diff options
Diffstat (limited to 'old')
| -rw-r--r-- | old/7gdwn10.txt | 14411 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | old/7gdwn10.zip | bin | 0 -> 289909 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | old/8gdwn10.txt | 14411 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | old/8gdwn10.zip | bin | 0 -> 290008 bytes |
4 files changed, 28822 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/old/7gdwn10.txt b/old/7gdwn10.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d030f2d --- /dev/null +++ b/old/7gdwn10.txt @@ -0,0 +1,14411 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Gray Dawn, by Stewart Edward White + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the +copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing +this or any other Project Gutenberg eBook. + +This header should be the first thing seen when viewing this Project +Gutenberg file. Please do not remove it. Do not change or edit the +header without written permission. + +Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the +eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file. Included is +important information about your specific rights and restrictions in +how the file may be used. You can also find out about how to make a +donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!***** + + +Title: The Gray Dawn + +Author: Stewart Edward White + +Release Date: October, 2005 [EBook #9149] +[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule] +[This file was first posted on September 8, 2003] + +Edition: 10 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE GRAY DAWN *** + + + + +Produced by C. Aldarondo, T. Vergon, J. Fairbanks +and Online Distributed Proofreaders + + + + +THE GREY DAWN + +BY + +STEWART EDWARD WHITE + + +Illustrated by +Thomas Fogarty + +ILLUSTRATIONS + +They moved away, leaving Mrs. Morrell alone, biting her lips and planning +revenges + +King listened to him in silence + +"Look here, don't try to come that rot. I said, get out--and I mean it!" + +"Call all you please," he sneered. "Nobody's going to pay any attention to +your calls at Jake's Place!" + +OTHER BOOKS BY THE SAME AUTHOR + + +THE CLAIM JUMPERS +THE WESTERNERS +THE BLAZED TRAIL +ARIZONA NIGHTS +BLAZED TRAIL STORIES +THE CABIN +CAMP AND TRAIL +CONJUROR'S HOUSE +THE FOREST +THE SIGN AT SIX +THE RULES OF THE GAME + +THE RIVERMAN +THE SILENT PLACES +THE ADVENTURES OF BOBBY ORDE +THE MOUNTAINS +THE PASS +THE MAGIC FOREST +THE LAND OF FOOTPRINTS +AFRICAN CAMP FIRES +THE REDISCOVERED COUNTRY +GOLD +THE MYSTERY + (With Samuel Hopkins Adams) + + +THE GRAY DAWN + + +PRINCIPAL CHARACTERS IN TALE + +MILTON KEITH: a young lawyer from Baltimore. +NAN KEITH: his wife. +JOHN SHERWOOD: a gambler. +PATSY SHERWOOD: his wife. +ARTHUR MORRELL: an English adventurer. +MIMI MORRELL: his wife or mistress. +BEN SANSOME: a lady-killer, destined to become an "old beau." +W. T. COLEMAN, or "old Vigilante," a leader. +DAVID TERRY: a leader on the other side. +JAMES KING OF WILLIAM: a modern Crusader. +THE SPIRIT OF SAN FRANCISCO + AND OTHERS + + + + +I + + +On the veranda of the Bella Union Hotel, San Francisco, a man sat enjoying +his morning pipe. The Bella Union overlooked the Plaza of that day, a +dusty, unkempt, open space, later to be swept and graded and dignified into +Portsmouth Square. The man was at the younger fringe of middle life. He was +dressed neatly and carefully in the fashionable costume of the time, which +was the year of grace 1852. As to countenance, he was square and solid; as +to physique, he was the same; as to expression, he inclined toward the +quietly humorous; in general he would strike the observer as deliberately, +philosophically competent. A large pair of steelbound spectacles sat +halfway down his nose. Sometimes he read his paper through their lenses; +and sometimes, forgetting, he read over the tops of their bows. The +newspaper he held was an extraordinary document. It consisted of four large +pages. The outside page was filled solidly with short eight or ten line +advertisements; the second page grudgingly vouchsafed a single column of +news items; the third page warmed to a column of editorial and another of +news; all the rest of the space on these and the entire fourth page was +again crowded close with the short advertisements. They told of the arrival +of ships, the consignment of goods, the movements of real estate, the sales +of stock, but mainly of auctions. The man paid little attention to the +scanty news, and none at all to the editorials. His name was John Sherwood, +and he was a powerful and respected public gambler. + +The approach across the Plaza of a group of men caused him to lay aside his +paper, and with it his spectacles. The doffing of the latter strangely +changed his whole expression. The philosophical middle-aged quietude fell +from him. He became younger, keener, more alert. It was as though he had +removed a disguise. + +The group approaching were all young men, and all dressed in the height of +fashion. At that rather picturesque time this implied the flat-brimmed +beaver hat; the long swallowtail, or skirted coat; the tight "pantaloons"; +varicoloured, splendid, low-cut waistcoats of satin, of velvet, or of +brocade; high wing collars; varnished boots; many sparkling, studs and +cravat pins; rather longish hair; and whiskers cut close to the cheek or +curling luxuriantly under the chin. They were prosperous, well-fed, +arrogant-looking youths, carrying their crests high, the light of questing +recklessness in their eyes, ready to laugh, drink, or fight with anybody. +At sight of Sherwood they waved friendly hands, and canes, and veered in +his direction. + +"Yo're just the man we are looking for!" cried a tall, dark, graceful young +fellow, "We are all 'specially needful of wisdom. The drinks are on some +one, and we cain't decide who." + +John Sherwood, his keen eyes twinkling, set his chair down on four legs. + +"State your case, Cal," he said. + +Cal waved a graceful hand at a stout, burly, red-faced man whose thick +blunt fingers, square blue jowl, and tilted cigar gave the flavour of the +professional politician. "John Webb, here-excuse _me_, Sheriff John Webb- +presumin' on the fact that he has been to the mines, and that he came here +in '49, arrogates to himself the exclusive lyin' privileges, of this +assemblage." + +"Pretty large order," commented Sherwood. + +"_Pre_cisely," agreed Cal, "and that's why the drinks are on him!" + +But Sheriff Webb, who had been chuckling cavernously inside his bulky +frame, spoke up in a harsh and husky voice: "I told them an innocent +experience of mine, and they try to hold me up for drinks. I don't object +to giving them a reasonable amount of drinks--what _I_ call reasonable," he +added hastily, "but I object to being held up." + +"He says he used to cook," put in a small, alert, nervous, rather flashily +dressed individual named Rowlee, editor of the _Bugle_. + +"I did!" stoutly asseverated Webb. + +"And that he baked a loaf of bread so hard nobody could eat it." + +"Sounds perfectly reasonable," said Sherwood. + +"And that nobody could _break_ it," Rowlee went on. + +"I have no difficulty in believing that," said Sherwood judicially. "Your +case is mighty weak yet, Cal." + +"But he claims it was so hard that they used it for a grindstone." + +"I did not!" disclaimed Webb indignantly. + +An accusing groan met this statement. + +"I tell you I didn't say anything of the kind," roared Webb, his bull voice +overtopping them all. + +"Well, what did you say, then?" challenged Calhoun Bennett. + +"I said we tried to use her as a grindstone," said Webb, "but it didn't +work." + +"Weak case, boys; weak case," said Sherwood. + +The little group, their eyes wide, their nostrils distended, waited +accusingly for Webb to proceed. After an interval, the sheriff, staring +critically at the lighted end of his cigar, went on in a drawling voice: + +"Yes, we, couldn't get a hole through her to hang her axle on. We blunted +all our drills. Every Sunday we'd try a new scheme. Finally we laid her +flat under a tree and rigged a lightnin' rod down to the centre of her. No +use. She tore that lightning all to pieces." + +He looked up at them with a limpid, innocent eye, to catch John Sherwood +gazing at him accusingly. + +"John Webb," said he "you forget that I came out here in, '48. On your +honour, do you expect _me_ to believe that yarn?" + +"Well," said Webb, gazing again at his cigar end, "no--really I don't. The +fact is," he went on with a perfectly solemn air of confidence, "the fact +is, I've lived out here so long and told so many damn lies that now without +some help I don't know when to believe myself." + +"Do we get that drink?" insisted Calhoun Bennett. + +"Oh, Lord, yes, you always get a drink." + +"Well, come on and _get_ it then--you, too, of course, Mr. Sherwood." + +The gambler arose, and began leisurely to fold his paper and to put away +his spectacles. + +"I see you got Mex Ryan off, Cal," he observed. "You either had +extraordinary luck, or you're a mighty fine lawyer. Looked like a clear +case to me. He just naturally went in and beat Rucker half to death in his +own store. How did you do it?" + +"I assure yo' it was no sinecure," laughed the tall, dark youth. "I earned +my fee." + +"Yes," grumbled Webb, "but he got six months--and I got to take care of +him. Cluttering up my jail with dirty beasts like Mex Ryan! Could just as +easy have turned him loose!" + +"That would have been a little too much!" smiled Bennett. "It was takin' +some risk to let him off as easy as we did. It isn't so long since the +Vigilantes." + +"Oh, hell, we can handle that sort of trash now," snorted Webb. + +"Who was backing Mex, anyway?" asked Rowlee