl. Didn't I tell you she had no style?" + +"Who is she?" said Wiles sullenly. + +"Carmen de Haro, of course," said the lady vivaciously. "What are +you hurrying away so for? You're absolutely pulling me along." + +Mr. Wiles had just caught sight of the travel-worn face of Royal +Thatcher among the crowd that thronged the stair-case. Thatcher +appeared pale and distrait: Mr. Harlowe, his counsel, at his side, +rallied him. + +"No one would think you had just got a new lease of your property, +and escaped a great swindle. What's the matter with you? Miss De +Haro passed us just now. It was she who spoke to the Senator. Why +did you not recognize her?" + +"I was thinking," said Thatcher gloomily. + +"Well, you take things coolly! And certainly you are not very +demonstrative towards the woman who saved you to-day. For, as sure +as you live, it was she who drew that speech out of the Senator." + +Thatcher did not reply, but moved away. He HAD noticed Carmen de +Haro, and was about to greet her with mingled pleasure and +embarrassment. But he had heard her compliment to the Senator, and +this strong, preoccupied, automatic man, who only ten days before +had no thought beyond his property, was now thinking more of that +compliment to another than of his success; and was beginning to +hate the Senator who had saved him, the lawyer who stood beside +him, and even the little figure that had tripped down the steps +unconscious of him. + + +CHAPTER XVI + +AND WHO FORGOT IT + + +It was somewhat inconsistent with Royal Thatcher's embarrassment +and sensitiveness that he should, on leaving the Capitol, order a +carriage and drive directly to the lodgings of Miss De Haro. That +on finding she was not at home, he should become again sulky and +suspicious, and even be ashamed of the honest impulse that led him +there, was, I suppose, manlike and natural. He felt that he had +done all the courtesy required; he had promptly answered her +dispatch with his presence. If she chose to be absent at such a +moment, HE had at least done HIS duty. In short, there was +scarcely any absurdity of the imagination which this once practical +man did not permit himself to indulge in, yet always with a certain +consciousness that he was allowing his feelings to run away with +him,--a fact that did not tend to make him better humored, and +rather inclined him to place the responsibility of the elopement on +somebody else. If Miss De Haro had been home, &c. &c., and not +going into ecstasies over speeches, &c. &c., and had attended to +her business, i. e., being exactly what he had supposed her to be,-- +all this would not have happened. + +I am aware that this will not heighten the reader's respect for my +hero. But I fancy that the imperceptible progress of a sincere +passion in the matured strong man is apt to be marked with even +more than the usual haste and absurdity of callous youth. + +The fever that runs riot in the veins of the robust is apt to pass +your ailing weakling by. Possibly there may be some immunity in +inoculation. It is Lothario who is always self-possessed and does +and says the right thing, while poor honest Coelebs becomes +ridiculous with genuine emotion. + +He rejoined his lawyer in no very gracious mood. The chambers +occupied by Mr. Harlowe were in the basement of a private dwelling +once occupied and made historic by an Honorable Somebody, who, +however, was remembered only by the landlord and the last tenant. +There were various shelves in the walls divided into compartments, +sarcastically known as "pigeon holes," in which the dove of peace +had never rested, but which still perpetuated, in their legends, +the feuds and animosities of suitors now but common dust together. +There was a portrait, apparently of a cherub, which on nearer +inspection turned out to be a famous English Lord Chancellor in his +flowing wig. + +There were books with dreary, unenlivening titles,--egotistic +always, as recording Smith's opinions on this, and Jones's +commentaries on that. There was a hand bill tacked on the wall, +which at first offered hilarious suggestions of a circus or a +steamboat excursion, but which turned out only to be a sheriff's +sale. There were several oddly-shaped packages in newspaper +wrappings, mysterious and awful in dark corners, that might have +contained forgotten law papers or the previous week's washing of +the eminent counsel. There were one or two newspapers, which at +first offered entertaining prospects to the waiting client, but +always proved to be a law record or a Supreme Court decision. +There was the bust of a late distinguished jurist, which apparently +had never been dusted since he himself became dust, and had already +grown a perceptibly dusty moustache on his severely-judicial upper +lip. It was a cheerless place in the sunshine of day; at night, +when it ought, by every suggestion of its dusty past, to have been +left to the vengeful ghosts, the greater part of whose hopes and +passions were recorded and gathered there; when in the dark the +dead hands of