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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Flip: A California Romance, by Bret Harte
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Flip: A California Romance
+
+Author: Bret Harte
+
+Release Date: May 27, 2006 [EBook #2793]
+Last Updated: March 5, 2018
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FLIP: A CALIFORNIA ROMANCE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Donald Lainson
+
+
+
+
+
+FLIP: A CALIFORNIA ROMANCE
+
+
+By Bret Harte
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+
+Just where the track of the Los Gatos road streams on and upward like
+the sinuous trail of a fiery rocket until it is extinguished in the blue
+shadows of the Coast Range, there is an embayed terrace near the summit,
+hedged by dwarf firs. At every bend of the heat-laden road the eye
+rested upon it wistfully; all along the flank of the mountain, which
+seemed to pant and quiver in the oven-like air, through rising dust, the
+slow creaking of dragging wheels, the monotonous cry of tired springs,
+and the muffled beat of plunging hoofs, it held out a promise of
+sheltered coolness and green silences beyond. Sunburned and anxious
+faces yearned toward it from the dizzy, swaying tops of stagecoaches,
+from lagging teams far below, from the blinding white canvas covers of
+“mountain schooners,” and from scorching saddles that seemed to weigh
+down the scrambling, sweating animals beneath. But it would seem that
+the hope was vain, the promise illusive. When the terrace was reached it
+appeared not only to have caught and gathered all the heat of the
+valley below, but to have evolved a fire of its own from some hidden
+crater-like source unknown. Nevertheless, instead of prostrating and
+enervating man and beast, it was said to have induced the wildest
+exaltation. The heated air was filled and stifling with resinous
+exhalations. The delirious spices of balm, bay, spruce, juniper, yerba
+buena, wild syringa, and strange aromatic herbs as yet unclassified,
+distilled and evaporated in that mighty heat, and seemed to fire with
+a midsummer madness all who breathed their fumes. They stung, smarted,
+stimulated, intoxicated. It was said that the most jaded and foot-sore
+horses became furious and ungovernable under their influence; wearied
+teamsters and muleteers, who had exhausted their profanity in the
+ascent, drank fresh draughts of inspiration in this fiery air, extended
+their vocabulary, and created new and startling forms of objurgation.
+It is recorded that one bibulous stage-driver exhausted description
+and condensed its virtues in a single phrase: “Gin and ginger.” This
+felicitous epithet, flung out in a generous comparison with his favorite
+drink, “rum and gum,” clung to it ever after.
+
+Such was the current comment on this vale of spices. Like most human
+criticism it was hasty and superficial. No one yet had been known to
+have penetrated deeply its mysterious recesses. It was still far below
+the summit and its wayside inn. It had escaped the intruding foot of
+hunter and prospector; and the inquisitive patrol of the county surveyor
+had only skirted its boundary. It remained for Mr. Lance Harriott to
+complete its exploration. His reasons for so doing were simple. He had
+made the journey thither underneath the stage-coach, and clinging to its
+axle. He had chosen this hazardous mode of conveyance at night, as the
+coach crept by his place of concealment in the wayside brush, to elude
+the sheriff of Monterey County and his posse, who were after him.
+
+He had not made himself known to his fellow-passengers as they already
+knew him as a gambler, an outlaw, and a desperado; he deemed it unwise
+to present himself in a newer reputation of a man who had just slain
+a brother gambler in a quarrel, and for whom a reward was offered.
+He slipped from the axle as the stage-coach swirled past the brushing
+branches of fir, and for an instant lay unnoticed, a scarcely
+distinguishable mound of dust in the broken furrows of the road. Then,
+more like a beast than a man, he crept on his hands and knees into the
+steaming underbrush. Here he lay still until the clatter of harness
+and the sound of voices faded in the distance. Had he been followed,
+it would have been difficult to detect in that inert mass of rags any
+semblance to a known form or figure. A hideous reddish mask of dust and
+clay obliterated his face; his hands were shapeless stumps exaggerated
+in his trailing sleeves. And when he rose, staggering like a drunken
+man, and plunged wildly into the recesses of the wood, a cloud of dust
+followed him, and pieces and patches of his frayed and rotten garments
+clung to the impeding branches. Twice he fell, but, maddened and upheld
+by the smarting spices and stimulating aroma of the air, he kept on his
+course.
+
+Gradually the heat became less oppressive; once when he stopped and
+leaned exhaustedly against a sapling, he fancied he saw the zephyr he
+could not yet feel in the glittering and trembling of leaves in the
+distance before him. Again the deep stillness was moved with a faint
+sighing rustle, and he knew he must be nearing the edge of the thicket.
+The spell of silence thus broken was followed by a fainter, more musical
+interruption--the glassy tinkle of water! A step further his foot
+trembled on the verge of a slight ravine, still closely canopied by the
+interlacing boughs overhead. A tiny stream that he could have dammed
+with his hand yet lingered in this parched red gash in the hillside and
+trickled into a deep, irregular, well-like cavity, that again overflowed
+and sent its slight surplus on. It had been the luxurious retreat of
+many a spotted trout; it was to be the bath of Lance Harriott. Without
+a moment's hesitation, without removing a single garment, he slipped
+cautiously into it, as if fearful of losing a single drop. His head
+disappeared from the level of the bank; the solitude was again unbroken.
+Only two objects remained upon the edge of the ravine,--his revolver and
+tobacco pouch.
+
+A few minutes elapsed. A fearless blue jay alighted on the bank and
+made a prospecting peck at the tobacco pouch. It yielded in favor of a
+gopher, who endeavored to draw it toward his hole, but in turn gave way
+to a red squirrel, whose attention was divided, however, between the
+pouch and the revolver, which he regarded with mischievous fascination.
+Then there was a splash, a grunt, a sudden dispersion of animated
+nature, and the head of Mr. Lance Harriott appeared above the bank. It
+was a startling transformation. Not only that he had, by this wholesale
+process, washed himself and his light “drill” garments entirely clean,
+but that he had, apparently by the same operation, morally cleansed
+HIMSELF, and left every stain and ugly blot of his late misdeeds and
+reputation in his bath. His face, albeit scratched here and there, was
+rosy, round, shining with irrepressible good humor and youthful levity.
+His large blue eyes were infantine in their innocent surprise and
+thoughtlessness. Dripping yet with water, and panting, he rested his
+elbows lazily on the bank, and became instantly absorbed with a boy's
+delight in the movements of the gopher, who, after the first alarm,
+returned cautiously to abduct the tobacco pouch. If any familiar had
+failed to detect Lance Harriott in this hideous masquerade of dust and
+grime and tatters, still less would any passing stranger have recognized
+in this blond faun the possible outcast and murderer. And, when with a
+swirl of his spattering sleeve, he drove back the gopher in a shower of
+spray and leaped to the bank, he seemed to have accepted his felonious
+hiding-place as a mere picnicking bower.
+
+A slight breeze was unmistakably permeating the wood from the west.
+Looking in that direction, Lance imagined that the shadow was less dark,
+and although the undergrowth was denser, he struck off carelessly toward
+it. As he went on, the wood became lighter and lighter; branches, and
+presently leaves, were painted against the vivid blue of the sky. He
+knew he must be near the summit, stopped, felt for his revolver, and
+then lightly put the few remaining branches aside.
+
+The full glare of the noonday sun at first blinded him. When he could
+see more clearly, he found himself on the open western slope of the
+mountain, which in the Coast Range was seldom wooded. The spiced thicket
+stretched between him and the summit, and again between him and the
+stage road that plunges from the terrace, like forked lightning into the
+valley below. He could command all the approaches without being seen.
+Not that this seemed to occupy his thoughts or cause him any anxiety.
+His first act was to disencumber himself of his tattered coat; he then
+filled and lighted his pipe, and stretched himself full-length on the
+open hillside, as if to bleach in the fierce sun. While smoking he
+carelessly perused the fragment of a newspaper which had enveloped his
+tobacco, and being struck with some amusing paragraph, read it half
+aloud again to some imaginary auditor, emphasizing its humor with an
+hilarious slap upon his leg.
+
+Possibly from the relaxation of fatigue and the bath, which had become
+a vapor one as he alternately rolled and dried himself in the baking
+grass, his eyes closed dreamily. He was awakened by the sound of voices.
+They were distant; they were vague; they approached no nearer. He rolled
+himself to the verge of the first precipitous grassy descent. There was
+another bank or plateau below him, and then a confused depth of olive
+shadows, pierced here and there by the spiked helmets of pines.
+
+There was no trace of habitation, yet the voices were those of some
+monotonous occupation, and Lance distinctly heard through them the click
+of crockery and the ring of some household utensil. It appeared to be
+the interjectional, half listless, half perfunctory, domestic dialogue
+of an old man and a girl, of which the words were unintelligible. Their
+voices indicated the solitude of the mountain, but without sadness; they
+were mysterious without being awe-inspiring. They might have uttered
+the dreariest commonplaces, but, in their vast isolation, they seemed
+musical and eloquent. Lance drew his first sigh,--they had suggested
+dinner.
+
+Careless as his nature was, he was too cautious to risk detection in
+broad daylight. He contented himself for the present with endeavoring to
+locate that particular part of the depths from which the voices seemed
+to rise. It was more difficult, however, to select some other way of
+penetrating it than by the stage road. “They're bound to have a fire
+or show a light when it's dark,” he reasoned, and, satisfied with that
+reflection, lay down again. Presently he began to amuse himself by
+tossing some silver coins in the air. Then his attention was directed to
+a spur of the Coast Range which had been sharply silhouetted against
+the cloudless western sky. Something intensely white, something so
+small that it was scarcely larger than the silver coin in his hand, was
+appearing in a slight cleft of the range.
+
+While he looked it gradually filled and obliterated the cleft. In
+another moment the whole serrated line of mountain had disappeared. The
+dense, dazzling white, encompassing host began to pour over and down
+every ravine and pass of the coast. Lance recognized the sea-fog, and
+knew that scarcely twenty miles away lay the ocean--and safety! The
+drooping sun was now caught and hidden in its soft embraces. A sudden
+chill breathed over the mountain. He shivered, rose, and plunged again
+for very warmth into the spice-laden thicket. The heated balsamic air
+began to affect him like a powerful sedative; his hunger was forgotten
+in the languor of fatigue; he slumbered. When he awoke it was dark. He
+groped his way through the thicket. A few stars were shining directly
+above him, but beyond and below, everything was lost in the soft, white,
+fleecy veil of fog. Whatever light or fire might have betokened human
+habitation was hidden. To push on blindly would be madness; he could
+only wait for morning. It suited the outcast's lazy philosophy. He crept
+back again to his bed in the hollow and slept. In that profound silence
+and shadow, shut out from human association and sympathy by the ghostly
+fog, what torturing visions conjured up by remorse and fear should have
+pursued him? What spirit passed before him, or slowly shaped itself out
+of the infinite blackness of the wood? None. As he slipped gently into
+that blackness he remembered with a slight regret, some biscuits that
+were dropped from the coach by a careless luncheon-consuming passenger.
+That pang over, he slept as sweetly, as profoundly, as divinely, as a
+child.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+
+He awoke with the aroma of the woods still steeping his senses. His
+first instinct was that of all young animals; he seized a few of the
+young, tender green leaves of the yerba buena vine that crept over his
+mossy pillow and ate them, being rewarded by a half berry-like flavor
+that seemed to soothe the cravings of his appetite. The languor of sleep
+being still upon him, he lazily watched the quivering of a sunbeam that
+was caught in the canopying boughs above. Then he dozed again. Hovering
+between sleeping and waking, he became conscious of a slight movement
+among the dead leaves on the bank beside the hollow in which he lay. The
+movement appeared to be intelligent, and directed toward his revolver,
+which glittered on the bank. Amused at this evident return of his
+larcenous friend of the previous day, he lay perfectly still. The
+movement and rustle continued, but it now seemed long and undulating.
+Lance's eyes suddenly became set; he was intensely, keenly awake. It
+was not a snake, but the hand of a human arm, half hidden in the moss,
+groping for the weapon. In that flash of perception he saw that it was
+small, bare, and deeply freckled. In an instant he grasped it firmly,
+and rose to his feet, dragging to his own level as he did so, the
+struggling figure of a young girl.
+
+“Leave me go!” she said, more ashamed than frightened.
+
+Lance looked at her. She was scarcely more than fifteen, slight and
+lithe, with a boyish flatness of breast and back. Her flushed face and
+bare throat were absolutely peppered with minute brown freckles,
+like grains of spent gunpowder. Her eyes, which were large and gray,
+presented the singular spectacle of being also freckled,--at least they
+were shot through in pupil and cornea with tiny spots like powdered
+allspice. Her hair was even more remarkable in its tawny, deer-skin
+color, full of lighter shades, and bleached to the faintest of blondes
+on the crown of her head, as if by the action of the sun. She had
+evidently outgrown her dress, which was made for a smaller child, and
+the too brief skirt disclosed a bare, freckled, and sandy desert of
+shapely limb, for which the darned stockings were equally too scant.
+Lance let his grasp slip from her thin wrist to her hand, and then with
+a good-humored gesture tossed it lightly back to her.
+
+She did not retreat, but continued looking at him in a half-surly
+embarrassment.
+
+“I ain't a bit frightened,” she said; “I'm not going to run away,--don't
+you fear.”
+
+“Glad to hear it,” said Lance, with unmistakable satisfaction, “but why
+did you go for my revolver?”
+
+She flushed again and was silent. Presently she began to kick the earth
+at the roots of the tree, and said, as if confidentially to her foot,--
+
+“I wanted to get hold of it before you did.”
+
+“You did?--and why?”
+
+“Oh, you know why.”
+
+Every tooth in Lance's head showed that he did, perfectly. But he was
+discreetly silent.
+
+“I didn't know what you were hiding there for,” she went on, still
+addressing the tree, “and,” looking at him sideways under her white
+lashes, “I didn't see your face.”
+
+This subtle compliment was the first suggestion of her artful sex.
+It actually sent the blood into the careless rascal's face, and for a
+moment confused him. He coughed. “So you thought you'd freeze on to that
+six-shooter of mine until you saw my hand?”
+
+She nodded. Then she picked up a broken hazel branch, fitted it into the
+small of her back, threw her tanned bare arms over the ends of it, and
+expanded her chest and her biceps at the same moment. This simple action
+was supposed to convey an impression at once of ease and muscular force.
+
+“Perhaps you'd like to take it now,” said Lance, handing her the pistol.
+
+“I've seen six-shooters before now,” said the girl, evading the
+proffered weapon and its suggestion. “Dad has one, and my brother had
+two derringers before he was half as big as me.”
+
+She stopped to observe in her companion the effect of this capacity of
+her family to bear arms. Lance only regarded her amusedly. Presently she
+again spoke abruptly:--
+
+“What made you eat that grass, just now?”
+
+“Grass!” echoed Lance.
+
+“Yes, there,” pointing to the yerba buena.
+
+Lance laughed. “I was hungry. Look!” he said, gayly tossing some silver
+into the air. “Do you think you could get me some breakfast for that,
+and have enough left to buy something for yourself?”
+
+The girl eyed the money and the man with half-bashful curiosity.
+
+“I reckon Dad might give ye suthing if he had a mind ter, though ez a
+rule he's down on tramps ever since they run off his chickens. Ye might
+try.”
+
+“But I want YOU to try. You can bring it to me here.”
+
+The girl retreated a step, dropped her eyes, and, with a smile that was
+a charming hesitation between bashfulness and impudence, said: “So you
+ARE hidin', are ye?”
+
+“That's just it. Your head's level. I am,” laughed Lance unconcernedly.
+
+“Yur ain't one o' the McCarty gang--are ye?”
+
+Mr. Lance Harriott felt a momentary moral exaltation in declaring
+truthfully that he was not one of a notorious band of mountain
+freebooters known in the district under that name.
+
+“Nor ye ain't one of them chicken lifters that raided Henderson's ranch?
+We don't go much on that kind o' cattle yer.”
+
+“No,” said Lance, cheerfully.
+
+“Nor ye ain't that chap ez beat his wife unto death at Santa Clara?”
+
+Lance honestly scorned the imputation. Such conjugal ill treatment as
+he had indulged in had not been physical, and had been with other men's
+wives.
+
+There was a moment's further hesitation on the part of the girl. Then
+she said shortly:
+
+“Well, then, I reckon you kin come along with me.”
+
+“Where?” asked Lance.
+
+“To the ranch,” she replied simply.
+
+“Then you won't bring me anything to eat here?”
+
+“What for? You kin get it down there.” Lance hesitated. “I tell you it's
+all right,” she continued. “I'll make it all right with Dad.”
+
+“But suppose I reckon I'd rather stay here,” persisted Lance, with a
+perfect consciousness, however, of affectation in his caution.
+
+“Stay away then,” said the girl coolly; “only as Dad perempted this yer
+woods”--
+
+“PRE-empted,” suggested Lance.
+
+“Per-empted or pre-emp-ted, as you like,” continued the girl
+scornfully,--“ez he's got a holt on this yer woods, ye might ez well see
+him down thar ez here. For here he's like to come any minit. You can bet
+your life on that.”
+
+She must have read Lance's amusement in his eyes, for she again dropped
+her own with a frown of brusque embarrassment. “Come along, then; I'm
+your man,” said Lance, gayly, extending his hand.
+
+She would not accept it, eying it, however, furtively, like a horse
+about to shy. “Hand me your pistol first,” she said.
+
+He handed it to her with an assumption of gayety. She received it on her
+part with unfeigned seriousness, and threw it over her shoulder like
+a gun. This combined action of the child and heroine, it is quite
+unnecessary to say, afforded Lance undiluted joy.
+
+“You go first,” she said.
+
+Lance stepped promptly out, with a broad grin. “Looks kinder as if I was
+a prisoner, don't it?” he suggested.
+
+“Go on, and don't fool,” she replied.
+
+The two fared onward through the wood. For one moment he entertained the
+facetious idea of appearing to rush frantically away, “just to see
+what the girl would do,” but abandoned it. “It's an even thing if she
+wouldn't spot me the first pop,” he reflected admiringly.
+
+When they had reached the open hillside, Lance stopped inquiringly.
+“This way,” she said, pointing toward the summit, and in quite an
+opposite direction to the valley where he had heard the voices, one
+of which he now recognized as hers. They skirted the thicket for a few
+moments, and then turned sharply into a trail which began to dip toward
+a ravine leading to the valley.
+
+“Why do you have to go all the way round?” he asked.
+
+“WE don't,” the girl replied with emphasis; “there's a shorter cut.”
+
+“Where?”
+
+“That's telling,” she answered shortly.
+
+“What's your name?” asked Lance, after a steep scramble and a drop into
+the ravine.
+
+“Flip.”
+
+“What?”
+
+“Flip.”
+
+“I mean your first name,--your front name.”
+
+“Flip.”
+
+“Flip! Oh, short for Felipa!”
+
+“It ain't Flipper,--it's Flip.” And she relapsed into silence.
+
+“You don't ask me mine?” suggested Lance.
+
+She did not vouchsafe a reply.
+
+“Then you don't want to know?”
+
+“Maybe Dad will. You can lie to HIM.”
+
+This direct answer apparently sustained the agreeable homicide for some
+moments. He moved onward, silently exuding admiration.
+
+“Only,” added Flip, with a sudden caution, “you'd better agree with me.”
+
+The trail here turned again abruptly and re-entered the canyon. Lance
+looked up, and noticed they were almost directly beneath the bay thicket
+and the plateau that towered far above them. The trail here showed signs
+of clearing, and the way was marked by felled trees and stumps of pines.
+
+“What does your father do here?” he finally asked. Flip remained silent,
+swinging the revolver. Lance repeated his question.
+
+“Burns charcoal and makes diamonds,” said Flip, looking at him from the
+corners of her eyes.
+
+“Makes diamonds?” echoed Lance.
+
+Flip nodded her head.
+
+“Many of 'em?” he continued carelessly.
+
+“Lots. But they're not big,” she returned, with a sidelong glance.
+
+“Oh, they're not big?” said Lance gravely.
+
+They had by this time reached a small staked inclosure, whence the
+sudden fluttering and cackle of poultry welcomed the return of the
+evident mistress of this sylvan retreat. It was scarcely imposing.
+Further on, a cooking stove under a tree, a saddle and bridle, a few
+household implements scattered about, indicated the “ranch.” Like most
+pioneer clearings, it was simply a disorganized raid upon nature that
+had left behind a desolate battlefield strewn with waste and decay.
+The fallen trees, the crushed thicket, the splintered limbs, the rudely
+torn-up soil, were made hideous by their grotesque juxtaposition with
+the wrecked fragments of civilization, in empty cans, broken bottles,
+battered hats, soleless boots, frayed stockings, cast-off rags, and
+the crowning absurdity of the twisted-wire skeleton of a hooped skirt
+hanging from a branch. The wildest defile, the densest thicket, the most
+virgin solitude, was less dreary and forlorn than this first footprint
+of man. The only redeeming feature of this prolonged bivouac was the
+cabin itself. Built of the half-cylindrical strips of pine bark, and
+thatched with the same material, it had a certain picturesque rusticity.
+But this was an accident of economy rather than taste, for which
+Flip apologized by saying that the bark of the pine was “no good” for
+charcoal.
+
+“I reckon Dad's in the woods,” she added, pausing before the open door
+of the cabin. “Oh, Dad!” Her voice, clear and high, seemed to fill
+the whole long canyon, and echoed from the green plateau above. The
+monotonous strokes of an axe were suddenly pretermitted, and somewhere
+from the depths of the close-set pines a voice answered “Flip.” There
+was a pause of a few moments, with some muttering, stumbling, and
+crackling in the underbrush, and then the sudden appearance of “Dad.”
+
+Had Lance first met him in the thicket, he would have been puzzled to
+assign his race to Mongolian, Indian, or Ethiopian origin. Perfunctory
+but incomplete washings of his hands and face, after charcoal burning,
+had gradually ground into his skin a grayish slate-pencil pallor,
+grotesquely relieved at the edges, where the washing had left off,
+with a border of a darker color. He looked like an overworked Christy
+minstrel with the briefest of intervals between his performances. There
+were black rims in the orbits of his eyes, as if he gazed feebly out of
+unglazed spectacles, which heightened his simian resemblance, already
+grotesquely exaggerated by what appeared to be repeated and spasmodic
+experiments in dyeing his gray hair. Without the slightest notice of
+Lance, he inflicted his protesting and querulous presence entirely on
+his daughter.
+
+“Well, what's up now? Yer ye are calling me from work an hour before
+noon. Dog my skin, ef I ever get fairly limbered up afore it's 'Dad!'
+and 'Oh, Dad!'”
+
+To Lance's intense satisfaction the girl received this harangue with
+an air of supreme indifference, and when “Dad” had relapsed into an
+unintelligible, and, as it seemed to Lance, a half-frightened muttering,
+she said coolly,--
+
+“Ye'd better drop that axe and scoot round getten' this stranger some
+breakfast and some grub to take with him. He's one of them San Francisco
+sports out here trout fishing in the branch. He's got adrift from his
+party, has lost his rod and fixins, and had to camp out last night in
+the Gin and Ginger Woods.”
+
+“That's just it; it's allers suthin like that,” screamed the old man,
+dashing his fist on his leg in a feeble, impotent passion, but without
+looking at Lance. “Why in blazes don't he go up to that there blamed
+hotel on the summit? Why in thunder--” But here he caught his daughter's
+large, freckled eyes full in his own. He blinked feebly, his voice fell
+into a tone of whining entreaty. “Now, look yer, Flip, it's playing
+it rather low down on the old man, this yer running' in o' tramps and
+desarted emigrants and cast-ashore sailors and forlorn widders and
+ravin' lunatics, on this yer ranch. I put it to you, Mister,” he said
+abruptly, turning to Lance for the first time, but as if he had already
+taken an active part in the conversation,--“I put it as a gentleman
+yourself, and a fair-minded sportin' man, if this is the square thing?”
+
+Before Lance could reply, Flip had already begun. “That's just it! D'ye
+reckon, being a sportin' man and an A 1 feller, he's goin' to waltz down
+inter that hotel, rigged out ez he is? D'ye reckon he's goin' to let
+his partners get the laugh outer him? D'ye reckon he's goin' to show his
+head outer this yer ranch till he can do it square? Not much! Go 'long.
+Dad, you're talking silly!”
+
+The old man weakened. He feebly trailed his axe between his legs to a
+stump and sat down, wiping his forehead with his sleeve, and imparting
+to it the appearance of a slate with a difficult sum partly rubbed out.
+He looked despairingly at Lance. “In course,” he said, with a deep sigh,
+“you naturally ain't got any money. In course you left your pocketbook,
+containing fifty dollars, under a stone, and can't find it. In course,”
+ he continued, as he observed Lance put his hand to his pocket, “you've
+only got a blank check on Wells, Fargo & Co. for a hundred dollars, and
+you'd like me to give you the difference?”
+
+Amused as Lance evidently was at this, his absolute admiration for Flip
+absorbed everything else. With his eyes fixed upon the girl, he briefly
+assured the old man that he would pay for everything he wanted. He did
+this with a manner quite different from the careless, easy attitude he
+had assumed toward Flip; at least the quick-witted girl noticed it, and
+wondered if he was angry. It was quite true that ever since his eye had
+fallen upon another of his own sex, its glance had been less frank and
+careless. Certain traits of possible impatience, which might develop
+into man-slaying, were coming to the fore. Yet a word or a gesture of
+Flip's was sufficient to change that manner, and when, with the fretful
+assistance of her father, she had prepared a somewhat sketchy and
+primitive repast, he questioned the old man about diamond-making. The
+eye of Dad kindled.
+
+“I want ter know how ye knew I was making diamonds,” he asked, with a
+certain bashful pettishness not unlike his daughter's.
+
+“Heard it in 'Frisco,” replied Lance, with glib mendacity, glancing at
+the girl.
+
+“I reckon they're gettin' sort of skeert down there--them jewelers,”
+ chuckled Dad, “yet it's in nater that their figgers will have to come
+down. It's only a question of the price of charcoal. I suppose they
+didn't tell you how I made the discovery?”
+
+Lance would have stopped the old man's narrative by saying that he
+knew the story, but he wished to see how far Flip lent herself to her
+father's delusion.
+
+“Ye see, one night about two years ago I had a pit o' charcoal burning
+out there, and tho' it had been a smouldering and a smoking and a
+blazing for nigh unto a month, somehow it didn't charcoal worth a cent.
+And yet, dog my skin, but the heat o' that er pit was suthin hidyus
+and frightful; ye couldn't stand within a hundred yards of it, and they
+could feel it on the stage road three miles over yon, t'other side the
+mountain. There was nights when me and Flip had to take our blankets
+up the ravine and camp out all night, and the back of this yer hut
+shriveled up like that bacon. It was about as nigh on to hell as any
+sample ye kin get here. Now, mebbe you think I built that air fire?
+Mebbe you'll allow the heat was just the nat'ral burning of that pit?”
+
+“Certainly,” said Lance, trying to see Flip's eyes, which were
+resolutely averted.
+
+“Thet's whar you'd be lyin'! That yar heat kem out of the bowels of the
+yearth,--kem up like out of a chimbley or a blast, and kep up that yar
+fire. And when she cools down a month after, and I got to strip her,
+there was a hole in the yearth, and a spring o' bilin', scaldin' water
+pourin' out of it ez big as your waist. And right in the middle of it
+was this yer.” He rose with the instinct of a skillful raconteur, and
+whisked from under his bunk a chamois leather bag, which he emptied
+on the table before them. It contained a small fragment of native rock
+crystal, half-fused upon a petrified bit of pine. It was so glaringly
+truthful, so really what it purported to be, that the most unscientific
+woodman or pioneer would have understood it at a glance. Lance raised
+his mirthful eyes to Flip.
+
+“It was cooled suddint,--stunted by the water,” said the girl, eagerly.
+She stopped, and as abruptly turned away her eyes and her reddened face.
+
+“That's it, that's just it,” continued the old man. “Thar's Flip, thar,
+knows it; she ain't no fool!” Lance did not speak, but turned a hard,
+unsympathizing look upon the old man, and rose almost roughly. The old
+man clutched his coat. “That's it, ye see. The carbon's just turning to
+di'mens. And stunted. And why? 'Cos the heat wasn't kep up long enough.
+Mebbe yer think I stopped thar? That ain't me. Thar's a pit out yar in
+the woods ez hez been burning six months; it hain't, in course, got the
+advantages o' the old one, for it's nat'ral heat. But I'm keeping that
+heat up. I've got a hole where I kin watch it every four hours. When
+the time comes, I'm thar! Don't you see? That's me! that's David
+Fairley,--that's the old man,--you bet!”
+
+“That's so,” said Lance, curtly. “And now, Mr. Fairley, if you'll
+hand me over a coat or a jacket till I can get past these fogs on the
+Monterey road, I won't keep you from your diamond pit.” He threw down a
+handful of silver on the table.
+
+“Ther's a deerskin jacket yer,” said the old man, “that one o' them
+vaqueros left for the price of a bottle of whiskey.”
+
+“I reckon it wouldn't suit the stranger,” said Flip, dubiously producing
+a much-worn, slashed, and braided vaquero's jacket. But it did suit
+Lance, who found it warm, and also had suddenly found a certain
+satisfaction in opposing Flip. When he had put it on, and nodded coldly
+to the old man, and carelessly to Flip, he walked to the door.
+
+“If you're going to take the Monterey road, I can show you a short cut
+to it,” said Flip, with a certain kind of shy civility.
+
+The paternal Fairley groaned. “That's it; let the chickens and the ranch
+go to thunder, as long as there's a stranger to trapse round with; go
+on!”
+
+Lance would have made some savage reply, but Flip interrupted. “You know
+yourself, Dad, it's a blind trail, and as that 'ere constable that kem
+out here hunting French Pete, couldn't find it, and had to go round by
+the canyon, like ez not the stranger would lose his way, and have to
+come back!” This dangerous prospect silenced the old man, and Flip and
+Lance stepped into the road together. They walked on for some moments
+without speaking. Suddenly Lance turned upon his companion.
+
+“You didn't swallow all that rot about the diamond, did you?” he asked,
+crossly.
+
+Flip ran a little ahead, as if to avoid a reply.
+
+“You don't mean to say that's the sort of hog wash the old man serves
+out to you regularly?” continued Lance, becoming more slangy in his ill
+temper.
+
+“I don't know that it's any consarn o' yours what I think,” replied
+Flip, hopping from boulder to boulder, as they crossed the bed of a dry
+watercourse.
+
+“And I suppose you've piloted round and dry-nussed every tramp and dead
+beat you've met since you came here,” continued Lance, with unmistakable
+ill humor. “How many have you helped over this road?”
+
+“It's a year since there was a Chinaman chased by some Irishmen from the
+Crossing into the brush about yer, and he was too afeered to come out,
+and nigh most starved to death in thar. I had to drag him out and start
+him on the mountain, for you couldn't get him back to the road. He was
+the last one but YOU.”
+
+“Do you reckon it's the right thing for a girl like you to run about
+with trash of this kind, and mix herself up with all sorts of rough and
+bad company?” said Lance.
+
+Flip stopped short. “Look! if you're goin' to talk like Dad, I'll go
+back.”
+
+The ridiculousness of such a resemblance struck him more keenly than a
+consciousness of his own ingratitude. He hastened to assure Flip that he
+was joking. When he had made his peace they fell into talk again, Lance
+becoming unselfish enough to inquire into one or two facts concerning
+her life which did not immediately affect him. Her mother had died on
+the plains when she was a baby, and her brother had run away from home
+at twelve. She fully expected to see him again, and thought he might
+sometime stray into their canyon. “That is why, then, you take so much
+stock in tramps,” said Lance. “You expect to recognize HIM?”
+
+“Well,” replied Flip, gravely, “there is suthing in THAT, and there's
+suthing in THIS: some o' these chaps might run across brother and do him
+a good turn for the sake of me.”
+
+“Like me, for instance?” suggested Lance.
+
+“Like you. You'd do him a good turn, wouldn't you?”
+
+“You bet!” said Lance, with a sudden emotion that quite startled him;
+“only don't you go to throwing yourself round promiscuously.” He was
+half-conscious of an irritating sense of jealousy, as he asked if any of
+her proteges had ever returned.
+
+“No,” said Flip, “no one ever did. It shows,” she added with sublime
+simplicity, “I had done 'em good, and they could get on alone. Don't
+it?”
+
+“It does,” responded Lance grimly. “Have you any other friends that
+come?”
+
+“Only the Postmaster at the Crossing.”
+
+“The Postmaster?”
+
+“Yes; he's reckonin' to marry me next year, if I'm big enough.”
+
+“And what do you reckon?” asked Lance earnestly.
+
+Flip began a series of distortions with her shoulders, ran on ahead,
+picked up a few pebbles and threw them into the wood, glanced back at
+Lance with swimming mottled eyes, that seemed a piquant incarnation of
+everything suggestive and tantalizing, and said,
+
+“That's telling.”
+
+They had by this time reached the spot where they were to separate.
+“Look,” said Flip, pointing to a faint deflection of their path, which
+seemed, however, to lose itself in the underbrush a dozen yards away,
+“ther's your trail. It gets plainer and broader the further you get on,
+but you must use your eyes here, and get to know it well afore you get
+into the fog. Good-by.”
+
+“Good-by.” Lance took her hand and drew her beside him. She was still
+redolent of the spices of the thicket, and to the young man's excited
+fancy seemed at that moment to personify the perfume and intoxication of
+her native woods. Half laughingly, half earnestly, he tried to kiss her;
+she struggled for some time strongly, but at the last moment yielded,
+with a slight return and the exchange of a subtle fire that thrilled
+him, and left him standing confused and astounded as she ran away. He
+watched her lithe, nymph-like figure disappear in the checkered shadows
+of the wood, and then he turned briskly down the half-hidden trail. His
+eyesight was keen, he made good progress, and was soon well on his way
+toward the distant ridge.
+
+But Flip's return had not been as rapid. When she reached the wood she
+crept to its beetling verge, and, looking across the canyon, watched
+Lance's figure as it vanished and reappeared in the shadows and
+sinuosities of the ascent. When he reached the ridge the outlying fog
+crept across the summit, caught him in its embrace, and wrapped him
+from her gaze. Flip sighed, raised herself, put her alternate foot on
+a stump, and took a long pull at her too-brief stockings. When she had
+pulled down her skirt and endeavored once more to renew the intimacy
+that had existed in previous years between the edge of her petticoat and
+the top of her stockings, she sighed again, and went home.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+
+For six months the sea fogs monotonously came and went along the
+Monterey coast; for six months they beleaguered the Coast Range with
+afternoon sorties of white hosts that regularly swept over the mountain
+crest, and were as regularly beaten back again by the leveled lances of
+the morning sun. For six months that white veil which had once hidden
+Lance Harriott in its folds returned without him. For that amiable
+outlaw no longer needed disguise or hiding-place. The swift wave of
+pursuit that had dashed him on the summit had fallen back, and the next
+day was broken and scattered. Before the week had passed, a regular
+judicial inquiry relieved his crime of premeditation, and showed it to
+be a rude duel of two armed and equally desperate men. From a secure
+vantage in a seacoast town Lance challenged a trial by his peers, and,
+as an already prejudged man escaping from his executioners, obtained a
+change of venue. Regular justice, seated by the calm Pacific, found
+the action of an interior, irregular jury rash and hasty. Lance was
+liberated on bail.
+
+The Postmaster at Fisher's Crossing had just received the weekly mail
+and express from San Francisco, and was engaged in examining it. It
+consisted of five letters and two parcels. Of these, three of the
+letters and the two parcels were directed to Flip. It was not the
+first time during the last six months that this extraordinary event had
+occurred, and the curiosity of the Crossing was duly excited. As Flip
+had never called personally for the letters or parcels, but had sent one
+of her wild, irregular scouts or henchmen to bring them, and as she was
+seldom seen at the Crossing or on the stage road, that curiosity was
+never satisfied. The disappointment to the Postmaster--a man past the
+middle age--partook of a sentimental nature. He looked at the letters
+and parcels; he looked at his watch; it was yet early, he could
+return by noon. He again examined the addresses; they were in the same
+handwriting as the previous letters. His mind was made up, he would
+deliver them himself. The poetic, soulful side of his mission was
+delicately indicated by a pale blue necktie, a clean shirt, and a small
+package of gingernuts, of which Flip was extravagantly fond.
+
+The common road to Fairley's Ranch was by the stage turnpike to a point
+below the Gin and Ginger Woods, where the prudent horseman usually left
+his beast and followed the intersecting trail afoot. It was here that
+the Postmaster suddenly observed on the edge of the wood the figure of
+an elegantly-dressed woman; she was walking slowly, and apparently at
+her ease; one hand held her skirts lightly gathered between her gloved
+fingers, the other slowly swung a riding whip. Was it a picnic of some
+people from Monterey or Santa Cruz? The spectacle was novel enough to
+justify his coming nearer. Suddenly she withdrew into the wood; he lost
+sight of her; she was gone. He remembered, however, that Flip was
+still to be seen, and as the steep trail was beginning to tax all his
+energies, he was fain to hurry forward. The sun was nearly vertical when
+he turned into the canyon, and saw the bark roof of the cabin beyond. At
+almost the same moment Flip appeared, flushed and panting, in the road
+before him.
+
+“You've got something for me,” she said, pointing to the parcel and
+letters. Completely taken by surprise, the Postmaster mechanically
+yielded them up, and as instantly regretted it. “They're paid for,”
+ continued Flip, observing his hesitation.
+
+“That's so,” stammered the official of the Crossing, seeing his last
+chance of knowing the contents of the parcel vanish; “but I thought ez
+it's a valooable package, maybe ye might want to examine it to see that
+it was all right afore ye receipted for it.”
+
+“I'll risk it,” said Flip, coolly, “and if it ain't right I'll let ye
+know.”
+
+As the girl seemed inclined to retire with her property, the Postmaster
+was driven to other conversation. “We ain't had the pleasure of seeing
+you down at the Crossing for a month o' Sundays,” he began, with airy
+yet pronounced gallantry. “Some folks let on you was keepin' company
+with some feller like Bijah Brown, and you were getting a little too
+set up for the Crossing.” The individual here mentioned being the county
+butcher, and supposed to exhibit his hopeless affection for Flip by
+making a long and useless divergence from his weekly route to enter the
+canyon for “orders,” Flip did not deem it necessary to reply. “Then I
+allowed how ez you might have company,” he continued; “I reckon there's
+some city folks up at the summit. I saw a mighty smart, fash'n'ble gal
+cavorting round. Had no end o' style and fancy fixin's. That's my kind,
+I tell you. I just weaken on that sort o' gal,” he continued, in the
+firm belief that he had awakened Flip's jealousy, as he glanced at her
+well-worn homespun frock, and found her eyes suddenly fixed on his own.
+
+“Strange I ain't got to see her yet,” she replied coolly, shouldering
+her parcel, and quite ignoring any sense of obligation to him for his
+extra-official act.
+
+“But you might get to see her at the edge of the Gin and Ginger Woods,”
+ he persisted feebly, in a last effort to detain her; “if you'll take a
+pasear there with me.” Flip's only response was to walk on toward the
+cabin, whence, with a vague complimentary suggestion of “droppin' in to
+pass the time o' day” with her father, the Postmaster meekly followed.
+
+The paternal Fairley, once convinced that his daughter's new companion
+required no pecuniary or material assistance from his hands, relaxed
+to the extent of entering into a querulous confidence with him, during
+which Flip took the opportunity of slipping away. As Fairley had that
+infelicitous tendency of most weak natures, to unconsciously exaggerate
+unimportant details in their talk, the Postmaster presently became
+convinced that the butcher was a constant and assiduous suitor of
+Flip's. The absurdity of his sending parcels and letters by post when he
+might bring them himself did not strike the official. On the contrary,
+he believed it to be a master stroke of cunning. Fired by jealousy and
+Flip's indifference, he “deemed it his duty”--using that facile form of
+cowardly offensiveness--to betray Flip.
+
+Of which she was happily oblivious. Once away from the cabin, she
+plunged into the woods, with the parcel swung behind her like a
+knapsack. Leaving the trail, she presently struck off in a straight line
+through cover and underbrush with the unerring instinct of an animal,
+climbing hand over hand the steepest ascent, or fluttering like a bird
+from branch to branch down the deepest declivity. She soon reached
+that part of the trail where the susceptible Postmaster had seen the
+fascinating unknown. Assuring herself she was not followed, she crept
+through the thicket until she reached a little waterfall and basin that
+had served the fugitive Lance for a bath. The spot bore signs of later
+and more frequent occupancy, and when Flip carefully removed some bark
+and brushwood from a cavity in the rock and drew forth various folded
+garments, it was evident she had used it as a sylvan dressing-room. Here
+she opened the parcel; it contained a small and delicate shawl of yellow
+China crepe. Flip instantly threw it over her shoulders and stepped
+hurriedly toward the edge of the wood. Then she began to pass backward
+and forward before the trunk of a tree. At first nothing was visible on
+the tree, but a closer inspection showed a large pane of ordinary window
+glass stuck in the fork of the branches. It was placed at such a cunning
+angle against the darkness of the forest opening that it made a soft and
+mysterious mirror, not unlike a Claude Lorraine glass, wherein not only
+the passing figure of the young girl was seen, but the dazzling green
+and gold of the hillside, and the far-off silhouetted crests of the
+Coast Range.
+
+But this was evidently only a prelude to a severer rehearsal. When she
+returned to the waterfall she unearthed from her stores a large piece
+of yellow soap and some yards of rough cotton “sheeting.” These she
+deposited beside the basin and again crept to the edge of the wood to
+assure herself that she was alone. Satisfied that no intruding foot
+had invaded that virgin bower, she returned to her bath and began
+to undress. A slight wind followed her, and seemed to whisper to the
+circumjacent trees. It appeared to waken her sister naiads and nymphs,
+who, joining their leafy fingers, softly drew around her a gently moving
+band of trembling lights and shadows, of flecked sprays and inextricably
+mingled branches, and involved her in a chaste sylvan obscurity, veiled
+alike from pursuing god or stumbling shepherd. Within these hallowed
+precincts was the musical ripple of laughter and falling water, and at
+times the glimpse of a lithe brier-caught limb, or a ray of sunlight
+trembling over bright flanks, or the white austere outline of a childish
+bosom.