curiously. + +"Better ask who had it in for Rucker," suggested the fourth member of the +group, a man who had not heretofore spoken. This was Dick Blatchford, a +round-faced, rather corpulent, rather silent though jovial-looking +individual, with a calculating and humorous eye. He was magnificently +apparelled, but rather untidy. + +"Well, I do ask it," said Rowlee. + +But to this he got no response. + +"Come on, ain't you got that valuable paper folded up yet?" rumbled Webb to +Sherwood. + +They all turned down the high-pillared veranda, toward the bar, talking +idly and facetiously of last night's wine and this morning's head. A door +opened at their very elbow, and in it a woman appeared. + + + + +II + + +She was a slender woman, of medium height, with a small, well-poised head, +on which the hair lay smooth and glossy. Her age was somewhere between +thirty and thirty-five years. A stranger would have been first of all +impressed by the imperious carriage of her head and shoulders, the repose +of her attitude. Become a friend or a longer acquaintance, he would have +noticed more particularly her wide low brow, her steady gray eyes and her +grave but humorous lips. But inevitably he would have gone back at last to +her more general impression. Ben Sansome, the only man in town who did +nothing, made society and dress a profession and the judgment of women a +religion, had long since summed her up: "She carries her head charmingly." + +This poised, wise serenity of carriage was well set off by the costume of +the early fifties--a low collar, above which her neck rose like a flower +stem; flowing sleeves; full skirts with many silken petticoats that +whispered and rustled; low sandalled shoes, their ties crossed and +recrossed around white slender ankles. A cameo locket, hung on a heavy gold +chain, rose and fell with her breast; a cameo brooch pinned together the +folds of her bodice; massive and wide bracelets of gold clasped her wrists +and vastly set off her rounded, slender forearms. + +She stood quite motionless in the doorway, nodding with a little smile in +response to the men's sweeping salutes. + +"You will excuse me gentlemen, I am sure," said Sherwood formally, and +instantly turned aside. + +The woman in the doorway thereupon preceded him down a narrow, bare, +unlighted hallway, opened another door, and entered a room. Sherwood +followed, closing the door after him. + +"Want something, Patsy?" he inquired. + +The room was obviously one of the best of the Bella Union. That is to say, +it was fairly large, the morning sun streamed in through its two windows, +and it contained a small iron stove. In all other respects it differed +quite from any other hotel room in the San Francisco of that time. A heavy +carpet covered the floor, the upholstery was of leather or tapestry, wall +paper adorned the walls, a large table supported a bronze lamp and numerous +books and papers, a canary, in a brass cage, hung in the sunshine of one of +the windows, flitted from perch to perch, occasionally uttering a few +liquid notes under its breath. + +"Just a little change, Jack, if you have some with you," said the woman. +Her speaking voice was rich and low. + +Sherwood thrust a forefinger into his waistcoat pocket, and produced one of +the hexagonal slugs of gold current at that time. + +"Oh, not so much!" she protested. + +"All I've got. What are you up to to-day, Patsy?" + +"I thought of going down to Yet Lee's--unless there is something better to +do." + +"Doesn't sound inspiring. Did you go to that fair or bazaar thing +yesterday?" + +She smiled with her lips, but her eyes darkened. + +"Yes, I went. It was not altogether enjoyable. I doubt if I'll try that +sort of thing again." + +Sherwood's eye suddenly became cold and dangerous. + +"If they didn't treat you right--" + +She smiled, genuinely this time, at his sudden truculence. + +"They didn't mob me," she rejoined equably, "and, anyway, I suppose it is +to be expected." + +"It's that cat of Morrell's," he surmised. + +"Oh, she--and others. I ought not to have spoken of it, Jack. It's really +beneath the contempt of sensible people." + +"I'll get after Morrell, if he doesn't make that woman behave," said +Sherwood, without attention to her last speech. + +She smiled at him again, entirely calm and reasonable. + +"And what good would it do to get after Morrell?" she asked. "Mrs. Morrell +only stands for what most of them feel. I don't care, anyway. I get along +splendidly without them." She sauntered over to the window, where she began +idly to poke one finger at the canary. + +"For the life of me, Patsy," confessed Sherwood, "I can't see that they're +an inspiring lot, anyway. From what little I've seen of them, they haven't +more than an idea apiece. They'd bore me to death in a week." + +"I know that. They'd bore me, too. Don't talk about them. When do they +expect the _Panama_--do you know?" + +But with masculine persistence he refused to abandon the topic. + +"I must confess I don't see the point," he insisted. "You've got more +brains than the whole lot of them together, you've got more sense, you're a +lot better looking"--he surveyed her, standing in the full light by the +canary's cage, her little glossy head thrown back, her pink lips pouted +teasingly at the charmed and agitated bird, her fine clear features +profiled in the gold of the sunshine--"and you're a thoroughbred, egad, +which most of them are not." + +"Oh, thank you, kind sir." She threw him a humourous glance. "But of course +that is not the point." + +"Oh, isn't it? Well, perhaps you'll tell me the point." + +She left the canary and came to face him. + +"I'm not respectable," she said. + +At the word he exploded. + +"Respectable? What are you talking about? You talk as though--as though we +weren't married, egad!" + +"Well, Jack," she replied, a faint mocking smile curving the corners of her +mouth, "when it comes to that, we _did_ elope, you'll have to acknowledge. +And we weren't married for quite a long time afterward." + +"We got married as soon as we could, didn't we?" he cried indignantly. "Was +it our fault that we didn't get married sooner? And what difference did it +make, anyway?" + +"Now don't get all worked up," she chided. "I'm just telling you why, in +the eyes of some of these people, I'm not 'respectable.' You asked me, you +know." + +"Go on," he conceded to this last. + +"Well, we ran away and weren't married. That's item one. Then perhaps +you've forgotten that I sat on lookout for some of your games in the early +days in the mining camps?" + +"Forgotten?" said Sherwood, the light of reminiscence springing to his +eyes. + +The same light had come into hers. + +"Will you _ever_ forget," she murmured, "the camps by the summer streams, +the log towns, the lights, the smoke, the freedom--the comradeship--" + +"Homesick for the old rough days?" he teased. + +"Kind of," she confessed. "But it wasn't 'respectable'--a--well, a _fairly_ +good-looking woman in a miner's saloon." + +He flared again. + +"Do you mean to tell me they dare say--" + +"They dare say anything--behind our backs," she said, with cool contempt. +"It's all drivelling nonsense. I care nothing about it. But you asked me. +Don't bother your head about it. Have you anything to suggest doing this +morning, instead of Yet Lee's?" She turned away from him toward the door +leading into another room. "I'll get my hat," she said over her shoulder. + +"Look here, Patsy," said Sherwood, rather grimly, "if you want to get in +with that lot, you shall." + +She stopped at this, and turned square around. + +"If I do--when I do--I will," she replied. "But, John Sherwood, you mustn't +interfere--never in the world! Promise!" She stood there, almost menacing +in her insistence, evidently resolved to nip this particularly masculine +resolution in the bud. + +"Egad, Patsy," cried Sherwood, "you are certainly a raving beauty!" + +He covered the ground between them in two strides, and crushed her in his +arms. She threw her head back for his kiss. + +A knock sounded, and almost immediately a very black, very bullet-headed +young negro thrust his head in at the door. + +"Sam," said Sherwood deliberately, "some day I'm going to kill you!" + +"Yes, sah! yes, sah!" agreed Sam heartily. + +"Well, what the devil do you want?" + +"Th' _Panama_ done been, signalled; yes, sah!" said the negro, but without +following his head through the door. + +"Well, what the devil do you suppose I care, you black limb?" roared +Sherwood, "and what do you mean coming in here before you're told?" + +"Yes, sah! yes, sah, dat's right," ducked Sam, "Shell I awdah the team, +sah?" + +"I suppose we might as well go see her docked. Would you like it?" he asked +his wife. + +"I'd love it." + +"Then get the team. And some day I'm going to kill you." + + + + +III + + +Mrs. Sherwood prepared herself first of all by powdering her nose. This +simple operation, could it have been seen by the "respectable" members of +the community, would in itself have branded her as "fast," In those days +cosmetics of any sort were by most considered inventions of the devil. It +took extraordinary firmness of character even to protect one's self against +sunburn by anything more artificial than the shadow of a hat or a parasol. +Then she assumed a fascinating little round hat that fitted well down over +her small head. This, innocent of pins, was held on by an elastic at the +back. A ribbon, hanging down directly in front, could be utilized to steady +it in a breeze. + +"All ready," she announced, picking up a tiny parasol, about big enough for +a modern doll. "You may carry my mantle." + +Near the foot of the veranda steps waited Sam at the heads of a pair of +beautiful, slim, satiny horses. Their