forgotten men were stretched from their dusty graves +to fumble once more for their old title deeds; at night, when it +was lit up by flaring gaslight, the hollow mockery of this +dissipation was so apparent that people in the streets, looking +through the illuminated windows, felt as if the privacy of a family +vault had been intruded upon by body-snatchers. + +Royal Thatcher glanced around the room, took in all its dreary +suggestions in a half-weary, half-indifferent sort of way, and +dropped into the lawyer's own revolving chair as that gentleman +entered from the adjacent room. + +"Well, you got back soon, I see," said Harlowe briskly. + +"Yes," said his client, without looking up, and with this notable +distinction between himself and all other previous clients, that he +seemed absolutely less interested than the lawyer. "Yes, I'm here; +and, upon my soul, I don't exactly know why." + +"You told me of certain papers you had discovered," said the lawyer +suggestively. + +"Oh, yes," returned Thatcher with a slight yawn. "I've got here +some papers somewhere;"--he began to feel in his coat pocket +languidly;--"but, by the way, this is a rather dreary and God- +forsaken sort of place! Let's go up to Welker's, and you can look +at them over a bottle of champagne." + +"After I've looked at them, I've something to show you, myself," +said Harlowe; "and as for the champagne, we'll have that in the +other room, by and by. At present I want to have my head clear, +and yours too,--if you'll oblige me by becoming sufficiently +interested in your own affairs to talk to me about them." + +Thatcher was gazing abstractedly at the fire. He started. "I dare +say," he began, "I'm not very interesting; yet it's possible that +my affairs have taken up a little too much of my time. However,--" +he stopped, took from his pocket an envelope, and threw it on the +desk,--"there are some papers. I don't know what value they may +be; that is for you to determine. I don't know that I've any legal +right to their possession,--that is for you to say, too. They came +to me in a queer way. On the overland journey here I lost my bag, +containing my few traps and some letters and papers 'of no value,' +as the advertisements say, 'to any but the owner.' Well, the bag +was lost, but the stage driver declares that it was stolen by a +fellow-passenger,--a man by the name of Giles, or Stiles, or Piles--" + +"Wiles," said Harlowe earnestly. + +"Yes," continued Thatcher, suppressing a yawn; "yes, I guess you're +right,--Wiles. Well, the stage driver, finally believing this, +goes to work and quietly and unostentatiously steals--I say, have +you got a cigar?" + +"I'll get you one." + +Harlowe disappeared in the adjoining room. Thatcher dragged +Harlowe's heavy, revolving desk chair, which never before had been +removed from its sacred position, to the fire, and began to poke +the coals abstractedly. + +Harlowe reappeared with cigars and matches. Thatcher lit one +mechanically, and said, between the pulls: + +"Do you--ever--talk--to yourself?" + +"No!--why?" + +"I thought I heard your voice just now in the other room. Anyhow, +this is an awful spooky place. If I stayed here alone half an +hour, I'd fancy that the Lord Chancellor up there would step down +in his robes, out of his frame, to keep me company." + +"Nonsense! When I'm busy, I often sit here and write until after +midnight. It's so quiet!" + +"D--mnably so!" + +"Well, to go back to the papers. Somebody stole your bag, or you +lost it. YOU stole--" + +"The driver stole," suggested Thatcher, so languidly that it could +hardly be called an interruption. + +"Well, we'll say the driver stole, and passed over to you as his +accomplice, confederate, or receiver, certain papers belonging--" + +"See here, Harlowe, I don't feel like joking in a ghostly law +office after midnight. Here are your facts. Yuba Bill, the +driver, stole a bag from this passenger, Wiles, or Smiles, and +handed it to me to insure the return of my own. I found in it some +papers concerning my case. There they are. Do with them what you +like." + +Thatcher turned his eyes again abstractedly to the fire. + +Harlowe took out the first paper: + +"A-w, this seems to be a telegram. Yes, eh? 'Come to Washington +at once.--Carmen de Haro.'" + +Thatcher started, blushed like a girl, and hurriedly reached for +the paper. + +"Nonsense. That's a mistake. A dispatch I mislaid in the +envelope." + +"I see," said the lawyer dryly. + +"I thought I had torn it up," continued Thatcher, after an awkward +pause. I regret to say that here that usually truthful man +elaborated a fiction. He had consulted it a dozen times a day on +the journey, and it was quite worn in its enfoldings. Harlowe's +quick eye had noticed this, but he speedily became interested and +absorbed in the other papers. Thatcher lapsed into contemplation +of the fire. + +"Well," said Harlowe, finally turning to his client, "here's enough +to unseat Gashwiler, or close his mouth. As to the rest, it's good +reading--but I needn't tell you--no LEGAL