+
+When she drew again the leafy curtain, and once more stepped out of
+the wood, she was completely transformed. It was the figure that had
+appeared to the Postmaster; the slight, erect, graceful form of a
+young woman modishly attired. It was Flip, but Flip made taller by the
+lengthened skirt and clinging habiliments of fashion. Flip freckled,
+but, through the cunning of a relief of yellow color in her gown, her
+piquant brown-shot face and eyes brightened and intensified until she
+seemed like a spicy odor made visible. I cannot affirm that the judgment
+of Flip's mysterious modiste was infallible, or that the taste of
+Mr. Lance Harriott, her patron, was fastidious; enough that it was
+picturesque, and perhaps not more glaring and extravagant than the color
+in which Spring herself had once clothed the sere hillside where Flip
+was now seated. The phantom mirror in the tree fork caught and held her
+with the sky, the green leaves, the sunlight and all the graciousness
+of her surroundings, and the wind gently tossed her hair and the gay
+ribbons of her gypsy hat. Suddenly she started. Some remote sound in
+the trail below, inaudible to any ear less fine than hers, arrested her
+breathing. She rose swiftly and darted into cover.
+
+Ten minutes passed. The sun was declining; the white fog was beginning
+to creep over the Coast Range. From the edge of the wood Cinderella
+appeared, disenchanted, and in her homespun garments. The clock had
+struck--the spell was past. As she disappeared down the trail even
+the magic mirror, moved by the wind, slipped from the tree top to the
+ground, and became a piece of common glass.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+
+The events of the day had produced a remarkable impression on the facial
+aspect of the charcoal-burning Fairley. Extraordinary processes of
+thought, indicated by repeated rubbing of his forehead, had produced a
+high light in the middle and a corresponding deepening of shadow at the
+sides, until it bore the appearance of a perfect sphere. It was this
+forehead that confronted Flip reproachfully as became a deceived
+comrade, menacingly as became an outraged parent in the presence of a
+third party and--a Postmaster!
+
+“Fine doin's this, yer receivin' clandecent bundles and letters, eh?”
+ he began. Flip sent one swift, withering look of contempt at the
+Postmaster, who at once becoming invertebrate and groveling, mumbled
+that he must “get on” to the Crossing, and rose to go. But the old
+man, who had counted on his presence for moral support, and was clearly
+beginning to hate him for precipitating this scene with his daughter,
+whom he feared, violently protested.
+
+“Sit down, can't ye? Don't you see you're a witness?” he screamed
+hysterically.
+
+It was a fatal suggestion. “Witness,” repeated Flip, scornfully.
+
+“Yes, a witness! He gave ye letters and bundles.”
+
+“Weren't they directed to me?” asked Flip.
+
+“Yes,” said the Postmaster, hesitatingly; “in course, yes.”
+
+“Do YOU lay claim to them?” she said, turning to her father.
+
+“No,” responded the old man.
+
+“Do you?” sharply, to the Postmaster.
+
+“No,” he replied.
+
+“Then,” said Flip, coolly, “if you're not claimin' 'em for yourself, and
+you hear father say they ain't his, I reckon the less you have to say
+about 'em the better.”
+
+“Thar's suthin' in that,” said the old man, shamelessly abandoning the
+Postmaster.
+
+“Then why don't she say who sent 'em, and what they are like,” said the
+Postmaster, “if there's nothin' in it?”
+
+“Yes,” echoed Dad. “Flip, why don't you?”
+
+Without answering the direct question, Flip turned upon her father.
+
+“Maybe you forget how you used to row and tear round here because tramps
+and such like came to the ranch for suthin', and I gave it to 'em? Maybe
+you'll quit tearin' round and letting yourself be made a fool of now
+by that man, just because one of those tramps gets up and sends us some
+presents back in turn?”
+
+“'Twasn't me, Flip,” said the old man, deprecatingly, but glaring at the
+astonished Postmaster. “Twasn't my doin'. I allus said if you cast your
+bread on the waters it would come back to you by return mail. The fact
+is, the Gov'ment is gettin' too high-handed! Some o' these bloated
+officials had better climb down before next leckshen.”
+
+“Maybe,” continued Flip to her father, without looking at her
+discomfited visitor, “ye'd better find out whether one of those
+officials comes up to this yer ranch to steal away a gal about my own
+size, or to get points about diamond-making. I reckon he don't travel
+round to find out who writes all the letters that go through the Post
+Office.”
+
+The Postmaster had seemingly miscalculated the old man's infirm temper
+and the daughter's skillful use of it. He was unprepared for Flip's
+boldness and audacity, and when he saw that both barrels of the
+accusation had taken effect on the charcoal burner, who was rising
+with epileptic rage, he fairly turned and fled. The old man would have
+followed him with objurgation beyond the door, but for the restraining
+hand of Flip.
+
+Baffled and beaten, nevertheless Fate was not wholly unkind to the
+retreating suitor. Near the Gin and Ginger Woods he picked up a letter
+which had fallen from Flip's pocket. He recognized the writing, and did
+not scruple to read it. It was not a love epistle,--at least, not such a
+one as he would have written,--it did not give the address nor the name
+of the correspondent; but he read the following with greedy eyes:--
+
+
+“Perhaps it's just as well that you don't rig yourself out for the
+benefit of those dead beats at the Crossing, or any tramp that might
+hang round the ranch. Keep all your style for me when I come. I can't
+tell you when, it's mighty uncertain before the rainy season. But
+I'm coming soon. Don't go back on your promise about lettin up on the
+tramps, and being a little more high-toned. And don't you give 'em so
+much. It's true I sent you hats TWICE. I clean forgot all about the
+first; but I wouldn't have given a ten-dollar hat to a nigger woman
+who had a sick baby because I had an extra hat. I'd have let that baby
+slide. I forgot to ask whether the skirt is worn separately; I must see
+the dressmaking sharp about it; but I think you'll want something on
+besides a jacket and skirt; at least, it looks like it up here. I don't
+think you could manage a piano down there without the old man knowing
+it, and raisin' the devil generally. I promised you I'd let up on him.
+Mind you keep all your promises to me. I'm glad you're gettin' on with
+the six-shooter; tin cans are good at fifteen yards, but try it on
+suthin' that MOVES! I forgot to say that I am on the track of your
+big brother. It's a three years' old track, and he was in Arizona. The
+friend who told me didn't expatiate much on what he did there, but I
+reckon they had a high old time. If he's above the earth I'll find him,
+you bet. The yerba buena and the southern wood came all right,--they
+smelt like you. Say, Flip, do you remember the last--the VERY
+last--thing that happened when you said 'Good-by' on the trail? Don't
+let me ever find out that you've let anybody else kiss--”
+
+
+But here the virtuous indignation of the Postmaster found vent in an
+oath. He threw the letter away. He retained of it only two facts,--Flip
+HAD a brother who was missing; she had a lover present in the flesh.
+
+How much of the substance of this and previous letters Flip had confided
+to her father I cannot say. If she suppressed anything it was probably
+that which affected Lance's secret alone, and it was doubtful how much
+of that she herself knew. In her own affairs she was frank without being
+communicative, and never lost her shy obstinacy even with her father.
+Governing the old man as completely as she did, she appeared most
+embarrassed when she was most dominant; she had her own way without
+lifting her voice or her eyes; she seemed oppressed by mauvaise honte
+when she was most triumphant; she would end a discussion with a shy
+murmur addressed to herself, or a single gesture of self-consciousness.
+
+The disclosure of her strange relations with an unknown man and the
+exchange of presents and confidences seemed to suddenly awake Fairley to
+a vague, uneasy sense of some unfulfilled duties as a parent. The first
+effect of this on his weak nature was a peevish antagonism to the cause
+of it. He had long, fretful monologues on the vanity of diamond-making,
+if accompanied with a “pestering” by “interlopers;” on the wickedness
+of concealment and conspiracy, and their effects on charcoal-burning;
+on the nurturing of spies and “adders” in the family circle, and on the
+seditiousness of dark and mysterious councils in which a gray-haired
+father was left out. It was true that a word or look from Flip generally
+brought these monologues to an inglorious and abrupt termination, but
+they were none the less lugubrious as long as they lasted. In time
+they were succeeded by an affectation of contrite apology and
+self-depreciation. “Don't go out o' the way to ask the old man,” he
+would say, referring to the quantity of bacon to be ordered; “it's
+nat'ral a young gal should have her own advisers.” The state of the
+flour barrel would also produce a like self-abasement. “Unless ye're
+already in correspondence about more flour, ye might take the opinion o'
+the first tramp ye meet ez to whether Santa Cruz Mills is a good
+brand, but don't ask the old man.” If Flip was in conversation with
+the butcher, Fairley would obtrusively retire with the hope “he wasn't
+intrudin' on their secrets.”
+
+These phases of her father's weakness were not frequent enough to excite
+her alarm, but she could not help noticing they were accompanied with a
+seriousness unusual to him. He began to be tremulously watchful of her,
+returning often from work at an earlier hour, and lingering by the cabin
+in the morning. He brought absurd and useless presents for her, and
+presented them with a nervous anxiety, poorly concealed by an assumption
+of careless, paternal generosity. “Suthin' I picked up at the Crossin'
+for ye to-day,” he would say, airily, and retire to watch the effect of
+a pair of shoes two sizes too large, or a fur cap in September. He
+would have hired a cheap parlor organ for her, but for the apparently
+unexpected revelation that she couldn't play. He had received the news
+of a clue to his long-lost son without emotion, but lately he seemed to
+look upon it as a foregone conclusion, and one that necessarily solved
+the question of companionship for Flip. “In course, when you've got your
+own flesh and blood with ye, ye can't go foolin' around with strangers.”
+ These autumnal blossoms of affection, I fear, came too late for any
+effect upon Flip, precociously matured by her father's indifference
+and selfishness. But she was good humored, and, seeing him seriously
+concerned, gave him more of her time, even visited him in the sacred
+seclusion of the “diamond pit,” and listened with far-off eyes to his
+fitful indictment of all things outside his grimy laboratory. Much
+of this patient indifference came with a capricious change in her own
+habits; she no longer indulged in the rehearsal of dress, she packed
+away her most treasured garments, and her leafy boudoir knew her no
+more. She sometimes walked on the hillside, and often followed the trail
+she had taken with Lance when she led him to the ranch. She once or
+twice extended her walk to the spot where she had parted from him,
+and as often came shyly away, her eyes downcast and her face warm with
+color. Perhaps because these experiences and some mysterious instinct of
+maturing womanhood had left a story in her eyes, which her two adorers,
+the Postmaster and the Butcher, read with passion, she became famous
+without knowing it. Extravagant stories of her fascinations brought
+strangers into the valley. The effect upon her father may be imagined.
+Lance could not have desired a more effective guardian than he proved to
+be in this emergency. Those who had been told of this hidden pearl were
+surprised to find it so jealously protected.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+
+The long, parched summer had drawn to its dusty close. Much of it was
+already blown abroad and dissipated on trail and turnpike, or crackled
+in harsh, unelastic fibres on hillside and meadow. Some of it had
+disappeared in the palpable smoke by day and fiery crests by night of
+burning forests. The besieging fogs on the Coast Range daily thinned
+their hosts, and at last vanished. The wind changed from northwest to
+southwest. The salt breath of the sea was on the summit. And then
+one day the staring, unchanged sky was faintly touched with remote
+mysterious clouds, and grew tremulous in expression. The next morning
+dawned upon a newer face in the heavens, on changed woods, on altered
+outlines, on vanished crests, on forgotten distances. It was raining!
+
+Four weeks of this change, with broken spaces of sunlight and intense
+blue aerial islands, and then a storm set in. All day the summit pines
+and redwoods rocked in the blast. At times the onset of the rain seemed
+to be held back by the fury of the gale, or was visibly seen in sharp
+waves on the hillside. Unknown and concealed watercourses suddenly
+overflowed the trails, pools became lakes and brooks rivers. Hidden from
+the storm, the sylvan silence of sheltered valleys was broken by the
+impetuous rush of waters; even the tiny streamlet that traversed Flip's
+retreat in the Gin and Ginger Woods became a cascade.
+
+The storm drove Fairley from his couch early. The falling of a large
+tree across the trail, and the sudden overflow of a small stream beside
+it, hastened his steps. But he was doomed to encounter what was to him a
+more disagreeable object--a human figure. By the bedraggled drapery that
+flapped and fluttered in the wind, by the long, unkempt hair that hid
+the face and eyes, and by the grotesquely misplaced bonnet, the old man
+recognized one of his old trespassers,--an Indian squaw.
+
+“Clear out 'er that! Come, make tracks, will ye?” the old man screamed;
+but here the wind stopped his voice, and drove him against a hazel bush.
+
+“Me heap sick,” answered the squaw, shivering through her muddy shawl.
+
+“I'll make ye a heap sicker if ye don't vamose the ranch,” continued
+Fairley, advancing.
+
+“Me wantee Wangee girl. Wangee girl give me heap grub,” said the squaw,
+without moving.
+
+“You bet your life,” groaned the old man to himself. Nevertheless
+an idea struck him. “Ye ain't brought no presents, hev ye?” he asked
+cautiously. “Ye ain't got no pooty things for poor Wangee girl?” he
+continued, insinuatingly.
+
+“Me got heap cache nuts and berries,” said the squaw.
+
+“Oh, in course! in course! That's just it,” screamed Fairley; “you've
+got 'em cached only two mile from yer, and you'll go and get 'em for a
+half dollar, cash down.”
+
+“Me bring Wangee girl to cache,” replied the Indian, pointing to the
+wood. “Honest Injin.”
+
+Another bright idea struck Mr. Fairley. But it required some
+elaboration. Hurrying the squaw with him through the pelting rain, he
+reached the shelter of the corral. Vainly the shivering aborigine drew
+her tightly bandaged papoose closer to her square, flat breast, and
+looked longingly toward the cabin; the old man backed her against the
+palisade. Here he cautiously imparted his dark intentions to employ her
+to keep watch and ward over the ranch, and especially over its young
+mistress--“clear out all the tramps 'ceptin' yourself, and I'll keep
+ye in grub and rum.” Many and deliberate repetitions of this offer in
+various forms at last seemed to affect the squaw; she nodded violently,
+and echoed the last word “rum.” “Now,” she added. The old man hesitated;
+she was in possession of his secret; he groaned, and, promising an
+immediate installment of liquor, led her to the cabin.
+
+The door was so securely fastened against the impact of the storm that
+some moments elapsed before the bar was drawn, and the old man had
+become impatient and profane. When it was partly opened by Flip he
+hastily slipped in, dragging the squaw after him, and cast one
+single suspicious glance around the rude apartment which served as a
+sitting-room. Flip had apparently been writing. A small inkstand was
+still on the board table, but her paper had evidently been concealed
+before she allowed them to enter. The squaw instantly squatted before
+the adobe hearth, warmed her bundled baby, and left the ceremony
+of introduction to her companion. Flip regarded the two with calm
+preoccupation and indifference. The only thing that touched her interest
+was the old squaw's draggled skirt and limp neckerchief. They were
+Flip's own, long since abandoned and cast off in the Gin and Ginger
+Woods. “Secrets again,” whined Fairley, still eying Flip furtively.
+“Secrets again, in course--in course--jiss so. Secrets that must be kep
+from the ole man. Dark doin's by one's own flesh and blood. Go on! go
+on! Don't mind me.” Flip did not reply. She had even lost the interest
+in her old dress. Perhaps it had only touched some note in unison with
+her revery.
+
+“Can't ye get the poor critter some whiskey?” he queried, fretfully. “Ye
+used to be peart enuff before.” As Flip turned to the corner to lift
+the demijohn, Fairley took occasion to kick the squaw with his foot, and
+indicate by extravagant pantomime that the bargain was not to be alluded
+to before the girl. Flip poured out some whiskey in a tin cup, and,
+approaching the squaw, handed it to her. “It's like ez not,” continued
+Fairley to his daughter, but looking at the squaw, “that she'll be
+huntin' the woods off and on, and kinder looking after the last pit near
+the Madronos; ye'll give her grub and licker ez she likes. Well, d'ye
+hear, Flip? Are ye moonin' agin with yer secrets? What's gone with ye?”
+
+If the child were dreaming, it was a delicious dream. Her magnetic eyes
+were suffused by a strange light, as though the eye itself had blushed;
+her full pulse showed itself more in the rounding outline of her cheek
+than in any deepening of color; indeed, if there was any heightening of
+tint, it was in her freckles, which fairly glistened like tiny spangles.
+Her eyes were downcast, her shoulders slightly bent, but her voice was
+low and clear and thoughtful as ever.
+
+“One o' the big pines above the Madrono pit has blown over into the
+run,” she said. “It's choked up the water, and it's risin' fast. Like ez
+not it's pourin' over into the pit by this time.”
+
+The old man rose with a fretful cry. “And why in blames didn't you say
+so first?” he screamed, catching up his axe and rushing to the door.
+
+“Ye didn't give me a chance,” said Flip, raising her eyes for the first
+time. With an impatient imprecation, Fairley darted by her and rushed
+into the wood. In an instant she had shut the door and bolted it. In
+the same instant the squaw arose, dashed the long hair not only from her
+eyes, but from her head, tore away her shawl and blanket, and revealed
+the square shoulders of Lance Harriott! Flip remained leaning against
+the door; but the young man in rising dropped the bandaged papoose,
+which rolled from his lap into the fire. Flip, with a cry, sprang toward
+it; but Lance caught her by the waist with one arm, as with the other he
+dragged the bundle from the flames.
+
+“Don't be alarmed,” he said, gayly, “it's only--”
+
+“What?” said Flip, trying to disengage herself.
+
+“My coat and trousers.”
+
+Flip laughed, which encouraged Lance to another attempt to kiss her. She
+evaded it by diving her head into his waistcoat, and saying, “There's
+father.”
+
+“But he's gone to clear away that tree?” suggested Lance.
+
+One of Flip's significant silences followed.
+
+“Oh, I see,” he laughed. “That was a plan to get him away! Ah!” She had
+released herself.
+
+“Why did you come like that?” she said, pointing to his wig and blanket.
+
+“To see if you'd know me,” he responded.
+
+“No,” said Flip, dropping her eyes. “It's to keep other people from
+knowing you. You're hidin' agin.”
+
+“I am,” returned Lance; “but,” he interrupted, “it's only the same old
+thing.”
+
+“But you wrote from Monterey that it was all over,” she persisted.
+
+“So it would have been,” he said gloomily, “but for some dog down here
+who is hunting up an old scent. I'll spot him yet, and--” He stopped
+suddenly, with such utter abstraction of hatred in his fixed and
+glittering eyes that she almost feared him. She laid her hand quite
+unconsciously on his arm. He grasped it; his face changed.
+
+“I couldn't wait any longer to see you, Flip, so I came here anyway,”
+ he went on. “I thought to hang round and get a chance to speak to you
+first, when I fell afoul of the old man. He didn't know me, and tumbled
+right in my little game. Why, do you believe he wants to hire me for my
+grub and liquor, to act as a sort of sentry over you and the ranch?”
+ And here he related with great gusto the substance of his interview. “I
+reckon as he's that suspicious,” he concluded, “I'd better play it out
+now as I've begun, only it's mighty hard I can't see you here before the
+fire in your fancy toggery, Flip, but must dodge in and out of the wet
+underbrush in these yer duds of yours that I picked up in the old place
+in the Gin and Ginger Woods.”
+
+“Then you came here just to see me?” asked Flip.
+
+“I did.”
+
+“For only that?”
+
+“Only that.”
+
+Flip dropped her eyes. Lance had got his other arm around her waist, but
+her resisting little hand was still potent.
+
+“Listen,” she said at last without looking up, but apparently talking to
+the intruding arm, “when Dad comes I'll get him to send you to watch the
+diamond pit. It isn't far; it's warm, and”--
+
+“What?”
+
+“I'll come, after a bit, and see you. Quit foolin' now. If you'd only
+have come here like yourself--like--like--a white man.”
+
+“The old man,” interrupted Lance, “would have just passed me on to the
+summit. I couldn't have played the lost fisherman on him at this time of
+year.”
+
+“Ye could have been stopped at the Crossing by high water, you silly,”
+ said the girl. “It was.” This grammatical obscurity referred to the
+stage coach.
+
+“Yes, but I might have been tracked to this cabin. And look here, Flip,”
+ he said, suddenly straightening himself, and lifting the girl's face to
+a level with his own, “I don't want you to lie any more for me. It ain't
+right.”
+
+“All right. Ye needn't go to the pit, then, and I won't come.”
+
+“Flip!”
+
+“And here's Dad coming. Quick!”
+
+Lance chose to put his own interpretation on this last adjuration. The
+resisting little hand was now lying quite limp on his shoulder, He drew
+her brown, bright face near his own, felt her spiced breath on his lips,
+his cheeks, his hot eyelids, his swimming eyes, kissed her, hurriedly
+replaced his wig and blanket, and dropped beside the fire with the
+tremulous laugh of youth and innocent first passion. Flip had withdrawn
+to the window, and was looking out upon the rocking pines.
+
+“He don't seem to be coming,” said Lance, with a half-shy laugh.
+
+“No,” responded Flip demurely, pressing her hot oval cheek against the
+wet panes; “I reckon I was mistaken. You're sure,” she added, looking
+resolutely another way, but still trembling like a magnetic needle
+toward Lance, as he moved slightly before the fire, “you're SURE you'd
+like me to come to you?”
+
+“Sure, Flip?”
+
+“Hush!” said Flip, as this reassuring query of reproachful astonishment
+appeared about to be emphasized by a forward amatory dash of Lance's;
+“hush! he's coming this time, sure.”
+
+It was, indeed, Fairley, exceedingly wet, exceedingly bedraggled,
+exceedingly sponged out as to color, and exceedingly profane. It
+appeared that there was, indeed, a tree that had fallen in the
+“run,” but that, far from diverting the overflow into the pit, it had
+established “back water,” which had forced another outlet. All this
+might have been detected at once by any human intellect not distracted
+by correspondence with strangers, and enfeebled by habitually scorning
+the intellect of its own progenitor. This reckless selfishness had
+further only resulted in giving “rheumatics” to that progenitor, who now
+required the external administration of opodeldoc to his limbs, and the
+internal administration of whiskey. Having thus spoken, Mr. Fairley,
+with great promptitude and infantine simplicity, at once bared two legs
+of entirely different colors and mutely waited for his daughter to
+rub them. If Flip did this all unconsciously, and with the mechanical
+dexterity of previous habit, it was because she did not quite understand
+the savage eyes and impatient gestures of Lance in his encompassing wig
+and blanket, and because it helped her to voice her thought.
+
+“Ye'll never be able to take yer watch at the diamond pit to-night,
+Dad,” she said; “and I've been reck'nin' you might set the squaw there
+instead. I can show her what to do.”
+
+But to Flip's momentary discomfiture, her father promptly objected.
+“Mebbee I've got suthin' else for her to do. Mebbee I may have my
+secrets, too--eh?” he said, with dark significance, at the same time
+administering a significant nudge to Lance, which kept up the young
+man's exasperation. “No, she'll rest yer a bit just now. I'll set her to
+watchin' suthin' else, like as not, when I want her.” Flip fell into one
+of her suggestive silences. Lance watched her earnestly, mollified by a
+single furtive glance from her significant eyes; the rain dashed against
+the windows, and occasionally spattered and hissed in the hearth of the
+broad chimney, and Mr. David Fairley, somewhat assuaged by the
+internal administration of whiskey, grew more loquacious. The genius of
+incongruity and inconsistency which generally ruled his conduct came
+out with freshened vigor under the gentle stimulation of spirit. “On an
+evening like this,” he began, comfortably settling himself on the floor
+beside the chimney, “ye might rig yerself out in them new duds and fancy
+fixin's that that Sacramento shrimp sent ye, and let your own flesh and
+blood see ye. If that's too much to do for your old dad, ye might do it
+to please that digger squaw as a Christian act.” Whether in the hidden
+depths of the old man's consciousness there was a feeling of paternal
+vanity in showing this wretched aborigine the value and importance
+of the treasure she was about to guard, I cannot say. Flip darted an
+interrogatory look at Lance, who nodded a quiet assent, and she flew
+into the inner room. She did not linger on the details of her toilet,
+but reappeared almost the next moment in her new finery; buttoning the
+neck of her gown as she entered the room, and chastely stopping at the
+window to characteristically pull up her stocking. The peculiarity of
+her situation increased her usual shyness; she played with the black and
+gold beads of a handsome necklace,--Lance's last gift,--as the merest
+child might; her unbuckled shoe gave the squaw a natural opportunity of
+showing her admiration and devotion by insisting upon buckling it, and
+gave Lance, under that disguise, an opportunity of covertly kissing
+the little foot and ankle in the shadow of the chimney; an event which
+provoked slight hysterical symptoms in Flip, and caused her to sit
+suddenly down in spite of the remonstrances of her parent. “Ef you can't
+quit gigglin' and squirmin' like an Injin baby yourself, ye'd better git
+rid o' them duds,” he ejaculated with peevish scorn.
+
+Yet, under this perfunctory rebuke, his weak vanity could not be hidden,
+and he enjoyed the evident admiration of a creature whom he believed to
+be half-witted and degraded all the more keenly because it did not make
+him jealous. She could not take Flip from him. Rendered garrulous by
+liquor, he went to voice his contempt for those who might attempt
+it. Taking advantage of his daughter's absence to resume her homely
+garments, he whispered confidentially to Lance,--
+
+“Ye see these yer fine dresses, ye might think is presents. Pr'aps
+Flip lets on they are? Pr'aps she don't know any better. But they ain't
+presents. They're only samples o' dressmaking and jewelry that a vain,
+conceited shrimp of a feller up in Sacramento sends down here to get
+customers for. In course I'm to pay for 'em. In course he reckons I'm
+to do it. In course I calkilate to do it; but he needn't try to play 'em
+off as presents. He talks suthin' o' coming down here, sportin' hisself
+off on Flip as a fancy buck! Not ez long ez the old man's here, you
+bet.” Thoroughly carried away by his fancied wrongs, it was perhaps
+fortunate that he did not observe the flashing eyes of Lance behind his
+lank and lustreless wig; but seeing only the figure of Lance, as he had
+conjured him, he went on: “That's why I want you to hang around her.
+Hang around her ontil my boy,--him that's comin' home on a visit,--gets
+here, and I reckon he'll clear out that yar Sacramento counter-jumper.
+Only let me get a sight o' him afore Flip does, eh? D'ye hear? Dog my
+skin if I don't believe the d----d Injin's drunk.” It was fortunate that
+at that moment Flip reappeared, and, dropping on the hearth between her
+father and the infuriated Lance, let her hand slip in his with a warning
+pressure. The light touch momentarily recalled him to himself and her,
+but not until the quick-witted girl had had revealed to her in one
+startled wave of consciousness the full extent of Lance's infirmity
+of temper. With the instinct of awakened tenderness came a sense of
+responsibility, and a vague premonition of danger. The coy blossom
+of her heart was scarce unfolded before it was chilled by approaching
+shadows. Fearful of, she knew not what, she hesitated. Every moment of
+Lance's stay was imperiled by a single word that might spring from
+his suppressed white lips; beyond and above the suspicions his sudden
+withdrawal might awaken in her father's breast, she was dimly conscious
+of some mysterious terror without that awaited him. She listened to the
+furious onslaught of the wind upon the sycamores beside their cabin, and
+thought she heard it there; she listened to the sharp fusillade of rain
+upon roof and pane, and the turbulent roar and rush of leaping mountain
+torrents at their very feet, and fancied it was there. She suddenly
+sprang to the window, and, pressing her eyes to the pane, saw
+through the misty turmoil of tossing boughs and swaying branches the
+scintillating intermittent flames of torches moving on the trail above,
+and KNEW it was there!
+
+In an instant she was collected and calm. “Dad,” she said, in her
+ordinary indifferent tone, “there's torches movin' up toward the diamond
+pit. Likely it's tramps. I'll take the squaw and see.” And before the
+old man could stagger to his feet she had dragged Lance with her into
+the road.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+
+The wind charged down upon them, slamming the door at their backs,
+extinguishing the broad shaft of light that had momentarily shot out
+into the darkness, and swept them a dozen yards away. Gaining the lee of
+a madrono tree, Lance opened his blanketed arms, enfolded the girl, and
+felt her for one brief moment tremble and nestle in his bosom like some
+frightened animal. “Well,” he said, gayly, “what next?” Flip recovered
+herself. “You're safe now anywhere outside the house. But did you expect
+them tonight?” Lance shrugged his shoulders. “Why not?” “Hush!” returned
+the girl; “they're coming this way.”
+
+The four flickering, scattered lights presently dropped into line. The
+trail had been found; they were coming nearer. Flip breathed quickly;
+the spiced aroma of her presence filled the blanket as he drew her
+tightly beside him. He had forgotten the storm that raged around them,
+the mysterious foe that was approaching, until Flip caught his sleeve
+with a slight laugh. “Why, it's Kennedy and Bijah?”
+
+“Who's Kennedy and Bijah?” asked Lance, curtly.
+
+“Kennedy's the Postmaster and Bijah's the Butcher.”
+
+“What do they want?” continued Lance.
+
+“Me,” said Flip, coyly.
+
+“You?”
+
+“Yes; let's run away.”
+
+Half leading, half dragging her friend, Flip made her way with unerring
+woodcraft down the ravine. The sound of voices and even the tumult of
+the storm became fainter, an acrid smell of burning green wood smarted
+Lance's lips and eyes; in the midst of the darkness beneath him
+gradually a faint, gigantic nimbus like a lurid eye glowed and sank,
+quivered and faded with the spent breath of the gale as it penetrated
+their retreat. “The pit,” whispered Flip; “it's safe on the other side,”
+ she added, cautiously skirting the orbit of the great eye, and leading
+him to a sheltered nest of bark and sawdust. It was warm and odorous.
+Nevertheless, they both deemed it necessary to enwrap themselves in the
+single blanket. The eye beamed fitfully upon them, occasionally a wave
+of lambent tremulousness passed across it; its weirdness was an excuse
+for their drawing nearer each other in playful terror.
+
+“Flip.”
+
+“Well?”
+
+“What did the other two want? To see you, TOO?”
+
+“Likely,” said Flip, without the least trace of coquetry. “There's been
+a lot of strangers yer, off and on.”
+
+“Perhaps you'd like to go back and see them?”
+
+“Do you want me to?”
+
+Lance's reply was a kiss. Nevertheless he was vaguely uneasy. “Looks a
+little as if I were running away, don't it?” he suggested.
+
+“No,” said Flip; “they think you're only a squaw; it's me they're
+after.” Lance smarted a little at this infelicitous speech. A strange
+and irritating sensation had been creeping over him--it was his first
+experience of shame and remorse. “I reckon I'll go back and see,” he
+said, rising abruptly.
+
+Flip was silent. She was thinking. Believing that the men were seeking
+her only, she knew that their attention would be directed from her
+companion when it was found out he was no longer with her, and she
+dreaded to meet them in his irritable presence.
+
+“Go,” she said, “tell Dad something's gone wrong in the diamond pit, and
+say I'm watching it for him here.”
+
+“And you?”
+
+“I'll go there and wait for him. If he can't get rid of them, and they
+follow him there, I'll come back here and meet you. Anyhow, I'll manage
+to have Dad wait there a spell.”
+
+She took his hand and led him back by a different path to the trail. He
+was surprised to find that the cabin, its window glowing from the fire,
+was only a hundred yards away. “Go in the back way, by the shed. Don't
+go in the room, nor near the light, if you can. Don't talk inside,
+but call or beckon to Dad. Remember,” she said, with a laugh, “you're
+keeping watch of me for him. Pull your hair down on your eyes so.” This
+operation, like most feminine embellishments of the masculine toilet was
+attended by a kiss, and Flip, stepping back into the shadow, vanished in
+the storm.
+
+Lance's first movements were inconsistent with his assumed sex. He
+picked up his draggled skirt, and drew a bowie knife from his boot. From
+his bosom he took a revolver, turning the chambers noiselessly as he
+felt the caps. He then crept toward the cabin softly and gained the
+shed. It was quite dark but for a pencil of light piercing a crack of
+the rude, ill-fitting door that opened on the sitting-room. A single
+voice not unfamiliar to him, raised in half-brutal triumph, greeted his
+ears.
+
+A name was mentioned--his own! His angry hand was on the latch. One
+moment more and he would have burst the door, but in that instant
+another name was uttered--a name that dropped his hand from the latch
+and the blood from his cheeks. He staggered backward, passed his hand
+swiftly across his forehead, recovered himself with a gesture of mingled
+rage and despair, and, sinking on his knees beside the door, pressed his
+hot temples against the crack.
+
+“Do I know Lance Harriott?” said the voice. “Do I know the d----d
+ruffian? Didn't I hunt him a year ago into the brush three miles from
+the Crossing? Didn't we lose sight of him the very day he turned up yer
+at this ranch, and got smuggled over into Monterey? Ain't it the same
+man as killed Arkansaw Bob--Bob Ridley--the name he went by in Sonora?
+And who was Bob Ridley, eh? Who? Why, you d----d old fool, it was Bob
+Fairley--YOUR SON!”
+
+The old man's voice rose querulous and indistinct.
+
+“What are ye talkin' about?” interrupted the first speaker. “I tell you
+I KNOW. Look at these pictures. I found 'em on his body. Look at 'em.
+Pictures of you and your girl. Pr'aps you'll deny them. Pr'aps you'll
+tell me I lie when I tell you HE told me he was your son; told me how he
+ran away from you; how you were livin' somewhere in the mountains
+makin' gold, or suthin' else, outer charcoal. He told me who he was as
+a secret. He never let on he told it to any one else. And when I found
+that the man who killed him, Lance Harriott, had been hidin' here, had
+been sendin' spies all around to find out all about your son, had been
+foolin' you and tryin' to ruin your gal as he had killed your boy, I
+knew that HE knew it, too.”
+
+“LIAR!”
+
+The door fell in with a crash. There was the sudden apparition of a
+demoniac face, still half hidden by the long trailing black locks of
+hair that curled like Medusa's around it. A cry of terror filled the
+room. Three of the men dashed from the door and fled precipitately. The
+man who had spoken sprang toward his rifle in the chimney corner.
+But the movement was his last; a blinding flash and shattering report
+interposed between him and his weapon.
+
+The impulse carried him forward headlong into the fire, that hissed and
+spluttered with his blood, and Lance Harriott with his smoking pistol,
+strode past him to the door. Already far down the trail there were
+hurried voices, the crack and crackling of impending branches growing
+fainter and fainter in the distance. Lance turned back to the solitary
+living figure--the old man.
+
+Yet he might have been dead, too, he sat so rigid and motionless, his
+fixed eyes staring vacantly at the body on the hearth. Before him on the
+table lay the cheap photographs, one evidently of himself, taken in some
+remote epoch of complexion, one of a child which Lance recognized as
+Flip.
+
+“Tell me,” said Lance hoarsely, laying his quivering hand on the table,
+“was Bob Ridley your son?”
+
+“My son,” echoed the old man in a strange, far-off voice, without
+turning his eyes from the corpse--“My son--is--is--is there!” pointing
+to the dead man. “Hush! Didn't he tell you so? Didn't you hear him say
+it? Dead--dead--shot--shot!”
+
+“Silence! are you crazy, man?” repeated Lance, tremblingly; “that is not
+Bob Ridley, but a dog, a coward, a liar gone to his reckoning. Hear
+me! If your son WAS Bob Ridley, I swear to God I never knew it, now
+or--or--THEN. Do you hear me? Tell me! Do you believe me? Speak! You
+shall speak.”
+
+He laid his hand almost menacingly on the old man's shoulder. Fairley
+slowly raised his head. Lance fell back with a groan of horror. The weak
+lips were wreathed with a feeble imploring smile, but the eyes wherein
+the fretful, peevish, suspicious spirit had dwelt were blank and
+tenantless; the flickering intellect that had lit them was blown out and
+vanished.
+
+Lance walked toward the door and remained motionless for a moment,
+gazing into the night. When he turned back again toward the fire his
+face was as colorless as the dead man's on the hearth; the fire of
+passion was gone from his beaten eyes; his step was hesitating and slow.
+He went up to the table.
+
+“I say, old man,” he said, with a strange smile and an odd, premature
+suggestion of the infinite weariness of death in his voice, “you
+wouldn't mind giving me this, would you?” and he took up the picture of
+Flip. The old man nodded repeatedly. “Thank you,” said Lance. He went
+to the door, paused a moment, and returned. “Good-by, old man,” he
+said, holding out his hand. Fairley took it with a childish smile. “He's
+dead,” said the old man softly, holding Lance's hand, but pointing to
+the hearth. “Yes,” said Lance, with the faintest of smiles on the palest
+of faces. “You feel sorry for any one that's dead, don't you?” Fairley
+nodded again. Lance looked at him with eyes as remote as his own, shook
+his head, and turned away. When he reached the door he laid his revolver
+carefully, and, indeed, somewhat ostentatiously, upon a chair. But when
+he stepped from the threshold he stopped a moment in the light of the
+open door to examine the lock of a small derringer which he drew from
+his pocket. He then shut the door carefully, and with the same slow,
+hesitating step, felt his way into the night.
+
+He had but one idea in his mind, to find some lonely spot; some spot
+where the footsteps of man would never penetrate, some spot that would
+yield him rest, sleep, obliteration, forgetfulness, and, above all,
+where HE would be forgotten. He had seen such places; surely there were
+many,--where bones were picked up of dead men who had faded from the
+earth and had left no other record. If he could only keep his senses now
+he might find such a spot, but he must be careful, for her little feet
+went everywhere, and she must never see him again alive or dead. And in
+the midst of his thoughts, and the darkness, and the storm, he heard a
+voice at his side, “Lance, how long you have been!”
+
+*****
+
+Left to himself, the old man again fell into a vacant contemplation
+of the dead body before him, until a stronger blast swept down like an
+avalanche upon the cabin, burst through the ill-fastened door and broken
+chimney, and, dashing the ashes and living embers over the floor, filled
+the room with blinding smoke and flame. Fairley rose with a feeble cry,
+and then, as if acted upon by some dominant memory, groped under the
+bed until he found his buckskin bag and his precious crystal, and
+fled precipitately from the room. Lifted by this second shock from his
+apathy, he returned to the fixed idea of his life,--the discovery and
+creation of the diamond,--and forgot all else. The feeble grasp that his
+shaken intellect kept of the events of the night relaxed, the disguised
+Lance, the story of his son, the murder, slipped into nothingness; there
+remained only the one idea, his nightly watch by the diamond pit. The
+instinct of long habit was stronger than the darkness or the onset of
+the storm, and he kept his tottering way over stream and fallen timber
+until he reached the spot. A sudden tremor seemed to shake the lambent
+flame that had lured him on. He thought he heard the sound of voices;
+there were signs of recent disturbance,--footprints in the sawdust! With
+a cry of rage and suspicion, Fairley slipped into the pit and sprang
+toward the nearest opening. To his frenzied fancy it had been tampered
+with, his secret discovered, the fruit of his long labors stolen from
+him that very night. With superhuman strength he began to open the pit,
+scattering the half-charred logs right and left, and giving vent to the
+suffocating gases that rose from the now incandescent charcoal. At times
+the fury of the gale would drive it back and hold it against the sides
+of the pit, leaving the opening free; at times, following the blind
+instinct of habit, the demented man would fall upon his face and bury
+his nose and mouth in the wet bark and sawdust. At last, the paroxysm
+past, he sank back again in his old apathetic attitude of watching,
+the attitude he had so often kept beside his sylvan crucible. In this
+attitude and in silence he waited for the dawn.
+
+It came with a hush in the storm; it came with blue openings in the
+broken up and tumbled heavens; it came with stars that glistened first,
+and then paled, and at last sank drowning in those deep cerulean lakes;
+it came with those cerulean lakes broadening into vaster seas, whose
+shores expanded at last into one illimitable ocean, cerulean no more,
+but flecked with crimson and opal dyes; it came with the lightly lifted
+misty curtain of the day, torn and rent on crag and pine top, but always
+lifting, lifting. It came with the sparkle of emerald in the grasses,
+and the flash of diamonds in every spray, with a whisper in the
+awakening woods, and voices in the traveled roads and trails.
+
+The sound of these voices stopped before the pit, and seemed to
+interrogate the old man. He came, and, putting his finger on his lips,
+made a sign of caution. When three or four men had descended he bade
+them follow him, saying, weakly and disjointedly, but persistently: “My
+boy--my son Robert--came home--came home at last--here with Flip--both
+of them--come and see!”
+
+He had reached a little niche or nest in the hillside, and stopped and
+suddenly drew aside a blanket. Beneath it, side by side, lay Flip and
+Lance, dead, with their cold hands clasped in each other's.
+
+“Suffocated!” said two or three, turning with horror toward the broken
+up and still smouldering pit.
+
+“Asleep!” said the old man. “Asleep! I've seen 'em lying that way when
+they were babies together. Don't tell me! Don't say I don't know my
+own flesh and blood! So! so! So, my pretty ones!” He stooped and kissed
+them. Then, drawing the blanket over them gently, he rose and said
+softly, “Good night!”
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Flip: A California Romance, by Bret Harte
+
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+
+<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" lang="en">
+  <head>
+    <title>
+      Flip: a California Romance, by Bret Harte
+    </title>
+    <style type="text/css" xml:space="preserve">
+
+    body { margin:5%; background:#faebd0; text-align:justify}
+    P { text-indent: 1em; margin-top: .25em; margin-bottom: .25em; }
+    H1,H2,H3,H4,H5,H6 { text-align: center; margin-left: 15%; margin-right: 15%; }
+    hr  { width: 50%; text-align: center;}
+    .foot { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; text-indent: -3em; font-size: 90%; }
+    blockquote {font-size: 97%; font-style: italic; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%;}
+    .mynote    {background-color: #DDE; color: #000; padding: .5em; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 95%;}
+    .toc       { margin-left: 10%; margin-bottom: .75em;}
+    .toc2      { margin-left: 20%;}
+    div.fig    { display:block; margin:0 auto; text-align:center; }
+    div.middle { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; }
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+    .pagenum   {display:inline; font-size: 70%; font-style:normal;
+               margin: 0; padding: 0; position: absolute; right: 1%;
+               text-align: right;}
+    pre        { font-style: italic; font-size: 90%; margin-left: 10%;}
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+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Flip: A California Romance, by Bret Harte
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Flip: A California Romance
+
+Author: Bret Harte
+
+Release Date: May 27, 2006 [EBook #2793]
+Last Updated: March 5, 2018
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FLIP: A CALIFORNIA ROMANCE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Donald Lainson and David Widger
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <h1>
+      FLIP: A CALIFORNIA ROMANCE
+    </h1>
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <h2>
+      By Bret Harte
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <blockquote>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <big><b>CONTENTS</b></big>
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        <br />
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0001"> CHAPTER I </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0002"> CHAPTER II. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0003"> CHAPTER III. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0004"> CHAPTER IV. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0005"> CHAPTER V. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0006"> CHAPTER VI. </a>
+      </p>
+    </blockquote>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0001" id="link2HCH0001">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a> <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER I
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Just where the track of the Los Gatos road streams on and upward like the
+      sinuous trail of a fiery rocket until it is extinguished in the blue
+      shadows of the Coast Range, there is an embayed terrace near the summit,
+      hedged by dwarf firs. At every bend of the heat-laden road the eye rested
+      upon it wistfully; all along the flank of the mountain, which seemed to
+      pant and quiver in the oven-like air, through rising dust, the slow
+      creaking of dragging wheels, the monotonous cry of tired springs, and the
+      muffled beat of plunging hoofs, it held out a promise of sheltered
+      coolness and green silences beyond. Sunburned and anxious faces yearned
+      toward it from the dizzy, swaying tops of stagecoaches, from lagging teams
+      far below, from the blinding white canvas covers of &ldquo;mountain schooners,&rdquo;
+       and from scorching saddles that seemed to weigh down the scrambling,
+      sweating animals beneath. But it would seem that the hope was vain, the
+      promise illusive. When the terrace was reached it appeared not only to
+      have caught and gathered all the heat of the valley below, but to have
+      evolved a fire of its own from some hidden crater-like source unknown.