bay coats had been groomed until they +rippled and sparkled with every movement of the muscles beneath. Wide red- +lined nostrils softly expanded and contracted with a restrained eagerness; +and soft eyes rolled in the direction of the Sherwoods--keen, lithe, +nervous, high-strung creatures, gently stamping little hoofs, impatiently +tossing dainty heads, but nevertheless making no movement that would stir +the vehicle that stood "cramped" at the steps. Their harness carried no +blinders; their tails, undocked, swept the ground; but their heads were +pulled into the air by the old stupid overhead check reins until their +noses pointed almost straight ahead. It gave them rather a haughty air. + +Sherwood stepped in first, took the reins in one hand, and offered his +other hand to his wife. Sam instantly left the horses' heads to hold a +wicker contrivance against the arc of the wheels. This was to protect +skirts from dusty tires. Mrs. Sherwood settled as gracefully to her place +as a butterfly on its flower. Sam snatched away the wicker guards. Sherwood +spoke to the horses. With a purring little snort they moved smoothly away. +The gossamerlike wheels threw the light from their swift spokes. Sam, half +choked by the swirl of dust, gazed after them. Sherwood, leaning slightly +forward against the first eagerness of the animals, showed a strong, +competent, arresting figure, with his beaver hat, his keen grim face, his +snow-white linen, and the blue of his brass-buttoned-coat. The beautiful +horses were stepping as one, a delight to the eye, making nothing whatever +of the frail vehicle at their heels. But Sam's eye lingered longest on the +small stately figure of his mistress. She sat very straight, her head high, +the little parasol poised against the sun, the other hand clasping the hat +ribbon. + +"Dem's quality foh sure!" said Sam with conviction. + +Sherwood drove rapidly around the edge of the Plaza and, so into Kearney +Street. From here to the water front were by now many fireproof brick and +stone structures, with double doors and iron shatters, like fortresses. So +much had San Francisco learned from her five disastrous fires. The stone +had come from China, the brick also from overseas. Down side streets one +caught glimpses of huge warehouses--already in this year of 1852 men talked +of the open-air auctions of three years before as of something in history +inconceivably remote. The streets, where formerly mule teams had literally +been drowned in mud, now were covered with planking. This made a fine +resounding pavement. Horses' hoofs went merrily _klop, klop, klop_, and the +wheels rumbled a dull undertone. San Francisco had been very proud of this +pavement when it was new. She was very grateful for it even now, for in the +upper part of town the mud and dust were still something awful. +Unfortunately the planks were beginning to wear out in places; and a city +government, trying to give the least possible for its taxes, had made no +repairs. + +There were many holes, large or small: jagged, splintered, ugly holes going +down to indeterminate blackness either of depth or mud. Private +philanthropists had fenced or covered these. Private facetiousness had +labelled most of them with signboards. These were rough pictures of +disaster painted from the marking pot, and various screeds--"Head of +Navigation," "No Bottom," "Horse and Dray Lost Here," "Take Soundings," +"Storage, Inquire Below," "Good Fishing for Teal," and the like. + +Among these obstructions Sherwood guided his team skilfully, dodging not +only them, but other vehicles darting or crawling in the same direction. +There were no rules of the road. Omnibuses careered along, every window +rattling loudly; drays creaked and strained, their horses' hoofs slipping +against wet planks; horsemen threaded their way; nondescript delivery +wagons tried to outrattle the omnibuses. The din was something +extraordinary--hoofs drumming, wheels rumbling, oaths and shouts, and from +the sidewalks the blare and bray of brass bands in front of the various +auction shops. Newsboys and bootblacks darted in all directions, shouting +raucously as they do to-day. Cigar boys, an institution of the time, added +to the hubbub. Everybody was going in the same direction, some sauntering +with an air of leisure, some hurrying as though their fortunes were at +stake. + +A wild shriek arose, and everybody made room for the steam sand shovel on +its way to dump the sand hills into the bay. It was called the "steam +paddy" to distinguish it from the "hand paddy"--out of Cork or Dublin. It +rumbled by on its track, very much like juggernaut in its calm indifference +as to how many it ran over. Sherwood's horses looked at it nervously +askance; but he spoke to them, and though they trembled they stood. + +Now they debouched on the Central Wharf, and the sound of the hoofs and the +wheels changed its tone. Central Wharf extended a full mile into the bay. +It was lined on either side its narrow roadway by small shacks, in which +were offered fowls, fish, vegetables, candy, refreshments. Some of them +were tiny saloons or gambling houses. But by far the majority were the +cubicles where the Jewish slop sellers displayed their wares. Men returning +from the mines here landed, and here replenished their wardrobes. +Everything was exposed to view outside, like clothes hung out after a rain. + +The narrow way between this long row of shops was crowded almost +dangerously. Magnificent dray horses, with long hair on the fetlocks above +their big heavy hoofs, bridling in conscious pride of silver-mounted +harness and curled or braided manes, rose above the ruck as their +ancestors, the warhorses, must have risen in medieval battle. The crowd +parted before them and closed in behind them. Here and there, too, a +horseman could be seen--with a little cleared space at his heels. Or a +private calash picking its way circumspectly. + +From her point of vantage on the elevated seat Mrs. Sherwood could see over +the heads of people. She sat very quietly, her body upright, but in the +poised repose characteristic of her. Many admiring glances were directed at +her. She seemed to be unconscious of them. Nevertheless, nothing escaped +her. She saw, and appreciated and enjoyed, every phase of that +heterogeneous crowd--miners in their exaggeratedly rough clothes, brocaded +or cotton clad Chinese, gorgeous Spaniards or Chilenos, drunken men, sober +men, excited men, empty cans or cases kicking around underfoot, frantic +runners for hotels or steamboats trying to push their way by, newsboys and +cigar boys darting about and miraculously worming their way through +impenetrable places. Atop a portable pair of steps a pale, well-dressed +young man was playing thimble-rig on his knees with a gilt pea. From an +upturned keg a preacher was exhorting. And occasionally, through gaps +between the shacks, she caught glimpses of blue water; or of ships at +anchor; or, more often, of the tall pile drivers whose hammers went +steadily up and down. + +Sherwood guided his glossy team and light spidery vehicle with the greatest +delicacy and skill. He was wholly absorbed in his task. Suddenly up ahead a +wild turmoil broke out. People crowded to right and left, clambering, +shouting, screaming. A runaway horse hitched to a light buggy came +careering down the way. + +A collision seemed inevitable. Sherwood turned his horses' heads directly +at an open shop front. They hesitated, their small pointed ears working +nervously. Sherwood spoke to them. They moved forward, quivering, picking +their way daintily. Sherwood spoke again. They stopped. The runaway hurtled +by, missing the tail of the buggy by two feet. A moment later a grand crash +marked the end of its career farther down the line. Again Sherwood spoke to +his horses, and exerted the slightest pressure on the reins. Daintily, +slowly, their ears twitching back and forth, their fine eyes rolling, they +backed out of the opening. + +Throughout all this exciting little incident the woman had not altered her +pose nor the expression of her face. Her head high, her eye ruminative, she +had looked on it all as one quite detached from possible consequences. The +little parasol did not change its angle. Only, quite deliberately, she had +relinquished the ribbon by which she held on her hat, and had placed her +slender hand steadyingly on the side of the vehicle. + +The bystanders, already leaping down from their places of refuge and again +crowding the narrow way, directed admiring eyes toward the beautiful, +nervous, docile horses, the calm and dominating man, and the poised, dainty +creature at his side. One drunken individual cheered her personally. At +this a faint shell pink appeared in her cheeks, though she gave no other +sign that she had heard. Sherwood glanced down at her, amused. + +But now emerged the Jew slop seller, very voluble. He had darted like a rat +to some mysterious inner recess of his burrow; but now he was out again +filling the air with lamentations, claims, appeals for justice. Sherwood +did not even glance toward him; but in the very act of tooling his horses +into the roadway tossed the man some silver. Immediately, with shouts and +cheers and laughter, the hoodlums nearby began a scramble. + +The end of the long wharf widened to a great square, free of all buildings +but a sort of warehouse near one end. Here a rope divided off a landing +space. Close to the rope the multitude crowded, ready for its +entertainment. Here also stood in stately grandeur the three livery hacks +of which San Francisco boasted. They were magnificent affairs, the like of +which has never elsewhere been seen plying for public hire, brightly +painted, highly varnished, lined