evidence. But it's proof +enough to stop them from ever trying it again,--when the existence +of this record is made known. Bribery is a hard thing to fix on a +man; the only witness is naturally particeps criminis;--but it +would not be easy for them to explain away this rascal's record. +One or two things I don't understand: What's this opposite the Hon. +X's name, 'Took the medicine nicely, and feels better?' and here, +just in the margin, after Y's, 'Must be labored with?'" + +"I suppose our California slang borrows largely from the medical +and spiritual profession," returned Thatcher. "But isn't it odd +that a man should keep a conscientious record of his own villainy?" + +Harlowe, a little abashed at his want of knowledge of American +metaphor, now felt himself at home. "Well, no. It's not unusual. +In one of those books yonder there is the record of a case where a +man, who had committed a series of nameless atrocities, extending +over a period of years, absolutely kept a memorandum of them in his +pocket diary. It was produced in Court. Why, my dear fellow, one +half our business arises from the fact that men and women are in +the habit of keeping letters and documents that they might--I don't +say, you know, that they OUGHT, that's a question of sentiment or +ethics--but that they MIGHT destroy." + +Thatcher half-mechanically took the telegram of poor Carmen and +threw it in the fire. Harlowe noticed the act and smiled. + +"I'll venture to say, however, that there's nothing in the bag that +YOU lost that need give you a moment's uneasiness. It's only your +rascal or fool who carries with him that which makes him his own +detective." + +"I had a friend," continued Harlowe, "a clever fellow enough, but +who was so foolish as to seriously complicate himself with a woman. +He was himself the soul of honor, and at the beginning of their +correspondence he proposed that they should each return the other's +letters with their answer. They did so for years, but it cost him +ten thousand dollars and no end of trouble after all." + +"Why?" asked Thatcher simply. + +"Because he was such an egotistical ass as TO KEEP THE LETTER +PROPOSING IT, which she had duly returned, among his papers as a +sentimental record. Of course somebody eventually found it." + +"Good night," said Thatcher, rising abruptly. "If I stayed here +much longer I should begin to disbelieve my own mother." + +"I have known of such hereditary traits," returned Harlowe with a +laugh. "But come, you must not go without the champagne." He led +the way to the adjacent room, which proved to be only the ante- +chamber of another, on the threshold of which Thatcher stopped with +genuine surprise. It was an elegantly furnished library. + +"Sybarite! Why was I never here before?" + +"Because you came as a client; to-night you are my guest. All who +enter here leave their business, with their hats, in the hall. +Look; there isn't a law book on those shelves; that table never was +defaced by a title deed or parchment. You look puzzled? Well, it +was a whim of mine to put my residence and my work-shop under the +same roof, yet so distinct that they would never interfere with +each other. You know the house above is let out to lodgers. I +occupy the first floor with my mother and sister, and this is my +parlor. I do my work in that severe room that fronts the street: +here is where I play. A man must have something else in life than +mere business. I find it less harmful and expensive to have my +pleasure here." + +Thatcher had sunk moodily in the embracing arms of an easy chair. +He was thinking deeply; he was fond of books too, and, like all men +who have fared hard and led wandering lives, he knew the value of +cultivated repose. Like all men who have been obliged to sleep +under blankets and in the open air, he appreciated the luxuries of +linen sheets and a frescoed roof. It is, by the way, only your +sick city clerk or your dyspeptic clergyman who fancy that they +have found in the bad bread, fried steaks, and frowzy flannels of +mountain picknicking the true art of living. And it is a somewhat +notable fact that your true mountaineer or your gentleman who has +been obliged to honestly "rough it," does not, as a general thing, +write books about its advantages, or implore their fellow mortals +to come and share their solitude and their discomforts. + +Thoroughly appreciating the taste and comfort of Harlowe's library, +yet half-envious of its owner, and half-suspicious that his own +earnest life for the past few years might have been different, +Thatcher suddenly started from his seat and walked towards a parlor +easel, whereon stood a picture. It was Carmen de Haro's first +sketch of the furnace and the mine. + +"I see you are taken with that picture," said Harlowe, pausing with +the champagne bottle in his hand. "You show your good taste. It's +been much admired. Observe how splendidly that firelight plays +over the sleeping face of that figure, yet brings out by very +contrast its almost death-like repose. Those