+      Nevertheless, instead of prostrating and enervating man and beast, it was
+      said to have induced the wildest exaltation. The heated air was filled and
+      stifling with resinous exhalations. The delirious spices of balm, bay,
+      spruce, juniper, yerba buena, wild syringa, and strange aromatic herbs as
+      yet unclassified, distilled and evaporated in that mighty heat, and seemed
+      to fire with a midsummer madness all who breathed their fumes. They stung,
+      smarted, stimulated, intoxicated. It was said that the most jaded and
+      foot-sore horses became furious and ungovernable under their influence;
+      wearied teamsters and muleteers, who had exhausted their profanity in the
+      ascent, drank fresh draughts of inspiration in this fiery air, extended
+      their vocabulary, and created new and startling forms of objurgation. It
+      is recorded that one bibulous stage-driver exhausted description and
+      condensed its virtues in a single phrase: &ldquo;Gin and ginger.&rdquo; This
+      felicitous epithet, flung out in a generous comparison with his favorite
+      drink, &ldquo;rum and gum,&rdquo; clung to it ever after.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Such was the current comment on this vale of spices. Like most human
+      criticism it was hasty and superficial. No one yet had been known to have
+      penetrated deeply its mysterious recesses. It was still far below the
+      summit and its wayside inn. It had escaped the intruding foot of hunter
+      and prospector; and the inquisitive patrol of the county surveyor had only
+      skirted its boundary. It remained for Mr. Lance Harriott to complete its
+      exploration. His reasons for so doing were simple. He had made the journey
+      thither underneath the stage-coach, and clinging to its axle. He had
+      chosen this hazardous mode of conveyance at night, as the coach crept by
+      his place of concealment in the wayside brush, to elude the sheriff of
+      Monterey County and his posse, who were after him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He had not made himself known to his fellow-passengers as they already
+      knew him as a gambler, an outlaw, and a desperado; he deemed it unwise to
+      present himself in a newer reputation of a man who had just slain a
+      brother gambler in a quarrel, and for whom a reward was offered. He
+      slipped from the axle as the stage-coach swirled past the brushing
+      branches of fir, and for an instant lay unnoticed, a scarcely
+      distinguishable mound of dust in the broken furrows of the road. Then,
+      more like a beast than a man, he crept on his hands and knees into the
+      steaming underbrush. Here he lay still until the clatter of harness and
+      the sound of voices faded in the distance. Had he been followed, it would
+      have been difficult to detect in that inert mass of rags any semblance to
+      a known form or figure. A hideous reddish mask of dust and clay
+      obliterated his face; his hands were shapeless stumps exaggerated in his
+      trailing sleeves. And when he rose, staggering like a drunken man, and
+      plunged wildly into the recesses of the wood, a cloud of dust followed
+      him, and pieces and patches of his frayed and rotten garments clung to the
+      impeding branches. Twice he fell, but, maddened and upheld by the smarting
+      spices and stimulating aroma of the air, he kept on his course.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Gradually the heat became less oppressive; once when he stopped and leaned
+      exhaustedly against a sapling, he fancied he saw the zephyr he could not
+      yet feel in the glittering and trembling of leaves in the distance before
+      him. Again the deep stillness was moved with a faint sighing rustle, and
+      he knew he must be nearing the edge of the thicket. The spell of silence
+      thus broken was followed by a fainter, more musical interruption&mdash;the
+      glassy tinkle of water! A step further his foot trembled on the verge of a
+      slight ravine, still closely canopied by the interlacing boughs overhead.
+      A tiny stream that he could have dammed with his hand yet lingered in this
+      parched red gash in the hillside and trickled into a deep, irregular,
+      well-like cavity, that again overflowed and sent its slight surplus on. It
+      had been the luxurious retreat of many a spotted trout; it was to be the
+      bath of Lance Harriott. Without a moment's hesitation, without removing a
+      single garment, he slipped cautiously into it, as if fearful of losing a
+      single drop. His head disappeared from the level of the bank; the solitude
+      was again unbroken. Only two objects remained upon the edge of the ravine,&mdash;his
+      revolver and tobacco pouch.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A few minutes elapsed. A fearless blue jay alighted on the bank and made a
+      prospecting peck at the tobacco pouch. It yielded in favor of a gopher,
+      who endeavored to draw it toward his hole, but in turn gave way to a red
+      squirrel, whose attention was divided, however, between the pouch and the
+      revolver, which he regarded with mischievous fascination. Then there was a
+      splash, a grunt, a sudden dispersion of animated nature, and the head of
+      Mr. Lance Harriott appeared above the bank. It was a startling
+      transformation. Not only that he had, by this wholesale process, washed
+      himself and his light &ldquo;drill&rdquo; garments entirely clean, but that he had,
+      apparently by the same operation, morally cleansed HIMSELF, and left every
+      stain and ugly blot of his late misdeeds and reputation in his bath. His
+      face, albeit scratched here and there, was rosy, round, shining with
+      irrepressible good humor and youthful levity. His large blue eyes were
+      infantine in their innocent surprise and thoughtlessness. Dripping yet
+      with water, and panting, he rested his elbows lazily on the bank, and
+      became instantly absorbed with a boy's delight in the movements of the
+      gopher, who, after the first alarm, returned cautiously to abduct the
+      tobacco pouch. If any familiar had failed to detect Lance Harriott in this
+      hideous masquerade of dust and grime and tatters, still less would any
+      passing stranger have recognized in this blond faun the possible outcast
+      and murderer. And, when with a swirl of his spattering sleeve, he drove
+      back the gopher in a shower of spray and leaped to the bank, he seemed to
+      have accepted his felonious hiding-place as a mere picnicking bower.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A slight breeze was unmistakably permeating the wood from the west.
+      Looking in that direction, Lance imagined that the shadow was less dark,
+      and although the undergrowth was denser, he struck off carelessly toward
+      it. As he went on, the wood became lighter and lighter; branches, and
+      presently leaves, were painted against the vivid blue of the sky. He knew
+      he must be near the summit, stopped, felt for his revolver, and then
+      lightly put the few remaining branches aside.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The full glare of the noonday sun at first blinded him. When he could see
+      more clearly, he found himself on the open western slope of the mountain,
+      which in the Coast Range was seldom wooded. The spiced thicket stretched
+      between him and the summit, and again between him and the stage road that
+      plunges from the terrace, like forked lightning into the valley below. He
+      could command all the approaches without being seen. Not that this seemed
+      to occupy his thoughts or cause him any anxiety. His first act was to
+      disencumber himself of his tattered coat; he then filled and lighted his
+      pipe, and stretched himself full-length on the open hillside, as if to
+      bleach in the fierce sun. While smoking he carelessly perused the fragment
+      of a newspaper which had enveloped his tobacco, and being struck with some
+      amusing paragraph, read it half aloud again to some imaginary auditor,
+      emphasizing its humor with an hilarious slap upon his leg.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Possibly from the relaxation of fatigue and the bath, which had become a
+      vapor one as he alternately rolled and dried himself in the baking grass,
+      his eyes closed dreamily. He was awakened by the sound of voices. They
+      were distant; they were vague; they approached no nearer. He rolled
+      himself to the verge of the first precipitous grassy descent. There was
+      another bank or plateau below him, and then a confused depth of olive
+      shadows, pierced here and there by the spiked helmets of pines.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was no trace of habitation, yet the voices were those of some
+      monotonous occupation, and Lance distinctly heard through them the click
+      of crockery and the ring of some household utensil. It appeared to be the
+      interjectional, half listless, half perfunctory, domestic dialogue of an
+      old man and a girl, of which the words were unintelligible. Their voices
+      indicated the solitude of the mountain, but without sadness; they were
+      mysterious without being awe-inspiring. They might have uttered the
+      dreariest commonplaces, but, in their vast isolation, they seemed musical
+      and eloquent. Lance drew his first sigh,&mdash;they had suggested dinner.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Careless as his nature was, he was too cautious to risk detection in broad
+      daylight. He contented himself for the present with endeavoring to locate
+      that particular part of the depths from which the voices seemed to rise.
+      It was more difficult, however, to select some other way of penetrating it
+      than by the stage road. &ldquo;They're bound to have a fire or show a light when
+      it's dark,&rdquo; he reasoned, and, satisfied with that reflection, lay down
+      again. Presently he began to amuse himself by tossing some silver coins in
+      the air. Then his attention was directed to a spur of the Coast Range
+      which had been sharply silhouetted against the cloudless western sky.
+      Something intensely white, something so small that it was scarcely larger
+      than the silver coin in his hand, was appearing in a slight cleft of the
+      range.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      While he looked it gradually filled and obliterated the cleft. In another
+      moment the whole serrated line of mountain had disappeared. The dense,
+      dazzling white, encompassing host began to pour over and down every ravine
+      and pass of the coast. Lance recognized the sea-fog, and knew that
+      scarcely twenty miles away lay the ocean&mdash;and safety! The drooping
+      sun was now caught and hidden in its soft embraces. A sudden chill
+      breathed over the mountain. He shivered, rose, and plunged again for very
+      warmth into the spice-laden thicket. The heated balsamic air began to
+      affect him like a powerful sedative; his hunger was forgotten in the
+      languor of fatigue; he slumbered. When he awoke it was dark. He groped his
+      way through the thicket. A few stars were shining directly above him, but
+      beyond and below, everything was lost in the soft, white, fleecy veil of
+      fog. Whatever light or fire might have betokened human habitation was
+      hidden. To push on blindly would be madness; he could only wait for
+      morning. It suited the outcast's lazy philosophy. He crept back again to
+      his bed in the hollow and slept. In that profound silence and shadow, shut
+      out from human association and sympathy by the ghostly fog, what torturing
+      visions conjured up by remorse and fear should have pursued him? What
+      spirit passed before him, or slowly shaped itself out of the infinite
+      blackness of the wood? None. As he slipped gently into that blackness he
+      remembered with a slight regret, some biscuits that were dropped from the
+      coach by a careless luncheon-consuming passenger. That pang over, he slept
+      as sweetly, as profoundly, as divinely, as a child.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0002" id="link2HCH0002">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER II.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      He awoke with the aroma of the woods still steeping his senses. His first
+      instinct was that of all young animals; he seized a few of the young,
+      tender green leaves of the yerba buena vine that crept over his mossy
+      pillow and ate them, being rewarded by a half berry-like flavor that
+      seemed to soothe the cravings of his appetite. The languor of sleep being
+      still upon him, he lazily watched the quivering of a sunbeam that was
+      caught in the canopying boughs above. Then he dozed again. Hovering
+      between sleeping and waking, he became conscious of a slight movement
+      among the dead leaves on the bank beside the hollow in which he lay. The
+      movement appeared to be intelligent, and directed toward his revolver,
+      which glittered on the bank. Amused at this evident return of his
+      larcenous friend of the previous day, he lay perfectly still. The movement
+      and rustle continued, but it now seemed long and undulating. Lance's eyes
+      suddenly became set; he was intensely, keenly awake. It was not a snake,
+      but the hand of a human arm, half hidden in the moss, groping for the
+      weapon. In that flash of perception he saw that it was small, bare, and
+      deeply freckled. In an instant he grasped it firmly, and rose to his feet,
+      dragging to his own level as he did so, the struggling figure of a young
+      girl.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Leave me go!&rdquo; she said, more ashamed than frightened.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Lance looked at her. She was scarcely more than fifteen, slight and lithe,
+      with a boyish flatness of breast and back. Her flushed face and bare
+      throat were absolutely peppered with minute brown freckles, like grains of
+      spent gunpowder. Her eyes, which were large and gray, presented the
+      singular spectacle of being also freckled,&mdash;at least they were shot
+      through in pupil and cornea with tiny spots like powdered allspice. Her
+      hair was even more remarkable in its tawny, deer-skin color, full of
+      lighter shades, and bleached to the faintest of blondes on the crown of
+      her head, as if by the action of the sun. She had evidently outgrown her
+      dress, which was made for a smaller child, and the too brief skirt
+      disclosed a bare, freckled, and sandy desert of shapely limb, for which
+      the darned stockings were equally too scant. Lance let his grasp slip from
+      her thin wrist to her hand, and then with a good-humored gesture tossed it
+      lightly back to her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She did not retreat, but continued looking at him in a half-surly
+      embarrassment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I ain't a bit frightened,&rdquo; she said; &ldquo;I'm not going to run away,&mdash;don't
+      you fear.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Glad to hear it,&rdquo; said Lance, with unmistakable satisfaction, &ldquo;but why
+      did you go for my revolver?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She flushed again and was silent. Presently she began to kick the earth at
+      the roots of the tree, and said, as if confidentially to her foot,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I wanted to get hold of it before you did.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You did?&mdash;and why?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, you know why.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Every tooth in Lance's head showed that he did, perfectly. But he was
+      discreetly silent.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I didn't know what you were hiding there for,&rdquo; she went on, still
+      addressing the tree, &ldquo;and,&rdquo; looking at him sideways under her white
+      lashes, &ldquo;I didn't see your face.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      This subtle compliment was the first suggestion of her artful sex. It
+      actually sent the blood into the careless rascal's face, and for a moment
+      confused him. He coughed. &ldquo;So you thought you'd freeze on to that
+      six-shooter of mine until you saw my hand?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She nodded. Then she picked up a broken hazel branch, fitted it into the
+      small of her back, threw her tanned bare arms over the ends of it, and
+      expanded her chest and her biceps at the same moment. This simple action
+      was supposed to convey an impression at once of ease and muscular force.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Perhaps you'd like to take it now,&rdquo; said Lance, handing her the pistol.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I've seen six-shooters before now,&rdquo; said the girl, evading the proffered
+      weapon and its suggestion. &ldquo;Dad has one, and my brother had two derringers
+      before he was half as big as me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She stopped to observe in her companion the effect of this capacity of her
+      family to bear arms. Lance only regarded her amusedly. Presently she again
+      spoke abruptly:&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What made you eat that grass, just now?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Grass!&rdquo; echoed Lance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, there,&rdquo; pointing to the yerba buena.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Lance laughed. &ldquo;I was hungry. Look!&rdquo; he said, gayly tossing some silver
+      into the air. &ldquo;Do you think you could get me some breakfast for that, and
+      have enough left to buy something for yourself?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The girl eyed the money and the man with half-bashful curiosity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I reckon Dad might give ye suthing if he had a mind ter, though ez a rule
+      he's down on tramps ever since they run off his chickens. Ye might try.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But I want YOU to try. You can bring it to me here.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The girl retreated a step, dropped her eyes, and, with a smile that was a
+      charming hesitation between bashfulness and impudence, said: &ldquo;So you ARE
+      hidin', are ye?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That's just it. Your head's level. I am,&rdquo; laughed Lance unconcernedly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yur ain't one o' the McCarty gang&mdash;are ye?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Lance Harriott felt a momentary moral exaltation in declaring
+      truthfully that he was not one of a notorious band of mountain freebooters
+      known in the district under that name.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nor ye ain't one of them chicken lifters that raided Henderson's ranch?
+      We don't go much on that kind o' cattle yer.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No,&rdquo; said Lance, cheerfully.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nor ye ain't that chap ez beat his wife unto death at Santa Clara?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Lance honestly scorned the imputation. Such conjugal ill treatment as he
+      had indulged in had not been physical, and had been with other men's
+      wives.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a moment's further hesitation on the part of the girl. Then she
+      said shortly:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, then, I reckon you kin come along with me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where?&rdquo; asked Lance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To the ranch,&rdquo; she replied simply.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then you won't bring me anything to eat here?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What for? You kin get it down there.&rdquo; Lance hesitated. &ldquo;I tell you it's
+      all right,&rdquo; she continued. &ldquo;I'll make it all right with Dad.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But suppose I reckon I'd rather stay here,&rdquo; persisted Lance, with a
+      perfect consciousness, however, of affectation in his caution.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Stay away then,&rdquo; said the girl coolly; &ldquo;only as Dad perempted this yer
+      woods&rdquo;&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;PRE-empted,&rdquo; suggested Lance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Per-empted or pre-emp-ted, as you like,&rdquo; continued the girl scornfully,&mdash;&ldquo;ez
+      he's got a holt on this yer woods, ye might ez well see him down thar ez
+      here. For here he's like to come any minit. You can bet your life on
+      that.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She must have read Lance's amusement in his eyes, for she again dropped
+      her own with a frown of brusque embarrassment. &ldquo;Come along, then; I'm your
+      man,&rdquo; said Lance, gayly, extending his hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She would not accept it, eying it, however, furtively, like a horse about
+      to shy. &ldquo;Hand me your pistol first,&rdquo; she said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He handed it to her with an assumption of gayety. She received it on her
+      part with unfeigned seriousness, and threw it over her shoulder like a
+      gun. This combined action of the child and heroine, it is quite
+      unnecessary to say, afforded Lance undiluted joy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You go first,&rdquo; she said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Lance stepped promptly out, with a broad grin. &ldquo;Looks kinder as if I was a
+      prisoner, don't it?&rdquo; he suggested.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Go on, and don't fool,&rdquo; she replied.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The two fared onward through the wood. For one moment he entertained the
+      facetious idea of appearing to rush frantically away, &ldquo;just to see what
+      the girl would do,&rdquo; but abandoned it. &ldquo;It's an even thing if she wouldn't
+      spot me the first pop,&rdquo; he reflected admiringly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When they had reached the open hillside, Lance stopped inquiringly. &ldquo;This
+      way,&rdquo; she said, pointing toward the summit, and in quite an opposite
+      direction to the valley where he had heard the voices, one of which he now
+      recognized as hers. They skirted the thicket for a few moments, and then
+      turned sharply into a trail which began to dip toward a ravine leading to
+      the valley.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why do you have to go all the way round?&rdquo; he asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;WE don't,&rdquo; the girl replied with emphasis; &ldquo;there's a shorter cut.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That's telling,&rdquo; she answered shortly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What's your name?&rdquo; asked Lance, after a steep scramble and a drop into
+      the ravine.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Flip.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Flip.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I mean your first name,&mdash;your front name.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Flip.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Flip! Oh, short for Felipa!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It ain't Flipper,&mdash;it's Flip.&rdquo; And she relapsed into silence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You don't ask me mine?&rdquo; suggested Lance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She did not vouchsafe a reply.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then you don't want to know?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Maybe Dad will. You can lie to HIM.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      This direct answer apparently sustained the agreeable homicide for some
+      moments. He moved onward, silently exuding admiration.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Only,&rdquo; added Flip, with a sudden caution, &ldquo;you'd better agree with me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The trail here turned again abruptly and re-entered the canyon. Lance
+      looked up, and noticed they were almost directly beneath the bay thicket
+      and the plateau that towered far above them. The trail here showed signs
+      of clearing, and the way was marked by felled trees and stumps of pines.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What does your father do here?&rdquo; he finally asked. Flip remained silent,
+      swinging the revolver. Lance repeated his question.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Burns charcoal and makes diamonds,&rdquo; said Flip, looking at him from the
+      corners of her eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Makes diamonds?&rdquo; echoed Lance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Flip nodded her head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Many of 'em?&rdquo; he continued carelessly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Lots. But they're not big,&rdquo; she returned, with a sidelong glance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, they're not big?&rdquo; said Lance gravely.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They had by this time reached a small staked inclosure, whence the sudden
+      fluttering and cackle of poultry welcomed the return of the evident
+      mistress of this sylvan retreat. It was scarcely imposing. Further on, a
+      cooking stove under a tree, a saddle and bridle, a few household
+      implements scattered about, indicated the &ldquo;ranch.&rdquo; Like most pioneer
+      clearings, it was simply a disorganized raid upon nature that had left
+      behind a desolate battlefield strewn with waste and decay. The fallen
+      trees, the crushed thicket, the splintered limbs, the rudely torn-up soil,
+      were made hideous by their grotesque juxtaposition with the wrecked
+      fragments of civilization, in empty cans, broken bottles, battered hats,
+      soleless boots, frayed stockings, cast-off rags, and the crowning
+      absurdity of the twisted-wire skeleton of a hooped skirt hanging from a
+      branch. The wildest defile, the densest thicket, the most virgin solitude,
+      was less dreary and forlorn than this first footprint of man. The only
+      redeeming feature of this prolonged bivouac was the cabin itself. Built of
+      the half-cylindrical strips of pine bark, and thatched with the same
+      material, it had a certain picturesque rusticity. But this was an accident
+      of economy rather than taste, for which Flip apologized by saying that the
+      bark of the pine was &ldquo;no good&rdquo; for charcoal.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I reckon Dad's in the woods,&rdquo; she added, pausing before the open door of
+      the cabin. &ldquo;Oh, Dad!&rdquo; Her voice, clear and high, seemed to fill the whole
+      long canyon, and echoed from the green plateau above. The monotonous
+      strokes of an axe were suddenly pretermitted, and somewhere from the
+      depths of the close-set pines a voice answered &ldquo;Flip.&rdquo; There was a pause
+      of a few moments, with some muttering, stumbling, and crackling in the
+      underbrush, and then the sudden appearance of &ldquo;Dad.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Had Lance first met him in the thicket, he would have been puzzled to
+      assign his race to Mongolian, Indian, or Ethiopian origin. Perfunctory but
+      incomplete washings of his hands and face, after charcoal burning, had
+      gradually ground into his skin a grayish slate-pencil pallor, grotesquely
+      relieved at the edges, where the washing had left off, with a border of a
+      darker color. He looked like an overworked Christy minstrel with the
+      briefest of intervals between his performances. There were black rims in
+      the orbits of his eyes, as if he gazed feebly out of unglazed spectacles,
+      which heightened his simian resemblance, already grotesquely exaggerated
+      by what appeared to be repeated and spasmodic experiments in dyeing his
+      gray hair. Without the slightest notice of Lance, he inflicted his
+      protesting and querulous presence entirely on his daughter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, what's up now? Yer ye are calling me from work an hour before noon.
+      Dog my skin, ef I ever get fairly limbered up afore it's 'Dad!' and 'Oh,
+      Dad!'&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      To Lance's intense satisfaction the girl received this harangue with an
+      air of supreme indifference, and when &ldquo;Dad&rdquo; had relapsed into an
+      unintelligible, and, as it seemed to Lance, a half-frightened muttering,
+      she said coolly,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ye'd better drop that axe and scoot round getten' this stranger some
+      breakfast and some grub to take with him. He's one of them San Francisco
+      sports out here trout fishing in the branch. He's got adrift from his
+      party, has lost his rod and fixins, and had to camp out last night in the
+      Gin and Ginger Woods.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That's just it; it's allers suthin like that,&rdquo; screamed the old man,
+      dashing his fist on his leg in a feeble, impotent passion, but without
+      looking at Lance. &ldquo;Why in blazes don't he go up to that there blamed hotel
+      on the summit? Why in thunder&mdash;&rdquo; But here he caught his daughter's
+      large, freckled eyes full in his own. He blinked feebly, his voice fell
+      into a tone of whining entreaty. &ldquo;Now, look yer, Flip, it's playing it
+      rather low down on the old man, this yer running' in o' tramps and
+      desarted emigrants and cast-ashore sailors and forlorn widders and ravin'
+      lunatics, on this yer ranch. I put it to you, Mister,&rdquo; he said abruptly,
+      turning to Lance for the first time, but as if he had already taken an
+      active part in the conversation,&mdash;&ldquo;I put it as a gentleman yourself,
+      and a fair-minded sportin' man, if this is the square thing?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Before Lance could reply, Flip had already begun. &ldquo;That's just it! D'ye
+      reckon, being a sportin' man and an A 1 feller, he's goin' to waltz down
+      inter that hotel, rigged out ez he is? D'ye reckon he's goin' to let his
+      partners get the laugh outer him? D'ye reckon he's goin' to show his head
+      outer this yer ranch till he can do it square? Not much! Go 'long. Dad,
+      you're talking silly!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The old man weakened. He feebly trailed his axe between his legs to a
+      stump and sat down, wiping his forehead with his sleeve, and imparting to
+      it the appearance of a slate with a difficult sum partly rubbed out. He
+      looked despairingly at Lance. &ldquo;In course,&rdquo; he said, with a deep sigh, &ldquo;you
+      naturally ain't got any money. In course you left your pocketbook,
+      containing fifty dollars, under a stone, and can't find it. In course,&rdquo; he
+      continued, as he observed Lance put his hand to his pocket, &ldquo;you've only
+      got a blank check on Wells, Fargo &amp; Co. for a hundred dollars, and
+      you'd like me to give you the difference?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Amused as Lance evidently was at this, his absolute admiration for Flip
+      absorbed everything else. With his eyes fixed upon the girl, he briefly
+      assured the old man that he would pay for everything he wanted. He did
+      this with a manner quite different from the careless, easy attitude he had
+      assumed toward Flip; at least the quick-witted girl noticed it, and
+      wondered if he was angry. It was quite true that ever since his eye had
+      fallen upon another of his own sex, its glance had been less frank and
+      careless. Certain traits of possible impatience, which might develop into
+      man-slaying, were coming to the fore. Yet a word or a gesture of Flip's
+      was sufficient to change that manner, and when, with the fretful
+      assistance of her father, she had prepared a somewhat sketchy and
+      primitive repast, he questioned the old man about diamond-making. The eye
+      of Dad kindled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I want ter know how ye knew I was making diamonds,&rdquo; he asked, with a
+      certain bashful pettishness not unlike his daughter's.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Heard it in 'Frisco,&rdquo; replied Lance, with glib mendacity, glancing at the
+      girl.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I reckon they're gettin' sort of skeert down there&mdash;them jewelers,&rdquo;
+       chuckled Dad, &ldquo;yet it's in nater that their figgers will have to come
+      down. It's only a question of the price of charcoal. I suppose they didn't
+      tell you how I made the discovery?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Lance would have stopped the old man's narrative by saying that he knew
+      the story, but he wished to see how far Flip lent herself to her father's
+      delusion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ye see, one night about two years ago I had a pit o' charcoal burning out
+      there, and tho' it had been a smouldering and a smoking and a blazing for
+      nigh unto a month, somehow it didn't charcoal worth a cent. And yet, dog
+      my skin, but the heat o' that er pit was suthin hidyus and frightful; ye
+      couldn't stand within a hundred yards of it, and they could feel it on the
+      stage road three miles over yon, t'other side the mountain. There was
+      nights when me and Flip had to take our blankets up the ravine and camp
+      out all night, and the back of this yer hut shriveled up like that bacon.
+      It was about as nigh on to hell as any sample ye kin get here. Now, mebbe
+      you think I built that air fire? Mebbe you'll allow the heat was just the
+      nat'ral burning of that pit?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Certainly,&rdquo; said Lance, trying to see Flip's eyes, which were resolutely
+      averted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thet's whar you'd be lyin'! That yar heat kem out of the bowels of the
+      yearth,&mdash;kem up like out of a chimbley or a blast, and kep up that
+      yar fire. And when she cools down a month after, and I got to strip her,
+      there was a hole in the yearth, and a spring o' bilin', scaldin' water
+      pourin' out of it ez big as your waist. And right in the middle of it was
+      this yer.&rdquo; He rose with the instinct of a skillful raconteur, and whisked
+      from under his bunk a chamois leather bag, which he emptied on the table
+      before them. It contained a small fragment of native rock crystal,
+      half-fused upon a petrified bit of pine. It was so glaringly truthful, so
+      really what it purported to be, that the most unscientific woodman or
+      pioneer would have understood it at a glance. Lance raised his mirthful
+      eyes to Flip.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It was cooled suddint,&mdash;stunted by the water,&rdquo; said the girl,
+      eagerly. She stopped, and as abruptly turned away her eyes and her
+      reddened face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That's it, that's just it,&rdquo; continued the old man. &ldquo;Thar's Flip, thar,
+      knows it; she ain't no fool!&rdquo; Lance did not speak, but turned a hard,
+      unsympathizing look upon the old man, and rose almost roughly. The old man
+      clutched his coat. &ldquo;That's it, ye see. The carbon's just turning to
+      di'mens. And stunted. And why? 'Cos the heat wasn't kep up long enough.
+      Mebbe yer think I stopped thar? That ain't me. Thar's a pit out yar in the
+      woods ez hez been burning six months; it hain't, in course, got the
+      advantages o' the old one, for it's nat'ral heat. But I'm keeping that
+      heat up. I've got a hole where I kin watch it every four hours. When the
+      time comes, I'm thar! Don't you see? That's me! that's David Fairley,&mdash;that's
+      the old man,&mdash;you bet!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That's so,&rdquo; said Lance, curtly. &ldquo;And now, Mr. Fairley, if you'll hand me
+      over a coat or a jacket till I can get past these fogs on the Monterey
+      road, I won't keep you from your diamond pit.&rdquo; He threw down a handful of
+      silver on the table.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ther's a deerskin jacket yer,&rdquo; said the old man, &ldquo;that one o' them
+      vaqueros left for the price of a bottle of whiskey.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I reckon it wouldn't suit the stranger,&rdquo; said Flip, dubiously producing a
+      much-worn, slashed, and braided vaquero's jacket. But it did suit Lance,
+      who found it warm, and also had suddenly found a certain satisfaction in
+      opposing Flip. When he had put it on, and nodded coldly to the old man,
+      and carelessly to Flip, he walked to the door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If you're going to take the Monterey road, I can show you a short cut to
+      it,&rdquo; said Flip, with a certain kind of shy civility.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The paternal Fairley groaned. &ldquo;That's it; let the chickens and the ranch
+      go to thunder, as long as there's a stranger to trapse round with; go on!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Lance would have made some savage reply, but Flip interrupted. &ldquo;You know
+      yourself, Dad, it's a blind trail, and as that 'ere constable that kem out
+      here hunting French Pete, couldn't find it, and had to go round by the
+      canyon, like ez not the stranger would lose his way, and have to come
+      back!&rdquo; This dangerous prospect silenced the old man, and Flip and Lance
+      stepped into the road together. They walked on for some moments without
+      speaking. Suddenly Lance turned upon his companion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You didn't swallow all that rot about the diamond, did you?&rdquo; he asked,
+      crossly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Flip ran a little ahead, as if to avoid a reply.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You don't mean to say that's the sort of hog wash the old man serves out
+      to you regularly?&rdquo; continued Lance, becoming more slangy in his ill
+      temper.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't know that it's any consarn o' yours what I think,&rdquo; replied Flip,
+      hopping from boulder to boulder, as they crossed the bed of a dry
+      watercourse.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And I suppose you've piloted round and dry-nussed every tramp and dead
+      beat you've met since you came here,&rdquo; continued Lance, with unmistakable
+      ill humor. &ldquo;How many have you helped over this road?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's a year since there was a Chinaman chased by some Irishmen from the
+      Crossing into the brush about yer, and he was too afeered to come out, and
+      nigh most starved to death in thar. I had to drag him out and start him on
+      the mountain, for you couldn't get him back to the road. He was the last
+      one but YOU.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you reckon it's the right thing for a girl like you to run about with
+      trash of this kind, and mix herself up with all sorts of rough and bad
+      company?&rdquo; said Lance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Flip stopped short. &ldquo;Look! if you're goin' to talk like Dad, I'll go
+      back.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The ridiculousness of such a resemblance struck him more keenly than a
+      consciousness of his own ingratitude. He hastened to assure Flip that he
+      was joking. When he had made his peace they fell into talk again, Lance
+      becoming unselfish enough to inquire into one or two facts concerning her
+      life which did not immediately affect him. Her mother had died on the
+      plains when she was a baby, and her brother had run away from home at
+      twelve. She fully expected to see him again, and thought he might sometime
+      stray into their canyon. &ldquo;That is why, then, you take so much stock in
+      tramps,&rdquo; said Lance. &ldquo;You expect to recognize HIM?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well,&rdquo; replied Flip, gravely, &ldquo;there is suthing in THAT, and there's
+      suthing in THIS: some o' these chaps might run across brother and do him a
+      good turn for the sake of me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Like me, for instance?&rdquo; suggested Lance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Like you. You'd do him a good turn, wouldn't you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You bet!&rdquo; said Lance, with a sudden emotion that quite startled him;
+      &ldquo;only don't you go to throwing yourself round promiscuously.&rdquo; He was
+      half-conscious of an irritating sense of jealousy, as he asked if any of
+      her proteges had ever returned.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No,&rdquo; said Flip, &ldquo;no one ever did. It shows,&rdquo; she added with sublime
+      simplicity, &ldquo;I had done 'em good, and they could get on alone. Don't it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It does,&rdquo; responded Lance grimly. &ldquo;Have you any other friends that come?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Only the Postmaster at the Crossing.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The Postmaster?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes; he's reckonin' to marry me next year, if I'm big enough.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And what do you reckon?&rdquo; asked Lance earnestly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Flip began a series of distortions with her shoulders, ran on ahead,
+      picked up a few pebbles and threw them into the wood, glanced back at
+      Lance with swimming mottled eyes, that seemed a piquant incarnation of
+      everything suggestive and tantalizing, and said,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That's telling.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      They had by this time reached the spot where they were to separate.
+      &ldquo;Look,&rdquo; said Flip, pointing to a faint deflection of their path, which
+      seemed, however, to lose itself in the underbrush a dozen yards away,
+      &ldquo;ther's your trail. It gets plainer and broader the further you get on,
+      but you must use your eyes here, and get to know it well afore you get
+      into the fog. Good-by.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good-by.&rdquo; Lance took her hand and drew her beside him. She was still
+      redolent of the spices of the thicket, and to the young man's excited
+      fancy seemed at that moment to personify the perfume and intoxication of
+      her native woods. Half laughingly, half earnestly, he tried to kiss her;
+      she struggled for some time strongly, but at the last moment yielded, with
+      a slight return and the exchange of a subtle fire that thrilled him, and
+      left him standing confused and astounded as she ran away. He watched her
+      lithe, nymph-like figure disappear in the checkered shadows of the wood,
+      and then he turned briskly down the half-hidden trail. His eyesight was
+      keen, he made good progress, and was soon well on his way toward the
+      distant ridge.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But Flip's return had not been as rapid. When she reached the wood she
+      crept to its beetling verge, and, looking across the canyon, watched
+      Lance's figure as it vanished and reappeared in the shadows and
+      sinuosities of the ascent. When he reached the ridge the outlying fog
+      crept across the summit, caught him in its embrace, and wrapped him from
+      her gaze. Flip sighed, raised herself, put her alternate foot on a stump,
+      and took a long pull at her too-brief stockings. When she had pulled down
+      her skirt and endeavored once more to renew the intimacy that had existed
+      in previous years between the edge of her petticoat and the top of her
+      stockings, she sighed again, and went home.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0003" id="link2HCH0003">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER III.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      For six months the sea fogs monotonously came and went along the Monterey
+      coast; for six months they beleaguered the Coast Range with afternoon
+      sorties of white hosts that regularly swept over the mountain crest, and
+      were as regularly beaten back again by the leveled lances of the morning
+      sun. For six months that white veil which had once hidden Lance Harriott
+      in its folds returned without him. For that amiable outlaw no longer
+      needed disguise or hiding-place. The swift wave of pursuit that had dashed
+      him on the summit had fallen back, and the next day was broken and
+      scattered. Before the week had passed, a regular judicial inquiry relieved
+      his crime of premeditation, and showed it to be a rude duel of two armed
+      and equally desperate men. From a secure vantage in a seacoast town Lance
+      challenged a trial by his peers, and, as an already prejudged man escaping
+      from his executioners, obtained a change of venue. Regular justice, seated
+      by the calm Pacific, found the action of an interior, irregular jury rash
+      and hasty. Lance was liberated on bail.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Postmaster at Fisher's Crossing had just received the weekly mail and
+      express from San Francisco, and was engaged in examining it. It consisted
+      of five letters and two parcels. Of these, three of the letters and the
+      two parcels were directed to Flip. It was not the first time during the
+      last six months that this extraordinary event had occurred, and the
+      curiosity of the Crossing was duly excited. As Flip had never called
+      personally for the letters or parcels, but had sent one of her wild,
+      irregular scouts or henchmen to bring them, and as she was seldom seen at
+      the Crossing or on the stage road, that curiosity was never satisfied. The
+      disappointment to the Postmaster&mdash;a man past the middle age&mdash;partook
+      of a sentimental nature. He looked at the letters and parcels; he looked
+      at his watch; it was yet early, he could return by noon. He again examined
+      the addresses; they were in the same handwriting as the previous letters.
+      His mind was made up, he would deliver them himself. The poetic, soulful
+      side of his mission was delicately indicated by a pale blue necktie, a
+      clean shirt, and a small package of gingernuts, of which Flip was
+      extravagantly fond.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The common road to Fairley's Ranch was by the stage turnpike to a point
+      below the Gin and Ginger Woods, where the prudent horseman usually left
+      his beast and followed the intersecting trail afoot. It was here that the
+      Postmaster suddenly observed on the edge of the wood the figure of an
+      elegantly-dressed woman; she was walking slowly, and apparently at her
+      ease; one hand held her skirts lightly gathered between her gloved
+      fingers, the other slowly swung a riding whip. Was it a picnic of some
+      people from Monterey or Santa Cruz? The spectacle was novel enough to
+      justify his coming nearer. Suddenly she withdrew into the wood; he lost
+      sight of her; she was gone. He remembered, however, that Flip was still to
+      be seen, and as the steep trail was beginning to tax all his energies, he
+      was fain to hurry forward. The sun was nearly vertical when he turned into
+      the canyon, and saw the bark roof of the cabin beyond. At almost the same
+      moment Flip appeared, flushed and panting, in the road before him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You've got something for me,&rdquo; she said, pointing to the parcel and
+      letters. Completely taken by surprise, the Postmaster mechanically yielded
+      them up, and as instantly regretted it. &ldquo;They're paid for,&rdquo; continued
+      Flip, observing his hesitation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That's so,&rdquo; stammered the official of the Crossing, seeing his last
+      chance of knowing the contents of the parcel vanish; &ldquo;but I thought ez
+      it's a valooable package, maybe ye might want to examine it to see that it
+      was all right afore ye receipted for it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'll risk it,&rdquo; said Flip, coolly, &ldquo;and if it ain't right I'll let ye
+      know.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      As the girl seemed inclined to retire with her property, the Postmaster
+      was driven to other conversation. &ldquo;We ain't had the pleasure of seeing you
+      down at the Crossing for a month o' Sundays,&rdquo; he began, with airy yet
+      pronounced gallantry. &ldquo;Some folks let on you was keepin' company with some
+      feller like Bijah Brown, and you were getting a little too set up for the
+      Crossing.&rdquo; The individual here mentioned being the county butcher, and
+      supposed to exhibit his hopeless affection for Flip by making a long and
+      useless divergence from his weekly route to enter the canyon for &ldquo;orders,&rdquo;
+       Flip did not deem it necessary to reply. &ldquo;Then I allowed how ez you might
+      have company,&rdquo; he continued; &ldquo;I reckon there's some city folks up at the
+      summit. I saw a mighty smart, fash'n'ble gal cavorting round. Had no end
+      o' style and fancy fixin's. That's my kind, I tell you. I just weaken on
+      that sort o' gal,&rdquo; he continued, in the firm belief that he had awakened
+      Flip's jealousy, as he glanced at her well-worn homespun frock, and found
+      her eyes suddenly fixed on his own.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Strange I ain't got to see her yet,&rdquo; she replied coolly, shouldering her
+      parcel, and quite ignoring any sense of obligation to him for his
+      extra-official act.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But you might get to see her at the edge of the Gin and Ginger Woods,&rdquo; he
+      persisted feebly, in a last effort to detain her; &ldquo;if you'll take a pasear
+      there with me.&rdquo; Flip's only response was to walk on toward the cabin,
+      whence, with a vague complimentary suggestion of &ldquo;droppin' in to pass the
+      time o' day&rdquo; with her father, the Postmaster meekly followed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The paternal Fairley, once convinced that his daughter's new companion
+      required no pecuniary or material assistance from his hands, relaxed to
+      the extent of entering into a querulous confidence with him, during which
+      Flip took the opportunity of slipping away. As Fairley had that
+      infelicitous tendency of most weak natures, to unconsciously exaggerate
+      unimportant details in their talk, the Postmaster presently became
+      convinced that the butcher was a constant and assiduous suitor of Flip's.