with silks, trimmed with solid silver. The +harnesses were heavily mounted with the same metal. On their boxes sat +fashionable creatures, dressed, not in livery, but throughout in the very +latest of the late styles, shod with varnished leather, gloved with softest +kid. Sherwood drove skilfully to the very edge of the roped space, pushing +aside the crowd on foot. They growled at him savagely. He paid no attention +to them, and they gave way. The buggy came to a stop. The horses, tossing +their heads, rolling their eyes, stamping their little hoofs, nevertheless +stood without need of further attention. + +Now the brass bands blared with a sudden overwhelming blast of sound, the +crowd cheered noisily; the runners for the hotels began to bark like a pack +of dogs. With a vast turmoil of paddle wheels, swirling of white and green +waters, bellowing of speaking trumpets, throwing of handlines and scurrying +of deck hands and dock hands, the _Panama_ came to rest. After considerable +delay the gangplank was placed. The passengers began to disembark, facing +the din much as they would have faced the buffeting of a strong wind. This +was the cream of the entertainment for which the crowd had gathered; for +which, indeed, the Sherwoods had made their excursion. Each individual +received his meed of comment, sometimes audible and by no means always +flattering. Certainly in variety both of character and of circumstance they +offered plenty of material. From wild, half-civilized denizens of +Louisiana's canebrakes, clinging closely to their little bundles and their +long rifles, to the most polished exquisites of fashion they offered all +grades and intermediates. Some of them looked rather bewildered. Some +seemed to know just what to do and where to go. Most dove into the crowd +with the apparent idea of losing their identity as soon as possible. The +three magnificent hacks were filled, and managed, with much plunging and +excitement, to plow a way through the crowd and so depart. Amusing things +happened to which the Sherwoods called each other's attention. Thus a man, +burdened with a single valise, ducked under the ropes near them. A paper +boy happened to be standing near. The passenger offered the boy a fifty- +cent piece. + +"Here, boy," said he, "just carry this valise for me." + +The paper boy gravely contemplated the fifty cents, dove into his pocket, +and produced another. + +"Here, man," said he, handing them both to the traveller, "take this and +carry it yourself." + +One by one the omnibuses filled and departed. The stream of passengers down +the gangplank had ceased. The crowd began to thin. Sherwood gathered his +reins to go. Mrs. Sherwood suddenly laid her hand on his forearm. + +"Oh, the poor thing!" she cried, her voice thrilling with compassion. + +A young man and a steward were supporting a girl down the gangplank. +Evidently she was very weak and ill. Her face was chalky white, with dark +rings under the eyes, her lips were pale, and she leaned heavily on the +men. Although she could not have heard Mrs. Sherwood's exclamation of pity, +she happened to look up at that instant, revealing a pair of large, dark, +and appealing eyes. Her figure, too, dressed in a plain travelling dress, +strikingly simple but bearing the unmistakable mark of distinction, was +appealing; as were her exquisite, smooth baby skin and the downward +drooping, almost childlike, curves of her lips. The inequalities of the +ribbed gangplank were sufficient to cause her to stumble. + +"She is very weak," commented Mrs. Sherwood. + +"She is--or would be--remarkably pretty," added Sherwood. "I wonder what +ails her." + +Arrived at the foot of the gangplank the young man removed his hat with an +air of perplexity, and looked about him. He was of the rather florid, +always boyish type; and the removal of his hat had revealed a mat of close- +curling brown hair, like a cap over his well-shaped head. The normal +expression of his face was probably quizzically humorous, for already the +little lines of habitual half laughter were sketched about his eyes. + +"A plunger," said John Sherwood to himself, out of his knowledge of men; +then as the young man glanced directly toward him, disclosing the colour +and expression of his eyes, "a plunger in something," he amended, revising +his first impression. + +But now the humorous element was quite in abeyance, and a faint dismay had +taken its place. One arm supporting the drooping girl, he was looking up +and down the wharf. Not a vehicle remained save the heavy drays already +backing up to receive their loads of freight. The dock hands had dropped +and were coiling the line that had separated the crowd from the landing +stage. + +With another exclamation the woman in the carriage rose, and before +Sherwood could make a move to assist her, had poised on the rim of the +wheel and leaped lightly to the dock. Like a thistledown she floated to the +little group at the foot of the gangplank. The steward instantly gave way +to her evident intention. She passed her arm around the girl's waist. The +three moved slowly toward the buggy, Mrs. Sherwood, her head bent +charmingly forward, murmuring compassionate, broken, little phrases, +supporting the newcomer's reviving footsteps. + +Sherwood, a faint, fond amusement lurking in the depths of his eyes, +quietly cramped the wheels of the buggy. + + + + +IV + + +A half hour later the two men, having deposited the women safely in the +Sherwoods' rooms at the Bella Union, and having been unceremoniously +dismissed by Mrs. Sherwood, strolled together to the veranda. They had not, +until now, had a chance to exchange six words. + +The newcomer, who announced himself as Milton Keith from Baltimore, proved +to have a likable and engaging personality. He was bubbling with interest +and enthusiasm; and these qualities, provided they are backed solidly, are +always prepossessing. Sherwood, quietly studying him, concluded that such +was the case. His jaw and mouth were set in firm lines; his eye, while +dancing and mischievous, had depths of capability and reserves of +forcefulness. But Sherwood was, by inclination and by the necessities of +his profession, a close observer of men. Another, less practised, might +have seen here merely an eager, rather talkative, apparently volatile, very +friendly, quite unreserved young man of twenty-five. Any one, analytical or +otherwise, could not have avoided feeling the attractive force of the +youth's personality, the friendly quality that is nine tenths individual +magnetism and one tenth the cast of mind that initially takes for granted +the other man's friendliness. + +At the moment Keith was boyishly avid for the sights of the new city. In +these modern days of long journeys, a place so remote as San Francisco, in +the most commonplace of circumstances, gathers to its reputation something +of the fabulous. How much more true then of a city built from sand dunes in +four years; five times swept by fire, yet rising again and better before +its ashes were extinct; the resort of all the picturesque, unknown races of +the earth--the Chinese, the Chileno, the Mexican, the Spanish, the +Islander, the Moor, the Turk--not to speak of ordinary foreigners from +Russia, England, France, Belgium, Germany, Italy, and the out-of-the-way +corners of Europe; the haunt of the wild and striking individuals of all +these races. "Sydney ducks" from the criminal colonies; "shoulder strikers" +direct from the tough wards of New York; long, lean, fever-haunted crackers +from the Georgia mountains or the Louisiana canebrakes; Pike County +desperadoes; long-haired men from the trapping countries; hard-fisted, +sardonic state of Maine men fresh from their rivers; and Indian fighters +from the Western Reserve; grasping, shrewd commercial Yankees; fire-eating +Southern politicians; lawyers, doctors, merchants, chiefs, and thiefs, the +well-educated and the ignorant, the high-minded and the scalawags, all +dumped down together on a sand hill to work out their destinies; a city +whose precedents, whose morals, whose laws, were made or adapted on the +spot; where might in some form or another--revolver, money, influence--made +its only right; whose history ranged in three years the gamut of human +passion, strife, and development; whose background was the fabled El Dorado +whence the gold in unending floods poured through its sluices. To the +outside world tales of these things had come. They did not lose in the +journey. The vast loom of actual occurrences rose above the horizon like +mirages. Names and events borrowed a half-legendary quality from distances, +as elsewhere from time. Keith had heard of Coleman, of Terry, of Broderick, +Brannan, Gwin, Geary, as he had heard of the worthies of ancient history; +he had visualized the fabled splendours of San Francisco's great gambling +houses, of the excitements of her fervid, fevered life, as he might have +visualized the magnificences of pagan Rome; he had listened to tales of her +street brawls, her vast projects, the buccaneering raids of her big men, +her Vigilance Committee of the year before, as he would have listened to +the stories of one of Napoleon's veterans. Now, by the simple process of a +voyage that had seemed literally interminable but now was past, he had +landed in the very midst of fable. It was like dying, he told Sherwood +eagerly, like going irretrievably to a new planet. All his old world now +seemed as remote, as insubstantial, as phantomlike, as this had seemed. + +"Even yet I can't believe it's all so," he cried, walking excitedly back +and forth, and waving an extinct cigar. "I've got to see it, touch it! Why, +I know it all in advance. That must be where the Jenny Lind Theatre