rocks are powerfully +handled; what a suggestion of mystery in those shadows! You know +the painter?" + +Thatcher murmured, "Miss De Haro," with a new and rather odd self- +consciousness in speaking her name. + +"Yes. And you know the story of the picture of course?" + +Thatcher thought he didn't. Well, no; in fact, he did not remember. + +"Why, this recumbent figure was an old Spanish lover of hers, whom +she believed to have been murdered there. It's a ghastly fancy, +isn't it?" + +Two things annoyed Thatcher: first the epithet "lover," as applied +to Concho by another man; second, that the picture belonged to him: +and what the d---l did she mean by-- + +"Yes," he broke out finally, "but how did YOU get it?" + +"Oh, I bought it of her. I've been a sort of patron of her ever +since I found out how she stood towards us. As she was quite alone +here in Washington, my mother and sister have taken her up, and +have been doing the social thing." + +"How long since?" asked Thatcher. + +"Oh, not long. The day she telegraphed you, she came here to know +what she could do for us, and when I said nothing could be done +except to keep Congress off, why, she went and DID IT. For SHE, +and she alone, got that speech out of the Senator. But," he added, +a little mischievously, "you seem to know very little about her?" + +"No!--I--that is--I've been very busy lately," returned Thatcher, +staring at the picture. "Does she come here often?" + +"Yes, lately, quite often; she was here this evening with mother; +was here, I think, when you came." + +Thatcher looked intently at Harlowe. But that gentleman's face +betrayed no confusion. Thatcher refilled his glass a little +awkwardly, tossed off the liquor at a draught, and rose to his +feet. + +"Come, old fellow, you're not going now. I shan't permit it," said +Harlowe, laying his hand kindly on his client's shoulder. "You're +out of sorts! Stay here with me to-night. Our accommodations are +not large, but are elastic. I can bestow you comfortably until +morning. Wait here a moment while I give the necessary orders." + +Thatcher was not sorry to be left alone. In the last half hour he +had become convinced that his love for Carmen de Haro had been in +some way most dreadfully abused. While HE was hard at work in +California, she was being introduced in Washington society by +parties with eligible brothers who bought her paintings. It is a +relief to the truly jealous mind to indulge in plurals. Thatcher +liked to think that she was already beset by hundreds of brothers. + +He still kept staring at the picture. By and by it faded away in +part, and a very vivid recollection of the misty, midnight, moonlit +walk he had once taken with her came back, and refilled the canvas +with its magic. He saw the ruined furnace; the dark, overhanging +masses of rock, the trembling intricacies of foliage, and, above +all, the flash of dark eyes under a mantilla at his shoulder. What +a fool he had been! Had he not really been as senseless and stupid +as this very Concho, lying here like a log? And she had loved that +man. What a fool she must have thought him that evening! What a +snob she must think him now! + +He was startled by a slight rustling in the passage, that ceased +almost as he turned. Thatcher looked towards the door of the outer +office, as if half expecting that the Lord Chancellor, like the +commander in Don Juan, might have accepted his thoughtless +invitation. He listened again; everything was still. He was +conscious of feeling ill at ease and a trifle nervous. What a long +time Harlowe took to make his preparations. He would look out in +the hall. To do this it was necessary to turn up the gas. He did +so, and in his confusion turned it out! + +Where were the matches? He remembered that there was a bronze +something on the table that, in the irony of modern decorative +taste, might hold ashes or matches, or anything of an unpicturesque +character. He knocked something over, evidently the ink,-- +something else,--this time a champagne glass. Becoming reckless, +and now groping at random in the ruins, he overturned the bronze +Mercury on the center table, and then sat down hopelessly in his +chair. And then a pair of velvet fingers slid into his, with the +matches, and this audible, musical statement: + +"It is a match you are seeking? Here is of them." + +Thatcher flushed, embarrassed, nervous,--feeling the ridiculousness +of saying, "Thank you" to a dark somebody,--struck the match, +beheld by its brief, uncertain glimmer Carmen de Haro beside him, +burned his fingers, coughed, dropped the match, and was cast again +into outer darkness. + +"Let me try!" + +Carmen struck a match, jumped briskly on the chair, lit the gas, +jumped lightly down again, and said: "You do like to sit in the +dark,--eh? So am I--sometimes--alone." + +"Miss De Haro," said Thatcher, with sudden, honest earnestness, +advancing with outstretched hands, "believe me I am sincerely +delighted, overjoyed, again to meet--" + +She had, however, quickly retreated as he