+      The absurdity of his sending parcels and letters by post when he might
+      bring them himself did not strike the official. On the contrary, he
+      believed it to be a master stroke of cunning. Fired by jealousy and Flip's
+      indifference, he &ldquo;deemed it his duty&rdquo;&mdash;using that facile form of
+      cowardly offensiveness&mdash;to betray Flip.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Of which she was happily oblivious. Once away from the cabin, she plunged
+      into the woods, with the parcel swung behind her like a knapsack. Leaving
+      the trail, she presently struck off in a straight line through cover and
+      underbrush with the unerring instinct of an animal, climbing hand over
+      hand the steepest ascent, or fluttering like a bird from branch to branch
+      down the deepest declivity. She soon reached that part of the trail where
+      the susceptible Postmaster had seen the fascinating unknown. Assuring
+      herself she was not followed, she crept through the thicket until she
+      reached a little waterfall and basin that had served the fugitive Lance
+      for a bath. The spot bore signs of later and more frequent occupancy, and
+      when Flip carefully removed some bark and brushwood from a cavity in the
+      rock and drew forth various folded garments, it was evident she had used
+      it as a sylvan dressing-room. Here she opened the parcel; it contained a
+      small and delicate shawl of yellow China crepe. Flip instantly threw it
+      over her shoulders and stepped hurriedly toward the edge of the wood. Then
+      she began to pass backward and forward before the trunk of a tree. At
+      first nothing was visible on the tree, but a closer inspection showed a
+      large pane of ordinary window glass stuck in the fork of the branches. It
+      was placed at such a cunning angle against the darkness of the forest
+      opening that it made a soft and mysterious mirror, not unlike a Claude
+      Lorraine glass, wherein not only the passing figure of the young girl was
+      seen, but the dazzling green and gold of the hillside, and the far-off
+      silhouetted crests of the Coast Range.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But this was evidently only a prelude to a severer rehearsal. When she
+      returned to the waterfall she unearthed from her stores a large piece of
+      yellow soap and some yards of rough cotton &ldquo;sheeting.&rdquo; These she deposited
+      beside the basin and again crept to the edge of the wood to assure herself
+      that she was alone. Satisfied that no intruding foot had invaded that
+      virgin bower, she returned to her bath and began to undress. A slight wind
+      followed her, and seemed to whisper to the circumjacent trees. It appeared
+      to waken her sister naiads and nymphs, who, joining their leafy fingers,
+      softly drew around her a gently moving band of trembling lights and
+      shadows, of flecked sprays and inextricably mingled branches, and involved
+      her in a chaste sylvan obscurity, veiled alike from pursuing god or
+      stumbling shepherd. Within these hallowed precincts was the musical ripple
+      of laughter and falling water, and at times the glimpse of a lithe
+      brier-caught limb, or a ray of sunlight trembling over bright flanks, or
+      the white austere outline of a childish bosom.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When she drew again the leafy curtain, and once more stepped out of the
+      wood, she was completely transformed. It was the figure that had appeared
+      to the Postmaster; the slight, erect, graceful form of a young woman
+      modishly attired. It was Flip, but Flip made taller by the lengthened
+      skirt and clinging habiliments of fashion. Flip freckled, but, through the
+      cunning of a relief of yellow color in her gown, her piquant brown-shot
+      face and eyes brightened and intensified until she seemed like a spicy
+      odor made visible. I cannot affirm that the judgment of Flip's mysterious
+      modiste was infallible, or that the taste of Mr. Lance Harriott, her
+      patron, was fastidious; enough that it was picturesque, and perhaps not
+      more glaring and extravagant than the color in which Spring herself had
+      once clothed the sere hillside where Flip was now seated. The phantom
+      mirror in the tree fork caught and held her with the sky, the green
+      leaves, the sunlight and all the graciousness of her surroundings, and the
+      wind gently tossed her hair and the gay ribbons of her gypsy hat. Suddenly
+      she started. Some remote sound in the trail below, inaudible to any ear
+      less fine than hers, arrested her breathing. She rose swiftly and darted
+      into cover.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ten minutes passed. The sun was declining; the white fog was beginning to
+      creep over the Coast Range. From the edge of the wood Cinderella appeared,
+      disenchanted, and in her homespun garments. The clock had struck&mdash;the
+      spell was past. As she disappeared down the trail even the magic mirror,
+      moved by the wind, slipped from the tree top to the ground, and became a
+      piece of common glass.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0004" id="link2HCH0004">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER IV.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      The events of the day had produced a remarkable impression on the facial
+      aspect of the charcoal-burning Fairley. Extraordinary processes of
+      thought, indicated by repeated rubbing of his forehead, had produced a
+      high light in the middle and a corresponding deepening of shadow at the
+      sides, until it bore the appearance of a perfect sphere. It was this
+      forehead that confronted Flip reproachfully as became a deceived comrade,
+      menacingly as became an outraged parent in the presence of a third party
+      and&mdash;a Postmaster!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Fine doin's this, yer receivin' clandecent bundles and letters, eh?&rdquo; he
+      began. Flip sent one swift, withering look of contempt at the Postmaster,
+      who at once becoming invertebrate and groveling, mumbled that he must &ldquo;get
+      on&rdquo; to the Crossing, and rose to go. But the old man, who had counted on
+      his presence for moral support, and was clearly beginning to hate him for
+      precipitating this scene with his daughter, whom he feared, violently
+      protested.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sit down, can't ye? Don't you see you're a witness?&rdquo; he screamed
+      hysterically.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was a fatal suggestion. &ldquo;Witness,&rdquo; repeated Flip, scornfully.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, a witness! He gave ye letters and bundles.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Weren't they directed to me?&rdquo; asked Flip.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; said the Postmaster, hesitatingly; &ldquo;in course, yes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do YOU lay claim to them?&rdquo; she said, turning to her father.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No,&rdquo; responded the old man.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you?&rdquo; sharply, to the Postmaster.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No,&rdquo; he replied.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then,&rdquo; said Flip, coolly, &ldquo;if you're not claimin' 'em for yourself, and
+      you hear father say they ain't his, I reckon the less you have to say
+      about 'em the better.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thar's suthin' in that,&rdquo; said the old man, shamelessly abandoning the
+      Postmaster.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then why don't she say who sent 'em, and what they are like,&rdquo; said the
+      Postmaster, &ldquo;if there's nothin' in it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; echoed Dad. &ldquo;Flip, why don't you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Without answering the direct question, Flip turned upon her father.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Maybe you forget how you used to row and tear round here because tramps
+      and such like came to the ranch for suthin', and I gave it to 'em? Maybe
+      you'll quit tearin' round and letting yourself be made a fool of now by
+      that man, just because one of those tramps gets up and sends us some
+      presents back in turn?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;'Twasn't me, Flip,&rdquo; said the old man, deprecatingly, but glaring at the
+      astonished Postmaster. &ldquo;Twasn't my doin'. I allus said if you cast your
+      bread on the waters it would come back to you by return mail. The fact is,
+      the Gov'ment is gettin' too high-handed! Some o' these bloated officials
+      had better climb down before next leckshen.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Maybe,&rdquo; continued Flip to her father, without looking at her discomfited
+      visitor, &ldquo;ye'd better find out whether one of those officials comes up to
+      this yer ranch to steal away a gal about my own size, or to get points
+      about diamond-making. I reckon he don't travel round to find out who
+      writes all the letters that go through the Post Office.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Postmaster had seemingly miscalculated the old man's infirm temper and
+      the daughter's skillful use of it. He was unprepared for Flip's boldness
+      and audacity, and when he saw that both barrels of the accusation had
+      taken effect on the charcoal burner, who was rising with epileptic rage,
+      he fairly turned and fled. The old man would have followed him with
+      objurgation beyond the door, but for the restraining hand of Flip.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Baffled and beaten, nevertheless Fate was not wholly unkind to the
+      retreating suitor. Near the Gin and Ginger Woods he picked up a letter
+      which had fallen from Flip's pocket. He recognized the writing, and did
+      not scruple to read it. It was not a love epistle,&mdash;at least, not
+      such a one as he would have written,&mdash;it did not give the address nor
+      the name of the correspondent; but he read the following with greedy eyes:&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Perhaps it's just as well that you don't rig yourself out for the benefit
+      of those dead beats at the Crossing, or any tramp that might hang round
+      the ranch. Keep all your style for me when I come. I can't tell you when,
+      it's mighty uncertain before the rainy season. But I'm coming soon. Don't
+      go back on your promise about lettin up on the tramps, and being a little
+      more high-toned. And don't you give 'em so much. It's true I sent you hats
+      TWICE. I clean forgot all about the first; but I wouldn't have given a
+      ten-dollar hat to a nigger woman who had a sick baby because I had an
+      extra hat. I'd have let that baby slide. I forgot to ask whether the skirt
+      is worn separately; I must see the dressmaking sharp about it; but I think
+      you'll want something on besides a jacket and skirt; at least, it looks
+      like it up here. I don't think you could manage a piano down there without
+      the old man knowing it, and raisin' the devil generally. I promised you
+      I'd let up on him. Mind you keep all your promises to me. I'm glad you're
+      gettin' on with the six-shooter; tin cans are good at fifteen yards, but
+      try it on suthin' that MOVES! I forgot to say that I am on the track of
+      your big brother. It's a three years' old track, and he was in Arizona.
+      The friend who told me didn't expatiate much on what he did there, but I
+      reckon they had a high old time. If he's above the earth I'll find him,
+      you bet. The yerba buena and the southern wood came all right,&mdash;they
+      smelt like you. Say, Flip, do you remember the last&mdash;the VERY last&mdash;thing
+      that happened when you said 'Good-by' on the trail? Don't let me ever find
+      out that you've let anybody else kiss&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But here the virtuous indignation of the Postmaster found vent in an oath.
+      He threw the letter away. He retained of it only two facts,&mdash;Flip HAD
+      a brother who was missing; she had a lover present in the flesh.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      How much of the substance of this and previous letters Flip had confided
+      to her father I cannot say. If she suppressed anything it was probably
+      that which affected Lance's secret alone, and it was doubtful how much of
+      that she herself knew. In her own affairs she was frank without being
+      communicative, and never lost her shy obstinacy even with her father.
+      Governing the old man as completely as she did, she appeared most
+      embarrassed when she was most dominant; she had her own way without
+      lifting her voice or her eyes; she seemed oppressed by mauvaise honte when
+      she was most triumphant; she would end a discussion with a shy murmur
+      addressed to herself, or a single gesture of self-consciousness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The disclosure of her strange relations with an unknown man and the
+      exchange of presents and confidences seemed to suddenly awake Fairley to a
+      vague, uneasy sense of some unfulfilled duties as a parent. The first
+      effect of this on his weak nature was a peevish antagonism to the cause of
+      it. He had long, fretful monologues on the vanity of diamond-making, if
+      accompanied with a &ldquo;pestering&rdquo; by &ldquo;interlopers;&rdquo; on the wickedness of
+      concealment and conspiracy, and their effects on charcoal-burning; on the
+      nurturing of spies and &ldquo;adders&rdquo; in the family circle, and on the
+      seditiousness of dark and mysterious councils in which a gray-haired
+      father was left out. It was true that a word or look from Flip generally
+      brought these monologues to an inglorious and abrupt termination, but they
+      were none the less lugubrious as long as they lasted. In time they were
+      succeeded by an affectation of contrite apology and self-depreciation.
+      &ldquo;Don't go out o' the way to ask the old man,&rdquo; he would say, referring to
+      the quantity of bacon to be ordered; &ldquo;it's nat'ral a young gal should have
+      her own advisers.&rdquo; The state of the flour barrel would also produce a like
+      self-abasement. &ldquo;Unless ye're already in correspondence about more flour,
+      ye might take the opinion o' the first tramp ye meet ez to whether Santa
+      Cruz Mills is a good brand, but don't ask the old man.&rdquo; If Flip was in
+      conversation with the butcher, Fairley would obtrusively retire with the
+      hope &ldquo;he wasn't intrudin' on their secrets.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      These phases of her father's weakness were not frequent enough to excite
+      her alarm, but she could not help noticing they were accompanied with a
+      seriousness unusual to him. He began to be tremulously watchful of her,
+      returning often from work at an earlier hour, and lingering by the cabin
+      in the morning. He brought absurd and useless presents for her, and
+      presented them with a nervous anxiety, poorly concealed by an assumption
+      of careless, paternal generosity. &ldquo;Suthin' I picked up at the Crossin' for
+      ye to-day,&rdquo; he would say, airily, and retire to watch the effect of a pair
+      of shoes two sizes too large, or a fur cap in September. He would have
+      hired a cheap parlor organ for her, but for the apparently unexpected
+      revelation that she couldn't play. He had received the news of a clue to
+      his long-lost son without emotion, but lately he seemed to look upon it as
+      a foregone conclusion, and one that necessarily solved the question of
+      companionship for Flip. &ldquo;In course, when you've got your own flesh and
+      blood with ye, ye can't go foolin' around with strangers.&rdquo; These autumnal
+      blossoms of affection, I fear, came too late for any effect upon Flip,
+      precociously matured by her father's indifference and selfishness. But she
+      was good humored, and, seeing him seriously concerned, gave him more of
+      her time, even visited him in the sacred seclusion of the &ldquo;diamond pit,&rdquo;
+       and listened with far-off eyes to his fitful indictment of all things
+      outside his grimy laboratory. Much of this patient indifference came with
+      a capricious change in her own habits; she no longer indulged in the
+      rehearsal of dress, she packed away her most treasured garments, and her
+      leafy boudoir knew her no more. She sometimes walked on the hillside, and
+      often followed the trail she had taken with Lance when she led him to the
+      ranch. She once or twice extended her walk to the spot where she had
+      parted from him, and as often came shyly away, her eyes downcast and her
+      face warm with color. Perhaps because these experiences and some
+      mysterious instinct of maturing womanhood had left a story in her eyes,
+      which her two adorers, the Postmaster and the Butcher, read with passion,
+      she became famous without knowing it. Extravagant stories of her
+      fascinations brought strangers into the valley. The effect upon her father
+      may be imagined. Lance could not have desired a more effective guardian
+      than he proved to be in this emergency. Those who had been told of this
+      hidden pearl were surprised to find it so jealously protected.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0005" id="link2HCH0005">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER V.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      The long, parched summer had drawn to its dusty close. Much of it was
+      already blown abroad and dissipated on trail and turnpike, or crackled in
+      harsh, unelastic fibres on hillside and meadow. Some of it had disappeared
+      in the palpable smoke by day and fiery crests by night of burning forests.
+      The besieging fogs on the Coast Range daily thinned their hosts, and at
+      last vanished. The wind changed from northwest to southwest. The salt
+      breath of the sea was on the summit. And then one day the staring,
+      unchanged sky was faintly touched with remote mysterious clouds, and grew
+      tremulous in expression. The next morning dawned upon a newer face in the
+      heavens, on changed woods, on altered outlines, on vanished crests, on
+      forgotten distances. It was raining!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Four weeks of this change, with broken spaces of sunlight and intense blue
+      aerial islands, and then a storm set in. All day the summit pines and
+      redwoods rocked in the blast. At times the onset of the rain seemed to be
+      held back by the fury of the gale, or was visibly seen in sharp waves on
+      the hillside. Unknown and concealed watercourses suddenly overflowed the
+      trails, pools became lakes and brooks rivers. Hidden from the storm, the
+      sylvan silence of sheltered valleys was broken by the impetuous rush of
+      waters; even the tiny streamlet that traversed Flip's retreat in the Gin
+      and Ginger Woods became a cascade.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The storm drove Fairley from his couch early. The falling of a large tree
+      across the trail, and the sudden overflow of a small stream beside it,
+      hastened his steps. But he was doomed to encounter what was to him a more
+      disagreeable object&mdash;a human figure. By the bedraggled drapery that
+      flapped and fluttered in the wind, by the long, unkempt hair that hid the
+      face and eyes, and by the grotesquely misplaced bonnet, the old man
+      recognized one of his old trespassers,&mdash;an Indian squaw.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Clear out 'er that! Come, make tracks, will ye?&rdquo; the old man screamed;
+      but here the wind stopped his voice, and drove him against a hazel bush.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Me heap sick,&rdquo; answered the squaw, shivering through her muddy shawl.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'll make ye a heap sicker if ye don't vamose the ranch,&rdquo; continued
+      Fairley, advancing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Me wantee Wangee girl. Wangee girl give me heap grub,&rdquo; said the squaw,
+      without moving.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You bet your life,&rdquo; groaned the old man to himself. Nevertheless an idea
+      struck him. &ldquo;Ye ain't brought no presents, hev ye?&rdquo; he asked cautiously.
+      &ldquo;Ye ain't got no pooty things for poor Wangee girl?&rdquo; he continued,
+      insinuatingly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Me got heap cache nuts and berries,&rdquo; said the squaw.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, in course! in course! That's just it,&rdquo; screamed Fairley; &ldquo;you've got
+      'em cached only two mile from yer, and you'll go and get 'em for a half
+      dollar, cash down.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Me bring Wangee girl to cache,&rdquo; replied the Indian, pointing to the wood.
+      &ldquo;Honest Injin.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Another bright idea struck Mr. Fairley. But it required some elaboration.
+      Hurrying the squaw with him through the pelting rain, he reached the
+      shelter of the corral. Vainly the shivering aborigine drew her tightly
+      bandaged papoose closer to her square, flat breast, and looked longingly
+      toward the cabin; the old man backed her against the palisade. Here he
+      cautiously imparted his dark intentions to employ her to keep watch and
+      ward over the ranch, and especially over its young mistress&mdash;&ldquo;clear
+      out all the tramps 'ceptin' yourself, and I'll keep ye in grub and rum.&rdquo;
+       Many and deliberate repetitions of this offer in various forms at last
+      seemed to affect the squaw; she nodded violently, and echoed the last word
+      &ldquo;rum.&rdquo; &ldquo;Now,&rdquo; she added. The old man hesitated; she was in possession of
+      his secret; he groaned, and, promising an immediate installment of liquor,
+      led her to the cabin.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The door was so securely fastened against the impact of the storm that
+      some moments elapsed before the bar was drawn, and the old man had become
+      impatient and profane. When it was partly opened by Flip he hastily
+      slipped in, dragging the squaw after him, and cast one single suspicious
+      glance around the rude apartment which served as a sitting-room. Flip had
+      apparently been writing. A small inkstand was still on the board table,
+      but her paper had evidently been concealed before she allowed them to
+      enter. The squaw instantly squatted before the adobe hearth, warmed her
+      bundled baby, and left the ceremony of introduction to her companion. Flip
+      regarded the two with calm preoccupation and indifference. The only thing
+      that touched her interest was the old squaw's draggled skirt and limp
+      neckerchief. They were Flip's own, long since abandoned and cast off in
+      the Gin and Ginger Woods. &ldquo;Secrets again,&rdquo; whined Fairley, still eying
+      Flip furtively. &ldquo;Secrets again, in course&mdash;in course&mdash;jiss so.
+      Secrets that must be kep from the ole man. Dark doin's by one's own flesh
+      and blood. Go on! go on! Don't mind me.&rdquo; Flip did not reply. She had even
+      lost the interest in her old dress. Perhaps it had only touched some note
+      in unison with her revery.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Can't ye get the poor critter some whiskey?&rdquo; he queried, fretfully. &ldquo;Ye
+      used to be peart enuff before.&rdquo; As Flip turned to the corner to lift the
+      demijohn, Fairley took occasion to kick the squaw with his foot, and
+      indicate by extravagant pantomime that the bargain was not to be alluded
+      to before the girl. Flip poured out some whiskey in a tin cup, and,
+      approaching the squaw, handed it to her. &ldquo;It's like ez not,&rdquo; continued
+      Fairley to his daughter, but looking at the squaw, &ldquo;that she'll be huntin'
+      the woods off and on, and kinder looking after the last pit near the
+      Madronos; ye'll give her grub and licker ez she likes. Well, d'ye hear,
+      Flip? Are ye moonin' agin with yer secrets? What's gone with ye?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      If the child were dreaming, it was a delicious dream. Her magnetic eyes
+      were suffused by a strange light, as though the eye itself had blushed;
+      her full pulse showed itself more in the rounding outline of her cheek
+      than in any deepening of color; indeed, if there was any heightening of
+      tint, it was in her freckles, which fairly glistened like tiny spangles.
+      Her eyes were downcast, her shoulders slightly bent, but her voice was low
+      and clear and thoughtful as ever.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;One o' the big pines above the Madrono pit has blown over into the run,&rdquo;
+       she said. &ldquo;It's choked up the water, and it's risin' fast. Like ez not
+      it's pourin' over into the pit by this time.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The old man rose with a fretful cry. &ldquo;And why in blames didn't you say so
+      first?&rdquo; he screamed, catching up his axe and rushing to the door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ye didn't give me a chance,&rdquo; said Flip, raising her eyes for the first
+      time. With an impatient imprecation, Fairley darted by her and rushed into
+      the wood. In an instant she had shut the door and bolted it. In the same
+      instant the squaw arose, dashed the long hair not only from her eyes, but
+      from her head, tore away her shawl and blanket, and revealed the square
+      shoulders of Lance Harriott! Flip remained leaning against the door; but
+      the young man in rising dropped the bandaged papoose, which rolled from
+      his lap into the fire. Flip, with a cry, sprang toward it; but Lance
+      caught her by the waist with one arm, as with the other he dragged the
+      bundle from the flames.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don't be alarmed,&rdquo; he said, gayly, &ldquo;it's only&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What?&rdquo; said Flip, trying to disengage herself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My coat and trousers.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Flip laughed, which encouraged Lance to another attempt to kiss her. She
+      evaded it by diving her head into his waistcoat, and saying, &ldquo;There's
+      father.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But he's gone to clear away that tree?&rdquo; suggested Lance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One of Flip's significant silences followed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, I see,&rdquo; he laughed. &ldquo;That was a plan to get him away! Ah!&rdquo; She had
+      released herself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why did you come like that?&rdquo; she said, pointing to his wig and blanket.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To see if you'd know me,&rdquo; he responded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No,&rdquo; said Flip, dropping her eyes. &ldquo;It's to keep other people from
+      knowing you. You're hidin' agin.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am,&rdquo; returned Lance; &ldquo;but,&rdquo; he interrupted, &ldquo;it's only the same old
+      thing.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But you wrote from Monterey that it was all over,&rdquo; she persisted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So it would have been,&rdquo; he said gloomily, &ldquo;but for some dog down here who
+      is hunting up an old scent. I'll spot him yet, and&mdash;&rdquo; He stopped
+      suddenly, with such utter abstraction of hatred in his fixed and
+      glittering eyes that she almost feared him. She laid her hand quite
+      unconsciously on his arm. He grasped it; his face changed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I couldn't wait any longer to see you, Flip, so I came here anyway,&rdquo; he
+      went on. &ldquo;I thought to hang round and get a chance to speak to you first,
+      when I fell afoul of the old man. He didn't know me, and tumbled right in
+      my little game. Why, do you believe he wants to hire me for my grub and
+      liquor, to act as a sort of sentry over you and the ranch?&rdquo; And here he
+      related with great gusto the substance of his interview. &ldquo;I reckon as he's
+      that suspicious,&rdquo; he concluded, &ldquo;I'd better play it out now as I've begun,
+      only it's mighty hard I can't see you here before the fire in your fancy
+      toggery, Flip, but must dodge in and out of the wet underbrush in these
+      yer duds of yours that I picked up in the old place in the Gin and Ginger
+      Woods.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then you came here just to see me?&rdquo; asked Flip.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I did.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;For only that?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Only that.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Flip dropped her eyes. Lance had got his other arm around her waist, but
+      her resisting little hand was still potent.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Listen,&rdquo; she said at last without looking up, but apparently talking to
+      the intruding arm, &ldquo;when Dad comes I'll get him to send you to watch the
+      diamond pit. It isn't far; it's warm, and&rdquo;&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'll come, after a bit, and see you. Quit foolin' now. If you'd only have
+      come here like yourself&mdash;like&mdash;like&mdash;a white man.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The old man,&rdquo; interrupted Lance, &ldquo;would have just passed me on to the
+      summit. I couldn't have played the lost fisherman on him at this time of
+      year.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ye could have been stopped at the Crossing by high water, you silly,&rdquo;
+       said the girl. &ldquo;It was.&rdquo; This grammatical obscurity referred to the stage
+      coach.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, but I might have been tracked to this cabin. And look here, Flip,&rdquo;
+       he said, suddenly straightening himself, and lifting the girl's face to a
+      level with his own, &ldquo;I don't want you to lie any more for me. It ain't
+      right.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All right. Ye needn't go to the pit, then, and I won't come.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Flip!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And here's Dad coming. Quick!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Lance chose to put his own interpretation on this last adjuration. The
+      resisting little hand was now lying quite limp on his shoulder, He drew
+      her brown, bright face near his own, felt her spiced breath on his lips,
+      his cheeks, his hot eyelids, his swimming eyes, kissed her, hurriedly
+      replaced his wig and blanket, and dropped beside the fire with the
+      tremulous laugh of youth and innocent first passion. Flip had withdrawn to
+      the window, and was looking out upon the rocking pines.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He don't seem to be coming,&rdquo; said Lance, with a half-shy laugh.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No,&rdquo; responded Flip demurely, pressing her hot oval cheek against the wet
+      panes; &ldquo;I reckon I was mistaken. You're sure,&rdquo; she added, looking
+      resolutely another way, but still trembling like a magnetic needle toward
+      Lance, as he moved slightly before the fire, &ldquo;you're SURE you'd like me to
+      come to you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sure, Flip?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hush!&rdquo; said Flip, as this reassuring query of reproachful astonishment
+      appeared about to be emphasized by a forward amatory dash of Lance's;
+      &ldquo;hush! he's coming this time, sure.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It was, indeed, Fairley, exceedingly wet, exceedingly bedraggled,
+      exceedingly sponged out as to color, and exceedingly profane. It appeared
+      that there was, indeed, a tree that had fallen in the &ldquo;run,&rdquo; but that, far
+      from diverting the overflow into the pit, it had established &ldquo;back water,&rdquo;
+       which had forced another outlet. All this might have been detected at once
+      by any human intellect not distracted by correspondence with strangers,
+      and enfeebled by habitually scorning the intellect of its own progenitor.
+      This reckless selfishness had further only resulted in giving &ldquo;rheumatics&rdquo;
+       to that progenitor, who now required the external administration of
+      opodeldoc to his limbs, and the internal administration of whiskey. Having
+      thus spoken, Mr. Fairley, with great promptitude and infantine simplicity,
+      at once bared two legs of entirely different colors and mutely waited for
+      his daughter to rub them. If Flip did this all unconsciously, and with the
+      mechanical dexterity of previous habit, it was because she did not quite
+      understand the savage eyes and impatient gestures of Lance in his
+      encompassing wig and blanket, and because it helped her to voice her
+      thought.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ye'll never be able to take yer watch at the diamond pit to-night, Dad,&rdquo;
+       she said; &ldquo;and I've been reck'nin' you might set the squaw there instead.
+      I can show her what to do.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But to Flip's momentary discomfiture, her father promptly objected.
+      &ldquo;Mebbee I've got suthin' else for her to do. Mebbee I may have my secrets,
+      too&mdash;eh?&rdquo; he said, with dark significance, at the same time
+      administering a significant nudge to Lance, which kept up the young man's
+      exasperation. &ldquo;No, she'll rest yer a bit just now. I'll set her to
+      watchin' suthin' else, like as not, when I want her.&rdquo; Flip fell into one
+      of her suggestive silences. Lance watched her earnestly, mollified by a
+      single furtive glance from her significant eyes; the rain dashed against
+      the windows, and occasionally spattered and hissed in the hearth of the
+      broad chimney, and Mr. David Fairley, somewhat assuaged by the internal
+      administration of whiskey, grew more loquacious. The genius of incongruity
+      and inconsistency which generally ruled his conduct came out with
+      freshened vigor under the gentle stimulation of spirit. &ldquo;On an evening
+      like this,&rdquo; he began, comfortably settling himself on the floor beside the
+      chimney, &ldquo;ye might rig yerself out in them new duds and fancy fixin's that
+      that Sacramento shrimp sent ye, and let your own flesh and blood see ye.
+      If that's too much to do for your old dad, ye might do it to please that
+      digger squaw as a Christian act.&rdquo; Whether in the hidden depths of the old
+      man's consciousness there was a feeling of paternal vanity in showing this
+      wretched aborigine the value and importance of the treasure she was about
+      to guard, I cannot say. Flip darted an interrogatory look at Lance, who
+      nodded a quiet assent, and she flew into the inner room. She did not
+      linger on the details of her toilet, but reappeared almost the next moment
+      in her new finery; buttoning the neck of her gown as she entered the room,
+      and chastely stopping at the window to characteristically pull up her
+      stocking. The peculiarity of her situation increased her usual shyness;
+      she played with the black and gold beads of a handsome necklace,&mdash;Lance's
+      last gift,&mdash;as the merest child might; her unbuckled shoe gave the
+      squaw a natural opportunity of showing her admiration and devotion by
+      insisting upon buckling it, and gave Lance, under that disguise, an
+      opportunity of covertly kissing the little foot and ankle in the shadow of
+      the chimney; an event which provoked slight hysterical symptoms in Flip,
+      and caused her to sit suddenly down in spite of the remonstrances of her
+      parent. &ldquo;Ef you can't quit gigglin' and squirmin' like an Injin baby
+      yourself, ye'd better git rid o' them duds,&rdquo; he ejaculated with peevish
+      scorn.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Yet, under this perfunctory rebuke, his weak vanity could not be hidden,
+      and he enjoyed the evident admiration of a creature whom he believed to be
+      half-witted and degraded all the more keenly because it did not make him
+      jealous. She could not take Flip from him. Rendered garrulous by liquor,
+      he went to voice his contempt for those who might attempt it. Taking
+      advantage of his daughter's absence to resume her homely garments, he
+      whispered confidentially to Lance,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ye see these yer fine dresses, ye might think is presents. Pr'aps Flip
+      lets on they are? Pr'aps she don't know any better. But they ain't
+      presents. They're only samples o' dressmaking and jewelry that a vain,
+      conceited shrimp of a feller up in Sacramento sends down here to get
+      customers for. In course I'm to pay for 'em. In course he reckons I'm to
+      do it. In course I calkilate to do it; but he needn't try to play 'em off
+      as presents. He talks suthin' o' coming down here, sportin' hisself off on
+      Flip as a fancy buck! Not ez long ez the old man's here, you bet.&rdquo;
+       Thoroughly carried away by his fancied wrongs, it was perhaps fortunate
+      that he did not observe the flashing eyes of Lance behind his lank and
+      lustreless wig; but seeing only the figure of Lance, as he had conjured
+      him, he went on: &ldquo;That's why I want you to hang around her. Hang around
+      her ontil my boy,&mdash;him that's comin' home on a visit,&mdash;gets
+      here, and I reckon he'll clear out that yar Sacramento counter-jumper.
+      Only let me get a sight o' him afore Flip does, eh? D'ye hear? Dog my skin
+      if I don't believe the d&mdash;&mdash;d Injin's drunk.&rdquo; It was fortunate
+      that at that moment Flip reappeared, and, dropping on the hearth between
+      her father and the infuriated Lance, let her hand slip in his with a
+      warning pressure. The light touch momentarily recalled him to himself and
+      her, but not until the quick-witted girl had had revealed to her in one
+      startled wave of consciousness the full extent of Lance's infirmity of
+      temper. With the instinct of awakened tenderness came a sense of
+      responsibility, and a vague premonition of danger. The coy blossom of her
+      heart was scarce unfolded before it was chilled by approaching shadows.
+      Fearful of, she knew not what, she hesitated. Every moment of Lance's stay
+      was imperiled by a single word that might spring from his suppressed white
+      lips; beyond and above the suspicions his sudden withdrawal might awaken
+      in her father's breast, she was dimly conscious of some mysterious terror
+      without that awaited him. She listened to the furious onslaught of the
+      wind upon the sycamores beside their cabin, and thought she heard it
+      there; she listened to the sharp fusillade of rain upon roof and pane, and
+      the turbulent roar and rush of leaping mountain torrents at their very
+      feet, and fancied it was there. She suddenly sprang to the window, and,
+      pressing her eyes to the pane, saw through the misty turmoil of tossing
+      boughs and swaying branches the scintillating intermittent flames of
+      torches moving on the trail above, and KNEW it was there!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In an instant she was collected and calm. &ldquo;Dad,&rdquo; she said, in her ordinary
+      indifferent tone, &ldquo;there's torches movin' up toward the diamond pit.
+      Likely it's tramps. I'll take the squaw and see.&rdquo; And before the old man
+      could stagger to his feet she had dragged Lance with her into the road.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0006" id="link2HCH0006">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER VI.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      The wind charged down upon them, slamming the door at their backs,
+      extinguishing the broad shaft of light that had momentarily shot out into
+      the darkness, and swept them a dozen yards away. Gaining the lee of a
+      madrono tree, Lance opened his blanketed arms, enfolded the girl, and felt
+      her for one brief moment tremble and nestle in his bosom like some
+      frightened animal. &ldquo;Well,&rdquo; he said, gayly, &ldquo;what next?&rdquo; Flip recovered
+      herself. &ldquo;You're safe now anywhere outside the house. But did you expect
+      them tonight?&rdquo; Lance shrugged his shoulders. &ldquo;Why not?&rdquo; &ldquo;Hush!&rdquo; returned
+      the girl; &ldquo;they're coming this way.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The four flickering, scattered lights presently dropped into line. The
+      trail had been found; they were coming nearer. Flip breathed quickly; the
+      spiced aroma of her presence filled the blanket as he drew her tightly
+      beside him. He had forgotten the storm that raged around them, the
+      mysterious foe that was approaching, until Flip caught his sleeve with a
+      slight laugh. &ldquo;Why, it's Kennedy and Bijah?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Who's Kennedy and Bijah?&rdquo; asked Lance, curtly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Kennedy's the Postmaster and Bijah's the Butcher.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What do they want?&rdquo; continued Lance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Me,&rdquo; said Flip, coyly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes; let's run away.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Half leading, half dragging her friend, Flip made her way with unerring
+      woodcraft down the ravine. The sound of voices and even the tumult of the
+      storm became fainter, an acrid smell of burning green wood smarted Lance's
+      lips and eyes; in the midst of the darkness beneath him gradually a faint,
+      gigantic nimbus like a lurid eye glowed and sank, quivered and faded with
+      the spent breath of the gale as it penetrated their retreat. &ldquo;The pit,&rdquo;
+       whispered Flip; &ldquo;it's safe on the other side,&rdquo; she added, cautiously
+      skirting the orbit of the great eye, and leading him to a sheltered nest
+      of bark and sawdust. It was warm and odorous. Nevertheless, they both
+      deemed it necessary to enwrap themselves in the single blanket. The eye
+      beamed fitfully upon them, occasionally a wave of lambent tremulousness
+      passed across it; its weirdness was an excuse for their drawing nearer
+      each other in playful terror.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Flip.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What did the other two want? To see you, TOO?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Likely,&rdquo; said Flip, without the least trace of coquetry. &ldquo;There's been a
+      lot of strangers yer, off and on.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Perhaps you'd like to go back and see them?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you want me to?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Lance's reply was a kiss. Nevertheless he was vaguely uneasy. &ldquo;Looks a
+      little as if I were running away, don't it?&rdquo; he suggested.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No,&rdquo; said Flip; &ldquo;they think you're only a squaw; it's me they're after.&rdquo;
+       Lance smarted a little at this infelicitous speech. A strange and
+      irritating sensation had been creeping over him&mdash;it was his first
+      experience of shame and remorse. &ldquo;I reckon I'll go back and see,&rdquo; he said,
+      rising abruptly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Flip was silent. She was thinking. Believing that the men were seeking her
+      only, she knew that their attention would be directed from her companion
+      when it was found out he was no longer with her, and she dreaded to meet
+      them in his irritable presence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Go,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;tell Dad something's gone wrong in the diamond pit, and
+      say I'm watching it for him here.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'll go there and wait for him. If he can't get rid of them, and they
+      follow him there, I'll come back here and meet you. Anyhow, I'll manage to
+      have Dad wait there a spell.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She took his hand and led him back by a different path to the trail. He
+      was surprised to find that the cabin, its window glowing from the fire,
+      was only a hundred yards away. &ldquo;Go in the back way, by the shed. Don't go
+      in the room, nor near the light, if you can. Don't talk inside, but call
+      or beckon to Dad. Remember,&rdquo; she said, with a laugh, &ldquo;you're keeping watch
+      of me for him. Pull your hair down on your eyes so.&rdquo; This operation, like
+      most feminine embellishments of the masculine toilet was attended by a
+      kiss, and Flip, stepping back into the shadow, vanished in the storm.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Lance's first movements were inconsistent with his assumed sex. He picked
+      up his draggled skirt, and drew a bowie knife from his boot. From his
+      bosom he took a revolver, turning the chambers noiselessly as he felt the
+      caps. He then crept toward the cabin softly and gained the shed. It was
+      quite dark but for a pencil of light piercing a crack of the rude,
+      ill-fitting door that opened on the sitting-room. A single voice not
+      unfamiliar to him, raised in half-brutal triumph, greeted his ears.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A name was mentioned&mdash;his own! His angry hand was on the latch. One
+      moment more and he would have burst the door, but in that instant another
+      name was uttered&mdash;a name that dropped his hand from the latch and the
+      blood from his cheeks. He staggered backward, passed his hand swiftly
+      across his forehead, recovered himself with a gesture of mingled rage and
+      despair, and, sinking on his knees beside the door, pressed his hot
+      temples against the crack.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do I know Lance Harriott?&rdquo; said the voice. &ldquo;Do I know the d&mdash;&mdash;d
+      ruffian? Didn't I hunt him a year ago into the brush three miles from the
+      Crossing? Didn't we lose sight of him the very day he turned up yer at
+      this ranch, and got smuggled over into Monterey? Ain't it the same man as
+      killed Arkansaw Bob&mdash;Bob Ridley&mdash;the name he went by in Sonora?
+      And who was Bob Ridley, eh? Who? Why, you d&mdash;&mdash;d old fool, it
+      was Bob Fairley&mdash;YOUR SON!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The old man's voice rose querulous and indistinct.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What are ye talkin' about?&rdquo; interrupted the first speaker. &ldquo;I tell you I
+      KNOW. Look at these pictures. I found 'em on his body. Look at 'em.
+      Pictures of you and your girl. Pr'aps you'll deny them. Pr'aps you'll tell
+      me I lie when I tell you HE told me he was your son; told me how he ran
+      away from you; how you were livin' somewhere in the mountains makin' gold,
+      or suthin' else, outer charcoal. He told me who he was as a secret. He
+      never let on he told it to any one else. And when I found that the man who
+      killed him, Lance Harriott, had been hidin' here, had been sendin' spies
+      all around to find out all about your son, had been foolin' you and tryin'
+      to ruin your gal as he had killed your boy, I knew that HE knew it, too.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;LIAR!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The door fell in with a crash. There was the sudden apparition of a
+      demoniac face, still half hidden by the long trailing black locks of hair
+      that curled like Medusa's around it. A cry of terror filled the room.
+      Three of the men dashed from the door and fled precipitately. The man who
+      had spoken sprang toward his rifle in the chimney corner. But the movement
+      was his last; a blinding flash and shattering report interposed between
+      him and his weapon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The impulse carried him forward headlong into the fire, that hissed and
+      spluttered with his blood, and Lance Harriott with his smoking pistol,
+      strode past him to the door. Already far down the trail there were hurried
+      voices, the crack and crackling of impending branches growing fainter and
+      fainter in the distance. Lance turned back to the solitary living figure&mdash;the
+      old man.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Yet he might have been dead, too, he sat so rigid and motionless, his
+      fixed eyes staring vacantly at the body on the hearth. Before him on the
+      table lay the cheap photographs, one evidently of himself, taken in some
+      remote epoch of complexion, one of a child which Lance recognized as Flip.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Tell me,&rdquo; said Lance hoarsely, laying his quivering hand on the table,
+      &ldquo;was Bob Ridley your son?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My son,&rdquo; echoed the old man in a strange, far-off voice, without turning
+      his eyes from the corpse&mdash;&ldquo;My son&mdash;is&mdash;is&mdash;is there!&rdquo;
+       pointing to the dead man. &ldquo;Hush! Didn't he tell you so? Didn't you hear
+      him say it? Dead&mdash;dead&mdash;shot&mdash;shot!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Silence! are you crazy, man?&rdquo; repeated Lance, tremblingly; &ldquo;that is not
+      Bob Ridley, but a dog, a coward, a liar gone to his reckoning. Hear me! If
+      your son WAS Bob Ridley, I swear to God I never knew it, now or&mdash;or&mdash;THEN.
+      Do you hear me? Tell me! Do you believe me? Speak! You shall speak.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He laid his hand almost menacingly on the old man's shoulder. Fairley
+      slowly raised his head. Lance fell back with a groan of horror. The weak
+      lips were wreathed with a feeble imploring smile, but the eyes wherein the
+      fretful, peevish, suspicious spirit had dwelt were blank and tenantless;
+      the flickering intellect that had lit them was blown out and vanished.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Lance walked toward the door and remained motionless for a moment, gazing
+      into the night. When he turned back again toward the fire his face was as
+      colorless as the dead man's on the hearth; the fire of passion was gone
+      from his beaten eyes; his step was hesitating and slow. He went up to the
+      table.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I say, old man,&rdquo; he said, with a strange smile and an odd, premature
+      suggestion of the infinite weariness of death in his voice, &ldquo;you wouldn't
+      mind giving me this, would you?&rdquo; and he took up the picture of Flip. The
+      old man nodded repeatedly. &ldquo;Thank you,&rdquo; said Lance. He went to the door,
+      paused a moment, and returned. &ldquo;Good-by, old man,&rdquo; he said, holding out
+      his hand. Fairley took it with a childish smile. &ldquo;He's dead,&rdquo; said the old
+      man softly, holding Lance's hand, but pointing to the hearth. &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; said
+      Lance, with the faintest of smiles on the palest of faces. &ldquo;You feel sorry
+      for any one that's dead, don't you?&rdquo; Fairley nodded again. Lance looked at
+      him with eyes as remote as his own, shook his head, and turned away. When
+      he reached the door he laid his revolver carefully, and, indeed, somewhat
+      ostentatiously, upon a chair. But when he stepped from the threshold he
+      stopped a moment in the light of the open door to examine the lock of a
+      small derringer which he drew from his pocket. He then shut the door
+      carefully, and with the same slow, hesitating step, felt his way into the
+      night.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He had but one idea in his mind, to find some lonely spot; some spot where
+      the footsteps of man would never penetrate, some spot that would yield him
+      rest, sleep, obliteration, forgetfulness, and, above all, where HE would
+      be forgotten. He had seen such places; surely there were many,&mdash;where
+      bones were picked up of dead men who had faded from the earth and had left
+      no other record. If he could only keep his senses now he might find such a
+      spot, but he must be careful, for her little feet went everywhere, and she
+      must never see him again alive or dead. And in the midst of his thoughts,
+      and the darkness, and the storm, he heard a voice at his side, &ldquo;Lance, how
+      long you have been!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      Left to himself, the old man again fell into a vacant contemplation of the
+      dead body before him, until a stronger blast swept down like an avalanche
+      upon the cabin, burst through the ill-fastened door and broken chimney,
+      and, dashing the ashes and living embers over the floor, filled the room
+      with blinding smoke and flame. Fairley rose with a feeble cry, and then,
+      as if acted upon by some dominant memory, groped under the bed until he
+      found his buckskin bag and his precious crystal, and fled precipitately
+      from the room. Lifted by this second shock from his apathy, he returned to
+      the fixed idea of his life,&mdash;the discovery and creation of the
+      diamond,&mdash;and forgot all else. The feeble grasp that his shaken
+      intellect kept of the events of the night relaxed, the disguised Lance,
+      the story of his son, the murder, slipped into nothingness; there remained
+      only the one idea, his nightly watch by the diamond pit. The instinct of
+      long habit was stronger than the darkness or the onset of the storm, and
+      he kept his tottering way over stream and fallen timber until he reached
+      the spot. A sudden tremor seemed to shake the lambent flame that had lured
+      him on. He thought he heard the sound of voices; there were signs of
+      recent disturbance,&mdash;footprints in the sawdust! With a cry of rage
+      and suspicion, Fairley slipped into the pit and sprang toward the nearest
+      opening. To his frenzied fancy it had been tampered with, his secret
+      discovered, the fruit of his long labors stolen from him that very night.