stood-- +before the fire--just opposite? I thought so! And the bay used to come up +to Montgomery Street, only a block down! You see, I know it all! And when +we came in, and I saw all those idle ships lying at anchor, just as they +have lain since their crews deserted them in '49 to go to the mines--and I +know why they haven't been used since, why they will continue to lie there +at anchor until they rot or sink--" + +"Do you?" said Sherwood, who was vastly amused and greatly taken by this +fresh enthusiasm. + +"Yes, the clipper ships!" Keith swept on. "The first cargoes in this new +market make the money--the fastest clippers--poor old hulks--but you +brought in the argonauts!" + +So he ran on, venting his impatience, so plainly divided between his sense +of duty in staying near his wife and his great desire to slip the leash, +that Sherwood smiled to himself. Once again he mentioned Coleman and the +Vigilantes of '51. + +"I suppose he's around here? I may see him?" + +"Oh, yes," said Sherwood, "you'll see him. But if you would accept a bit of +advice, go slow. You must remember that such a movement makes enemies, +arouses opposition. A great many excellent people--whom you will know--are +a little doubtful about all that." + +Keith mentioned other names. + +"I know them all. They are among the most influential members of the bar." +He glanced at a large watch. "Just at this hour we might find them at the +Monumental engine house. What do you say?" + +"I should like nothing better!" cried Keith. + +"Your wife's illness is not likely to require immediate attendance?" +suggested Sherwood inquiringly. + +"She's only seasick--horrible voyage--she's always under the weather on +shipboard--three weeks of it from Panama--Nan's as strong as a horse," +replied Keith, with obvious impatience. + +They walked across the Plaza to the Monumental fire engine house, a square +brick structure of two stories, with wide folding doors, and a bell cupola +apart. Keith paused to admire the engine. It was of the type usual in those +days, consisting of a waterbox with inlet and outlet connections, a pump +atop, and parallel pump rails on either side, by the hand manipulation of +which the water was thrown with force from the box. The vehicle was drawn +by means of a long rope, carried on a drum. This could be slacked off at +need to accommodate as high as a hundred men or as few as would suffice to +move her. So far this engine differed in no manner from those Keith had +seen in the East. But this machine belonged to a volunteer company, one of +many and all rivals. It was gayly coloured. On the sides of its waterbox +were scenic paintings of some little merit. The woodwork was all mahogany. +Its brass ornamentation was heavy and brought to a high state of polish. +From a light rack along its centre dangled two beautifully chased speaking +trumpets, and a row of heavy red-leather helmets. Axes nestled in sockets. +A screaming gilt eagle, with wings outspread, hovered atop. Alongside the +engine stood the hook and ladder truck and the hose cart. These smaller and +less important vehicles were painted in the same scheme of colour, were +equally glittering and polished. Keith commented on all this admiringly. + +"Yes," said Sherwood, "you see, since the big fires, it has become a good +deal a matter of pride. There are eleven volunteer companies, and they are +great rivals in everything, political and social, as well as in the line of +regular business, so to speak. Mighty efficient. You'll have to join a +company, of course; and you better look around a little before deciding. +Each represents something different--some different element. They are +really as much clubs as fire companies." + +They mounted to the upper story, where Keith found himself in a long room, +comfortably fitted with chairs, tables, books, and papers. A double door +showed a billiard table in action. Sherwood indicated a closed door across +the hall. + +"Card rooms," said he briefly. + +The air was blue with smoke and noisy with rather vociferative conversation +and laughter. Several groups of men were gathered in little knots. A negro +in white duck moved here and there carrying a tray. + +Sherwood promptly introduced Keith to many of these men, and he was as +promptly asked to name his drink. Keith caught few of the names, but he +liked the hearty, instant cordiality. Remarking on the beauty and order of +the machines, loud cries arose for "Taylor! Bert Taylor!" After a moment's +delay a short, stocky, very red-faced man, with rather a fussy manner, came +forward. + +"Mr. Keith," said a tall, dark youth, with a pronounced Southern accent, +"I want foh to make you acquainted with Mr. Tayloh. Mr. Tayloh is at once +the patron saint of the Monumentals, but to a large extent its 'angel' as +well --I hope you understand the theatrical significance of that term, +suh. He is motheh, fatheh, guardeen, and dry nurse to every stick, stone, +and brick, every piece of wood, brass, or rubbah, every inch of hose, and +every man _and_ Irishman on these premises." Taylor had turned an +embarrassed brick red. "Mr. Keith," went on the dark youth, explanatorily, +"was just sayin' that though he had inspected carefully many fire +equipments, per'fessional and amateur, he had nevah feasted his eyes +on so complete an outfit as that of our Monumentals." + +Keith had not said all this, but possibly he had meant it. The brick-red, +stocky little man was so plainly embarrassed and anxious to depart that +Keith racked his brains for something to say. All he could remember was the +manufacturer's nameplate on the machine downstairs. + +"I see you have selected the Hunaman engine, sir," said he. The little +man's eye brightened. + +"It may be, sir, that you favour the piano-box type--of the sort made by +Smith or Van Ness?" he inquired politely. + +"It is a point on which my opinion is still-suspended," replied Keith with +great gravity. + +The little man moved nearer, and his shyness fell from him. + +"Oh, but really there is no choice, none whatever!" he cried. "I'm sure, +sir, I can convince you in five minutes. I assure you we have gone into the +subject thoroughly--this Hunaman cost us over five thousand dollars; and +you may be certain we went very thoroughly into the matter before making +the investment----" + +He went on talking in his self-effacing, deprecatory, but very earnest +fashion. The other men in the group, Keith felt, were watching with covert +amusement. Occasionally, he thought to catch half-concealed grins at his +predicament. In less than the five minutes the claims of the piano box were +utterly demolished. Followed a dissertation on methods of fighting fire; +and then a history of the Monumental Company--its members, its officers, +and its proud record. "And our bell--did you know that?--is the bell used +by the Vigilantes--" He broke off suddenly in confusion, his embarrassment +descending on him again. A moment later he sidled away. + +"But I found him very interesting!" protested Keith, in answer to implied +apologies. + +"Bert is invaluable here; but he's a lunatic on fire apparatus. We couldn't +get along without him, but it's sometimes mighty difficult to get on _with_ +him," said some one. + +Keith was making a good impression without consciously trying to do so. His +high spirits of youth and enthusiasm were in his favour; and as yet he had +no interests to come into conflict with those of any one present. More +drinks were ordered and fresh cigars lighted. From Sherwood they now +learned that Keith had but just landed, and intended to settle as a +permanent resident. As one man they uprose. + +"And yo' wastin' of yo' time indoors!" mourned the dark Southerner. "And so +much to see!" + +Enthusiastically they surrounded him and led him forth. Only a very old, +very small, very decadent village is devoid of what is modernly called the +"booster" spirit. In those early days of slow transportation and isolated +communities, local patriotism was much stronger than it is now. And +something about the air's wine of the Pacific slope has always, and +probably will always, make of every man an earnest proselyte for whatever +patch of soil he calls home. But add to these general considerations the +indubitable facts of harbour, hill, health, opportunity, activity, and a +genuine history, if of only three years, one can no longer marvel that +every man, each in his own way, saw visions. + +In the course of the next few hours Keith got confused and mixed +impressions of many things. The fortresslike warehouses; the plank roads; +the new Jenny Lind Theatre; the steam paddies eating steadily into the sand +hills at the edge of town; the Dramatic Museum; houses perched on the +crumbling edges of hills; houses sunk far below the level of new streets, +with tin cans and ducks floating around them; new office buildings; places +where new office buildings were going to be or merely ought to be; land +that in five years was going to be worth fabulous sums; unlikely looking +spots where historic things had stood or had happened--all these were +pointed out to him. He was called upon to exercise the eye of faith; to +reconstruct; to eliminate the unfinished, the mean, the sordid; to overlook +the inadequate; to build the city as it was sure to be; and to concern +himself with that and that only. He admired Mount Tamalpais over the way. +He was taken up a high hill--a laborious journey--to gaze on the spot where +he would have been able to see Mount Diabolo, if only Mount Diabolo had +been visible. And every few blocks he was halted and made to shake hands +with some one who was always immediately characterized to him impressively, +under the breath--"Colonel Baker, sir, one of the most divinely