approached, ensconcing +herself behind the high back of a large antique chair, on the +cushion of which she knelt. I regret to add also that she slapped +his outstretched fingers a little sharply with her inevitable black +fan as he still advanced. + +"We are not in California. It is Washington. It is after midnight. +I am a poor girl, and I have to lose--what you call--'a character.' +You shall sit over there,"--she pointed to the sofa,-- "and I shall +sit here;" she rested her boyish head on the top of the chair; "and +we shall talk, for I have to speak to you, Don Royal." + +Thatcher took the seat indicated, contritely, humbly, submissively. +Carmen's little heart was touched. But she still went on over the +back of the chair. + +"Don Royal," she said, emphasizing each word at him with her fan, +"before I saw you,--ever knew of you,--I was a child. Yes, I was +but a child! I was a bold, bad child;--and I was what you call a-- +a--'forgaire'!" + +"A what?" asked Thatcher, hesitating between a smile and a sigh. + +"A forgaire!" continued Carmen demurely. "I did of myself write +the names of ozzer peoples;" when Carmen was excited she lost the +control of the English tongue; "I did write just to please myself;-- +it was my onkle that did make of it money;--you understand, eh? +Shall you not speak? Must I again hit you?" + +"Go on," said Thatcher laughing. + +"I did find out, when I came to you at the mine, that I had forged +against you the name of Micheltorena. I to the lawyer went, and +found that it was so--of a verity--so! so! all the time. Look at +me not now, Don Royal;--it is a 'forgaire' you stare at." + +"Carmen!" + +"Hoosh! Shall I have to hit you again? I did overlook all the +papers. I found the application: it was written by me. There." + +She tossed over the back of her chair an envelope to Thatcher. He +opened it. + +"I see," he said gently, "you repossessed yourself of it!" + +"What is that--'r-r-r-e--possess'?" + +"Why!"--Thatcher hesitated--"you got possession of this paper,-- +this innocent forgery,--again." + +"Oh! You think me a thief as well as a 'forgaire.' Go away! Get +up. Get out." + +"My dear girl--" + +"Look at the paper! Will you? Oh, you silly!" + +Thatcher looked at the paper. In paper, handwriting, age, and +stamp it was identical with the formal, clerical application of +Garcia for the grant. The indorsement of Micheltorena was +unquestionably genuine. BUT THE APPLICATION WAS MADE FOR ROYAL +THATCHER. And his own signature was imitated to the life. + +"I had but one letter of yours wiz your name," said Carmen +apologetically; "and it was the best poor me could do." + +"Why, you blessed little goose and angel," said Thatcher, with the +bold, mixed metaphor of amatory genius, "don't you see--" + +"Ah, you don't like it,--it is not good?" + +"My darling!" + +"Hoosh! There is also an 'old cat' up stairs. And now I have here +a character. WILL you sit down? Is it of a necessity that up and +down you should walk and awaken the whole house? There!"--she had +given him a vicious dab with her fan as he passed. He sat down. + +"And you have not seen me nor written to me for a year?" + +"Carmen!" + +"Sit down, you bold, bad boy. Don't you see it is of business that +you and I talk down here; and it is of business that ozzer people +up stairs are thinking. Eh?" + +"D--n business! See here, Carmen, my darling, tell me"--I regret +to say he had by this time got hold of the back of Carmen's chair-- +"tell me, my own little girl,--about--about that Senator. You +remember what you said to him?" + +"Oh, the old man? Oh, THAT was business. And you say of business, +'d--n.'" + +"Carmen!" + +"Don Royal!" + + . . . . . . + +Although Miss Carmen had recourse to her fan frequently during this +interview, the air must have been chilly, for a moment later, on +his way down stairs, poor Harlowe, a sufferer from bronchitis, was +attacked with a violent fit of coughing, which troubled him all the +way down. + +"Well," he said, as he entered the room, "I see you have found Mr. +Thatcher, and shown those papers. I trust you have, for you've +certainly had time enough. I am sent by mother to dismiss you all +to bed." + +Carmen still in the arm chair, covered with her mantilla, did not +speak. + +"I suppose you are by this time lawyer enough to know," continued +Harlowe, "that Miss De Haro's papers, though ingenious, are not +legally available, unless--" + +"I chose to make her a witness. Harlowe! you're a good fellow! I +don't mind saying to you that these are papers I prefer that my +WIFE should not use. We'll leave it for the present--Unfinished +Business." + + +They did. But one evening our hero brought Mrs. Royal Thatcher a +paper containing a touching and beautiful tribute to the dead +Senator. + +"There, Carmen, love, read that. Don't you feel a little ashamed +of your--your--your lobbying--" + +"No," said Carmen promptly. "It was business,--and if all lobbying +business was as honest,--well?--" + + + + + +End of The Project Gutenberg Etext of The Story of a Mine, by Bret Harte + |