+      With superhuman strength he began to open the pit, scattering the
+      half-charred logs right and left, and giving vent to the suffocating gases
+      that rose from the now incandescent charcoal. At times the fury of the
+      gale would drive it back and hold it against the sides of the pit, leaving
+      the opening free; at times, following the blind instinct of habit, the
+      demented man would fall upon his face and bury his nose and mouth in the
+      wet bark and sawdust. At last, the paroxysm past, he sank back again in
+      his old apathetic attitude of watching, the attitude he had so often kept
+      beside his sylvan crucible. In this attitude and in silence he waited for
+      the dawn.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It came with a hush in the storm; it came with blue openings in the broken
+      up and tumbled heavens; it came with stars that glistened first, and then
+      paled, and at last sank drowning in those deep cerulean lakes; it came
+      with those cerulean lakes broadening into vaster seas, whose shores
+      expanded at last into one illimitable ocean, cerulean no more, but flecked
+      with crimson and opal dyes; it came with the lightly lifted misty curtain
+      of the day, torn and rent on crag and pine top, but always lifting,
+      lifting. It came with the sparkle of emerald in the grasses, and the flash
+      of diamonds in every spray, with a whisper in the awakening woods, and
+      voices in the traveled roads and trails.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The sound of these voices stopped before the pit, and seemed to
+      interrogate the old man. He came, and, putting his finger on his lips,
+      made a sign of caution. When three or four men had descended he bade them
+      follow him, saying, weakly and disjointedly, but persistently: &ldquo;My boy&mdash;my
+      son Robert&mdash;came home&mdash;came home at last&mdash;here with Flip&mdash;both
+      of them&mdash;come and see!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He had reached a little niche or nest in the hillside, and stopped and
+      suddenly drew aside a blanket. Beneath it, side by side, lay Flip and
+      Lance, dead, with their cold hands clasped in each other's.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Suffocated!&rdquo; said two or three, turning with horror toward the broken up
+      and still smouldering pit.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Asleep!&rdquo; said the old man. &ldquo;Asleep! I've seen 'em lying that way when
+      they were babies together. Don't tell me! Don't say I don't know my own
+      flesh and blood! So! so! So, my pretty ones!&rdquo; He stooped and kissed them.
+      Then, drawing the blanket over them gently, he rose and said softly, &ldquo;Good
+      night!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Flip: A California Romance, by Bret Harte
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Flip: A California Romance, by Bret Harte
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Flip: A California Romance
+
+Author: Bret Harte
+
+Release Date: May 27, 2006 [EBook #2793]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FLIP: A CALIFORNIA ROMANCE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Donald Lainson
+
+
+
+
+
+FLIP: A CALIFORNIA ROMANCE
+
+
+By Bret Harte
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+
+Just where the track of the Los Gatos road streams on and upward like
+the sinuous trail of a fiery rocket until it is extinguished in the blue
+shadows of the Coast Range, there is an embayed terrace near the summit,
+hedged by dwarf firs. At every bend of the heat-laden road the eye
+rested upon it wistfully; all along the flank of the mountain, which
+seemed to pant and quiver in the oven-like air, through rising dust, the
+slow creaking of dragging wheels, the monotonous cry of tired springs,
+and the muffled beat of plunging hoofs, it held out a promise of
+sheltered coolness and green silences beyond. Sunburned and anxious
+faces yearned toward it from the dizzy, swaying tops of stagecoaches,
+from lagging teams far below, from the blinding white canvas covers of
+"mountain schooners," and from scorching saddles that seemed to weigh
+down the scrambling, sweating animals beneath. But it would seem that
+the hope was vain, the promise illusive. When the terrace was reached it
+appeared not only to have caught and gathered all the heat of the
+valley below, but to have evolved a fire of its own from some hidden
+crater-like source unknown. Nevertheless, instead of prostrating and
+enervating man and beast, it was said to have induced the wildest
+exaltation. The heated air was filled and stifling with resinous
+exhalations. The delirious spices of balm, bay, spruce, juniper, yerba
+buena, wild syringa, and strange aromatic herbs as yet unclassified,
+distilled and evaporated in that mighty heat, and seemed to fire with
+a midsummer madness all who breathed their fumes. They stung, smarted,
+stimulated, intoxicated. It was said that the most jaded and foot-sore
+horses became furious and ungovernable under their influence; wearied
+teamsters and muleteers, who had exhausted their profanity in the
+ascent, drank fresh draughts of inspiration in this fiery air, extended
+their vocabulary, and created new and startling forms of objurgation.
+It is recorded that one bibulous stage-driver exhausted description
+and condensed its virtues in a single phrase: "Gin and ginger." This
+felicitous epithet, flung out in a generous comparison with his favorite
+drink, "rum and gum," clung to it ever after.
+
+Such was the current comment on this vale of spices. Like most human
+criticism it was hasty and superficial. No one yet had been known to
+have penetrated deeply its mysterious recesses. It was still far below
+the summit and its wayside inn. It had escaped the intruding foot of
+hunter and prospector; and the inquisitive patrol of the county surveyor
+had only skirted its boundary. It remained for Mr. Lance Harriott to
+complete its exploration. His reasons for so doing were simple. He had
+made the journey thither underneath the stage-coach, and clinging to its
+axle. He had chosen this hazardous mode of conveyance at night, as the
+coach crept by his place of concealment in the wayside brush, to elude
+the sheriff of Monterey County and his posse, who were after him.
+
+He had not made himself known to his fellow-passengers as they already
+knew him as a gambler, an outlaw, and a desperado; he deemed it unwise
+to present himself in a newer reputation of a man who had just slain
+a brother gambler in a quarrel, and for whom a reward was offered.
+He slipped from the axle as the stage-coach swirled past the brushing
+branches of fir, and for an instant lay unnoticed, a scarcely
+distinguishable mound of dust in the broken furrows of the road. Then,
+more like a beast than a man, he crept on his hands and knees into the
+steaming underbrush. Here he lay still until the clatter of harness
+and the sound of voices faded in the distance. Had he been followed,
+it would have been difficult to detect in that inert mass of rags any
+semblance to a known form or figure. A hideous reddish mask of dust and
+clay obliterated his face; his hands were shapeless stumps exaggerated
+in his trailing sleeves. And when he rose, staggering like a drunken
+man, and plunged wildly into the recesses of the wood, a cloud of dust
+followed him, and pieces and patches of his frayed and rotten garments
+clung to the impeding branches. Twice he fell, but, maddened and upheld
+by the smarting spices and stimulating aroma of the air, he kept on his
+course.
+
+Gradually the heat became less oppressive; once when he stopped and
+leaned exhaustedly against a sapling, he fancied he saw the zephyr he
+could not yet feel in the glittering and trembling of leaves in the
+distance before him. Again the deep stillness was moved with a faint
+sighing rustle, and he knew he must be nearing the edge of the thicket.
+The spell of silence thus broken was followed by a fainter, more musical
+interruption--the glassy tinkle of water! A step further his foot
+trembled on the verge of a slight ravine, still closely canopied by the
+interlacing boughs overhead. A tiny stream that he could have dammed
+with his hand yet lingered in this parched red gash in the hillside and
+trickled into a deep, irregular, well-like cavity, that again overflowed
+and sent its slight surplus on. It had been the luxurious retreat of
+many a spotted trout; it was to be the bath of Lance Harriott. Without
+a moment's hesitation, without removing a single garment, he slipped
+cautiously into it, as if fearful of losing a single drop. His head
+disappeared from the level of the bank; the solitude was again unbroken.
+Only two objects remained upon the edge of the ravine,--his revolver and
+tobacco pouch.
+
+A few minutes elapsed. A fearless blue jay alighted on the bank and
+made a prospecting peck at the tobacco pouch. It yielded in favor of a
+gopher, who endeavored to draw it toward his hole, but in turn gave way
+to a red squirrel, whose attention was divided, however, between the
+pouch and the revolver, which he regarded with mischievous fascination.
+Then there was a splash, a grunt, a sudden dispersion of animated
+nature, and the head of Mr. Lance Harriott appeared above the bank. It
+was a startling transformation. Not only that he had, by this wholesale
+process, washed himself and his light "drill" garments entirely clean,
+but that he had, apparently by the same operation, morally cleansed
+HIMSELF, and left every stain and ugly blot of his late misdeeds and
+reputation in his bath. His face, albeit scratched here and there, was
+rosy, round, shining with irrepressible good humor and youthful levity.
+His large blue eyes were infantine in their innocent surprise and
+thoughtlessness. Dripping yet with water, and panting, he rested his
+elbows lazily on the bank, and became instantly absorbed with a boy's
+delight in the movements of the gopher, who, after the first alarm,
+returned cautiously to abduct the tobacco pouch. If any familiar had
+failed to detect Lance Harriott in this hideous masquerade of dust and
+grime and tatters, still less would any passing stranger have recognized
+in this blond faun the possible outcast and murderer. And, when with a
+swirl of his spattering sleeve, he drove back the gopher in a shower of
+spray and leaped to the bank, he seemed to have accepted his felonious
+hiding-place as a mere picnicking bower.
+
+A slight breeze was unmistakably permeating the wood from the west.
+Looking in that direction, Lance imagined that the shadow was less dark,
+and although the undergrowth was denser, he struck off carelessly toward
+it. As he went on, the wood became lighter and lighter; branches, and
+presently leaves, were painted against the vivid blue of the sky. He
+knew he must be near the summit, stopped, felt for his revolver, and
+then lightly put the few remaining branches aside.
+
+The full glare of the noonday sun at first blinded him. When he could
+see more clearly, he found himself on the open western slope of the
+mountain, which in the Coast Range was seldom wooded. The spiced thicket
+stretched between him and the summit, and again between him and the
+stage road that plunges from the terrace, like forked lightning into the
+valley below. He could command all the approaches without being seen.
+Not that this seemed to occupy his thoughts or cause him any anxiety.
+His first act was to disencumber himself of his tattered coat; he then
+filled and lighted his pipe, and stretched himself full-length on the
+open hillside, as if to bleach in the fierce sun. While smoking he
+carelessly perused the fragment of a newspaper which had enveloped his
+tobacco, and being struck with some amusing paragraph, read it half
+aloud again to some imaginary auditor, emphasizing its humor with an
+hilarious slap upon his leg.
+
+Possibly from the relaxation of fatigue and the bath, which had become
+a vapor one as he alternately rolled and dried himself in the baking
+grass, his eyes closed dreamily. He was awakened by the sound of voices.
+They were distant; they were vague; they approached no nearer. He rolled
+himself to the verge of the first precipitous grassy descent. There was
+another bank or plateau below him, and then a confused depth of olive
+shadows, pierced here and there by the spiked helmets of pines.
+
+There was no trace of habitation, yet the voices were those of some
+monotonous occupation, and Lance distinctly heard through them the click
+of crockery and the ring of some household utensil. It appeared to be
+the interjectional, half listless, half perfunctory, domestic dialogue
+of an old man and a girl, of which the words were unintelligible. Their
+voices indicated the solitude of the mountain, but without sadness; they
+were mysterious without being awe-inspiring. They might have uttered
+the dreariest commonplaces, but, in their vast isolation, they seemed
+musical and eloquent. Lance drew his first sigh,--they had suggested
+dinner.
+
+Careless as his nature was, he was too cautious to risk detection in
+broad daylight. He contented himself for the present with endeavoring to
+locate that particular part of the depths from which the voices seemed
+to rise. It was more difficult, however, to select some other way of
+penetrating it than by the stage road. "They're bound to have a fire
+or show a light when it's dark," he reasoned, and, satisfied with that
+reflection, lay down again. Presently he began to amuse himself by
+tossing some silver coins in the air. Then his attention was directed to
+a spur of the Coast Range which had been sharply silhouetted against
+the cloudless western sky. Something intensely white, something so
+small that it was scarcely larger than the silver coin in his hand, was
+appearing in a slight cleft of the range.
+
+While he looked it gradually filled and obliterated the cleft. In
+another moment the whole serrated line of mountain had disappeared. The
+dense, dazzling white, encompassing host began to pour over and down
+every ravine and pass of the coast. Lance recognized the sea-fog, and
+knew that scarcely twenty miles away lay the ocean--and safety! The
+drooping sun was now caught and hidden in its soft embraces. A sudden
+chill breathed over the mountain. He shivered, rose, and plunged again
+for very warmth into the spice-laden thicket. The heated balsamic air
+began to affect him like a powerful sedative; his hunger was forgotten
+in the languor of fatigue; he slumbered. When he awoke it was dark. He
+groped his way through the thicket. A few stars were shining directly
+above him, but beyond and below, everything was lost in the soft, white,
+fleecy veil of fog. Whatever light or fire might have betokened human
+habitation was hidden. To push on blindly would be madness; he could
+only wait for morning. It suited the outcast's lazy philosophy. He crept
+back again to his bed in the hollow and slept. In that profound silence
+and shadow, shut out from human association and sympathy by the ghostly
+fog, what torturing visions conjured up by remorse and fear should have
+pursued him? What spirit passed before him, or slowly shaped itself out
+of the infinite blackness of the wood? None. As he slipped gently into
+that blackness he remembered with a slight regret, some biscuits that
+were dropped from the coach by a careless luncheon-consuming passenger.
+That pang over, he slept as sweetly, as profoundly, as divinely, as a
+child.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+
+He awoke with the aroma of the woods still steeping his senses. His
+first instinct was that of all young animals; he seized a few of the
+young, tender green leaves of the yerba buena vine that crept over his
+mossy pillow and ate them, being rewarded by a half berry-like flavor
+that seemed to soothe the cravings of his appetite. The languor of sleep
+being still upon him, he lazily watched the quivering of a sunbeam that
+was caught in the canopying boughs above. Then he dozed again. Hovering
+between sleeping and waking, he became conscious of a slight movement
+among the dead leaves on the bank beside the hollow in which he lay. The
+movement appeared to be intelligent, and directed toward his revolver,
+which glittered on the bank. Amused at this evident return of his
+larcenous friend of the previous day, he lay perfectly still. The
+movement and rustle continued, but it now seemed long and undulating.
+Lance's eyes suddenly became set; he was intensely, keenly awake. It
+was not a snake, but the hand of a human arm, half hidden in the moss,
+groping for the weapon. In that flash of perception he saw that it was
+small, bare, and deeply freckled. In an instant he grasped it firmly,
+and rose to his feet, dragging to his own level as he did so, the
+struggling figure of a young girl.
+
+"Leave me go!" she said, more ashamed than frightened.
+
+Lance looked at her. She was scarcely more than fifteen, slight and
+lithe, with a boyish flatness of breast and back. Her flushed face and
+bare throat were absolutely peppered with minute brown freckles,
+like grains of spent gunpowder. Her eyes, which were large and gray,
+presented the singular spectacle of being also freckled,--at least they
+were shot through in pupil and cornea with tiny spots like powdered
+allspice. Her hair was even more remarkable in its tawny, deer-skin
+color, full of lighter shades, and bleached to the faintest of blondes
+on the crown of her head, as if by the action of the sun. She had
+evidently outgrown her dress, which was made for a smaller child, and
+the too brief skirt disclosed a bare, freckled, and sandy desert of
+shapely limb, for which the darned stockings were equally too scant.
+Lance let his grasp slip from her thin wrist to her hand, and then with
+a good-humored gesture tossed it lightly back to her.
+
+She did not retreat, but continued looking at him in a half-surly
+embarrassment.
+
+"I ain't a bit frightened," she said; "I'm not going to run away,--don't
+you fear."
+
+"Glad to hear it," said Lance, with unmistakable satisfaction, "but why
+did you go for my revolver?"
+
+She flushed again and was silent. Presently she began to kick the earth
+at the roots of the tree, and said, as if confidentially to her foot,--
+
+"I wanted to get hold of it before you did."
+
+"You did?--and why?"
+
+"Oh, you know why."
+
+Every tooth in Lance's head showed that he did, perfectly. But he was
+discreetly silent.
+
+"I didn't know what you were hiding there for," she went on, still
+addressing the tree, "and," looking at him sideways under her white
+lashes, "I didn't see your face."
+
+This subtle compliment was the first suggestion of her artful sex.
+It actually sent the blood into the careless rascal's face, and for a
+moment confused him. He coughed. "So you thought you'd freeze on to that
+six-shooter of mine until you saw my hand?"
+
+She nodded. Then she picked up a broken hazel branch, fitted it into the
+small of her back, threw her tanned bare arms over the ends of it, and
+expanded her chest and her biceps at the same moment. This simple action
+was supposed to convey an impression at once of ease and muscular force.
+
+"Perhaps you'd like to take it now," said Lance, handing her the pistol.
+
+"I've seen six-shooters before now," said the girl, evading the
+proffered weapon and its suggestion. "Dad has one, and my brother had
+two derringers before he was half as big as me."
+
+She stopped to observe in her companion the effect of this capacity of
+her family to bear arms. Lance only regarded her amusedly. Presently she
+again spoke abruptly:--
+
+"What made you eat that grass, just now?"
+
+"Grass!" echoed Lance.
+
+"Yes, there," pointing to the yerba buena.
+
+Lance laughed. "I was hungry. Look!" he said, gayly tossing some silver
+into the air. "Do you think you could get me some breakfast for that,
+and have enough left to buy something for yourself?"
+
+The girl eyed the money and the man with half-bashful curiosity.
+
+"I reckon Dad might give ye suthing if he had a mind ter, though ez a
+rule he's down on tramps ever since they run off his chickens. Ye might
+try."
+
+"But I want YOU to try. You can bring it to me here."
+
+The girl retreated a step, dropped her eyes, and, with a smile that was
+a charming hesitation between bashfulness and impudence, said: "So you
+ARE hidin', are ye?"
+
+"That's just it. Your head's level. I am," laughed Lance unconcernedly.
+
+"Yur ain't one o' the McCarty gang--are ye?"
+
+Mr. Lance Harriott felt a momentary moral exaltation in declaring
+truthfully that he was not one of a notorious band of mountain
+freebooters known in the district under that name.
+
+"Nor ye ain't one of them chicken lifters that raided Henderson's ranch?
+We don't go much on that kind o' cattle yer."
+
+"No," said Lance, cheerfully.
+
+"Nor ye ain't that chap ez beat his wife unto death at Santa Clara?"
+
+Lance honestly scorned the imputation. Such conjugal ill treatment as
+he had indulged in had not been physical, and had been with other men's
+wives.
+
+There was a moment's further hesitation on the part of the girl. Then
+she said shortly:
+
+"Well, then, I reckon you kin come along with me."
+
+"Where?" asked Lance.
+
+"To the ranch," she replied simply.
+
+"Then you won't bring me anything to eat here?"
+
+"What for? You kin get it down there." Lance hesitated. "I tell you it's
+all right," she continued. "I'll make it all right with Dad."
+
+"But suppose I reckon I'd rather stay here," persisted Lance, with a
+perfect consciousness, however, of affectation in his caution.
+
+"Stay away then," said the girl coolly; "only as Dad perempted this yer
+woods"--
+
+"PRE-empted," suggested Lance.
+
+"Per-empted or pre-emp-ted, as you like," continued the girl
+scornfully,--"ez he's got a holt on this yer woods, ye might ez well see
+him down thar ez here. For here he's like to come any minit. You can bet
+your life on that."
+
+She must have read Lance's amusement in his eyes, for she again dropped
+her own with a frown of brusque embarrassment. "Come along, then; I'm
+your man," said Lance, gayly, extending his hand.
+
+She would not accept it, eying it, however, furtively, like a horse
+about to shy. "Hand me your pistol first," she said.
+
+He handed it to her with an assumption of gayety. She received it on her
+part with unfeigned seriousness, and threw it over her shoulder like
+a gun. This combined action of the child and heroine, it is quite
+unnecessary to say, afforded Lance undiluted joy.
+
+"You go first," she said.
+
+Lance stepped promptly out, with a broad grin. "Looks kinder as if I was
+a prisoner, don't it?" he suggested.
+
+"Go on, and don't fool," she replied.
+
+The two fared onward through the wood. For one moment he entertained the
+facetious idea of appearing to rush frantically away, "just to see
+what the girl would do," but abandoned it. "It's an even thing if she
+wouldn't spot me the first pop," he reflected admiringly.
+
+When they had reached the open hillside, Lance stopped inquiringly.
+"This way," she said, pointing toward the summit, and in quite an
+opposite direction to the valley where he had heard the voices, one
+of which he now recognized as hers. They skirted the thicket for a few
+moments, and then turned sharply into a trail which began to dip toward
+a ravine leading to the valley.
+
+"Why do you have to go all the way round?" he asked.
+
+"WE don't," the girl replied with emphasis; "there's a shorter cut."
+
+"Where?"
+
+"That's telling," she answered shortly.
+
+"What's your name?" asked Lance, after a steep scramble and a drop into
+the ravine.
+
+"Flip."
+
+"What?"
+
+"Flip."
+
+"I mean your first name,--your front name."
+
+"Flip."
+
+"Flip! Oh, short for Felipa!"
+
+"It ain't Flipper,--it's Flip." And she relapsed into silence.
+
+"You don't ask me mine?" suggested Lance.
+
+She did not vouchsafe a reply.
+
+"Then you don't want to know?"
+
+"Maybe Dad will. You can lie to HIM."
+
+This direct answer apparently sustained the agreeable homicide for some
+moments. He moved onward, silently exuding admiration.
+
+"Only," added Flip, with a sudden caution, "you'd better agree with me."
+
+The trail here turned again abruptly and re-entered the canyon. Lance
+looked up, and noticed they were almost directly beneath the bay thicket
+and the plateau that towered far above them. The trail here showed signs
+of clearing, and the way was marked by felled trees and stumps of pines.
+
+"What does your father do here?" he finally asked. Flip remained silent,
+swinging the revolver. Lance repeated his question.
+
+"Burns charcoal and makes diamonds," said Flip, looking at him from the
+corners of her eyes.
+
+"Makes diamonds?" echoed Lance.
+
+Flip nodded her head.
+
+"Many of 'em?" he continued carelessly.
+
+"Lots. But they're not big," she returned, with a sidelong glance.
+
+"Oh, they're not big?" said Lance gravely.
+
+They had by this time reached a small staked inclosure, whence the
+sudden fluttering and cackle of poultry welcomed the return of the
+evident mistress of this sylvan retreat. It was scarcely imposing.
+Further on, a cooking stove under a tree, a saddle and bridle, a few
+household implements scattered about, indicated the "ranch." Like most
+pioneer clearings, it was simply a disorganized raid upon nature that
+had left behind a desolate battlefield strewn with waste and decay.
+The fallen trees, the crushed thicket, the splintered limbs, the rudely
+torn-up soil, were made hideous by their grotesque juxtaposition with
+the wrecked fragments of civilization, in empty cans, broken bottles,
+battered hats, soleless boots, frayed stockings, cast-off rags, and
+the crowning absurdity of the twisted-wire skeleton of a hooped skirt
+hanging from a branch. The wildest defile, the densest thicket, the most
+virgin solitude, was less dreary and forlorn than this first footprint
+of man. The only redeeming feature of this prolonged bivouac was the
+cabin itself. Built of the half-cylindrical strips of pine bark, and
+thatched with the same material, it had a certain picturesque rusticity.
+But this was an accident of economy rather than taste, for which
+Flip apologized by saying that the bark of the pine was "no good" for
+charcoal.
+
+"I reckon Dad's in the woods," she added, pausing before the open door
+of the cabin. "Oh, Dad!" Her voice, clear and high, seemed to fill
+the whole long canyon, and echoed from the green plateau above. The
+monotonous strokes of an axe were suddenly pretermitted, and somewhere
+from the depths of the close-set pines a voice answered "Flip." There
+was a pause of a few moments, with some muttering, stumbling, and
+crackling in the underbrush, and then the sudden appearance of "Dad."
+
+Had Lance first met him in the thicket, he would have been puzzled to
+assign his race to Mongolian, Indian, or Ethiopian origin. Perfunctory
+but incomplete washings of his hands and face, after charcoal burning,
+had gradually ground into his skin a grayish slate-pencil pallor,
+grotesquely relieved at the edges, where the washing had left off,
+with a border of a darker color. He looked like an overworked Christy
+minstrel with the briefest of intervals between his performances. There
+were black rims in the orbits of his eyes, as if he gazed feebly out of
+unglazed spectacles, which heightened his simian resemblance, already
+grotesquely exaggerated by what appeared to be repeated and spasmodic
+experiments in dyeing his gray hair. Without the slightest notice of
+Lance, he inflicted his protesting and querulous presence entirely on
+his daughter.
+
+"Well, what's up now? Yer ye are calling me from work an hour before
+noon. Dog my skin, ef I ever get fairly limbered up afore it's 'Dad!'
+and 'Oh, Dad!'"
+
+To Lance's intense satisfaction the girl received this harangue with
+an air of supreme indifference, and when "Dad" had relapsed into an
+unintelligible, and, as it seemed to Lance, a half-frightened muttering,
+she said coolly,--
+
+"Ye'd better drop that axe and scoot round getten' this stranger some
+breakfast and some grub to take with him. He's one of them San Francisco
+sports out here trout fishing in the branch. He's got adrift from his
+party, has lost his rod and fixins, and had to camp out last night in
+the Gin and Ginger Woods."
+
+"That's just it; it's allers suthin like that," screamed the old man,
+dashing his fist on his leg in a feeble, impotent passion, but without
+looking at Lance. "Why in blazes don't he go up to that there blamed
+hotel on the summit? Why in thunder--" But here he caught his daughter's
+large, freckled eyes full in his own. He blinked feebly, his voice fell
+into a tone of whining entreaty. "Now, look yer, Flip, it's playing
+it rather low down on the old man, this yer running' in o' tramps and
+desarted emigrants and cast-ashore sailors and forlorn widders and
+ravin' lunatics, on this yer ranch. I put it to you, Mister," he said
+abruptly, turning to Lance for the first time, but as if he had already
+taken an active part in the conversation,--"I put it as a gentleman
+yourself, and a fair-minded sportin' man, if this is the square thing?"
+
+Before Lance could reply, Flip had already begun. "That's just it! D'ye
+reckon, being a sportin' man and an A 1 feller, he's goin' to waltz down
+inter that hotel, rigged out ez he is? D'ye reckon he's goin' to let
+his partners get the laugh outer him? D'ye reckon he's goin' to show his
+head outer this yer ranch till he can do it square? Not much! Go 'long.
+Dad, you're talking silly!"
+
+The old man weakened. He feebly trailed his axe between his legs to a
+stump and sat down, wiping his forehead with his sleeve, and imparting
+to it the appearance of a slate with a difficult sum partly rubbed out.
+He looked despairingly at Lance. "In course," he said, with a deep sigh,
+"you naturally ain't got any money. In course you left your pocketbook,
+containing fifty dollars, under a stone, and can't find it. In course,"
+he continued, as he observed Lance put his hand to his pocket, "you've
+only got a blank check on Wells, Fargo & Co. for a hundred dollars, and
+you'd like me to give you the difference?"
+
+Amused as Lance evidently was at this, his absolute admiration for Flip
+absorbed everything else. With his eyes fixed upon the girl, he briefly
+assured the old man that he would pay for everything he wanted. He did
+this with a manner quite different from the careless, easy attitude he
+had assumed toward Flip; at least the quick-witted girl noticed it, and
+wondered if he was angry. It was quite true that ever since his eye had
+fallen upon another of his own sex, its glance had been less frank and
+careless. Certain traits of possible impatience, which might develop
+into man-slaying, were coming to the fore. Yet a word or a gesture of
+Flip's was sufficient to change that manner, and when, with the fretful
+assistance of her father, she had prepared a somewhat sketchy and
+primitive repast, he questioned the old man about diamond-making. The
+eye of Dad kindled.
+
+"I want ter know how ye knew I was making diamonds," he asked, with a
+certain bashful pettishness not unlike his daughter's.
+
+"Heard it in 'Frisco," replied Lance, with glib mendacity, glancing at
+the girl.
+
+"I reckon they're gettin' sort of skeert down there--them jewelers,"
+chuckled Dad, "yet it's in nater that their figgers will have to come
+down. It's only a question of the price of charcoal. I suppose they
+didn't tell you how I made the discovery?"
+
+Lance would have stopped the old man's narrative by saying that he
+knew the story, but he wished to see how far Flip lent herself to her
+father's delusion.
+
+"Ye see, one night about two years ago I had a pit o' charcoal burning
+out there, and tho' it had been a smouldering and a smoking and a
+blazing for nigh unto a month, somehow it didn't charcoal worth a cent.
+And yet, dog my skin, but the heat o' that er pit was suthin hidyus
+and frightful; ye couldn't stand within a hundred yards of it, and they
+could feel it on the stage road three miles over yon, t'other side the
+mountain. There was nights when me and Flip had to take our blankets
+up the ravine and camp out all night, and the back of this yer hut
+shriveled up like that bacon. It was about as nigh on to hell as any
+sample ye kin get here. Now, mebbe you think I built that air fire?
+Mebbe you'll allow the heat was just the nat'ral burning of that pit?"
+
+"Certainly," said Lance, trying to see Flip's eyes, which were
+resolutely averted.
+
+"Thet's whar you'd be lyin'! That yar heat kem out of the bowels of the
+yearth,--kem up like out of a chimbley or a blast, and kep up that yar
+fire. And when she cools down a month after, and I got to strip her,
+there was a hole in the yearth, and a spring o' bilin', scaldin' water
+pourin' out of it ez big as your waist. And right in the middle of it
+was this yer." He rose with the instinct of a skillful raconteur, and
+whisked from under his bunk a chamois leather bag, which he emptied
+on the table before them. It contained a small fragment of native rock
+crystal, half-fused upon a petrified bit of pine. It was so glaringly
+truthful, so really what it purported to be, that the most unscientific
+woodman or pioneer would have understood it at a glance. Lance raised
+his mirthful eyes to Flip.
+
+"It was cooled suddint,--stunted by the water," said the girl, eagerly.
+She stopped, and as abruptly turned away her eyes and her reddened face.
+
+"That's it, that's just it," continued the old man. "Thar's Flip, thar,
+knows it; she ain't no fool!" Lance did not speak, but turned a hard,
+unsympathizing look upon the old man, and rose almost roughly. The old
+man clutched his coat. "That's it, ye see. The carbon's just turning to
+di'mens. And stunted. And why? 'Cos the heat wasn't kep up long enough.
+Mebbe yer think I stopped thar? That ain't me. Thar's a pit out yar in
+the woods ez hez been burning six months; it hain't, in course, got the
+advantages o' the old one, for it's nat'ral heat. But I'm keeping that
+heat up. I've got a hole where I kin watch it every four hours. When
+the time comes, I'm thar! Don't you see? That's me! that's David
+Fairley,--that's the old man,--you bet!"
+
+"That's so," said Lance, curtly. "And now, Mr. Fairley, if you'll
+hand me over a coat or a jacket till I can get past these fogs on the
+Monterey road, I won't keep you from your diamond pit." He threw down a
+handful of silver on the table.
+
+"Ther's a deerskin jacket yer," said the old man, "that one o' them
+vaqueros left for the price of a bottle of whiskey."
+
+"I reckon it wouldn't suit the stranger," said Flip, dubiously producing
+a much-worn, slashed, and braided vaquero's jacket. But it did suit
+Lance, who found it warm, and also had suddenly found a certain
+satisfaction in opposing Flip. When he had put it on, and nodded coldly
+to the old man, and carelessly to Flip, he walked to the door.
+
+"If you're going to take the Monterey road, I can show you a short cut
+to it," said Flip, with a certain kind of shy civility.
+
+The paternal Fairley groaned. "That's it; let the chickens and the ranch
+go to thunder, as long as there's a stranger to trapse round with; go
+on!"
+
+Lance would have made some savage reply, but Flip interrupted. "You know
+yourself, Dad, it's a blind trail, and as that 'ere constable that kem
+out here hunting French Pete, couldn't find it, and had to go round by
+the canyon, like ez not the stranger would lose his way, and have to
+come back!" This dangerous prospect silenced the old man, and Flip and
+Lance stepped into the road together. They walked on for some moments
+without speaking. Suddenly Lance turned upon his companion.
+
+"You didn't swallow all that rot about the diamond, did you?" he asked,
+crossly.
+
+Flip ran a little ahead, as if to avoid a reply.
+
+"You don't mean to say that's the sort of hog wash the old man serves
+out to you regularly?" continued Lance, becoming more slangy in his ill
+temper.
+
+"I don't know that it's any consarn o' yours what I think," replied
+Flip, hopping from boulder to boulder, as they crossed the bed of a dry
+watercourse.
+
+"And I suppose you've piloted round and dry-nussed every tramp and dead
+beat you've met since you came here," continued Lance, with unmistakable
+ill humor. "How many have you helped over this road?"
+
+"It's a year since there was a Chinaman chased by some Irishmen from the
+Crossing into the brush about yer, and he was too afeered to come out,
+and nigh most starved to death in thar. I had to drag him out and start
+him on the mountain, for you couldn't get him back to the road. He was
+the last one but YOU."
+
+"Do you reckon it's the right thing for a girl like you to run about
+with trash of this kind, and mix herself up with all sorts of rough and
+bad company?" said Lance.
+
+Flip stopped short. "Look! if you're goin' to talk like Dad, I'll go
+back."
+
+The ridiculousness of such a resemblance struck him more keenly than a
+consciousness of his own ingratitude. He hastened to assure Flip that he
+was joking. When he had made his peace they fell into talk again, Lance
+becoming unselfish enough to inquire into one or two facts concerning
+her life which did not immediately affect him. Her mother had died on
+the plains when she was a baby, and her brother had run away from home
+at twelve. She fully expected to see him again, and thought he might
+sometime stray into their canyon. "That is why, then, you take so much
+stock in tramps," said Lance. "You expect to recognize HIM?"
+
+"Well," replied Flip, gravely, "there is suthing in THAT, and there's
+suthing in THIS: some o' these chaps might run across brother and do him
+a good turn for the sake of me."
+
+"Like me, for instance?" suggested Lance.
+
+"Like you. You'd do him a good turn, wouldn't you?"
+
+"You bet!" said Lance, with a sudden emotion that quite startled him;
+"only don't you go to throwing yourself round promiscuously." He was
+half-conscious of an irritating sense of jealousy, as he asked if any of
+her proteges had ever returned.
+
+"No," said Flip, "no one ever did. It shows," she added with sublime
+simplicity, "I had done 'em good, and they could get on alone. Don't
+it?"
+
+"It does," responded Lance grimly. "Have you any other friends that
+come?"
+
+"Only the Postmaster at the Crossing."
+
+"The Postmaster?"
+
+"Yes; he's reckonin' to marry me next year, if I'm big enough."
+
+"And what do you reckon?" asked Lance earnestly.
+
+Flip began a series of distortions with her shoulders, ran on ahead,
+picked up a few pebbles and threw them into the wood, glanced back at
+Lance with swimming mottled eyes, that seemed a piquant incarnation of
+everything suggestive and tantalizing, and said,
+
+"That's telling."
+
+They had by this time reached the spot where they were to separate.
+"Look," said Flip, pointing to a faint deflection of their path, which
+seemed, however, to lose itself in the underbrush a dozen yards away,
+"ther's your trail. It gets plainer and broader the further you get on,
+but you must use your eyes here, and get to know it well afore you get
+into the fog. Good-by."
+
+"Good-by." Lance took her hand and drew her beside him. She was still
+redolent of the spices of the thicket, and to the young man's excited
+fancy seemed at that moment to personify the perfume and intoxication of
+her native woods. Half laughingly, half earnestly, he tried to kiss her;
+she struggled for some time strongly, but at the last moment yielded,
+with a slight return and the exchange of a subtle fire that thrilled
+him, and left him standing confused and astounded as she ran away. He
+watched her lithe, nymph-like figure disappear in the checkered shadows
+of the wood, and then he turned briskly down the half-hidden trail. His
+eyesight was keen, he made good progress, and was soon well on his way
+toward the distant ridge.
+
+But Flip's return had not been as rapid. When she reached the wood she
+crept to its beetling verge, and, looking across the canyon, watched
+Lance's figure as it vanished and reappeared in the shadows and
+sinuosities of the ascent. When he reached the ridge the outlying fog
+crept across the summit, caught him in its embrace, and wrapped him
+from her gaze. Flip sighed, raised herself, put her alternate foot on
+a stump, and took a long pull at her too-brief stockings. When she had
+pulled down her skirt and endeavored once more to renew the intimacy
+that had existed in previous years between the edge of her petticoat and
+the top of her stockings, she sighed again, and went home.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+
+For six months the sea fogs monotonously came and went along the
+Monterey coast; for six months they beleaguered the Coast Range with
+afternoon sorties of white hosts that regularly swept over the mountain
+crest, and were as regularly beaten back again by the leveled lances of
+the morning sun. For six months that white veil which had once hidden
+Lance Harriott in its folds returned without him. For that amiable
+outlaw no longer needed disguise or hiding-place. The swift wave of
+pursuit that had dashed him on the summit had fallen back, and the next
+day was broken and scattered. Before the week had passed, a regular
+judicial inquiry relieved his crime of premeditation, and showed it to
+be a rude duel of two armed and equally desperate men. From a secure
+vantage in a seacoast town Lance challenged a trial by his peers, and,
+as an already prejudged man escaping from his executioners, obtained a
+change of venue. Regular justice, seated by the calm Pacific, found
+the action of an interior, irregular jury rash and hasty. Lance was
+liberated on bail.
+
+The Postmaster at Fisher's Crossing had just received the weekly mail
+and express from San Francisco, and was engaged in examining it. It
+consisted of five letters and two parcels. Of these, three of the
+letters and the two parcels were directed to Flip. It was not the
+first time during the last six months that this extraordinary event had
+occurred, and the curiosity of the Crossing was duly excited. As Flip
+had never called personally for the letters or parcels, but had sent one
+of her wild, irregular scouts or henchmen to bring them, and as she was
+seldom seen at the Crossing or on the stage road, that curiosity was
+never satisfied. The disappointment to the Postmaster--a man past the
+middle age--partook of a sentimental nature. He looked at the letters
+and parcels; he looked at his watch; it was yet early, he could
+return by noon. He again examined the addresses; they were in the same
+handwriting as the previous letters. His mind was made up, he would
+deliver them himself. The poetic, soulful side of his mission was
+delicately indicated by a pale blue necktie, a clean shirt, and a small
+package of gingernuts, of which Flip was extravagantly fond.
+
+The common road to Fairley's Ranch was by the stage turnpike to a point
+below the Gin and Ginger Woods, where the prudent horseman usually left
+his beast and followed the intersecting trail afoot. It was here that
+the Postmaster suddenly observed on the edge of the wood the figure of
+an elegantly-dressed woman; she was walking slowly, and apparently at
+her ease; one hand held her skirts lightly gathered between her gloved
+fingers, the other slowly swung a riding whip. Was it a picnic of some
+people from Monterey or Santa Cruz? The spectacle was novel enough to
+justify his coming nearer. Suddenly she withdrew into the wood; he lost
+sight of her; she was gone. He remembered, however, that Flip was
+still to be seen, and as the steep trail was beginning to tax all his
+energies, he was fain to hurry forward. The sun was nearly vertical when
+he turned into the canyon, and saw the bark roof of the cabin beyond. At
+almost the same moment Flip appeared, flushed and panting, in the road
+before him.
+
+"You've got something for me," she said, pointing to the parcel and
+letters. Completely taken by surprise, the Postmaster mechanically
+yielded them up, and as instantly regretted it. "They're paid for,"
+continued Flip, observing his hesitation.
+
+"That's so," stammered the official of the Crossing, seeing his last
+chance of knowing the contents of the parcel vanish; "but I thought ez
+it's a valooable package, maybe ye might want to examine it to see that
+it was all right afore ye receipted for it."
+
+"I'll risk it," said Flip, coolly, "and if it ain't right I'll let ye
+know."
+
+As the girl seemed inclined to retire with her property, the Postmaster
+was driven to other conversation. "We ain't had the pleasure of seeing
+you down at the Crossing for a month o' Sundays," he began, with airy
+yet pronounced gallantry. "Some folks let on you was keepin' company
+with some feller like Bijah Brown, and you were getting a little too
+set up for the Crossing." The individual here mentioned being the county
+butcher, and supposed to exhibit his hopeless affection for Flip by
+making a long and useless divergence from his weekly route to enter the
+canyon for "orders," Flip did not deem it necessary to reply. "Then I
+allowed how ez you might have company," he continued; "I reckon there's
+some city folks up at the summit. I saw a mighty smart, fash'n'ble gal
+cavorting round. Had no end o' style and fancy fixin's. That's my kind,
+I tell you. I just weaken on that sort o' gal," he continued, in the
+firm belief that he had awakened Flip's jealousy, as he glanced at her
+well-worn homespun frock, and found her eyes suddenly fixed on his own.
+
+"Strange I ain't got to see her yet," she replied coolly, shouldering
+her parcel, and quite ignoring any sense of obligation to him for his
+extra-official act.
+
+"But you might get to see her at the edge of the Gin and Ginger Woods,"
+he persisted feebly, in a last effort to detain her; "if you'll take a
+pasear there with me." Flip's only response was to walk on toward the
+cabin, whence, with a vague complimentary suggestion of "droppin' in to
+pass the time o' day" with her father, the Postmaster meekly followed.
+
+The paternal Fairley, once convinced that his daughter's new companion
+required no pecuniary or material assistance from his hands, relaxed
+to the extent of entering into a querulous confidence with him, during
+which Flip took the opportunity of slipping away. As Fairley had that
+infelicitous tendency of most weak natures, to unconsciously exaggerate
+unimportant details in their talk, the Postmaster presently became
+convinced that the butcher was a constant and assiduous suitor of
+Flip's. The absurdity of his sending parcels and letters by post when he
+might bring them himself did not strike the official. On the contrary,
+he believed it to be a master stroke of cunning. Fired by jealousy and
+Flip's indifference, he "deemed it his duty"--using that facile form of
+cowardly offensiveness--to betray Flip.