endowed men +with the gift of eloquence, sir"; "Mr. Rowlee, sir, editor of one of our +leading journals"; "Judge Caldwell, sir at present one of the ornaments of +our bench"; "Mr. Ben Sansome, sir, a leadin' young man in our young but +vigorous social life"; and so on. + +These introductions safely and ceremoniously accomplished, each newcomer +insisted on leading the way to the nearest bar. + +"I insist, sir. It is just the hour for my afternoon toddy." + +After some murmuring of expostulation, the invitation was invariably +accepted. + +There was always a barroom immediately adjacent. Keith was struck by the +number and splendour of these places. Although San Francisco was only three +years removed from the tent stage, and although the freightage from the +centres of civilization was appalling, there was no lack of luxury. +Mahogany bars with brass rails, huge mirrors with gilt frames, pyramids of +delicate crystal, rich hangings, oil paintings of doubtful merit but +indisputable interest, heavy chandeliers of prism glasses, most elaborate +free lunches, and white-clad barkeepers--such matters were common to all. +In addition, certain of the more pretentious boasted special attractions. +Thus, one place supported its ceiling on crystal pillars; another--and this +was crowded--had dashing young women to serve the drinks, though the mixing +was done by men; a third offered one of the new large musical boxes capable +of playing several very noisy tunes; a fourth had imported a marvellous +piece of mechanism: a piece of machinery run by clockwork, exhibiting the +sea in motion, a ship tossing on its bosom; on shore, a water mill in +action, a train of cars passing over a bridge, a deer chase with hounds, +huntsmen, and game, all in pursuit or flight, and the like. The barkeepers +were marvels of dexterity and of especial knowledge. At command they would +deftly and skilfully mix a great variety of drinks--cocktails, sangarees, +juleps, bounces, swizzles, and many others. In mixing these drinks it was +their especial pride to pass them at arm's length from one tall glass to +another, the fluid describing a long curve through the air, but spilling +never a drop. + +In these places Keith pledged in turn each of his new acquaintances, and +was pledged by them. Never, he thought, had he met so jolly, so +interesting, so experienced a lot of men. They had not only lived history, +they had made it. They were so full of high spirits and the spirit of play. +His heart warmed to them mightily; and over and over he told himself that +he had made no mistake in his long voyage to new fields of endeavour. On +the other hand, he, too, made a good impression. Naturally the numerous +drinks had something to do with this mutual esteem; but also it was a fact +that his boyish, laughing, half-reckless spirit had much in common with the +spirit of the times. Quite accidentally he discovered that the tall, dark +Southern youth was Calhoun Bennett. This then seemed to him a remarkable +coincidence. + +"Why, I have a letter of introduction to you!" he said. + +Again and again he recurred to this point, insisting on telling everybody +how extraordinary the situation was. + +"Here I've been talking to him for three hours," he exclaimed, "and never +knew who he was, and all the time I had a letter of introduction to him!" + +This and a warm irresponsible glow of comradeship were the sole indications +of the drinks he had had. Keith possessed a strong head. Some of the others +were not so fortunate. Little Rowlee was frankly verging on drunkenness. + +The afternoon wind was beginning to die, and the wisps of high fog that +had, since two o'clock, been flying before it, now paused and forgathered +to veil the sky. Dusk was falling. + +"Look here," suggested Rowlee suddenly; "let's go to Allen's Branch and +have a good dinner, and then drift around to Belle's place and see if +there's any excitement to be had thereabouts." + +"Belle--our local Aspasia, sah," breathed a very elaborate, pompous, +elderly Southerner, who had been introduced as Major Marmaduke Miles. + +But this suggestion brought to Keith a sudden realization of the lateness +of the hour, the duration of his absence, and the fact that, not only had +he not yet settled his wife in rooms of her own, but had left her on the +hands of strangers. For the first time he noticed that Sherwood was not of +the party. + +"When did Sherwood leave?" he cried. + +"Oh, a right sma't time ago," said Bennett. + +Keith started to his feet. + +"I should like to join you," said he, "but it is impossible now." + +A chorus of expostulation went up at this. + +"But I haven't settled down yet!" persisted Keith. "I don't know even +whether my baggage is at the hotel." + +They waived aside his objections; but finding him obdurate, perhaps a +little panicky over the situation, they gave over urging the point. + +"But you must join us later in the evening," said they. + +The idea grew. + +"I tell you what," said Rowlee, with half-drunken gravity; "he's got to +come back. We can't afford to lose him this early. And he can't afford to +lose us. The best life of this glorious commonwealth is as yet a sealed +book to him. It is our sacred duty, gentlemen, to break those seals. What +does he know of our temples of Terpsichore? Our altars to the gods of +chance? Our bowers of the Cyprians?" + +He would have gone on at length, but Keith, laughingly protesting, trying +to disengage himself from the detaining hands, broke in with a promise to +return. But little Rowlee was not satisfied. + +"I think we should take no chances," he stated. "How would it be to appoint +a committee to 'company him and see that he gets back?" + +Keith's head was clear enough to realize with dismay that this brilliant +idea was about to take. But Ben Sansome, seizing the situation, locked his +arm firmly in Keith's. + +"I'll see personally that he gets back," said he. + + + + +V + + +"That was mighty good of you; you saved my life!" said Keith to him, +gratefully, as they walked up the street. + +"You couldn't have that tribe of wild Indians descending on your wife," +said Sansome. He had kept pace with, the others, but showed it not at all. +Sansome was a slender, languid, bored, quiet sort of person, exceedingly +well dressed in the height of fashion, speaking with a slight, well-bred +drawl, given to looking rather superciliously from beneath his fine +eyelashes, almost too good looking. He liked, or pretended he liked, to +view life from the discriminating spectator's standpoint; and remained +unstirred by stirring events. He prided himself on the delicacy of his +social tact. In the natural course of evolution he would probably never +marry, and would become in time an "old beau," haunting ballrooms with +reminiscences of old-time belles. + +Keith, meeting the open air, began to feel his exhilaration. + +"What I need is my head under a pump for about ten seconds," he told +Sansome frankly. "Lord! It was just about time I got away." + +Arrived at the hotel, Sansome said good-bye, but Keith would have none of +it. + +"No, no!" he cried. "You must come in, now you've come so far! I want you +to meet my wife; she'll be delighted!" + +And Sansome, whose celebrated social tact had been slightly obscured by his +potations, finally consented. Truth to tell, it would have been a little +difficult for him to have got away. Poising his light stick and gloves in +his left hand, giving his drooping moustache a last twirl, and settling his +heavy cravat in place, he followed Keith down the little hall to the +Sherwoods' apartments. + +At the knock Keith was at once invited to enter. The men threw open the +door. Sansome stared with all his might. + +Nan Keith had made the usual miraculous recovery from seasickness once she +felt the solid ground beneath, her. The beautiful baby-textured skin had +come alive with soft colour, her dark, wide, liquid eyes had brightened. +She had assumed a soft, silken, wrapperlike garment with, a wide sash, +borrowed from Mrs. Sherwood; and at the moment was seated in an enveloping +armchair beneath a wide-shaded lamp. The firm, soft lines of her figure, +uncorseted in this negligee, were suggested beneath the silk. Sansome +stopped short, staring, his eyes kindling with, interest. Here was +something not only new but different--a distinct addition. Sansome, like +most dilettantes, was something of a phrase maker, and prided himself on +the apt word. He found it here, to his own satisfaction, at least. + +"Her beauty is positively creamy!" he murmured to himself. + +At sight of her Keith crossed directly to her, full of a sudden, engaging, +tender solicitude. + +"How are you feeling now, honey?" he inquired. "Quite recovered? All right +now?" + +But Nan was inclined to be a little vexed and reproachful. She had been +left alone, with strangers, altogether too long. Keith excused himself +volubly and convincingly--she had been asleep--she was much better off not +being disturbed--that this was true was proven by results--she was +blooming, positively blooming--as fresh as a rose leaf--of course it was +rather an imposition on the Sherwoods, but the baggage hadn't come up yet, +and they were kind people, our sort, the sort for whom the word obligation +did not exist--he, personally, had not intended being gone so long, but by +the rarest of chances he had run across some of the men to whom, he had +introductions, and they had been most kind in making him acquainted-- +nothing was more important to a young lawyer than to "establish +connections"--it did not do to overlook a chance. + +He urged all this, and more, with all his usual, vital, enthusiastic force. +In spite of herself, she was overborne to a reproachful forgiveness. + +In the meantime Mrs. Sherwood had gone over to where Ben Sansome was still +standing by the door. Sansome did not like Mrs. Sherwood. He considered +that she had no social tact at all. This was mainly--though he did not +analyze it--because she was quite apt to speak the direct and literal truth +to him; because she had a disquieting self-confidence and competence in +place of appropriate, graceful, feminine dependence; but especially because +she had never and would never play up to his game. + +"Are you making a formal afternoon call, Ben?" she asked in her cool, +mocking voice. "Aren't you really a little _de trop?