+
+Of which she was happily oblivious. Once away from the cabin, she
+plunged into the woods, with the parcel swung behind her like a
+knapsack. Leaving the trail, she presently struck off in a straight line
+through cover and underbrush with the unerring instinct of an animal,
+climbing hand over hand the steepest ascent, or fluttering like a bird
+from branch to branch down the deepest declivity. She soon reached
+that part of the trail where the susceptible Postmaster had seen the
+fascinating unknown. Assuring herself she was not followed, she crept
+through the thicket until she reached a little waterfall and basin that
+had served the fugitive Lance for a bath. The spot bore signs of later
+and more frequent occupancy, and when Flip carefully removed some bark
+and brushwood from a cavity in the rock and drew forth various folded
+garments, it was evident she had used it as a sylvan dressing-room. Here
+she opened the parcel; it contained a small and delicate shawl of yellow
+China crepe. Flip instantly threw it over her shoulders and stepped
+hurriedly toward the edge of the wood. Then she began to pass backward
+and forward before the trunk of a tree. At first nothing was visible on
+the tree, but a closer inspection showed a large pane of ordinary window
+glass stuck in the fork of the branches. It was placed at such a cunning
+angle against the darkness of the forest opening that it made a soft and
+mysterious mirror, not unlike a Claude Lorraine glass, wherein not only
+the passing figure of the young girl was seen, but the dazzling green
+and gold of the hillside, and the far-off silhouetted crests of the
+Coast Range.
+
+But this was evidently only a prelude to a severer rehearsal. When she
+returned to the waterfall she unearthed from her stores a large piece
+of yellow soap and some yards of rough cotton "sheeting." These she
+deposited beside the basin and again crept to the edge of the wood to
+assure herself that she was alone. Satisfied that no intruding foot
+had invaded that virgin bower, she returned to her bath and began
+to undress. A slight wind followed her, and seemed to whisper to the
+circumjacent trees. It appeared to waken her sister naiads and nymphs,
+who, joining their leafy fingers, softly drew around her a gently moving
+band of trembling lights and shadows, of flecked sprays and inextricably
+mingled branches, and involved her in a chaste sylvan obscurity, veiled
+alike from pursuing god or stumbling shepherd. Within these hallowed
+precincts was the musical ripple of laughter and falling water, and at
+times the glimpse of a lithe brier-caught limb, or a ray of sunlight
+trembling over bright flanks, or the white austere outline of a childish
+bosom.
+
+When she drew again the leafy curtain, and once more stepped out of
+the wood, she was completely transformed. It was the figure that had
+appeared to the Postmaster; the slight, erect, graceful form of a
+young woman modishly attired. It was Flip, but Flip made taller by the
+lengthened skirt and clinging habiliments of fashion. Flip freckled,
+but, through the cunning of a relief of yellow color in her gown, her
+piquant brown-shot face and eyes brightened and intensified until she
+seemed like a spicy odor made visible. I cannot affirm that the judgment
+of Flip's mysterious modiste was infallible, or that the taste of
+Mr. Lance Harriott, her patron, was fastidious; enough that it was
+picturesque, and perhaps not more glaring and extravagant than the color
+in which Spring herself had once clothed the sere hillside where Flip
+was now seated. The phantom mirror in the tree fork caught and held her
+with the sky, the green leaves, the sunlight and all the graciousness
+of her surroundings, and the wind gently tossed her hair and the gay
+ribbons of her gypsy hat. Suddenly she started. Some remote sound in
+the trail below, inaudible to any ear less fine than hers, arrested her
+breathing. She rose swiftly and darted into cover.
+
+Ten minutes passed. The sun was declining; the white fog was beginning
+to creep over the Coast Range. From the edge of the wood Cinderella
+appeared, disenchanted, and in her homespun garments. The clock had
+struck--the spell was past. As she disappeared down the trail even
+the magic mirror, moved by the wind, slipped from the tree top to the
+ground, and became a piece of common glass.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+
+The events of the day had produced a remarkable impression on the facial
+aspect of the charcoal-burning Fairley. Extraordinary processes of
+thought, indicated by repeated rubbing of his forehead, had produced a
+high light in the middle and a corresponding deepening of shadow at the
+sides, until it bore the appearance of a perfect sphere. It was this
+forehead that confronted Flip reproachfully as became a deceived
+comrade, menacingly as became an outraged parent in the presence of a
+third party and--a Postmaster!
+
+"Fine doin's this, yer receivin' clandecent bundles and letters, eh?"
+he began. Flip sent one swift, withering look of contempt at the
+Postmaster, who at once becoming invertebrate and groveling, mumbled
+that he must "get on" to the Crossing, and rose to go. But the old
+man, who had counted on his presence for moral support, and was clearly
+beginning to hate him for precipitating this scene with his daughter,
+whom he feared, violently protested.
+
+"Sit down, can't ye? Don't you see you're a witness?" he screamed
+hysterically.
+
+It was a fatal suggestion. "Witness," repeated Flip, scornfully.
+
+"Yes, a witness! He gave ye letters and bundles."
+
+"Weren't they directed to me?" asked Flip.
+
+"Yes," said the Postmaster, hesitatingly; "in course, yes."
+
+"Do YOU lay claim to them?" she said, turning to her father.
+
+"No," responded the old man.
+
+"Do you?" sharply, to the Postmaster.
+
+"No," he replied.
+
+"Then," said Flip, coolly, "if you're not claimin' 'em for yourself, and
+you hear father say they ain't his, I reckon the less you have to say
+about 'em the better."
+
+"Thar's suthin' in that," said the old man, shamelessly abandoning the
+Postmaster.
+
+"Then why don't she say who sent 'em, and what they are like," said the
+Postmaster, "if there's nothin' in it?"
+
+"Yes," echoed Dad. "Flip, why don't you?"
+
+Without answering the direct question, Flip turned upon her father.
+
+"Maybe you forget how you used to row and tear round here because tramps
+and such like came to the ranch for suthin', and I gave it to 'em? Maybe
+you'll quit tearin' round and letting yourself be made a fool of now
+by that man, just because one of those tramps gets up and sends us some
+presents back in turn?"
+
+"'Twasn't me, Flip," said the old man, deprecatingly, but glaring at the
+astonished Postmaster. "Twasn't my doin'. I allus said if you cast your
+bread on the waters it would come back to you by return mail. The fact
+is, the Gov'ment is gettin' too high-handed! Some o' these bloated
+officials had better climb down before next leckshen."
+
+"Maybe," continued Flip to her father, without looking at her
+discomfited visitor, "ye'd better find out whether one of those
+officials comes up to this yer ranch to steal away a gal about my own
+size, or to get points about diamond-making. I reckon he don't travel
+round to find out who writes all the letters that go through the Post
+Office."
+
+The Postmaster had seemingly miscalculated the old man's infirm temper
+and the daughter's skillful use of it. He was unprepared for Flip's
+boldness and audacity, and when he saw that both barrels of the
+accusation had taken effect on the charcoal burner, who was rising
+with epileptic rage, he fairly turned and fled. The old man would have
+followed him with objurgation beyond the door, but for the restraining
+hand of Flip.
+
+Baffled and beaten, nevertheless Fate was not wholly unkind to the
+retreating suitor. Near the Gin and Ginger Woods he picked up a letter
+which had fallen from Flip's pocket. He recognized the writing, and did
+not scruple to read it. It was not a love epistle,--at least, not such a
+one as he would have written,--it did not give the address nor the name
+of the correspondent; but he read the following with greedy eyes:--
+
+
+"Perhaps it's just as well that you don't rig yourself out for the
+benefit of those dead beats at the Crossing, or any tramp that might
+hang round the ranch. Keep all your style for me when I come. I can't
+tell you when, it's mighty uncertain before the rainy season. But
+I'm coming soon. Don't go back on your promise about lettin up on the
+tramps, and being a little more high-toned. And don't you give 'em so
+much. It's true I sent you hats TWICE. I clean forgot all about the
+first; but I wouldn't have given a ten-dollar hat to a nigger woman
+who had a sick baby because I had an extra hat. I'd have let that baby
+slide. I forgot to ask whether the skirt is worn separately; I must see
+the dressmaking sharp about it; but I think you'll want something on
+besides a jacket and skirt; at least, it looks like it up here. I don't
+think you could manage a piano down there without the old man knowing
+it, and raisin' the devil generally. I promised you I'd let up on him.
+Mind you keep all your promises to me. I'm glad you're gettin' on with
+the six-shooter; tin cans are good at fifteen yards, but try it on
+suthin' that MOVES! I forgot to say that I am on the track of your
+big brother. It's a three years' old track, and he was in Arizona. The
+friend who told me didn't expatiate much on what he did there, but I
+reckon they had a high old time. If he's above the earth I'll find him,
+you bet. The yerba buena and the southern wood came all right,--they
+smelt like you. Say, Flip, do you remember the last--the VERY
+last--thing that happened when you said 'Good-by' on the trail? Don't
+let me ever find out that you've let anybody else kiss--"
+
+
+But here the virtuous indignation of the Postmaster found vent in an
+oath. He threw the letter away. He retained of it only two facts,--Flip
+HAD a brother who was missing; she had a lover present in the flesh.
+
+How much of the substance of this and previous letters Flip had confided
+to her father I cannot say. If she suppressed anything it was probably
+that which affected Lance's secret alone, and it was doubtful how much
+of that she herself knew. In her own affairs she was frank without being
+communicative, and never lost her shy obstinacy even with her father.
+Governing the old man as completely as she did, she appeared most
+embarrassed when she was most dominant; she had her own way without
+lifting her voice or her eyes; she seemed oppressed by mauvaise honte
+when she was most triumphant; she would end a discussion with a shy
+murmur addressed to herself, or a single gesture of self-consciousness.
+
+The disclosure of her strange relations with an unknown man and the
+exchange of presents and confidences seemed to suddenly awake Fairley to
+a vague, uneasy sense of some unfulfilled duties as a parent. The first
+effect of this on his weak nature was a peevish antagonism to the cause
+of it. He had long, fretful monologues on the vanity of diamond-making,
+if accompanied with a "pestering" by "interlopers;" on the wickedness
+of concealment and conspiracy, and their effects on charcoal-burning;
+on the nurturing of spies and "adders" in the family circle, and on the
+seditiousness of dark and mysterious councils in which a gray-haired
+father was left out. It was true that a word or look from Flip generally
+brought these monologues to an inglorious and abrupt termination, but
+they were none the less lugubrious as long as they lasted. In time
+they were succeeded by an affectation of contrite apology and
+self-depreciation. "Don't go out o' the way to ask the old man," he
+would say, referring to the quantity of bacon to be ordered; "it's
+nat'ral a young gal should have her own advisers." The state of the
+flour barrel would also produce a like self-abasement. "Unless ye're
+already in correspondence about more flour, ye might take the opinion o'
+the first tramp ye meet ez to whether Santa Cruz Mills is a good
+brand, but don't ask the old man." If Flip was in conversation with
+the butcher, Fairley would obtrusively retire with the hope "he wasn't
+intrudin' on their secrets."
+
+These phases of her father's weakness were not frequent enough to excite
+her alarm, but she could not help noticing they were accompanied with a
+seriousness unusual to him. He began to be tremulously watchful of her,
+returning often from work at an earlier hour, and lingering by the cabin
+in the morning. He brought absurd and useless presents for her, and
+presented them with a nervous anxiety, poorly concealed by an assumption
+of careless, paternal generosity. "Suthin' I picked up at the Crossin'
+for ye to-day," he would say, airily, and retire to watch the effect of
+a pair of shoes two sizes too large, or a fur cap in September. He
+would have hired a cheap parlor organ for her, but for the apparently
+unexpected revelation that she couldn't play. He had received the news
+of a clue to his long-lost son without emotion, but lately he seemed to
+look upon it as a foregone conclusion, and one that necessarily solved
+the question of companionship for Flip. "In course, when you've got your
+own flesh and blood with ye, ye can't go foolin' around with strangers."
+These autumnal blossoms of affection, I fear, came too late for any
+effect upon Flip, precociously matured by her father's indifference
+and selfishness. But she was good humored, and, seeing him seriously
+concerned, gave him more of her time, even visited him in the sacred
+seclusion of the "diamond pit," and listened with far-off eyes to his
+fitful indictment of all things outside his grimy laboratory. Much
+of this patient indifference came with a capricious change in her own
+habits; she no longer indulged in the rehearsal of dress, she packed
+away her most treasured garments, and her leafy boudoir knew her no
+more. She sometimes walked on the hillside, and often followed the trail
+she had taken with Lance when she led him to the ranch. She once or
+twice extended her walk to the spot where she had parted from him,
+and as often came shyly away, her eyes downcast and her face warm with
+color. Perhaps because these experiences and some mysterious instinct of
+maturing womanhood had left a story in her eyes, which her two adorers,
+the Postmaster and the Butcher, read with passion, she became famous
+without knowing it. Extravagant stories of her fascinations brought
+strangers into the valley. The effect upon her father may be imagined.
+Lance could not have desired a more effective guardian than he proved to
+be in this emergency. Those who had been told of this hidden pearl were
+surprised to find it so jealously protected.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+
+The long, parched summer had drawn to its dusty close. Much of it was
+already blown abroad and dissipated on trail and turnpike, or crackled
+in harsh, unelastic fibres on hillside and meadow. Some of it had
+disappeared in the palpable smoke by day and fiery crests by night of
+burning forests. The besieging fogs on the Coast Range daily thinned
+their hosts, and at last vanished. The wind changed from northwest to
+southwest. The salt breath of the sea was on the summit. And then
+one day the staring, unchanged sky was faintly touched with remote
+mysterious clouds, and grew tremulous in expression. The next morning
+dawned upon a newer face in the heavens, on changed woods, on altered
+outlines, on vanished crests, on forgotten distances. It was raining!
+
+Four weeks of this change, with broken spaces of sunlight and intense
+blue aerial islands, and then a storm set in. All day the summit pines
+and redwoods rocked in the blast. At times the onset of the rain seemed
+to be held back by the fury of the gale, or was visibly seen in sharp
+waves on the hillside. Unknown and concealed watercourses suddenly
+overflowed the trails, pools became lakes and brooks rivers. Hidden from
+the storm, the sylvan silence of sheltered valleys was broken by the
+impetuous rush of waters; even the tiny streamlet that traversed Flip's
+retreat in the Gin and Ginger Woods became a cascade.
+
+The storm drove Fairley from his couch early. The falling of a large
+tree across the trail, and the sudden overflow of a small stream beside
+it, hastened his steps. But he was doomed to encounter what was to him a
+more disagreeable object--a human figure. By the bedraggled drapery that
+flapped and fluttered in the wind, by the long, unkempt hair that hid
+the face and eyes, and by the grotesquely misplaced bonnet, the old man
+recognized one of his old trespassers,--an Indian squaw.
+
+"Clear out 'er that! Come, make tracks, will ye?" the old man screamed;
+but here the wind stopped his voice, and drove him against a hazel bush.
+
+"Me heap sick," answered the squaw, shivering through her muddy shawl.
+
+"I'll make ye a heap sicker if ye don't vamose the ranch," continued
+Fairley, advancing.
+
+"Me wantee Wangee girl. Wangee girl give me heap grub," said the squaw,
+without moving.
+
+"You bet your life," groaned the old man to himself. Nevertheless
+an idea struck him. "Ye ain't brought no presents, hev ye?" he asked
+cautiously. "Ye ain't got no pooty things for poor Wangee girl?" he
+continued, insinuatingly.
+
+"Me got heap cache nuts and berries," said the squaw.
+
+"Oh, in course! in course! That's just it," screamed Fairley; "you've
+got 'em cached only two mile from yer, and you'll go and get 'em for a
+half dollar, cash down."
+
+"Me bring Wangee girl to cache," replied the Indian, pointing to the
+wood. "Honest Injin."
+
+Another bright idea struck Mr. Fairley. But it required some
+elaboration. Hurrying the squaw with him through the pelting rain, he
+reached the shelter of the corral. Vainly the shivering aborigine drew
+her tightly bandaged papoose closer to her square, flat breast, and
+looked longingly toward the cabin; the old man backed her against the
+palisade. Here he cautiously imparted his dark intentions to employ her
+to keep watch and ward over the ranch, and especially over its young
+mistress--"clear out all the tramps 'ceptin' yourself, and I'll keep
+ye in grub and rum." Many and deliberate repetitions of this offer in
+various forms at last seemed to affect the squaw; she nodded violently,
+and echoed the last word "rum." "Now," she added. The old man hesitated;
+she was in possession of his secret; he groaned, and, promising an
+immediate installment of liquor, led her to the cabin.
+
+The door was so securely fastened against the impact of the storm that
+some moments elapsed before the bar was drawn, and the old man had
+become impatient and profane. When it was partly opened by Flip he
+hastily slipped in, dragging the squaw after him, and cast one
+single suspicious glance around the rude apartment which served as a
+sitting-room. Flip had apparently been writing. A small inkstand was
+still on the board table, but her paper had evidently been concealed
+before she allowed them to enter. The squaw instantly squatted before
+the adobe hearth, warmed her bundled baby, and left the ceremony
+of introduction to her companion. Flip regarded the two with calm
+preoccupation and indifference. The only thing that touched her interest
+was the old squaw's draggled skirt and limp neckerchief. They were
+Flip's own, long since abandoned and cast off in the Gin and Ginger
+Woods. "Secrets again," whined Fairley, still eying Flip furtively.
+"Secrets again, in course--in course--jiss so. Secrets that must be kep
+from the ole man. Dark doin's by one's own flesh and blood. Go on! go
+on! Don't mind me." Flip did not reply. She had even lost the interest
+in her old dress. Perhaps it had only touched some note in unison with
+her revery.
+
+"Can't ye get the poor critter some whiskey?" he queried, fretfully. "Ye
+used to be peart enuff before." As Flip turned to the corner to lift
+the demijohn, Fairley took occasion to kick the squaw with his foot, and
+indicate by extravagant pantomime that the bargain was not to be alluded
+to before the girl. Flip poured out some whiskey in a tin cup, and,
+approaching the squaw, handed it to her. "It's like ez not," continued
+Fairley to his daughter, but looking at the squaw, "that she'll be
+huntin' the woods off and on, and kinder looking after the last pit near
+the Madronos; ye'll give her grub and licker ez she likes. Well, d'ye
+hear, Flip? Are ye moonin' agin with yer secrets? What's gone with ye?"
+
+If the child were dreaming, it was a delicious dream. Her magnetic eyes
+were suffused by a strange light, as though the eye itself had blushed;
+her full pulse showed itself more in the rounding outline of her cheek
+than in any deepening of color; indeed, if there was any heightening of
+tint, it was in her freckles, which fairly glistened like tiny spangles.
+Her eyes were downcast, her shoulders slightly bent, but her voice was
+low and clear and thoughtful as ever.
+
+"One o' the big pines above the Madrono pit has blown over into the
+run," she said. "It's choked up the water, and it's risin' fast. Like ez
+not it's pourin' over into the pit by this time."
+
+The old man rose with a fretful cry. "And why in blames didn't you say
+so first?" he screamed, catching up his axe and rushing to the door.
+
+"Ye didn't give me a chance," said Flip, raising her eyes for the first
+time. With an impatient imprecation, Fairley darted by her and rushed
+into the wood. In an instant she had shut the door and bolted it. In
+the same instant the squaw arose, dashed the long hair not only from her
+eyes, but from her head, tore away her shawl and blanket, and revealed
+the square shoulders of Lance Harriott! Flip remained leaning against
+the door; but the young man in rising dropped the bandaged papoose,
+which rolled from his lap into the fire. Flip, with a cry, sprang toward
+it; but Lance caught her by the waist with one arm, as with the other he
+dragged the bundle from the flames.
+
+"Don't be alarmed," he said, gayly, "it's only--"
+
+"What?" said Flip, trying to disengage herself.
+
+"My coat and trousers."
+
+Flip laughed, which encouraged Lance to another attempt to kiss her. She
+evaded it by diving her head into his waistcoat, and saying, "There's
+father."
+
+"But he's gone to clear away that tree?" suggested Lance.
+
+One of Flip's significant silences followed.
+
+"Oh, I see," he laughed. "That was a plan to get him away! Ah!" She had
+released herself.
+
+"Why did you come like that?" she said, pointing to his wig and blanket.
+
+"To see if you'd know me," he responded.
+
+"No," said Flip, dropping her eyes. "It's to keep other people from
+knowing you. You're hidin' agin."
+
+"I am," returned Lance; "but," he interrupted, "it's only the same old
+thing."
+
+"But you wrote from Monterey that it was all over," she persisted.
+
+"So it would have been," he said gloomily, "but for some dog down here
+who is hunting up an old scent. I'll spot him yet, and--" He stopped
+suddenly, with such utter abstraction of hatred in his fixed and
+glittering eyes that she almost feared him. She laid her hand quite
+unconsciously on his arm. He grasped it; his face changed.
+
+"I couldn't wait any longer to see you, Flip, so I came here anyway,"
+he went on. "I thought to hang round and get a chance to speak to you
+first, when I fell afoul of the old man. He didn't know me, and tumbled
+right in my little game. Why, do you believe he wants to hire me for my
+grub and liquor, to act as a sort of sentry over you and the ranch?"
+And here he related with great gusto the substance of his interview. "I
+reckon as he's that suspicious," he concluded, "I'd better play it out
+now as I've begun, only it's mighty hard I can't see you here before the
+fire in your fancy toggery, Flip, but must dodge in and out of the wet
+underbrush in these yer duds of yours that I picked up in the old place
+in the Gin and Ginger Woods."
+
+"Then you came here just to see me?" asked Flip.
+
+"I did."
+
+"For only that?"
+
+"Only that."
+
+Flip dropped her eyes. Lance had got his other arm around her waist, but
+her resisting little hand was still potent.
+
+"Listen," she said at last without looking up, but apparently talking to
+the intruding arm, "when Dad comes I'll get him to send you to watch the
+diamond pit. It isn't far; it's warm, and"--
+
+"What?"
+
+"I'll come, after a bit, and see you. Quit foolin' now. If you'd only
+have come here like yourself--like--like--a white man."
+
+"The old man," interrupted Lance, "would have just passed me on to the
+summit. I couldn't have played the lost fisherman on him at this time of
+year."
+
+"Ye could have been stopped at the Crossing by high water, you silly,"
+said the girl. "It was." This grammatical obscurity referred to the
+stage coach.
+
+"Yes, but I might have been tracked to this cabin. And look here, Flip,"
+he said, suddenly straightening himself, and lifting the girl's face to
+a level with his own, "I don't want you to lie any more for me. It ain't
+right."
+
+"All right. Ye needn't go to the pit, then, and I won't come."
+
+"Flip!"
+
+"And here's Dad coming. Quick!"
+
+Lance chose to put his own interpretation on this last adjuration. The
+resisting little hand was now lying quite limp on his shoulder, He drew
+her brown, bright face near his own, felt her spiced breath on his lips,
+his cheeks, his hot eyelids, his swimming eyes, kissed her, hurriedly
+replaced his wig and blanket, and dropped beside the fire with the
+tremulous laugh of youth and innocent first passion. Flip had withdrawn
+to the window, and was looking out upon the rocking pines.
+
+"He don't seem to be coming," said Lance, with a half-shy laugh.
+
+"No," responded Flip demurely, pressing her hot oval cheek against the
+wet panes; "I reckon I was mistaken. You're sure," she added, looking
+resolutely another way, but still trembling like a magnetic needle
+toward Lance, as he moved slightly before the fire, "you're SURE you'd
+like me to come to you?"
+
+"Sure, Flip?"
+
+"Hush!" said Flip, as this reassuring query of reproachful astonishment
+appeared about to be emphasized by a forward amatory dash of Lance's;
+"hush! he's coming this time, sure."
+
+It was, indeed, Fairley, exceedingly wet, exceedingly bedraggled,
+exceedingly sponged out as to color, and exceedingly profane. It
+appeared that there was, indeed, a tree that had fallen in the
+"run," but that, far from diverting the overflow into the pit, it had
+established "back water," which had forced another outlet. All this
+might have been detected at once by any human intellect not distracted
+by correspondence with strangers, and enfeebled by habitually scorning
+the intellect of its own progenitor. This reckless selfishness had
+further only resulted in giving "rheumatics" to that progenitor, who now
+required the external administration of opodeldoc to his limbs, and the
+internal administration of whiskey. Having thus spoken, Mr. Fairley,
+with great promptitude and infantine simplicity, at once bared two legs
+of entirely different colors and mutely waited for his daughter to
+rub them. If Flip did this all unconsciously, and with the mechanical
+dexterity of previous habit, it was because she did not quite understand
+the savage eyes and impatient gestures of Lance in his encompassing wig
+and blanket, and because it helped her to voice her thought.
+
+"Ye'll never be able to take yer watch at the diamond pit to-night,
+Dad," she said; "and I've been reck'nin' you might set the squaw there
+instead. I can show her what to do."
+
+But to Flip's momentary discomfiture, her father promptly objected.
+"Mebbee I've got suthin' else for her to do. Mebbee I may have my
+secrets, too--eh?" he said, with dark significance, at the same time
+administering a significant nudge to Lance, which kept up the young
+man's exasperation. "No, she'll rest yer a bit just now. I'll set her to
+watchin' suthin' else, like as not, when I want her." Flip fell into one
+of her suggestive silences. Lance watched her earnestly, mollified by a
+single furtive glance from her significant eyes; the rain dashed against
+the windows, and occasionally spattered and hissed in the hearth of the
+broad chimney, and Mr. David Fairley, somewhat assuaged by the
+internal administration of whiskey, grew more loquacious. The genius of
+incongruity and inconsistency which generally ruled his conduct came
+out with freshened vigor under the gentle stimulation of spirit. "On an
+evening like this," he began, comfortably settling himself on the floor
+beside the chimney, "ye might rig yerself out in them new duds and fancy
+fixin's that that Sacramento shrimp sent ye, and let your own flesh and
+blood see ye. If that's too much to do for your old dad, ye might do it
+to please that digger squaw as a Christian act." Whether in the hidden
+depths of the old man's consciousness there was a feeling of paternal
+vanity in showing this wretched aborigine the value and importance
+of the treasure she was about to guard, I cannot say. Flip darted an
+interrogatory look at Lance, who nodded a quiet assent, and she flew
+into the inner room. She did not linger on the details of her toilet,
+but reappeared almost the next moment in her new finery; buttoning the
+neck of her gown as she entered the room, and chastely stopping at the
+window to characteristically pull up her stocking. The peculiarity of
+her situation increased her usual shyness; she played with the black and
+gold beads of a handsome necklace,--Lance's last gift,--as the merest
+child might; her unbuckled shoe gave the squaw a natural opportunity of
+showing her admiration and devotion by insisting upon buckling it, and
+gave Lance, under that disguise, an opportunity of covertly kissing
+the little foot and ankle in the shadow of the chimney; an event which
+provoked slight hysterical symptoms in Flip, and caused her to sit
+suddenly down in spite of the remonstrances of her parent. "Ef you can't
+quit gigglin' and squirmin' like an Injin baby yourself, ye'd better git
+rid o' them duds," he ejaculated with peevish scorn.
+
+Yet, under this perfunctory rebuke, his weak vanity could not be hidden,
+and he enjoyed the evident admiration of a creature whom he believed to
+be half-witted and degraded all the more keenly because it did not make
+him jealous. She could not take Flip from him. Rendered garrulous by
+liquor, he went to voice his contempt for those who might attempt
+it. Taking advantage of his daughter's absence to resume her homely
+garments, he whispered confidentially to Lance,--
+
+"Ye see these yer fine dresses, ye might think is presents. Pr'aps
+Flip lets on they are? Pr'aps she don't know any better. But they ain't
+presents. They're only samples o' dressmaking and jewelry that a vain,
+conceited shrimp of a feller up in Sacramento sends down here to get
+customers for. In course I'm to pay for 'em. In course he reckons I'm
+to do it. In course I calkilate to do it; but he needn't try to play 'em
+off as presents. He talks suthin' o' coming down here, sportin' hisself
+off on Flip as a fancy buck! Not ez long ez the old man's here, you
+bet." Thoroughly carried away by his fancied wrongs, it was perhaps
+fortunate that he did not observe the flashing eyes of Lance behind his
+lank and lustreless wig; but seeing only the figure of Lance, as he had
+conjured him, he went on: "That's why I want you to hang around her.
+Hang around her ontil my boy,--him that's comin' home on a visit,--gets
+here, and I reckon he'll clear out that yar Sacramento counter-jumper.
+Only let me get a sight o' him afore Flip does, eh? D'ye hear? Dog my
+skin if I don't believe the d----d Injin's drunk." It was fortunate that
+at that moment Flip reappeared, and, dropping on the hearth between her
+father and the infuriated Lance, let her hand slip in his with a warning
+pressure. The light touch momentarily recalled him to himself and her,
+but not until the quick-witted girl had had revealed to her in one
+startled wave of consciousness the full extent of Lance's infirmity
+of temper. With the instinct of awakened tenderness came a sense of
+responsibility, and a vague premonition of danger. The coy blossom
+of her heart was scarce unfolded before it was chilled by approaching
+shadows. Fearful of, she knew not what, she hesitated. Every moment of
+Lance's stay was imperiled by a single word that might spring from
+his suppressed white lips; beyond and above the suspicions his sudden
+withdrawal might awaken in her father's breast, she was dimly conscious
+of some mysterious terror without that awaited him. She listened to the
+furious onslaught of the wind upon the sycamores beside their cabin, and
+thought she heard it there; she listened to the sharp fusillade of rain
+upon roof and pane, and the turbulent roar and rush of leaping mountain
+torrents at their very feet, and fancied it was there. She suddenly
+sprang to the window, and, pressing her eyes to the pane, saw
+through the misty turmoil of tossing boughs and swaying branches the
+scintillating intermittent flames of torches moving on the trail above,
+and KNEW it was there!
+
+In an instant she was collected and calm. "Dad," she said, in her
+ordinary indifferent tone, "there's torches movin' up toward the diamond
+pit. Likely it's tramps. I'll take the squaw and see." And before the
+old man could stagger to his feet she had dragged Lance with her into
+the road.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+
+The wind charged down upon them, slamming the door at their backs,
+extinguishing the broad shaft of light that had momentarily shot out
+into the darkness, and swept them a dozen yards away. Gaining the lee of
+a madrono tree, Lance opened his blanketed arms, enfolded the girl, and
+felt her for one brief moment tremble and nestle in his bosom like some
+frightened animal. "Well," he said, gayly, "what next?" Flip recovered
+herself. "You're safe now anywhere outside the house. But did you expect
+them tonight?" Lance shrugged his shoulders. "Why not?" "Hush!" returned
+the girl; "they're coming this way."
+
+The four flickering, scattered lights presently dropped into line. The
+trail had been found; they were coming nearer. Flip breathed quickly;
+the spiced aroma of her presence filled the blanket as he drew her
+tightly beside him. He had forgotten the storm that raged around them,
+the mysterious foe that was approaching, until Flip caught his sleeve
+with a slight laugh. "Why, it's Kennedy and Bijah?"
+
+"Who's Kennedy and Bijah?" asked Lance, curtly.
+
+"Kennedy's the Postmaster and Bijah's the Butcher."
+
+"What do they want?" continued Lance.
+
+"Me," said Flip, coyly.
+
+"You?"
+
+"Yes; let's run away."
+
+Half leading, half dragging her friend, Flip made her way with unerring
+woodcraft down the ravine. The sound of voices and even the tumult of
+the storm became fainter, an acrid smell of burning green wood smarted
+Lance's lips and eyes; in the midst of the darkness beneath him
+gradually a faint, gigantic nimbus like a lurid eye glowed and sank,
+quivered and faded with the spent breath of the gale as it penetrated
+their retreat. "The pit," whispered Flip; "it's safe on the other side,"
+she added, cautiously skirting the orbit of the great eye, and leading
+him to a sheltered nest of bark and sawdust. It was warm and odorous.
+Nevertheless, they both deemed it necessary to enwrap themselves in the
+single blanket. The eye beamed fitfully upon them, occasionally a wave
+of lambent tremulousness passed across it; its weirdness was an excuse
+for their drawing nearer each other in playful terror.
+
+"Flip."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"What did the other two want? To see you, TOO?"
+
+"Likely," said Flip, without the least trace of coquetry. "There's been
+a lot of strangers yer, off and on."
+
+"Perhaps you'd like to go back and see them?"
+
+"Do you want me to?"
+
+Lance's reply was a kiss. Nevertheless he was vaguely uneasy. "Looks a
+little as if I were running away, don't it?" he suggested.
+
+"No," said Flip; "they think you're only a squaw; it's me they're
+after." Lance smarted a little at this infelicitous speech. A strange
+and irritating sensation had been creeping over him--it was his first
+experience of shame and remorse. "I reckon I'll go back and see," he
+said, rising abruptly.
+
+Flip was silent. She was thinking. Believing that the men were seeking
+her only, she knew that their attention would be directed from her
+companion when it was found out he was no longer with her, and she
+dreaded to meet them in his irritable presence.
+
+"Go," she said, "tell Dad something's gone wrong in the diamond pit, and
+say I'm watching it for him here."
+
+"And you?"
+
+"I'll go there and wait for him. If he can't get rid of them, and they
+follow him there, I'll come back here and meet you. Anyhow, I'll manage
+to have Dad wait there a spell."
+
+She took his hand and led him back by a different path to the trail. He
+was surprised to find that the cabin, its window glowing from the fire,
+was only a hundred yards away. "Go in the back way, by the shed. Don't
+go in the room, nor near the light, if you can. Don't talk inside,
+but call or beckon to Dad. Remember," she said, with a laugh, "you're
+keeping watch of me for him. Pull your hair down on your eyes so." This
+operation, like most feminine embellishments of the masculine toilet was
+attended by a kiss, and Flip, stepping back into the shadow, vanished in
+the storm.
+
+Lance's first movements were inconsistent with his assumed sex. He
+picked up his draggled skirt, and drew a bowie knife from his boot. From
+his bosom he took a revolver, turning the chambers noiselessly as he
+felt the caps. He then crept toward the cabin softly and gained the
+shed. It was quite dark but for a pencil of light piercing a crack of
+the rude, ill-fitting door that opened on the sitting-room. A single
+voice not unfamiliar to him, raised in half-brutal triumph, greeted his
+ears.
+
+A name was mentioned--his own! His angry hand was on the latch. One
+moment more and he would have burst the door, but in that instant
+another name was uttered--a name that dropped his hand from the latch
+and the blood from his cheeks. He staggered backward, passed his hand
+swiftly across his forehead, recovered himself with a gesture of mingled
+rage and despair, and, sinking on his knees beside the door, pressed his
+hot temples against the crack.
+
+"Do I know Lance Harriott?" said the voice. "Do I know the d----d
+ruffian? Didn't I hunt him a year ago into the brush three miles from
+the Crossing? Didn't we lose sight of him the very day he turned up yer
+at this ranch, and got smuggled over into Monterey? Ain't it the same
+man as killed Arkansaw Bob--Bob Ridley--the name he went by in Sonora?
+And who was Bob Ridley, eh? Who? Why, you d----d old fool, it was Bob
+Fairley--YOUR SON!"
+
+The old man's voice rose querulous and indistinct.
+
+"What are ye talkin' about?" interrupted the first speaker. "I tell you
+I KNOW. Look at these pictures. I found 'em on his body. Look at 'em.
+Pictures of you and your girl. Pr'aps you'll deny them. Pr'aps you'll
+tell me I lie when I tell you HE told me he was your son; told me how he
+ran away from you; how you were livin' somewhere in the mountains
+makin' gold, or suthin' else, outer charcoal. He told me who he was as
+a secret. He never let on he told it to any one else. And when I found
+that the man who killed him, Lance Harriott, had been hidin' here, had
+been sendin' spies all around to find out all about your son, had been
+foolin' you and tryin' to ruin your gal as he had killed your boy, I
+knew that HE knew it, too."
+
+"LIAR!"
+
+The door fell in with a crash. There was the sudden apparition of a
+demoniac face, still half hidden by the long trailing black locks of
+hair that curled like Medusa's around it. A cry of terror filled the
+room. Three of the men dashed from the door and fled precipitately. The
+man who had spoken sprang toward his rifle in the chimney corner.
+But the movement was his last; a blinding flash and shattering report
+interposed between him and his weapon.
+
+The impulse carried him forward headlong into the fire, that hissed and
+spluttered with his blood, and Lance Harriott with his smoking pistol,
+strode past him to the door. Already far down the trail there were
+hurried voices, the crack and crackling of impending branches growing
+fainter and fainter in the distance. Lance turned back to the solitary
+living figure--the old man.
+
+Yet he might have been dead, too, he sat so rigid and motionless, his
+fixed eyes staring vacantly at the body on the hearth. Before him on the
+table lay the cheap photographs, one evidently of himself, taken in some
+remote epoch of complexion, one of a child which Lance recognized as
+Flip.
+
+"Tell me," said Lance hoarsely, laying his quivering hand on the table,
+"was Bob Ridley your son?"
+
+"My son," echoed the old man in a strange, far-off voice, without
+turning his eyes from the corpse--"My son--is--is--is there!" pointing
+to the dead man. "Hush! Didn't he tell you so? Didn't you hear him say
+it? Dead--dead--shot--shot!"
+
+"Silence! are you crazy, man?" repeated Lance, tremblingly; "that is not
+Bob Ridley, but a dog, a coward, a liar gone to his reckoning. Hear
+me! If your son WAS Bob Ridley, I swear to God I never knew it, now
+or--or--THEN. Do you hear me? Tell me! Do you believe me? Speak! You
+shall speak."
+
+He laid his hand almost menacingly on the old man's shoulder. Fairley
+slowly raised his head. Lance fell back with a groan of horror. The weak
+lips were wreathed with a feeble imploring smile, but the eyes wherein
+the fretful, peevish, suspicious spirit had dwelt were blank and
+tenantless; the flickering intellect that had lit them was blown out and
+vanished.
+
+Lance walked toward the door and remained motionless for a moment,
+gazing into the night. When he turned back again toward the fire his
+face was as colorless as the dead man's on the hearth; the fire of
+passion was gone from his beaten eyes; his step was hesitating and slow.
+He went up to the table.
+
+"I say, old man," he said, with a strange smile and an odd, premature
+suggestion of the infinite weariness of death in his voice, "you
+wouldn't mind giving me this, would you?" and he took up the picture of
+Flip. The old man nodded repeatedly. "Thank you," said Lance. He went
+to the door, paused a moment, and returned. "Good-by, old man," he
+said, holding out his hand. Fairley took it with a childish smile. "He's
+dead," said the old man softly, holding Lance's hand, but pointing to
+the hearth. "Yes," said Lance, with the faintest of smiles on the palest
+of faces. "You feel sorry for any one that's dead, don't you?" Fairley
+nodded again. Lance looked at him with eyes as remote as his own, shook
+his head, and turned away. When he reached the door he laid his revolver
+carefully, and, indeed, somewhat ostentatiously, upon a chair. But when
+he stepped from the threshold he stopped a moment in the light of the
+open door to examine the lock of a small derringer which he drew from
+his pocket. He then shut the door carefully, and with the same slow,
+hesitating step, felt his way into the night.
+
+He had but one idea in his mind, to find some lonely spot; some spot
+where the footsteps of man would never penetrate, some spot that would
+yield him rest, sleep, obliteration, forgetfulness, and, above all,
+where HE would be forgotten. He had seen such places; surely there were
+many,--where bones were picked up of dead men who had faded from the
+earth and had left no other record. If he could only keep his senses now
+he might find such a spot, but he must be careful, for her little feet
+went everywhere, and she must never see him again alive or dead. And in
+the midst of his thoughts, and the darkness, and the storm, he heard a
+voice at his side, "Lance, how long you have been!"
+
+*****
+
+Left to himself, the old man again fell into a vacant contemplation
+of the dead body before him, until a stronger blast swept down like an
+avalanche upon the cabin, burst through the ill-fastened door and broken
+chimney, and, dashing the ashes and living embers over the floor, filled
+the room with blinding smoke and flame. Fairley rose with a feeble cry,
+and then, as if acted upon by some dominant memory, groped under the
+bed until he found his buckskin bag and his precious crystal, and
+fled precipitately from the room. Lifted by this second shock from his
+apathy, he returned to the fixed idea of his life,--the discovery and
+creation of the diamond,--and forgot all else. The feeble grasp that his
+shaken intellect kept of the events of the night relaxed, the disguised
+Lance, the story of his son, the murder, slipped into nothingness; there
+remained only the one idea, his nightly watch by the diamond pit. The
+instinct of long habit was stronger than the darkness or the onset of
+the storm, and he kept his tottering way over stream and fallen timber
+until he reached the spot. A sudden tremor seemed to shake the lambent
+flame that had lured him on. He thought he heard the sound of voices;
+there were signs of recent disturbance,--footprints in the sawdust! With
+a cry of rage and suspicion, Fairley slipped into the pit and sprang
+toward the nearest opening. To his frenzied fancy it had been tampered
+with, his secret discovered, the fruit of his long labors stolen from
+him that very night. With superhuman strength he began to open the pit,
+scattering the half-charred logs right and left, and giving vent to the
+suffocating gases that rose from the now incandescent charcoal. At times
+the fury of the gale would drive it back and hold it against the sides
+of the pit, leaving the opening free; at times, following the blind
+instinct of habit, the demented man would fall upon his face and bury
+his nose and mouth in the wet bark and sawdust. At last, the paroxysm
+past, he sank back again in his old apathetic attitude of watching,
+the attitude he had so often kept beside his sylvan crucible. In this
+attitude and in silence he waited for the dawn.
+
+It came with a hush in the storm; it came with blue openings in the
+broken up and tumbled heavens; it came with stars that glistened first,
+and then paled, and at last sank drowning in those deep cerulean lakes;
+it came with those cerulean lakes broadening into vaster seas, whose
+shores expanded at last into one illimitable ocean, cerulean no more,
+but flecked with crimson and opal dyes; it came with the lightly lifted
+misty curtain of the day, torn and rent on crag and pine top, but always
+lifting, lifting. It came with the sparkle of emerald in the grasses,
+and the flash of diamonds in every spray, with a whisper in the
+awakening woods, and voices in the traveled roads and trails.
+
+The sound of these voices stopped before the pit, and seemed to
+interrogate the old man. He came, and, putting his finger on his lips,
+made a sign of caution. When three or four men had descended he bade
+them follow him, saying, weakly and disjointedly, but persistently: "My
+boy--my son Robert--came home--came home at last--here with Flip--both
+of them--come and see!"