_" + +"I did not come of my own volition at this time, I assure you," he replied +a trifle stiffly. The thought that he was suspected of a blunder in social +custom stung him; as, in a rather lazily amused way, she knew it would. + +At this reply she glanced keenly toward Keith, then nodded; slowly. + +"I see," she conceded. + +Sansome moved to go. But at this Keith's attention was attracted. He sprang +forward, seized Sansome's arm, insisted on introducing him to Nan, was +over-effusive, over-cordial, buoyant. Both Sansome and Mrs. Sherwood were +experienced enough to yield entirely to his mood. They understood perfectly +that at the least opposition Keith was in just the condition to reveal +himself, perhaps, to break over the frail barrier that separates +exhilaration from loss of self-control. They saw also that Nan had no +suspicion of the state of affairs. Indeed, following the reaction from her +long voyage and her illness, she responded and played up to Keith's high +spirits. Neither wanted her to grasp the situation if it could be avoided: +Mrs. Sherwood from genuine good feeling, Sansome because of the social +awkwardness and bad taste. Besides, he felt that his presence at such a +scene would be a very bad beginning for himself. + +"No, you're not going," Keith was insisting; "you don't realize what a +celebration this is! Here we've pulled up all our roots, haven't we, Nan? +and come thousands of miles to a new country, a wonderful country; and the +very first day of our landing you want us to act as though nothing had +happened!" + +Nan nodded a vigorous assent to his implied reference to her. + +"And what we're going to do is to celebrate," insisted Keith. "You're all +going to dine with us. No, I insist! You're the only friends we have out +here, and you aren't going to desert us the very first day we need you." + +"I wish you would!" cried Nan, sitting forward eagerly. + +They tried to expostulate, to get out of it, but without avail. It seemed +easier to promise. Keith rushed out to look for his baggage, to arrange for +rooms, leaving the three together to await his return. + + + + +VI + + +Both Mrs. Sherwood and Sansome applied themselves to relieving whatever +embarrassment Nan might feel over this unusual situation. Sansome was +possessed of great charm and social experience. He could play the game of +light conversation to perfection. By way of bridging the pause in events, +he set himself to describing the society in which the Keiths would shortly +find themselves launched. His remarks were practically a monologue, +interspersed by irrepressible gurgles of laughter from Nan. Mrs. Sherwood +sat quietly by. She did not laugh, but it was evident she was amused. In +this congenial atmosphere Sansome outdid himself. + +"They are all afraid of each other," he told her, "because they don't know +anything about each other. Each ex-washerwoman thinks the other ex- +washerwoman must have been at least a duchess at home. It's terribly funny. +If they can get hold of six porcelain statuettes, a half-dozen +antimacassars, some gilt chairs, and a glass bell of wax flowers, they +imagine they're elegantly furnished. And their functions! I give you my +word, I'd as soon attend a reasonably pleasant funeral! Some of them try to +entertain by playing intellectual games--you know, rhyming or spelling +games--seriously!" He went on to describe some of the women, mentioning no +names, however. "You'll recognize them when you meet them," he assured her. +"There's one we'll call the Social Agitator--she isn't happy unless she is +running things. I believe she spent two weeks once in London--or else she +buys her boots there--anyway, when discussions get lively she squelches +them by saying, 'Of course, my dear, that may be absolutely _au fait_ in +New York--but in London--' It corks them up every time. And 'pon honour, +three quarters of the time she's quite wrong! Then there's the Lady Thug, +Square jaw, square shoulder, sort of bulging out at the top--you know--in +decollete one cannot help thinking 'one more struggle and she'll be free!'" + +"Oh, fie, Mr. Sansome," laughed Nan, half shocked. + +Sansome rattled on. The ultimate effect was to convey an impression of San +Francisco society--such as existed at all--as stodgy, stupid, pretentious, +unattractive. Nan was immensely amused, but inclined to take it all with a +grain of salt. + +"Mrs. Sherwood doesn't bear you out," she told him, "and she's the only one +I've seen yet. I think we're going to have a pretty good time." + +But at this point Keith returned. He was quite sobered from his temporary +exhilaration, but still most cordial and enthusiastic over his little +party, Sansome noted with quiet amusement that his light curly hair was +damp. Evidently he had taken his own prescription as to the pump. + +"Well," he announced, "I have a room--such as it is. Can't say much for it. +The baggage is all here; nothing missing for a wonder. I've spoken to the +manager about dinner for five." He turned to Nan with brightening interest. +"Guess what I saw on the bill of fare! Grizzly bear steak! Think of that! I +ordered some." + +Sansome groaned comically. + +"What's the matter?" inquired Keith. + +"Did you ever try it before? Tough, stringy, unfit for human consumption." + +But Keith was fascinated by the name of the thing. + +"There's plenty else," he urged defensively, "and I always try everything +once." + +It was agreed that they should all meet again after an hour. Sansome +renewed his promises to be on hand. + +The room Keith had engaged was on the second story, and quite a different +sort of affair from that of the Sherwoods'. Indeed it was little more than +a pine box, containing only the bare necessities. One window looked out on +an unkempt backyard, now mercifully hidden by darkness. + +"This is pretty tough," said Keith, "but it is the very best I could do. +And the price is horrible. We'll have to hunt up a living place about the +first thing we do." + +"Oh, it's all right," said Nan indifferently. The lassitude of seasickness +had left her, and the excitement of new surroundings was beginning. She +felt gently stirred by the give and take of the light conversation in the +Sherwoods' room; and, although she did not quite realize it, she was +responding to the stimulation of having made a good impression. Her +subconscious self was perfectly aware that in the silken negligee, under +the pink-shaded lamp, her clear soft skin, the pure lines of her radiant +childlike beauty, the shadows of her tumbled hair, had been very appealing +and effective. She moved about a trifle restlessly, looking at things +without seeing them. "I'm glad to see the brown trunk. Open it, will you, +dear? Heavens, what a mirror!" She surveyed herself in the flawed glass, +moving from side to side, fascinated at the strange distortions. + +"I call it positive extortion, charging what they do for a room like this," +grumbled Keith, busy at the trunk. "The Sherwoods must pay a mint of money +for theirs. I wonder what he does!" + +Her attention attracted by this subject, she arrested her posing before the +mirror. + +"They certainly are quick to take the stranger in," she commented lightly. + +Something in her tone arrested Keith's attention, and he stopped fussing at +his keys. Nan had meant little by the remark. It had expressed the vague +instinctive recoil of the woman brought up in rather conventional +circumstances and in a conservative community from too sudden intimacy, +nothing more. She did not herself understand this. + +"Don't you like the Sherwoods?" he instantly demanded, with the masculine +insistence on dissecting every butterfly. + +"Why, she's charming!" said Nan, opening her eyes in surprise. "Of course, +I like her immensely!" + +"I should think so," grumbled Keith. "They certainly have been mighty good +to us." + +But Nan had dropped her negligee about her feet, and was convulsed at the +figure made of her slim young body by the distorted mirror. + +"Come here, Milt," she gasped. + +She clung to him, gurgling with laughter, pointing one shaking finger at +the monstrosity in the glass. + +"Look--look what you married!" + +They dressed gayly. His optimism and enthusiasm boiled over again. It was a +shame, his leaving her all that afternoon, he reiterated; but she had no +idea what giant strides he had made. He told her of the city, and he +enumerated some of the acquaintances he had made--Calhoun Bennett, Bert +Taylor, Major Marmaduke Miles, Michael Rowlee, Judge Caldwell, and others. +They had been most cordial to him, most kind; they had taken him in without +delay. + +"It's the spirit of the West, Nan," he cried, "hospitable, unsuspicious, +free, eager to welcome! Oh, this is going to be the place for me; +opportunity waits at every corner. They are not tied down by conventions, +by the way somebody else has done things--" + +He went on rapidly to detail to her some of the things he had been told-- +the contemplated public improvements, the levelling of the sand hills, the +building of a city out of nothing. + +"Why, Nan, do you realize that only four years ago