+
+He had reached a little niche or nest in the hillside, and stopped and
+suddenly drew aside a blanket. Beneath it, side by side, lay Flip and
+Lance, dead, with their cold hands clasped in each other's.
+
+"Suffocated!" said two or three, turning with horror toward the broken
+up and still smouldering pit.
+
+"Asleep!" said the old man. "Asleep! I've seen 'em lying that way when
+they were babies together. Don't tell me! Don't say I don't know my
+own flesh and blood! So! so! So, my pretty ones!" He stooped and kissed
+them. Then, drawing the blanket over them gently, he rose and said
+softly, "Good night!"
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Flip: A California Romance, by Bret Harte
+
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+Project Gutenberg Etext Flip: A California Romance, by Bret Harte
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+
+FLIP: A CALIFORNIA ROMANCE
+
+by Bret Harte
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+
+Just where the track of the Los Gatos road streams on and upward
+like the sinuous trail of a fiery rocket until it is extinguished
+in the blue shadows of the Coast Range, there is an embayed terrace
+near the summit, hedged by dwarf firs.  At every bend of the heat-
+laden road the eye rested upon it wistfully; all along the flank of
+the mountain, which seemed to pant and quiver in the oven-like air,
+through rising dust, the slow creaking of dragging wheels, the
+monotonous cry of tired springs, and the muffled beat of plunging
+hoofs, it held out a promise of sheltered coolness and green
+silences beyond.  Sunburned and anxious faces yearned toward it
+from the dizzy, swaying tops of stagecoaches, from lagging teams
+far below, from the blinding white canvas covers of "mountain
+schooners," and from scorching saddles that seemed to weigh down
+the scrambling, sweating animals beneath.  But it would seem that
+the hope was vain, the promise illusive.  When the terrace was
+reached it appeared not only to have caught and gathered all the
+heat of the valley below, but to have evolved a fire of its own
+from some hidden crater-like source unknown.  Nevertheless, instead
+of prostrating and enervating man and beast, it was said to have
+induced the wildest exaltation.  The heated air was filled and
+stifling with resinous exhalations.  The delirious spices of balm,
+bay, spruce, juniper, yerba buena, wild syringa, and strange
+aromatic herbs as yet unclassified, distilled and evaporated in
+that mighty heat, and seemed to fire with a midsummer madness all
+who breathed their fumes.  They stung, smarted, stimulated,
+intoxicated.  It was said that the most jaded and foot-sore horses
+became furious and ungovernable under their influence; wearied
+teamsters and muleteers, who had exhausted their profanity in the
+ascent, drank fresh draughts of inspiration in this fiery air,
+extended their vocabulary, and created new and startling forms of
+objurgation.  It is recorded that one bibulous stage-driver
+exhausted description and condensed its virtues in a single phrase:
+"Gin and ginger."  This felicitous epithet, flung out in a generous
+comparison with his favorite drink, "rum and gum," clung to it ever
+after.
+
+Such was the current comment on this vale of spices.  Like most
+human criticism it was hasty and superficial.  No one yet had been
+known to have penetrated deeply its mysterious recesses.  It was
+still far below the summit and its wayside inn.  It had escaped the
+intruding foot of hunter and prospector; and the inquisitive patrol
+of the county surveyor had only skirted its boundary.  It remained
+for Mr. Lance Harriott to complete its exploration.  His reasons
+for so doing were simple.  He had made the journey thither
+underneath the stage-coach, and clinging to its axle.  He had
+chosen this hazardous mode of conveyance at night, as the coach
+crept by his place of concealment in the wayside brush, to elude
+the sheriff of Monterey County and his posse, who were after him.
+
+He had not made himself known to his fellow-passengers as they
+already knew him as a gambler, an outlaw, and a desperado; he
+deemed it unwise to present himself in a newer reputation of a man
+who had just slain a brother gambler in a quarrel, and for whom a
+reward was offered.  He slipped from the axle as the stage-coach
+swirled past the brushing branches of fir, and for an instant lay
+unnoticed, a scarcely distinguishable mound of dust in the broken
+furrows of the road.  Then, more like a beast than a man, he crept
+on his hands and knees into the steaming underbrush.  Here he lay
+still until the clatter of harness and the sound of voices faded in
+the distance.  Had he been followed, it would have been difficult
+to detect in that inert mass of rags any semblance to a known form
+or figure.  A hideous reddish mask of dust and clay obliterated his
+face; his hands were shapeless stumps exaggerated in his trailing
+sleeves.  And when he rose, staggering like a drunken man, and
+plunged wildly into the recesses of the wood, a cloud of dust
+followed him, and pieces and patches of his frayed and rotten
+garments clung to the impeding branches.  Twice he fell, but,
+maddened and upheld by the smarting spices and stimulating aroma
+of the air, he kept on his course.
+
+Gradually the heat became less oppressive; once when he stopped and
+leaned exhaustedly against a sapling, he fancied he saw the zephyr
+he could not yet feel in the glittering and trembling of leaves in
+the distance before him.  Again the deep stillness was moved with a
+faint sighing rustle, and he knew he must be nearing the edge of
+the thicket.  The spell of silence thus broken was followed by a
+fainter, more musical interruption--the glassy tinkle of water!  A
+step further his foot trembled on the verge of a slight ravine,
+still closely canopied by the interlacing boughs overhead.  A tiny
+stream that he could have dammed with his hand yet lingered in
+this parched red gash in the hillside and trickled into a deep,
+irregular, well-like cavity, that again overflowed and sent its
+slight surplus on.  It had been the luxurious retreat of many a
+spotted trout; it was to be the bath of Lance Harriott.  Without a
+moment's hesitation, without removing a single garment, he slipped
+cautiously into it, as if fearful of losing a single drop.  His
+head disappeared from the level of the bank; the solitude was again
+unbroken.  Only two objects remained upon the edge of the ravine,--
+his revolver and tobacco pouch.
+
+A few minutes elapsed.  A fearless blue jay alighted on the bank
+and made a prospecting peck at the tobacco pouch.  It yielded in
+favor of a gopher, who endeavored to draw it toward his hole, but
+in turn gave way to a red squirrel, whose attention was divided,
+however, between the pouch and the revolver, which he regarded with
+mischievous fascination.  Then there was a splash, a grunt, a
+sudden dispersion of animated nature, and the head of Mr. Lance
+Harriott appeared above the bank.  It was a startling transformation.
+Not only that he had, by this wholesale process, washed himself and
+his light "drill" garments entirely clean, but that he had,
+apparently by the same operation, morally cleansed HIMSELF, and left
+every stain and ugly blot of his late misdeeds and reputation in his
+bath.  His face, albeit scratched here and there, was rosy, round,
+shining with irrepressible good humor and youthful levity.  His
+large blue eyes were infantine in their innocent surprise and
+thoughtlessness.  Dripping yet with water, and panting, he rested
+his elbows lazily on the bank, and became instantly absorbed with a
+boy's delight in the movements of the gopher, who, after the first
+alarm, returned cautiously to abduct the tobacco pouch.  If any
+familiar had failed to detect Lance Harriott in this hideous
+masquerade of dust and grime and tatters, still less would any
+passing stranger have recognized in this blond faun the possible
+outcast and murderer.  And, when with a swirl of his spattering
+sleeve, he drove back the gopher in a shower of spray and leaped to
+the bank, he seemed to have accepted his felonious hiding-place as a
+mere picnicking bower.
+
+A slight breeze was unmistakably permeating the wood from the west.
+Looking in that direction, Lance imagined that the shadow was less
+dark, and although the undergrowth was denser, he struck off
+carelessly toward it.  As he went on, the wood became lighter and
+lighter; branches, and presently leaves, were painted against the
+vivid blue of the sky.  He knew he must be near the summit,
+stopped, felt for his revolver, and then lightly put the few
+remaining branches aside.
+
+The full glare of the noonday sun at first blinded him.  When he
+could see more clearly, he found himself on the open western slope
+of the mountain, which in the Coast Range was seldom wooded.  The
+spiced thicket stretched between him and the summit, and again
+between him and the stage road that plunges from the terrace, like
+forked lightning into the valley below.  He could command all the
+approaches without being seen.  Not that this seemed to occupy his
+thoughts or cause him any anxiety.  His first act was to disencumber
+himself of his tattered coat; he then filled and lighted his pipe,
+and stretched himself full-length on the open hillside, as if to
+bleach in the fierce sun.  While smoking he carelessly perused the
+fragment of a newspaper which had enveloped his tobacco, and being
+struck with some amusing paragraph, read it half aloud again to some
+imaginary auditor, emphasizing its humor with an hilarious slap upon
+his leg.
+
+Possibly from the relaxation of fatigue and the bath, which had
+become a vapor one as he alternately rolled and dried himself in
+the baking grass, his eyes closed dreamily.  He was awakened by
+the sound of voices.  They were distant; they were vague; they
+approached no nearer.  He rolled himself to the verge of the first
+precipitous grassy descent.  There was another bank or plateau
+below him, and then a confused depth of olive shadows, pierced here
+and there by the spiked helmets of pines.
+
+There was no trace of habitation, yet the voices were those of some
+monotonous occupation, and Lance distinctly heard through them the
+click of crockery and the ring of some household utensil.  It
+appeared to be the interjectional, half listless, half perfunctory,
+domestic dialogue of an old man and a girl, of which the words were
+unintelligible.  Their voices indicated the solitude of the
+mountain, but without sadness; they were mysterious without being
+awe-inspiring.  They might have uttered the dreariest commonplaces,
+but, in their vast isolation, they seemed musical and eloquent.
+Lance drew his first sigh,--they had suggested dinner.
+
+Careless as his nature was, he was too cautious to risk detection
+in broad daylight.  He contented himself for the present with
+endeavoring to locate that particular part of the depths from which
+the voices seemed to rise.  It was more difficult, however, to
+select some other way of penetrating it than by the stage road.
+"They're bound to have a fire or show a light when it's dark," he
+reasoned, and, satisfied with that reflection, lay down again.
+Presently he began to amuse himself by tossing some silver coins in
+the air.  Then his attention was directed to a spur of the Coast
+Range which had been sharply silhouetted against the cloudless
+western sky.  Something intensely white, something so small that it
+was scarcely larger than the silver coin in his hand, was appearing
+in a slight cleft of the range.
+
+While he looked it gradually filled and obliterated the cleft.  In
+another moment the whole serrated line of mountain had disappeared.
+The dense, dazzling white, encompassing host began to pour over and
+down every ravine and pass of the coast.  Lance recognized the sea-
+fog, and knew that scarcely twenty miles away lay the ocean--and
+safety!  The drooping sun was now caught and hidden in its soft
+embraces.  A sudden chill breathed over the mountain.  He shivered,
+rose, and plunged again for very warmth into the spice-laden
+thicket.  The heated balsamic air began to affect him like a
+powerful sedative; his hunger was forgotten in the languor of
+fatigue; he slumbered.  When he awoke it was dark.  He groped his
+way through the thicket.  A few stars were shining directly above
+him, but beyond and below, everything was lost in the soft, white,
+fleecy veil of fog.  Whatever light or fire might have betokened
+human habitation was hidden.  To push on blindly would be madness;
+he could only wait for morning.  It suited the outcast's lazy
+philosophy.  He crept back again to his bed in the hollow and
+slept.  In that profound silence and shadow, shut out from human
+association and sympathy by the ghostly fog, what torturing visions
+conjured up by remorse and fear should have pursued him?  What
+spirit passed before him, or slowly shaped itself out of the
+infinite blackness of the wood?  None.  As he slipped gently into
+that blackness he remembered with a slight regret, some biscuits
+that were dropped from the coach by a careless luncheon-consuming
+passenger.  That pang over, he slept as sweetly, as profoundly, as
+divinely, as a child.
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+
+He awoke with the aroma of the woods still steeping his senses.
+His first instinct was that of all young animals; he seized a few
+of the young, tender green leaves of the yerba buena vine that
+crept over his mossy pillow and ate them, being rewarded by a half
+berry-like flavor that seemed to soothe the cravings of his
+appetite.  The languor of sleep being still upon him, he lazily
+watched the quivering of a sunbeam that was caught in the canopying
+boughs above.  Then he dozed again.  Hovering between sleeping and
+waking, he became conscious of a slight movement among the dead
+leaves on the bank beside the hollow in which he lay.  The movement
+appeared to be intelligent, and directed toward his revolver, which
+glittered on the bank.  Amused at this evident return of his
+larcenous friend of the previous day, he lay perfectly still.  The
+movement and rustle continued, but it now seemed long and
+undulating.  Lance's eyes suddenly became set; he was intensely,
+keenly awake.  It was not a snake, but the hand of a human arm,
+half hidden in the moss, groping for the weapon.  In that flash of
+perception he saw that it was small, bare, and deeply freckled.  In
+an instant he grasped it firmly, and rose to his feet, dragging to
+his own level as he did so, the struggling figure of a young girl.
+
+"Leave me go!" she said, more ashamed than frightened.
+
+Lance looked at her.  She was scarcely more than fifteen, slight
+and lithe, with a boyish flatness of breast and back.  Her flushed
+face and bare throat were absolutely peppered with minute brown
+freckles, like grains of spent gunpowder.  Her eyes, which were
+large and gray, presented the singular spectacle of being also
+freckled,--at least they were shot through in pupil and cornea
+with tiny spots like powdered allspice.  Her hair was even more
+remarkable in its tawny, deer-skin color, full of lighter shades,
+and bleached to the faintest of blondes on the crown of her head,
+as if by the action of the sun.  She had evidently outgrown her
+dress, which was made for a smaller child, and the too brief skirt
+disclosed a bare, freckled, and sandy desert of shapely limb, for
+which the darned stockings were equally too scant.  Lance let his
+grasp slip from her thin wrist to her hand, and then with a good-
+humored gesture tossed it lightly back to her.
+
+She did not retreat, but continued looking at him in a half-surly
+embarrassment.
+
+"I ain't a bit frightened," she said; "I'm not going to run away,--
+don't you fear."
+
+"Glad to hear it," said Lance, with unmistakable satisfaction, "but
+why did you go for my revolver?"
+
+She flushed again and was silent.  Presently she began to kick the
+earth at the roots of the tree, and said, as if confidentially to
+her foot,--
+
+"I wanted to get hold of it before you did."
+
+"You did?--and why?"
+
+"Oh, you know why."
+
+Every tooth in Lance's head showed that he did, perfectly.  But he
+was discreetly silent.
+
+"I didn't know what you were hiding there for," she went on, still
+addressing the tree, "and," looking at him sideways under her white
+lashes, "I didn't see your face."
+
+This subtle compliment was the first suggestion of her artful sex.
+It actually sent the blood into the careless rascal's face, and for
+a moment confused him.  He coughed.  "So you thought you'd freeze
+on to that six-shooter of mine until you saw my hand?"
+
+She nodded.  Then she picked up a broken hazel branch, fitted it
+into the small of her back, threw her tanned bare arms over the
+ends of it, and expanded her chest and her biceps at the same
+moment.  This simple action was supposed to convey an impression at
+once of ease and muscular force.
+
+"Perhaps you'd like to take it now," said Lance, handing her the
+pistol.
+
+"I've seen six-shooters before now," said the girl, evading the
+proffered weapon and its suggestion.  "Dad has one, and my brother
+had two derringers before he was half as big as me."
+
+She stopped to observe in her companion the effect of this capacity
+of her family to bear arms.  Lance only regarded her amusedly.
+Presently she again spoke abruptly:--
+
+"What made you eat that grass, just now?"
+
+"Grass!" echoed Lance.
+
+"Yes, there," pointing to the yerba buena.
+
+Lance laughed.  "I was hungry.  Look!" he said, gayly tossing some
+silver into the air.  "Do you think you could get me some breakfast
+for that, and have enough left to buy something for yourself?"
+
+The girl eyed the money and the man with half-bashful curiosity.
+
+"I reckon Dad might give ye suthing if he had a mind ter, though ez
+a rule he's down on tramps ever since they run off his chickens.
+Ye might try."
+
+"But I want YOU to try.  You can bring it to me here."
+
+The girl retreated a step, dropped her eyes, and, with a smile that
+was a charming hesitation between bashfulness and impudence, said:
+"So you ARE hidin', are ye?"
+
+"That's just it.  Your head's level.  I am," laughed Lance
+unconcernedly.
+
+"Yur ain't one o' the McCarty gang--are ye?"
+
+Mr. Lance Harriott felt a momentary moral exaltation in declaring
+truthfully that he was not one of a notorious band of mountain
+freebooters known in the district under that name.
+
+"Nor ye ain't one of them chicken lifters that raided Henderson's
+ranch?  We don't go much on that kind o' cattle yer."
+
+"No," said Lance, cheerfully.
+
+"Nor ye ain't that chap ez beat his wife unto death at Santa
+Clara?"
+
+Lance honestly scorned the imputation.  Such conjugal ill treatment
+as he had indulged in had not been physical, and had been with
+other men's wives.
+
+There was a moment's further hesitation on the part of the girl.
+Then she said shortly:
+
+"Well, then, I reckon you kin come along with me."
+
+"Where?" asked Lance.
+
+"To the ranch," she replied simply.
+
+"Then you won't bring me anything to eat here?"
+
+"What for?  You kin get it down there."  Lance hesitated.  "I tell
+you it's all right," she continued.  "I'll make it all right with
+Dad."
+
+"But suppose I reckon I'd rather stay here," persisted Lance, with
+a perfect consciousness, however, of affectation in his caution.
+
+"Stay away then," said the girl coolly; "only as Dad perempted this
+yer woods"--
+
+"PRE-empted," suggested Lance.
+
+"Per-empted or pre-emp-ted, as you like," continued the girl
+scornfully,--"ez he's got a holt on this yer woods, ye might ez
+well see him down thar ez here.  For here he's like to come any
+minit.  You can bet your life on that."
+
+She must have read Lance's amusement in his eyes, for she again
+dropped her own with a frown of brusque embarrassment.  "Come
+along, then; I'm your man," said Lance, gayly, extending his hand.
+
+She would not accept it, eying it, however, furtively, like a horse
+about to shy.  "Hand me your pistol first," she said.
+
+He handed it to her with an assumption of gayety.  She received it
+on her part with unfeigned seriousness, and threw it over her
+shoulder like a gun.  This combined action of the child and
+heroine, it is quite unnecessary to say, afforded Lance undiluted
+joy.
+
+"You go first," she said.
+
+Lance stepped promptly out, with a broad grin.  "Looks kinder as if
+I was a prisoner, don't it?" he suggested.
+
+"Go on, and don't fool," she replied.
+
+The two fared onward through the wood.  For one moment he
+entertained the facetious idea of appearing to rush frantically
+away, "just to see what the girl would do," but abandoned it.
+"It's an even thing if she wouldn't spot me the first pop," he
+reflected admiringly.
+
+When they had reached the open hillside, Lance stopped inquiringly.
+"This way," she said, pointing toward the summit, and in quite an
+opposite direction to the valley where he had heard the voices, one
+of which he now recognized as hers.  They skirted the thicket for a
+few moments, and then turned sharply into a trail which began to
+dip toward a ravine leading to the valley.
+
+"Why do you have to go all the way round?" he asked.
+
+"WE don't," the girl replied with emphasis; "there's a shorter
+cut."
+
+"Where?"
+
+"That's telling," she answered shortly.
+
+"What's your name?" asked Lance, after a steep scramble and a drop
+into the ravine.
+
+"Flip."
+
+"What?"
+
+"Flip."
+
+"I mean your first name,--your front name."
+
+"Flip."
+
+"Flip!  Oh, short for Felipa!"
+
+"It ain't Flipper,--it's Flip."  And she relapsed into silence.
+
+"You don't ask me mine?" suggested Lance.
+
+She did not vouchsafe a reply.
+
+"Then you don't want to know?"
+
+"Maybe Dad will.  You can lie to HIM."
+
+This direct answer apparently sustained the agreeable homicide for
+some moments.  He moved onward, silently exuding admiration.
+
+"Only," added Flip, with a sudden caution, "you'd better agree with
+me."
+
+The trail here turned again abruptly and re-entered the canyon.
+Lance looked up, and noticed they were almost directly beneath the
+bay thicket and the plateau that towered far above them.  The trail
+here showed signs of clearing, and the way was marked by felled
+trees and stumps of pines.
+
+"What does your father do here?" he finally asked.  Flip remained
+silent, swinging the revolver.  Lance repeated his question.
+
+"Burns charcoal and makes diamonds," said Flip, looking at him from
+the corners of her eyes.
+
+"Makes diamonds?" echoed Lance.
+
+Flip nodded her head.
+
+"Many of 'em?" he continued carelessly.
+
+"Lots.  But they're not big," she returned, with a sidelong glance.
+
+"Oh, they're not big?" said Lance gravely.
+
+They had by this time reached a small staked inclosure, whence the
+sudden fluttering and cackle of poultry welcomed the return of the
+evident mistress of this sylvan retreat.  It was scarcely imposing.
+Further on, a cooking stove under a tree, a saddle and bridle, a
+few household implements scattered about, indicated the "ranch."
+Like most pioneer clearings, it was simply a disorganized raid upon
+nature that had left behind a desolate battlefield strewn with
+waste and decay.  The fallen trees, the crushed thicket, the
+splintered limbs, the rudely torn-up soil, were made hideous by
+their grotesque juxtaposition with the wrecked fragments of
+civilization, in empty cans, broken bottles, battered hats,
+soleless boots, frayed stockings, cast-off rags, and the crowning
+absurdity of the twisted-wire skeleton of a hooped skirt hanging
+from a branch.  The wildest defile, the densest thicket, the most
+virgin solitude, was less dreary and forlorn than this first
+footprint of man.  The only redeeming feature of this prolonged
+bivouac was the cabin itself.  Built of the half-cylindrical strips
+of pine bark, and thatched with the same material, it had a certain
+picturesque rusticity.  But this was an accident of economy rather
+than taste, for which Flip apologized by saying that the bark of
+the pine was "no good" for charcoal.
+
+"I reckon Dad's in the woods," she added, pausing before the open
+door of the cabin.  "Oh, Dad!"  Her voice, clear and high, seemed
+to fill the whole long canyon, and echoed from the green plateau
+above.  The monotonous strokes of an axe were suddenly pretermitted,
+and somewhere from the depths of the close-set pines a voice
+answered "Flip."  There was a pause of a few moments, with some
+muttering, stumbling, and crackling in the underbrush, and then the
+sudden appearance of "Dad."
+
+Had Lance first met him in the thicket, he would have been puzzled
+to assign his race to Mongolian, Indian, or Ethiopian origin.
+Perfunctory but incomplete washings of his hands and face, after
+charcoal burning, had gradually ground into his skin a grayish
+slate-pencil pallor, grotesquely relieved at the edges, where the
+washing had left off, with a border of a darker color.  He looked
+like an overworked Christy minstrel with the briefest of intervals
+between his performances.  There were black rims in the orbits of
+his eyes, as if he gazed feebly out of unglazed spectacles, which
+heightened his simian resemblance, already grotesquely exaggerated
+by what appeared to be repeated and spasmodic experiments in dyeing
+his gray hair.  Without the slightest notice of Lance, he inflicted
+his protesting and querulous presence entirely on his daughter.
+
+"Well, what's up now?  Yer ye are calling me from work an hour
+before noon.  Dog my skin, ef I ever get fairly limbered up afore
+it's 'Dad!' and 'Oh, Dad!'"
+
+To Lance's intense satisfaction the girl received this harangue
+with an air of supreme indifference, and when "Dad" had relapsed
+into an unintelligible, and, as it seemed to Lance, a half-
+frightened muttering, she said coolly,--
+
+"Ye'd better drop that axe and scoot round getten' this stranger
+some breakfast and some grub to take with him.  He's one of them
+San Francisco sports out here trout fishing in the branch.  He's
+got adrift from his party, has lost his rod and fixins, and had to
+camp out last night in the Gin and Ginger Woods."
+
+"That's just it; it's allers suthin like that," screamed the old
+man, dashing his fist on his leg in a feeble, impotent passion, but
+without looking at Lance.  "Why in blazes don't he go up to that
+there blamed hotel on the summit?  Why in thunder--"  But here he
+caught his daughter's large, freckled eyes full in his own.  He
+blinked feebly, his voice fell into a tone of whining entreaty.
+"Now, look yer, Flip, it's playing it rather low down on the old
+man, this yer running' in o' tramps and desarted emigrants and
+cast-ashore sailors and forlorn widders and ravin' lunatics, on
+this yer ranch.  I put it to you, Mister," he said abruptly,
+turning to Lance for the first time, but as if he had already taken
+an active part in the conversation,--"I put it as a gentleman
+yourself, and a fair-minded sportin' man, if this is the square
+thing?"
+
+Before Lance could reply, Flip had already begun.  "That's just it!
+D'ye reckon, being a sportin' man and an A 1 feller, he's goin' to
+waltz down inter that hotel, rigged out ez he is?  D'ye reckon he's
+goin' to let his partners get the laugh outer him?  D'ye reckon
+he's goin' to show his head outer this yer ranch till he can do it
+square?  Not much!  Go 'long.  Dad, you're talking silly!"
+
+The old man weakened.  He feebly trailed his axe between his legs
+to a stump and sat down, wiping his forehead with his sleeve, and
+imparting to it the appearance of a slate with a difficult sum
+partly rubbed out.  He looked despairingly at Lance.  "In course,"
+he said, with a deep sigh, "you naturally ain't got any money.  In
+course you left your pocketbook, containing fifty dollars, under a
+stone, and can't find it.  In course," he continued, as he observed
+Lance put his hand to his pocket, "you've only got a blank check on
+Wells, Fargo & Co. for a hundred dollars, and you'd like me to give
+you the difference?"
+
+Amused as Lance evidently was at this, his absolute admiration for
+Flip absorbed everything else.  With his eyes fixed upon the girl,
+he briefly assured the old man that he would pay for everything he
+wanted.  He did this with a manner quite different from the
+careless, easy attitude he had assumed toward Flip; at least the
+quick-witted girl noticed it, and wondered if he was angry.  It was
+quite true that ever since his eye had fallen upon another of his
+own sex, its glance had been less frank and careless.  Certain
+traits of possible impatience, which might develop into man-
+slaying, were coming to the fore.  Yet a word or a gesture of
+Flip's was sufficient to change that manner, and when, with the
+fretful assistance of her father, she had prepared a somewhat
+sketchy and primitive repast, he questioned the old man about
+diamond-making.  The eye of Dad kindled.
+
+"I want ter know how ye knew I was making diamonds," he asked, with
+a certain bashful pettishness not unlike his daughter's.
+
+"Heard it in 'Frisco," replied Lance, with glib mendacity, glancing
+at the girl.
+
+"I reckon they're gettin' sort of skeert down there--them
+jewelers," chuckled Dad, "yet it's in nater that their figgers will
+have to come down.  It's only a question of the price of charcoal.
+I suppose they didn't tell you how I made the discovery?"
+
+Lance would have stopped the old man's narrative by saying that he
+knew the story, but he wished to see how far Flip lent herself to
+her father's delusion.
+
+"Ye see, one night about two years ago I had a pit o' charcoal
+burning out there, and tho' it had been a smouldering and a smoking
+and a blazing for nigh unto a month, somehow it didn't charcoal
+worth a cent.  And yet, dog my skin, but the heat o' that er pit
+was suthin hidyus and frightful; ye couldn't stand within a hundred
+yards of it, and they could feel it on the stage road three miles
+over yon, t'other side the mountain.  There was nights when me and
+Flip had to take our blankets up the ravine and camp out all night,
+and the back of this yer hut shriveled up like that bacon.  It was
+about as nigh on to hell as any sample ye kin get here.  Now, mebbe
+you think I built that air fire?  Mebbe you'll allow the heat was
+just the nat'ral burning of that pit?"
+
+"Certainly," said Lance, trying to see Flip's eyes, which were
+resolutely averted.
+
+"Thet's whar you'd be lyin'!  That yar heat kem out of the bowels
+of the yearth,--kem up like out of a chimbley or a blast, and kep
+up that yar fire.  And when she cools down a month after, and I got
+to strip her, there was a hole in the yearth, and a spring o'
+bilin', scaldin' water pourin' out of it ez big as your waist.  And
+right in the middle of it was this yer."  He rose with the instinct
+of a skillful raconteur, and whisked from under his bunk a chamois
+leather bag, which he emptied on the table before them.  It
+contained a small fragment of native rock crystal, half-fused upon
+a petrified bit of pine.  It was so glaringly truthful, so really
+what it purported to be, that the most unscientific woodman or
+pioneer would have understood it at a glance.  Lance raised his
+mirthful eyes to Flip.
+
+"It was cooled suddint,--stunted by the water," said the girl,
+eagerly.  She stopped, and as abruptly turned away her eyes and her
+reddened face.
+
+"That's it, that's just it," continued the old man.  "Thar's Flip,
+thar, knows it; she ain't no fool!"  Lance did not speak, but
+turned a hard, unsympathizing look upon the old man, and rose
+almost roughly.  The old man clutched his coat.  "That's it, ye
+see.  The carbon's just turning to di'mens.  And stunted.  And why?
+'Cos the heat wasn't kep up long enough.  Mebbe yer think I stopped
+thar?  That ain't me.  Thar's a pit out yar in the woods ez hez
+been burning six months; it hain't, in course, got the advantages
+o' the old one, for it's nat'ral heat.  But I'm keeping that heat
+up.  I've got a hole where I kin watch it every four hours.  When
+the time comes, I'm thar!  Don't you see?  That's me! that's David
+Fairley,--that's the old man,--you bet!"
+
+"That's so," said Lance, curtly.  "And now, Mr. Fairley, if you'll
+hand me over a coat or a jacket till I can get past these fogs on
+the Monterey road, I won't keep you from your diamond pit."  He
+threw down a handful of silver on the table.
+
+"Ther's a deerskin jacket yer," said the old man, "that one o' them
+vaqueros left for the price of a bottle of whiskey."
+
+"I reckon it wouldn't suit the stranger," said Flip, dubiously
+producing a much-worn, slashed, and braided vaquero's jacket.  But
+it did suit Lance, who found it warm, and also had suddenly found a
+certain satisfaction in opposing Flip.  When he had put it on, and
+nodded coldly to the old man, and carelessly to Flip, he walked to
+the door.
+
+"If you're going to take the Monterey road, I can show you a short
+cut to it," said Flip, with a certain kind of shy civility.
+
+The paternal Fairley groaned.  "That's it; let the chickens and the
+ranch go to thunder, as long as there's a stranger to trapse round
+with; go on!"
+
+Lance would have made some savage reply, but Flip interrupted.
+"You know yourself, Dad, it's a blind trail, and as that 'ere
+constable that kem out here hunting French Pete, couldn't find it,
+and had to go round by the canyon, like ez not the stranger would
+lose his way, and have to come back!"  This dangerous prospect
+silenced the old man, and Flip and Lance stepped into the road
+together.  They walked on for some moments without speaking.
+Suddenly Lance turned upon his companion.
+
+"You didn't swallow all that rot about the diamond, did you?" he
+asked, crossly.
+
+Flip ran a little ahead, as if to avoid a reply.
+
+"You don't mean to say that's the sort of hog wash the old man
+serves out to you regularly?" continued Lance, becoming more slangy
+in his ill temper.
+
+"I don't know that it's any consarn o' yours what I think," replied
+Flip, hopping from boulder to boulder, as they crossed the bed of a
+dry watercourse.
+
+"And I suppose you've piloted round and dry-nussed every tramp and
+dead beat you've met since you came here," continued Lance, with
+unmistakable ill humor.  "How many have you helped over this road?"
+
+"It's a year since there was a Chinaman chased by some Irishmen
+from the Crossing into the brush about yer, and he was too afeered
+to come out, and nigh most starved to death in thar.  I had to drag
+him out and start him on the mountain, for you couldn't get him
+back to the road.  He was the last one but YOU."
+
+"Do you reckon it's the right thing for a girl like you to run
+about with trash of this kind, and mix herself up with all sorts of
+rough and bad company?" said Lance.
+
+Flip stopped short.  "Look! if you're goin' to talk like Dad, I'll
+go back."
+
+The ridiculousness of such a resemblance struck him more keenly
+than a consciousness of his own ingratitude.  He hastened to assure
+Flip that he was joking.  When he had made his peace they fell into
+talk again, Lance becoming unselfish enough to inquire into one or
+two facts concerning her life which did not immediately affect him.
+Her mother had died on the plains when she was a baby, and her
+brother had run away from home at twelve.  She fully expected to
+see him again, and thought he might sometime stray into their
+canyon.  "That is why, then, you take so much stock in tramps,"
+said Lance.  "You expect to recognize HIM?"
+
+"Well," replied Flip, gravely, "there is suthing in THAT, and
+there's suthing in THIS: some o' these chaps might run across
+brother and do him a good turn for the sake of me."
+
+"Like me, for instance?" suggested Lance.
+
+"Like you.  You'd do him a good turn, wouldn't you?"
+
+"You bet!" said Lance, with a sudden emotion that quite startled
+him; "only don't you go to throwing yourself round promiscuously."
+He was half-conscious of an irritating sense of jealousy, as he
+asked if any of her proteges had ever returned.
+
+"No," said Flip, "no one ever did.  It shows," she added with
+sublime simplicity, "I had done 'em good, and they could get on
+alone.  Don't it?"
+
+"It does," responded Lance grimly.  "Have you any other friends
+that come?"
+
+"Only the Postmaster at the Crossing."
+
+"The Postmaster?"
+
+"Yes; he's reckonin' to marry me next year, if I'm big enough."
+
+"And what do you reckon?" asked Lance earnestly.
+
+Flip began a series of distortions with her shoulders, ran on
+ahead, picked up a few pebbles and threw them into the wood,
+glanced back at Lance with swimming mottled eyes, that seemed a
+piquant incarnation of everything suggestive and tantalizing, and
+said,
+
+"That's telling."
+
+They had by this time reached the spot where they were to separate.
+"Look," said Flip, pointing to a faint deflection of their path,
+which seemed, however, to lose itself in the underbrush a dozen
+yards away, "ther's your trail.  It gets plainer and broader the
+further you get on, but you must use your eyes here, and get to
+know it well afore you get into the fog.  Good-by."
+
+"Good-by."  Lance took her hand and drew her beside him.  She was
+still redolent of the spices of the thicket, and to the young man's
+excited fancy seemed at that moment to personify the perfume and
+intoxication of her native woods.  Half laughingly, half earnestly,
+he tried to kiss her; she struggled for some time strongly, but at
+the last moment yielded, with a slight return and the exchange of a
+subtle fire that thrilled him, and left him standing confused and
+astounded as she ran away.  He watched her lithe, nymph-like figure
+disappear in the checkered shadows of the wood, and then he turned
+briskly down the half-hidden trail.  His eyesight was keen, he made
+good progress, and was soon well on his way toward the distant
+ridge.
+
+But Flip's return had not been as rapid.  When she reached the wood
+she crept to its beetling verge, and, looking across the canyon,
+watched Lance's figure as it vanished and reappeared in the shadows
+and sinuosities of the ascent.  When he reached the ridge the
+outlying fog crept across the summit, caught him in its embrace,
+and wrapped him from her gaze.  Flip sighed, raised herself, put
+her alternate foot on a stump, and took a long pull at her too-
+brief stockings.  When she had pulled down her skirt and endeavored
+once more to renew the intimacy that had existed in previous years
+between the edge of her petticoat and the top of her stockings, she
+sighed again, and went home.
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+
+For six months the sea fogs monotonously came and went along the
+Monterey coast; for six months they beleaguered the Coast Range
+with afternoon sorties of white hosts that regularly swept over the
+mountain crest, and were as regularly beaten back again by the
+leveled lances of the morning sun.  For six months that white veil
+which had once hidden Lance Harriott in its folds returned without
+him.  For that amiable outlaw no longer needed disguise or hiding-
+place.  The swift wave of pursuit that had dashed him on the summit
+had fallen back, and the next day was broken and scattered.  Before
+the week had passed, a regular judicial inquiry relieved his crime
+of premeditation, and showed it to be a rude duel of two armed and
+equally desperate men.  From a secure vantage in a seacoast town
+Lance challenged a trial by his peers, and, as an already prejudged
+man escaping from his executioners, obtained a change of venue.
+Regular justice, seated by the calm Pacific, found the action of an
+interior, irregular jury rash and hasty.  Lance was liberated on
+bail.
+
+The Postmaster at Fisher's Crossing had just received the weekly
+mail and express from San Francisco, and was engaged in examining
+it.  It consisted of five letters and two parcels.  Of these, three
+of the letters and the two parcels were directed to Flip.  It was
+not the first time during the last six months that this extraordinary
+event had occurred, and the curiosity of the Crossing was duly
+excited.  As Flip had never called personally for the letters or
+parcels, but had sent one of her wild, irregular scouts or henchmen
+to bring them, and as she was seldom seen at the Crossing or on the
+stage road, that curiosity was never satisfied.  The disappointment
+to the Postmaster--a man past the middle age--partook of a
+sentimental nature.  He looked at the letters and parcels; he looked
+at his watch; it was yet early, he could return by noon.  He again
+examined the addresses; they were in the same handwriting as the
+previous letters.  His mind was made up, he would deliver them
+himself.  The poetic, soulful side of his mission was delicately
+indicated by a pale blue necktie, a clean shirt, and a small package
+of gingernuts, of which Flip was extravagantly fond.
+
+The common road to Fairley's Ranch was by the stage turnpike to a
+point below the Gin and Ginger Woods, where the prudent horseman
+usually left his beast and followed the intersecting trail afoot.
+It was here that the Postmaster suddenly observed on the edge of
+the wood the figure of an elegantly-dressed woman; she was walking
+slowly, and apparently at her ease; one hand held her skirts
+lightly gathered between her gloved fingers, the other slowly swung
+a riding whip.  Was it a picnic of some people from Monterey or
+Santa Cruz?  The spectacle was novel enough to justify his coming
+nearer.  Suddenly she withdrew into the wood; he lost sight of her;
+she was gone.  He remembered, however, that Flip was still to be
+seen, and as the steep trail was beginning to tax all his energies,
+he was fain to hurry forward.  The sun was nearly vertical when he
+turned into the canyon, and saw the bark roof of the cabin beyond.
+At almost the same moment Flip appeared, flushed and panting, in
+the road before him.
+
+"You've got something for me," she said, pointing to the parcel and
+letters.  Completely taken by surprise, the Postmaster mechanically
+yielded them up, and as instantly regretted it.  "They're paid
+for," continued Flip, observing his hesitation.
+
+"That's so," stammered the official of the Crossing, seeing his
+last chance of knowing the contents of the parcel vanish; "but I
+thought ez it's a valooable package, maybe ye might want to examine
+it to see that it was all right afore ye receipted for it."
+
+"I'll risk it," said Flip, coolly, "and if it ain't right I'll let
+ye know."
+
+As the girl seemed inclined to retire with her property, the
+Postmaster was driven to other conversation.  "We ain't had the
+pleasure of seeing you down at the Crossing for a month o'
+Sundays," he began, with airy yet pronounced gallantry.  "Some
+folks let on you was keepin' company with some feller like Bijah
+Brown, and you were getting a little too set up for the Crossing."
+The individual here mentioned being the county butcher, and
+supposed to exhibit his hopeless affection for Flip by making a
+long and useless divergence from his weekly route to enter the
+canyon for "orders," Flip did not deem it necessary to reply.
+"Then I allowed how ez you might have company," he continued; "I
+reckon there's some city folks up at the summit.  I saw a mighty
+smart, fash'n'ble gal cavorting round.  Had no end o' style and
+fancy fixin's.  That's my kind, I tell you.  I just weaken on that
+sort o' gal," he continued, in the firm belief that he had awakened
+Flip's jealousy, as he glanced at her well-worn homespun frock, and
+found her eyes suddenly fixed on his own.
+
+"Strange I ain't got to see her yet," she replied coolly,
+shouldering her parcel, and quite ignoring any sense of obligation
+to him for his extra-official act.
+
+"But you might get to see her at the edge of the Gin and Ginger
+Woods," he persisted feebly, in a last effort to detain her; "if
+you'll take a pasear there with me."  Flip's only response was to
+walk on toward the cabin, whence, with a vague complimentary
+suggestion of "droppin' in to pass the time o' day" with her
+father, the Postmaster meekly followed.
+
+The paternal Fairley, once convinced that his daughter's new
+companion required no pecuniary or material assistance from his
+hands, relaxed to the extent of entering into a querulous
+confidence with him, during which Flip took the opportunity of
+slipping away.  As Fairley had that infelicitous tendency of most
+weak natures, to unconsciously exaggerate unimportant details in
+their talk, the Postmaster presently became convinced that the
+butcher was a constant and assiduous suitor of Flip's.  The
+absurdity of his sending parcels and letters by post when he might
+bring them himself did not strike the official.  On the contrary,
+he believed it to be a master stroke of cunning.  Fired by jealousy
+and Flip's indifference, he "deemed it his duty"--using that facile
+form of cowardly offensiveness--to betray Flip.
+
+Of which she was happily oblivious.  Once away from the cabin, she
+plunged into the woods, with the parcel swung behind her like a
+knapsack.  Leaving the trail, she presently struck off in a
+straight line through cover and underbrush with the unerring
+instinct of an animal, climbing hand over hand the steepest ascent,
+or fluttering like a bird from branch to branch down the deepest
+declivity.  She soon reached that part of the trail where the
+susceptible Postmaster had seen the fascinating unknown.  Assuring
+herself she was not followed, she crept through the thicket until
+she reached a little waterfall and basin that had served the
+fugitive Lance for a bath.  The spot bore signs of later and more
+frequent occupancy, and when Flip carefully removed some bark and
+brushwood from a cavity in the rock and drew forth various folded
+garments, it was evident she had used it as a sylvan dressing-room.
+Here she opened the parcel; it contained a small and delicate shawl
+of yellow China crepe.  Flip instantly threw it over her shoulders
+and stepped hurriedly toward the edge of the wood.  Then she began
+to pass backward and forward before the trunk of a tree.  At first
+nothing was visible on the tree, but a closer inspection showed a
+large pane of ordinary window glass stuck in the fork of the
+branches.  It was placed at such a cunning angle against the
+darkness of the forest opening that it made a soft and mysterious
+mirror, not unlike a Claude Lorraine glass, wherein not only the
+passing figure of the young girl was seen, but the dazzling green
+and gold of the hillside, and the far-off silhouetted crests of the
+Coast Range.
+
+But this was evidently only a prelude to a severer rehearsal.  When
+she returned to the waterfall she unearthed from her stores a large
+piece of yellow soap and some yards of rough cotton "sheeting."
+These she deposited beside the basin and again crept to the edge of
+the wood to assure herself that she was alone.  Satisfied that no
+intruding foot had invaded that virgin bower, she returned to her
+bath and began to undress.  A slight wind followed her, and seemed
+to whisper to the circumjacent trees.  It appeared to waken her
+sister naiads and nymphs, who, joining their leafy fingers, softly
+drew around her a gently moving band of trembling lights and
+shadows, of flecked sprays and inextricably mingled branches, and
+involved her in a chaste sylvan obscurity, veiled alike from
+pursuing god or stumbling shepherd.  Within these hallowed
+precincts was the musical ripple of laughter and falling water, and
+at times the glimpse of a lithe brier-caught limb, or a ray of
+sunlight trembling over bright flanks, or the white austere outline
+of a childish bosom.
+
+When she drew again the leafy curtain, and once more stepped out of
+the wood, she was completely transformed.  It was the figure that
+had appeared to the Postmaster; the slight, erect, graceful form of
+a young woman modishly attired.  It was Flip, but Flip made taller
+by the lengthened skirt and clinging habiliments of fashion.  Flip
+freckled, but, through the cunning of a relief of yellow color in
+her gown, her piquant brown-shot face and eyes brightened and
+intensified until she seemed like a spicy odor made visible.  I
+cannot affirm that the judgment of Flip's mysterious modiste was
+infallible, or that the taste of Mr. Lance Harriott, her patron,
+was fastidious; enough that it was picturesque, and perhaps not
+more glaring and extravagant than the color in which Spring herself
+had once clothed the sere hillside where Flip was now seated.  The
+phantom mirror in the tree fork caught and held her with the sky,
+the green leaves, the sunlight and all the graciousness of her
+surroundings, and the wind gently tossed her hair and the gay
+ribbons of her gypsy hat.  Suddenly she started.  Some remote sound
+in the trail below, inaudible to any ear less fine than hers,
+arrested her breathing.  She rose swiftly and darted into cover.
+
+Ten minutes passed.  The sun was declining; the white fog was
+beginning to creep over the Coast Range.  From the edge of the wood
+Cinderella appeared, disenchanted, and in her homespun garments.
+The clock had struck--the spell was past.  As she disappeared down
+the trail even the magic mirror, moved by the wind, slipped from
+the tree top to the ground, and became a piece of common glass.
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+
+The events of the day had produced a remarkable impression on the
+facial aspect of the charcoal-burning Fairley.  Extraordinary
+processes of thought, indicated by repeated rubbing of his forehead,
+had produced a high light in the middle and a corresponding
+deepening of shadow at the sides, until it bore the appearance of a
+perfect sphere.  It was this forehead that confronted Flip
+reproachfully as became a deceived comrade, menacingly as became an
+outraged parent in the presence of a third party and--a Postmaster!
+
+"Fine doin's this, yer receivin' clandecent bundles and letters,
+eh?" he began.  Flip sent one swift, withering look of contempt at
+the Postmaster, who at once becoming invertebrate and groveling,
+mumbled that he must "get on" to the Crossing, and rose to go.  But
+the old man, who had counted on his presence for moral support, and
+was clearly beginning to hate him for precipitating this scene with
+his daughter, whom he feared, violently protested.
+
+"Sit down, can't ye?  Don't you see you're a witness?" he screamed
+hysterically.
+
+It was a fatal suggestion.  "Witness," repeated Flip, scornfully.
+
+"Yes, a witness!  He gave ye letters and bundles."
+
+"Weren't they directed to me?" asked Flip.
+
+"Yes," said the Postmaster, hesitatingly; "in course, yes."
+
+"Do YOU lay claim to them?" she said, turning to her father.
+
+"No," responded the old man.
+
+"Do you?" sharply, to the Postmaster.
+
+"No," he replied.
+
+"Then," said Flip, coolly, "if you're not claimin' 'em for
+yourself, and you hear father say they ain't his, I reckon the less
+you have to say about 'em the better."
+
+"Thar's suthin' in that," said the old man, shamelessly abandoning
+the Postmaster.
+
+"Then why don't she say who sent 'em, and what they are like," said
+the Postmaster, "if there's nothin' in it?"
+
+"Yes," echoed Dad.  "Flip, why don't you?"
+
+Without answering the direct question, Flip turned upon her father.
+
+"Maybe you forget how you used to row and tear round here because
+tramps and such like came to the ranch for suthin', and I gave it
+to 'em?  Maybe you'll quit tearin' round and letting yourself be
+made a fool of now by that man, just because one of those tramps
+gets up and sends us some presents back in turn?"
+
+"'Twasn't me, Flip," said the old man, deprecatingly, but glaring
+at the astonished Postmaster.  "Twasn't my doin'.  I allus said if
+you cast your bread on the waters it would come back to you by
+return mail.  The fact is, the Gov'ment is gettin' too high-handed!
+Some o' these bloated officials had better climb down before next
+leckshen."
+
+"Maybe," continued Flip to her father, without looking at her
+discomfited visitor, "ye'd better find out whether one of those
+officials comes up to this yer ranch to steal away a gal about my
+own size, or to get points about diamond-making.  I reckon he don't
+travel round to find out who writes all the letters that go through
+the Post Office."
+
+The Postmaster had seemingly miscalculated the old man's infirm
+temper and the daughter's skillful use of it.  He was unprepared
+for Flip's boldness and audacity, and when he saw that both barrels
+of the accusation had taken effect on the charcoal burner, who was
+rising with epileptic rage, he fairly turned and fled.  The old man
+would have followed him with objurgation beyond the door, but for
+the restraining hand of Flip.
+
+Baffled and beaten, nevertheless Fate was not wholly unkind to the
+retreating suitor.  Near the Gin and Ginger Woods he picked up a
+letter which had fallen from Flip's pocket.  He recognized the
+writing, and did not scruple to read it.  It was not a love
+epistle,--at least, not such a one as he would have written,--it
+did not give the address nor the name of the correspondent; but he
+read the following with greedy eyes:--
+
+
+"Perhaps it's just as well that you don't rig yourself out for the
+benefit of those dead beats at the Crossing, or any tramp that
+might hang round the ranch.  Keep all your style for me when I
+come.  I can't tell you when, it's mighty uncertain before the
+rainy season.  But I'm coming soon.  Don't go back on your promise
+about lettin up on the tramps, and being a little more high-toned.
+And don't you give 'em so much.  It's true I sent you hats TWICE.
+I clean forgot all about the first; but I wouldn't have given a
+ten-dollar hat to a nigger woman who had a sick baby because I had
+an extra hat.  I'd have let that baby slide.  I forgot to ask
+whether the skirt is worn separately; I must see the dressmaking
+sharp about it; but I think you'll want something on besides a
+jacket and skirt; at least, it looks like it up here.  I don't
+think you could manage a piano down there without the old man
+knowing it, and raisin' the devil generally.  I promised you I'd
+let up on him.  Mind you keep all your promises to me.  I'm glad
+you're gettin' on with the six-shooter; tin cans are good at
+fifteen yards, but try it on suthin' that MOVES!  I forgot to say
+that I am on the track of your big brother.  It's a three years'
+old track, and he was in Arizona.  The friend who told me didn't
+expatiate much on what he did there, but I reckon they had a high
+old time.  If he's above the earth I'll find him, you bet.  The
+yerba buena and the southern wood came all right,--they smelt like
+you.  Say, Flip, do you remember the last--the VERY last--thing
+that happened when you said 'Good-by' on the trail?  Don't let me
+ever find out that you've let anybody else kiss--"
+
+
+But here the virtuous indignation of the Postmaster found vent in
+an oath.  He threw the letter away.  He retained of it only two
+facts,--Flip HAD a brother who was missing; she had a lover present
+in the flesh.
+
+How much of the substance of this and previous letters Flip had
+confided to her father I cannot say.  If she suppressed anything it
+was probably that which affected Lance's secret alone, and it was
+doubtful how much of that she herself knew.  In her own affairs she
+was frank without being communicative, and never lost her shy
+obstinacy even with her father.  Governing the old man as
+completely as she did, she appeared most embarrassed when she was
+most dominant; she had her own way without lifting her voice or her
+eyes; she seemed oppressed by mauvaise honte when she was most
+triumphant; she would end a discussion with a shy murmur addressed
+to herself, or a single gesture of self-consciousness.
+
+The disclosure of her strange relations with an unknown man and the
+exchange of presents and confidences seemed to suddenly awake
+Fairley to a vague, uneasy sense of some unfulfilled duties as a
+parent.  The first effect of this on his weak nature was a peevish
+antagonism to the cause of it.  He had long, fretful monologues on
+the vanity of diamond-making, if accompanied with a "pestering" by
+"interlopers;" on the wickedness of concealment and conspiracy, and
+their effects on charcoal-burning; on the nurturing of spies and
+"adders" in the family circle, and on the seditiousness of dark and
+mysterious councils in which a gray-haired father was left out.  It
+was true that a word or look from Flip generally brought these
+monologues to an inglorious and abrupt termination, but they were
+none the less lugubrious as long as they lasted.  In time they were
+succeeded by an affectation of contrite apology and self-
+depreciation.  "Don't go out o' the way to ask the old man," he
+would say, referring to the quantity of bacon to be ordered; "it's
+nat'ral a young gal should have her own advisers."  The state of
+the flour barrel would also produce a like self-abasement.  "Unless
+ye're already in correspondence about more flour, ye might take the
+opinion o' the first tramp ye meet ez to whether Santa Cruz Mills
+is a good brand, but don't ask the old man."  If Flip was in
+conversation with the butcher, Fairley would obtrusively retire
+with the hope "he wasn't intrudin' on their secrets."
+
+These phases of her father's weakness were not frequent enough to
+excite her alarm, but she could not help noticing they were
+accompanied with a seriousness unusual to him.  He began to be
+tremulously watchful of her, returning often from work at an
+earlier hour, and lingering by the cabin in the morning.  He
+brought absurd and useless presents for her, and presented them
+with a nervous anxiety, poorly concealed by an assumption of
+careless, paternal generosity.  "Suthin' I picked up at the
+Crossin' for ye to-day," he would say, airily, and retire to watch
+the effect of a pair of shoes two sizes too large, or a fur cap in
+September.  He would have hired a cheap parlor organ for her, but
+for the apparently unexpected revelation that she couldn't play.
+He had received the news of a clue to his long-lost son without
+emotion, but lately he seemed to look upon it as a foregone
+conclusion, and one that necessarily solved the question of
+companionship for Flip.  "In course, when you've got your own flesh
+and blood with ye, ye can't go foolin' around with strangers."
+These autumnal blossoms of affection, I fear, came too late for any
+effect upon Flip, precociously matured by her father's indifference
+and selfishness.  But she was good humored, and, seeing him
+seriously concerned, gave him more of her time, even visited him in
+the sacred seclusion of the "diamond pit," and listened with far-
+off eyes to his fitful indictment of all things outside his grimy
+laboratory.  Much of this patient indifference came with a
+capricious change in her own habits; she no longer indulged in the
+rehearsal of dress, she packed away her most treasured garments,
+and her leafy boudoir knew her no more.  She sometimes walked on
+the hillside, and often followed the trail she had taken with Lance
+when she led him to the ranch.  She once or twice extended her walk
+to the spot where she had parted from him, and as often came shyly
+away, her eyes downcast and her face warm with color.  Perhaps
+because these experiences and some mysterious instinct of maturing
+womanhood had left a story in her eyes, which her two adorers, the
+Postmaster and the Butcher, read with passion, she became famous
+without knowing it.  Extravagant stories of her fascinations
+brought strangers into the valley.  The effect upon her father may
+be imagined.  Lance could not have desired a more effective
+guardian than he proved to be in this emergency.  Those who had
+been told of this hidden pearl were surprised to find it so
+jealously protected.
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+
+The long, parched summer had drawn to its dusty close.  Much of it
+was already blown abroad and dissipated on trail and turnpike, or
+crackled in harsh, unelastic fibres on hillside and meadow.  Some
+of it had disappeared in the palpable smoke by day and fiery crests
+by night of burning forests.  The besieging fogs on the Coast Range
+daily thinned their hosts, and at last vanished.  The wind changed
+from northwest to southwest.  The salt breath of the sea was on the
+summit.  And then one day the staring, unchanged sky was faintly
+touched with remote mysterious clouds, and grew tremulous in
+expression.  The next morning dawned upon a newer face in the
+heavens, on changed woods, on altered outlines, on vanished crests,
+on forgotten distances.  It was raining!
+
+Four weeks of this change, with broken spaces of sunlight and
+intense blue aerial islands, and then a storm set in.  All day the
+summit pines and redwoods rocked in the blast.  At times the onset
+of the rain seemed to be held back by the fury of the gale, or was
+visibly seen in sharp waves on the hillside.  Unknown and concealed
+watercourses suddenly overflowed the trails, pools became lakes and
+brooks rivers.  Hidden from the storm, the sylvan silence of
+sheltered valleys was broken by the impetuous rush of waters; even
+the tiny streamlet that traversed Flip's retreat in the Gin and
+Ginger Woods became a cascade.
+
+The storm drove Fairley from his couch early.  The falling of a
+large tree across the trail, and the sudden overflow of a small
+stream beside it, hastened his steps.  But he was doomed to
+encounter what was to him a more disagreeable object--a human
+figure.  By the bedraggled drapery that flapped and fluttered in
+the wind, by the long, unkempt hair that hid the face and eyes, and
+by the grotesquely misplaced bonnet, the old man recognized one of
+his old trespassers,--an Indian squaw.
+
+"Clear out 'er that!  Come, make tracks, will ye?" the old man
+screamed; but here the wind stopped his voice, and drove him
+against a hazel bush.
+
+"Me heap sick," answered the squaw, shivering through her muddy
+shawl.
+
+"I'll make ye a heap sicker if ye don't vamose the ranch,"
+continued Fairley, advancing.
+
+"Me wantee Wangee girl.  Wangee girl give me heap grub," said the
+squaw, without moving.
+
+"You bet your life," groaned the old man to himself.  Nevertheless
+an idea struck him.  "Ye ain't brought no presents, hev ye?" he
+asked cautiously.  "Ye ain't got no pooty things for poor Wangee
+girl?" he continued, insinuatingly.
+
+"Me got heap cache nuts and berries," said the squaw.
+
+"Oh, in course! in course!  That's just it," screamed Fairley;
+"you've got 'em cached only two mile from yer, and you'll go and
+get 'em for a half dollar, cash down."
+
+"Me bring Wangee girl to cache," replied the Indian, pointing to
+the wood.  "Honest Injin."
+
+Another bright idea struck Mr. Fairley.  But it required some
+elaboration.  Hurrying the squaw with him through the pelting rain,
+he reached the shelter of the corral.  Vainly the shivering
+aborigine drew her tightly bandaged papoose closer to her square,
+flat breast, and looked longingly toward the cabin; the old man
+backed her against the palisade.  Here he cautiously imparted his
+dark intentions to employ her to keep watch and ward over the
+ranch, and especially over its young mistress--"clear out all the
+tramps 'ceptin' yourself, and I'll keep ye in grub and rum."  Many
+and deliberate repetitions of this offer in various forms at last
+seemed to affect the squaw; she nodded violently, and echoed the
+last word "rum."  "Now," she added.  The old man hesitated; she was
+in possession of his secret; he groaned, and, promising an
+immediate installment of liquor, led her to the cabin.
+
+The door was so securely fastened against the impact of the storm
+that some moments elapsed before the bar was drawn, and the old man
+had become impatient and profane.  When it was partly opened by
+Flip he hastily slipped in, dragging the squaw after him, and cast
+one single suspicious glance around the rude apartment which served
+as a sitting-room.  Flip had apparently been writing.  A small
+inkstand was still on the board table, but her paper had evidently
+been concealed before she allowed them to enter.  The squaw
+instantly squatted before the adobe hearth, warmed her bundled
+baby, and left the ceremony of introduction to her companion.  Flip
+regarded the two with calm preoccupation and indifference.  The
+only thing that touched her interest was the old squaw's draggled
+skirt and limp neckerchief.  They were Flip's own, long since
+abandoned and cast off in the Gin and Ginger Woods.  "Secrets
+again," whined Fairley, still eying Flip furtively.  "Secrets
+again, in course--in course--jiss so.  Secrets that must be kep
+from the ole man.  Dark doin's by one's own flesh and blood.  Go
+on! go on!  Don't mind me."  Flip did not reply.  She had even lost
+the interest in her old dress.  Perhaps it had only touched some
+note in unison with her revery.
+
+"Can't ye get the poor critter some whiskey?" he queried, fretfully.
+"Ye used to be peart enuff before."  As Flip turned to the corner to
+lift the demijohn, Fairley took occasion to kick the squaw with his
+foot, and indicate by extravagant pantomime that the bargain was not
+to be alluded to before the girl.  Flip poured out some whiskey in a
+tin cup, and, approaching the squaw, handed it to her.  "It's like
+ez not," continued Fairley to his daughter, but looking at the
+squaw, "that she'll be huntin' the woods off and on, and kinder
+looking after the last pit near the Madronos; ye'll give her grub
+and licker ez she likes.  Well, d'ye hear, Flip?  Are ye moonin'
+agin with yer secrets?  What's gone with ye?"
+
+If the child were dreaming, it was a delicious dream.  Her magnetic
+eyes were suffused by a strange light, as though the eye itself had
+blushed; her full pulse showed itself more in the rounding outline
+of her cheek than in any deepening of color; indeed, if there was
+any heightening of tint, it was in her freckles, which fairly
+glistened like tiny spangles.  Her eyes were downcast, her
+shoulders slightly bent, but her voice was low and clear and
+thoughtful as ever.
+
+"One o' the big pines above the Madrono pit has blown over into the
+run," she said.  "It's choked up the water, and it's risin' fast.
+Like ez not it's pourin' over into the pit by this time."
+
+The old man rose with a fretful cry.  "And why in blames didn't you
+say so first?" he screamed, catching up his axe and rushing to the
+door.
+
+"Ye didn't give me a chance," said Flip, raising her eyes for the
+first time.  With an impatient imprecation, Fairley darted by her
+and rushed into the wood.  In an instant she had shut the door and
+bolted it.  In the same instant the squaw arose, dashed the long
+hair not only from her eyes, but from her head, tore away her shawl
+and blanket, and revealed the square shoulders of Lance Harriott!
+Flip remained leaning against the door; but the young man in rising
+dropped the bandaged papoose, which rolled from his lap into the
+fire.  Flip, with a cry, sprang toward it; but Lance caught her by
+the waist with one arm, as with the other he dragged the bundle
+from the flames.
+
+"Don't be alarmed," he said, gayly, "it's only--"
+
+"What?" said Flip, trying to disengage herself.
+
+"My coat and trousers."
+
+Flip laughed, which encouraged Lance to another attempt to kiss
+her.  She evaded it by diving her head into his waistcoat, and
+saying, "There's father."
+
+"But he's gone to clear away that tree?" suggested Lance.
+
+One of Flip's significant silences followed.
+
+"Oh, I see," he laughed.  "That was a plan to get him away!  Ah!"
+She had released herself.
+
+"Why did you come like that?" she said, pointing to his wig and
+blanket.
+
+"To see if you'd know me," he responded.
+
+"No," said Flip, dropping her eyes.  "It's to keep other people
+from knowing you.  You're hidin' agin."
+
+"I am," returned Lance; "but," he interrupted, "it's only the same
+old thing."
+
+"But you wrote from Monterey that it was all over," she persisted.
+
+"So it would have been," he said gloomily, "but for some dog down
+here who is hunting up an old scent.  I'll spot him yet, and--"  He
+stopped suddenly, with such utter abstraction of hatred in his
+fixed and glittering eyes that she almost feared him.  She laid her
+hand quite unconsciously on his arm.  He grasped it; his face
+changed.
+
+"I couldn't wait any longer to see you, Flip, so I came here
+anyway," he went on.  "I thought to hang round and get a chance to
+speak to you first, when I fell afoul of the old man.  He didn't
+know me, and tumbled right in my little game.  Why, do you believe
+he wants to hire me for my grub and liquor, to act as a sort of
+sentry over you and the ranch?"  And here he related with great
+gusto the substance of his interview.  "I reckon as he's that
+suspicious," he concluded, "I'd better play it out now as I've
+begun, only it's mighty hard I can't see you here before the fire
+in your fancy toggery, Flip, but must dodge in and out of the wet
+underbrush in these yer duds of yours that I picked up in the old
+place in the Gin and Ginger Woods."
+
+"Then you came here just to see me?" asked Flip.
+
+"I did."
+
+"For only that?"
+
+"Only that."
+
+Flip dropped her eyes.  Lance had got his other arm around her
+waist, but her resisting little hand was still potent.
+
+"Listen," she said at last without looking up, but apparently
+talking to the intruding arm, "when Dad comes I'll get him to send
+you to watch the diamond pit.  It isn't far; it's warm, and"--
+
+"What?"
+
+"I'll come, after a bit, and see you.  Quit foolin' now.  If you'd
+only have come here like yourself--like--like--a white man."
+
+"The old man," interrupted Lance, "would have just passed me on to
+the summit.  I couldn't have played the lost fisherman on him at
+this time of year."
+
+"Ye could have been stopped at the Crossing by high water, you
+silly," said the girl.  "It was."  This grammatical obscurity
+referred to the stage coach.
+
+"Yes, but I might have been tracked to this cabin.  And look here,
+Flip," he said, suddenly straightening himself, and lifting the
+girl's face to a level with his own, "I don't want you to lie any
+more for me.  It ain't right."
+
+"All right.  Ye needn't go to the pit, then, and I won't come."
+
+"Flip!"
+
+"And here's Dad coming.  Quick!"
+
+Lance chose to put his own interpretation on this last adjuration.
+The resisting little hand was now lying quite limp on his shoulder,
+He drew her brown, bright face near his own, felt her spiced breath
+on his lips, his cheeks, his hot eyelids, his swimming eyes, kissed
+her, hurriedly replaced his wig and blanket, and dropped beside the
+fire with the tremulous laugh of youth and innocent first passion.
+Flip had withdrawn to the window, and was looking out upon the
+rocking pines.
+
+"He don't seem to be coming," said Lance, with a half-shy laugh.
+
+"No," responded Flip demurely, pressing her hot oval cheek against
+the wet panes; "I reckon I was mistaken.  You're sure," she added,
+looking resolutely another way, but still trembling like a magnetic
+needle toward Lance, as he moved slightly before the fire, "you're
+SURE you'd like me to come to you?"
+
+"Sure, Flip?"
+
+"Hush!" said Flip, as this reassuring query of reproachful
+astonishment appeared about to be emphasized by a forward amatory
+dash of Lance's; "hush! he's coming this time, sure."
+
+It was, indeed, Fairley, exceedingly wet, exceedingly bedraggled,
+exceedingly sponged out as to color, and exceedingly profane.  It
+appeared that there was, indeed, a tree that had fallen in the
+"run," but that, far from diverting the overflow into the pit, it
+had established "back water," which had forced another outlet.  All
+this might have been detected at once by any human intellect not
+distracted by correspondence with strangers, and enfeebled by
+habitually scorning the intellect of its own progenitor.  This
+reckless selfishness had further only resulted in giving
+"rheumatics" to that progenitor, who now required the external
+administration of opodeldoc to his limbs, and the internal
+administration of whiskey.  Having thus spoken, Mr. Fairley, with
+great promptitude and infantine simplicity, at once bared two legs
+of entirely different colors and mutely waited for his daughter to
+rub them.  If Flip did this all unconsciously, and with the
+mechanical dexterity of previous habit, it was because she did not
+quite understand the savage eyes and impatient gestures of Lance in
+his encompassing wig and blanket, and because it helped her to
+voice her thought.
+
+"Ye'll never be able to take yer watch at the diamond pit to-night,
+Dad," she said; "and I've been reck'nin' you might set the squaw
+there instead.  I can show her what to do."
+
+But to Flip's momentary discomfiture, her father promptly objected.
+"Mebbee I've got suthin' else for her to do.  Mebbee I may have my
+secrets, too--eh?" he said, with dark significance, at the same
+time administering a significant nudge to Lance, which kept up the
+young man's exasperation.  "No, she'll rest yer a bit just now.
+I'll set her to watchin' suthin' else, like as not, when I want
+her."  Flip fell into one of her suggestive silences.  Lance
+watched her earnestly, mollified by a single furtive glance from
+her significant eyes; the rain dashed against the windows, and
+occasionally spattered and hissed in the hearth of the broad
+chimney, and Mr. David Fairley, somewhat assuaged by the internal
+administration of whiskey, grew more loquacious.  The genius of
+incongruity and inconsistency which generally ruled his conduct
+came out with freshened vigor under the gentle stimulation of
+spirit.  "On an evening like this," he began, comfortably settling
+himself on the floor beside the chimney, "ye might rig yerself out
+in them new duds and fancy fixin's that that Sacramento shrimp sent
+ye, and let your own flesh and blood see ye.  If that's too much to
+do for your old dad, ye might do it to please that digger squaw as
+a Christian act."  Whether in the hidden depths of the old man's
+consciousness there was a feeling of paternal vanity in showing
+this wretched aborigine the value and importance of the treasure
+she was about to guard, I cannot say.  Flip darted an interrogatory
+look at Lance, who nodded a quiet assent, and she flew into the
+inner room.  She did not linger on the details of her toilet, but
+reappeared almost the next moment in her new finery; buttoning the
+neck of her gown as she entered the room, and chastely stopping at
+the window to characteristically pull up her stocking.  The
+peculiarity of her situation increased her usual shyness; she
+played with the black and gold beads of a handsome necklace,--
+Lance's last gift,--as the merest child might; her unbuckled shoe
+gave the squaw a natural opportunity of showing her admiration and
+devotion by insisting upon buckling it, and gave Lance, under that
+disguise, an opportunity of covertly kissing the little foot and
+ankle in the shadow of the chimney; an event which provoked slight
+hysterical symptoms in Flip, and caused her to sit suddenly down in
+spite of the remonstrances of her parent.  "Ef you can't quit
+gigglin' and squirmin' like an Injin baby yourself, ye'd better git
+rid o' them duds," he ejaculated with peevish scorn.
+
+Yet, under this perfunctory rebuke, his weak vanity could not be
+hidden, and he enjoyed the evident admiration of a creature whom he
+believed to be half-witted and degraded all the more keenly because
+it did not make him jealous.  She could not take Flip from him.
+Rendered garrulous by liquor, he went to voice his contempt for
+those who might attempt it.  Taking advantage of his daughter's
+absence to resume her homely garments, he whispered confidentially
+to Lance,--
+
+"Ye see these yer fine dresses, ye might think is presents.  Pr'aps
+Flip lets on they are?  Pr'aps she don't know any better.  But they
+ain't presents.  They're only samples o' dressmaking and jewelry
+that a vain, conceited shrimp of a feller up in Sacramento sends
+down here to get customers for.  In course I'm to pay for 'em.  In
+course he reckons I'm to do it.  In course I calkilate to do it;
+but he needn't try to play 'em off as presents.  He talks suthin'
+o' coming down here, sportin' hisself off on Flip as a fancy buck!
+Not ez long ez the old man's here, you bet."  Thoroughly carried
+away by his fancied wrongs, it was perhaps fortunate that he did
+not observe the flashing eyes of Lance behind his lank and
+lustreless wig; but seeing only the figure of Lance, as he had
+conjured him, he went on: "That's why I want you to hang around
+her.  Hang around her ontil my boy,--him that's comin' home on a
+visit,--gets here, and I reckon he'll clear out that yar Sacramento
+counter-jumper.  Only let me get a sight o' him afore Flip does.
+eh?  D'ye hear?  Dog my skin if I don't believe the d----d Injin's
+drunk."  It was fortunate that at that moment Flip reappeared, and,
+dropping on the hearth between her father and the infuriated Lance,
+let her hand slip in his with a warning pressure.  The light touch
+momentarily recalled him to himself and her, but not until the
+quick-witted girl had had revealed to her in one startled wave of
+consciousness the full extent of Lance's infirmity of temper.  With
+the instinct of awakened tenderness came a sense of responsibility,
+and a vague premonition of danger.  The coy blossom of her heart
+was scarce unfolded before it was chilled by approaching shadows.
+Fearful of, she knew not what, she hesitated.  Every moment of
+Lance's stay was imperiled by a single word that might spring from
+his suppressed white lips; beyond and above the suspicions his
+sudden withdrawal might awaken in her father's breast, she was
+dimly conscious of some mysterious terror without that awaited him.
+She listened to the furious onslaught of the wind upon the
+sycamores beside their cabin, and thought she heard it there; she
+listened to the sharp fusillade of rain upon roof and pane, and the
+turbulent roar and rush of leaping mountain torrents at their very
+feet, and fancied it was there.  She suddenly sprang to the window,
+and, pressing her eyes to the pane, saw through the misty turmoil
+of tossing boughs and swaying branches the scintillating
+intermittent flames of torches moving on the trail above, and KNEW
+it was there!
+
+In an instant she was collected and calm.  "Dad," she said, in her
+ordinary indifferent tone, "there's torches movin' up toward the
+diamond pit.  Likely it's tramps.  I'll take the squaw and see."
+And before the old man could stagger to his feet she had dragged
+Lance with her into the road.
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+
+The wind charged down upon them, slamming the door at their backs,
+extinguishing the broad shaft of light that had momentarily shot
+out into the darkness, and swept them a dozen yards away.  Gaining
+the lee of a madrono tree, Lance opened his blanketed arms,
+enfolded the girl, and felt her for one brief moment tremble and
+nestle in his bosom like some frightened animal.  "Well," he said,
+gayly, "what next?"  Flip recovered herself.  "You're safe now
+anywhere outside the house.  But did you expect them tonight?"
+Lance shrugged his shoulders.  "Why not?"  "Hush!" returned the
+girl; "they're coming this way."
+
+The four flickering, scattered lights presently dropped into line.
+The trail had been found; they were coming nearer.  Flip breathed
+quickly; the spiced aroma of her presence filled the blanket as he
+drew her tightly beside him.  He had forgotten the storm that raged
+around them, the mysterious foe that was approaching, until Flip
+caught his sleeve with a slight laugh.  "Why, it's Kennedy and
+Bijah?"
+
+"Who's Kennedy and Bijah?" asked Lance, curtly.
+
+"Kennedy's the Postmaster and Bijah's the Butcher."
+
+"What do they want?" continued Lance.
+
+"Me," said Flip, coyly.
+
+"You?"
+
+"Yes; let's run away."
+
+Half leading, half dragging her friend, Flip made her way with
+unerring woodcraft down the ravine.  The sound of voices and even
+the tumult of the storm became fainter, an acrid smell of burning
+green wood smarted Lance's lips and eyes; in the midst of the
+darkness beneath him gradually a faint, gigantic nimbus like a
+lurid eye glowed and sank, quivered and faded with the spent breath
+of the gale as it penetrated their retreat.  "The pit," whispered
+Flip; "it's safe on the other side," she added, cautiously skirting
+the orbit of the great eye, and leading him to a sheltered nest of
+bark and sawdust.  It was warm and odorous.  Nevertheless, they
+both deemed it necessary to enwrap themselves in the single
+blanket.  The eye beamed fitfully upon them, occasionally a wave of
+lambent tremulousness passed across it; its weirdness was an excuse
+for their drawing nearer each other in playful terror.
+
+"Flip."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"What did the other two want?  To see you, TOO?"
+
+"Likely," said Flip, without the least trace of coquetry.  "There's
+been a lot of strangers yer, off and on."
+
+"Perhaps you'd like to go back and see them?"
+
+"Do you want me to?"
+
+Lance's reply was a kiss.  Nevertheless he was vaguely uneasy.
+"Looks a little as if I were running away, don't it?" he suggested.
+
+"No," said Flip; "they think you're only a squaw; it's me they're
+after."  Lance smarted a little at this infelicitous speech.  A
+strange and irritating sensation had been creeping over him--it was
+his first experience of shame and remorse.  "I reckon I'll go back
+and see," he said, rising abruptly.
+
+Flip was silent.  She was thinking.  Believing that the men were
+seeking her only, she knew that their attention would be directed
+from her companion when it was found out he was no longer with her,
+and she dreaded to meet them in his irritable presence.
+
+"Go," she said, "tell Dad something's gone wrong in the diamond
+pit, and say I'm watching it for him here."
+
+"And you?"
+
+"I'll go there and wait for him.  If he can't get rid of them, and
+they follow him there, I'll come back here and meet you.  Anyhow,
+I'll manage to have Dad wait there a spell."
+
+She took his hand and led him back by a different path to the
+trail.  He was surprised to find that the cabin, its window glowing
+from the fire, was only a hundred yards away.  "Go in the back way,
+by the shed.  Don't go in the room, nor near the light, if you can.
+Don't talk inside, but call or beckon to Dad.  Remember," she said,
+with a laugh, "you're keeping watch of me for him.  Pull your hair
+down on your eyes so."  This operation, like most feminine
+embellishments of the masculine toilet was attended by a kiss, and
+Flip, stepping back into the shadow, vanished in the storm.
+
+Lance's first movements were inconsistent with his assumed sex.  He
+picked up his draggled skirt, and drew a bowie knife from his boot.
+From his bosom he took a revolver, turning the chambers noiselessly
+as he felt the caps.  He then crept toward the cabin softly and
+gained the shed.  It was quite dark but for a pencil of light
+piercing a crack of the rude, ill-fitting door that opened on the
+sitting-room.  A single voice not unfamiliar to him, raised in
+half-brutal triumph, greeted his ears.
+
+A name was mentioned--his own!  His angry hand was on the latch.
+One moment more and he would have burst the door, but in that
+instant another name was uttered--a name that dropped his hand from
+the latch and the blood from his cheeks.  He staggered backward,
+passed his hand swiftly across his forehead, recovered himself with
+a gesture of mingled rage and despair, and, sinking on his knees
+beside the door, pressed his hot temples against the crack.
+
+"Do I know Lance Harriott?" said the voice.  "Do I know the d----d
+ruffian?  Didn't I hunt him a year ago into the brush three miles
+from the Crossing?  Didn't we lose sight of him the very day he
+turned up yer at this ranch, and got smuggled over into Monterey?
+Ain't it the same man as killed Arkansaw Bob--Bob Ridley--the name
+he went by in Sonora?  And who was Bob Ridley, eh?  Who?  Why, you
+d----d old fool, it was Bob Fairley--YOUR SON!"
+
+The old man's voice rose querulous and indistinct.
+
+"What are ye talkin' about?" interrupted the first speaker.  "I
+tell you I KNOW.  Look at these pictures.  I found 'em on his body.
+Look at 'em.  Pictures of you and your girl.  Pr'aps you'll deny
+them.  Pr'aps you'll tell me I lie when I tell you HE told me he
+was your son; told me how he ran away from you; how you were livin'
+somewhere in the mountains makin' gold, or suthin' else, outer
+charcoal.  He told me who he was as a secret.  He never let on he
+told it to any one else.  And when I found that the man who killed
+him, Lance Harriott, had been hidin' here, had been sendin' spies
+all around to find out all about your son, had been foolin' you and
+tryin' to ruin your gal as he had killed your boy, I knew that HE
+knew it, too."
+
+"LIAR!"
+
+The door fell in with a crash.  There was the sudden apparition of
+a demoniac face, still half hidden by the long trailing black locks
+of hair that curled like Medusa's around it.  A cry of terror
+filled the room.  Three of the men dashed from the door and fled
+precipitately.  The man who had spoken sprang toward his rifle in
+the chimney corner.  But the movement was his last; a blinding
+flash and shattering report interposed between him and his weapon.
+
+The impulse carried him forward headlong into the fire, that hissed
+and spluttered with his blood, and Lance Harriott with his smoking
+pistol, strode past him to the door.  Already far down the trail
+there were hurried voices, the crack and crackling of impending
+branches growing fainter and fainter in the distance.  Lance turned
+back to the solitary living figure--the old man.
+
+Yet he might have been dead, too, he sat so rigid and motionless,
+his fixed eyes staring vacantly at the body on the hearth.  Before
+him on the table lay the cheap photographs, one evidently of
+himself, taken in some remote epoch of complexion, one of a child
+which Lance recognized as Flip.
+
+"Tell me," said Lance hoarsely, laying his quivering hand on the
+table, "was Bob Ridley your son?"
+
+"My son," echoed the old man in a strange, far-off voice, without
+turning his eyes from the corpse--"My son--is--is--is there!"
+pointing to the dead man.  "Hush!  Didn't he tell you so?  Didn't
+you hear him say it?  Dead--dead--shot--shot!"
+
+"Silence! are you crazy, man?" repeated Lance, tremblingly; "that
+is not Bob Ridley, but a dog, a coward, a liar gone to his
+reckoning.  Hear me!  If your son WAS Bob Ridley, I swear to God I
+never knew it, now or--or--THEN.  Do you hear me?  Tell me!  Do you
+believe me?  Speak!  You shall speak."
+
+He laid his hand almost menacingly on the old man's shoulder.
+Fairley slowly raised his head.  Lance fell back with a groan of
+horror.  The weak lips were wreathed with a feeble imploring smile,
+but the eyes wherein the fretful, peevish, suspicious spirit had
+dwelt were blank and tenantless; the flickering intellect that had
+lit them was blown out and vanished.
+
+Lance walked toward the door and remained motionless for a moment,
+gazing into the night.  When he turned back again toward the fire
+his face was as colorless as the dead man's on the hearth; the fire
+of passion was gone from his beaten eyes; his step was hesitating
+and slow.  He went up to the table.
+
+"I say, old man," he said, with a strange smile and an odd,
+premature suggestion of the infinite weariness of death in his
+voice, "you wouldn't mind giving me this, would you?" and he took
+up the picture of Flip.  The old man nodded repeatedly.  "Thank
+you," said Lance.  He went to the door, paused a moment, and
+returned.  "Good-by, old man," he said, holding out his hand.
+Fairley took it with a childish smile.  "He's dead," said the old
+man softly, holding Lance's hand, but pointing to the hearth.
+"Yes," said Lance, with the faintest of smiles on the palest of
+faces.  "You feel sorry for any one that's dead, don't you?"
+Fairley nodded again.  Lance looked at him with eyes as remote as
+his own, shook his head, and turned away.  When he reached the door
+he laid his revolver carefully, and, indeed, somewhat ostentatiously,
+upon a chair.  But when he stepped from the threshold he stopped a
+moment in the light of the open door to examine the lock of a small
+derringer which he drew from his pocket.  He then shut the door
+carefully, and with the same slow, hesitating step, felt his way
+into the night.
+
+He had but one idea in his mind, to find some lonely spot; some
+spot where the footsteps of man would never penetrate, some spot
+that would yield him rest, sleep, obliteration, forgetfulness, and,
+above all, where HE would be forgotten.  He had seen such places;
+surely there were many,--where bones were picked up of dead men who
+had faded from the earth and had left no other record.  If he could
+only keep his senses now he might find such a spot, but he must be
+careful, for her little feet went everywhere, and she must never
+see him again alive or dead.  And in the midst of his thoughts, and
+the darkness, and the storm, he heard a voice at his side, "Lance,
+how long you have been!"
+
+        .        .        .        .        .        .
+
+Left to himself, the old man again fell into a vacant contemplation
+of the dead body before him, until a stronger blast swept down like
+an avalanche upon the cabin, burst through the ill-fastened door
+and broken chimney, and, dashing the ashes and living embers over
+the floor, filled the room with blinding smoke and flame.  Fairley
+rose with a feeble cry, and then, as if acted upon by some dominant
+memory, groped under the bed until he found his buckskin bag and
+his precious crystal, and fled precipitately from the room.  Lifted
+by this second shock from his apathy, he returned to the fixed idea
+of his life,--the discovery and creation of the diamond,--and
+forgot all else.  The feeble grasp that his shaken intellect kept
+of the events of the night relaxed, the disguised Lance, the story
+of his son, the murder, slipped into nothingness; there remained
+only the one idea, his nightly watch by the diamond pit.  The
+instinct of long habit was stronger than the darkness or the onset
+of the storm, and he kept his tottering way over stream and fallen
+timber until he reached the spot.  A sudden tremor seemed to shake
+the lambent flame that had lured him on.  He thought he heard the
+sound of voices; there were signs of recent disturbance,--
+footprints in the sawdust!  With a cry of rage and suspicion,
+Fairley slipped into the pit and sprang toward the nearest opening.
+To his frenzied fancy it had been tampered with, his secret
+discovered, the fruit of his long labors stolen from him that very
+night.  With superhuman strength he began to open the pit,
+scattering the half-charred logs right and left, and giving vent to
+the suffocating gases that rose from the now incandescent charcoal.
+At times the fury of the gale would drive it back and hold it
+against the sides of the pit, leaving the opening free; at times,
+following the blind instinct of habit, the demented man would fall
+upon his face and bury his nose and mouth in the wet bark and
+sawdust.  At last, the paroxysm past, he sank back again in his old
+apathetic attitude of watching, the attitude he had so often kept
+beside his sylvan crucible.  In this attitude and in silence he
+waited for the dawn.
+
+It came with a hush in the storm; it came with blue openings in the
+broken up and tumbled heavens; it came with stars that glistened
+first, and then paled, and at last sank drowning in those deep
+cerulean lakes; it came with those cerulean lakes broadening into
+vaster seas, whose shores expanded at last into one illimitable
+ocean, cerulean no more, but flecked with crimson and opal dyes; it
+came with the lightly lifted misty curtain of the day, torn and
+rent on crag and pine top, but always lifting, lifting.  It came
+with the sparkle of emerald in the grasses, and the flash of
+diamonds in every spray, with a whisper in the awakening woods, and
+voices in the traveled roads and trails.
+
+The sound of these voices stopped before the pit, and seemed to
+interrogate the old man.  He came, and, putting his finger on his
+lips, made a sign of caution.  When three or four men had descended
+he bade them follow him, saying, weakly and disjointedly, but
+persistently: "My boy--my son Robert--came home--came home at last--
+here with Flip--both of them--come and see!"
+
+He had reached a little niche or nest in the hillside, and stopped
+and suddenly drew aside a blanket.  Beneath it, side by side, lay
+Flip and Lance, dead, with their cold hands clasped in each
+other's.
+
+"Suffocated!" said two or three, turning with horror toward the
+broken up and still smouldering pit.
+
+"Asleep!" said the old man.  "Asleep!  I've seen 'em lying that way
+when they were babies together.  Don't tell me!  Don't say I don't
+know my own flesh and blood!  So! so!  So, my pretty ones!"  He
+stooped and kissed them.  Then, drawing the blanket over them
+gently, he rose and said softly, "Good night!"
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg Etext Flip: A California Romance, by Bret Harte
+
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