this very Plaza had only +six small buildings around it, that there were only three two-story +structures in town, that the population was only about five hundred--there +are thirty-five thousand now, that--" he rattled on, detailing his recently +acquired statistics. Oh, potent influence of the Western spirit--already, +eight hours after his landing on California's shores, Milton Keith was a +"booster." + +With an expansion of relief that only a woman could fully appreciate, Nan +unpacked and put on a frock that had nothing whatever to do with the sea +voyage, and which she had not for some time seen. In ordinary accustomed +circumstances she would never have thought of donning so elaborate a +toilette for a hotel dining-room, but she was yielding to reaction. In her +way she was "celebrating," just as was Keith. Her hair she did low after +the fashion of the time, and bound it to her brow by a bandeau of pearls. +The gown itself was pale green and filmy. It lent her a flowerlike +semblance that was very fresh and lovely. + +"By Jove, Nan, you certainly have recovered from the sea!" cried Keith, and +insisted on kissing her. + +"Look how you've mussed me all up!" chided Nan, but without irritation. + +They found the other three waiting for them, and without delay entered the +dining-room. This, as indeed all the lower story, was in marked contrast of +luxury with the bare pine bedrooms upstairs. Long red velvet curtains, held +back by tasselled silken cords, draped the long windows; fluted columns at +regular intervals upheld the ceiling; the floor was polished and slippery; +the tables shone with white and silver. An obese and tremendous darkey in +swallowtail waved a white-gloved hand at them, turned ponderously, and +preceded them down the aisle with the pomp of a drum major. His dignity was +colossal, awe inspiring, remote. Their progress became a procession, a +triumphal procession, such as few of Caesar's generals had ever known. +Arrived at the predestined table, he stood one side while menials drew out +the chairs. Then he marched tremendously back to the main door, his chin +high, his expression haughty, his backbone rigid. This head waiter was the +feature of the Bella Union Hotel, just as the glass columns were the +feature of the Empire, or the clockwork mechanism of the El Dorado. + +The dinner itself went well. Everybody seemed to be friendly and at ease, +but by one of those strange and sudden social transitions it was rather +subdued. This was for various reasons. Nan Keith, after her brief reaction, +found herself again suffering from the lassitude and fatigue of a long +voyage; she needed a night's rest and knew it. Keith himself was a trifle +sleepy as an after affect to the earlier drinking. Sherwood was naturally +reserved and coolly observing; Mrs. Sherwood was apparently somehow on +guard; and Sansome, as always, took his tone from those about him. The wild +spirits of the hour before had taken their flight. It was, however, a +pleasant dinner--without constraint, as among old friends. After the meal +they went to the public parlour, a splendid but rather dismal place. +Sherwood almost immediately excused himself. After a short and somewhat +awkward interval, Nan decided she would go to bed for her needed rest. + +"You won't think me rude, I know." said she. + +Keith, whose buoyant temper had been sadly divided between a genuine wish +to do the proper and dutiful thing by his wife and a great desire to see +more of this fascinating city, rose with so evident an alacrity under +restraint that Mrs. Sherwood scarcely, concealed a smile. She said her +adieux at the same time, and left the room, troubling herself only to the +extent of that ancient platitude about "letters to write." + + + + +VII + + +"I think we'll find most of the proper crowd down at the Empire," observed +Sansome as the two picked their way across the Plaza. "That is one of the +few old-fashioned, respectable gambling places left to us. The town is not +what it used to be in a sporting way. It was certainly wide open in the +good old days!" + +The streets at night were ill lighted, except where a blaze of illumination +poured from the bigger saloons. The interims were dark, and the side +streets and alleys stygian. "None too safe, either," Sansome understated +the case. Many people were abroad, but Keith noticed that there seemed to +be no idlers; every one appeared to be going somewhere in particular. After +a short stroll they entered the Empire, which, Sansome explained, was the +most stylish and frequented gambling place in town, a sort of evening club +for the well-to-do and powerful. Keith looked over a very large room or +hall, at the lower end of which an alcove made a sort of raised stage with +footlights. Here sat a dozen "nigger minstrels" with banjos strumming, and +bawling away at top pressure. An elaborate rosewood bar ran down the whole +length at one side--an impressive polished bar, perhaps sixty feet long, +with a white-clad, immaculate barkeeper for every ten feet of it. Big +mirrors of French plate reflected the whole room, and on the shelf in front +of them glittered crystal glasses of all shapes and sizes, arranged in +pyramids and cubes. The whole of the main floor was carpeted heavily. Down +the centre were stationed two rows of gambling tables, where various games +could be played--faro, keeno, roulette, stud poker, dice. Beyond these +gambling tables, on the other side of the room from the bar, were small +tables, easy chairs of ample proportions, lounges, and a fireplace. +Everything was most ornate. The ceilings and walls were ivory white and +much gilt. Heavy chandeliers, with the usual glass prisms and globes, +revolved slowly or swayed from side to side. Huge oil paintings with shaded +top and foot-lights occupied all vacant spaces in the walls. They were +"valued" at from ten to thirty thousand dollars apiece, and that fact was +advertised. "Leda and the Swan," "The Birth of Venus," "The Rape of the +Sabines," "Cupid and Psyche" were some of the classic themes treated as +having taken place in a warm climate. "Susannah and the Elders" and "Salome +Dancing" gave the Biblical flavour. The "Bath of the Harem" finished the +collection. No canvas was of less size than seven by ten feet. + +The floor was filled with people. A haze of blue smoke hung in the air. +There was no loud noise except from the minstrel stage at the end. A low +hum of talk, occasionally accented, buzzed continuously. Many of the people +wandering about, leaning against the bar, or integers of the compact groups +around the gambling tables, were dressed in the height of fashion; but, on +the other hand, certainly half were in the roughest sort of clothes--floppy +old slouch hats, worn flannel shirts, top boots to which dried mud was +clinging. These men were as well treated as the others. + +Fascinated, Keith would, have liked to linger, but Sansome threaded his way +toward the farther corner. As Keith passed near one of the close groups +around a gambling table, it parted momentarily, and he looked into the eyes +of the man in charge, cold, passionless, aloof, eyes neither friendly nor +unfriendly. And he saw the pale skin; the weary, bored, immobile features; +the meticulous neat dress; the long, deft fingers; and caught the +withdrawn, deadly, exotic personality of the professional gambler on duty. + +The whole place was unlike anything he had ever seen before. Whether it was +primarily a bar, a gambling resort, or a sort of a public club with +trimmings, he could not have determined. Many of those present, perhaps a +majority, were neither gambling, nor drinking; they seemed not to be adding +to the profits of the place in any way, but either wandered about or sat in +the easy chairs, smoking, reading papers, or attending to the occasional +outbreaks of the minstrels. It was most interesting. + +They joined a group in the far corner. A white-clad negro instantly brought +them chairs, and hovered discreetly near. Among those sitting about Keith +recognized several he had met in the afternoon; and to several more he was +introduced. Of these the one who most instantly impressed him was called +Morrell. This was evidently a young Englishman, a being of a type raised +quite abundantly in England, but more rarely seen in native Americans--the +lean-faced, rather flat-cheeked, high-cheek-boned, aquiline-nosed, florid- +complexioned, silent, clean-built sort that would seem to represent the +high-bred, finely drawn product of a long social evolution. These traits +when seen in the person of a native-born American generally do represent +this fineness; but the English, having been longer at the production of +their race, can often produce the outward semblance without necessarily the +inner reality. Many of us even now do not quite realize that fact; +certainly in 1852 most of us did not. Morrell was dressed in riding +breeches, carried a short bamboo crop, smiled engagingly to exhibit even, +strong, white teeth, and had little to say. + +"A beverage seems called for," remarked Judge Caldwell, a gross, explosive, +tobacco-chewing man, with a merry, reckless eye. The order given, the +conversation swung back to the topic that had occupied it before Keith and +Sansome had arrived. + +It seemed that an individual there present, Markle by name--a tall, +histrionic, dark man with a tossing mane--conceived himself to have been +insulted by some one whose name Keith did not catch, and had that very +afternoon issued warning that he would "shoot on sight." Some of the older +men were advising him to go slow. + +"But, gentlemen," cried Markle heatedly, "none of you would stand such +conduct from anybody! What are we coming to? I'll get that----as sure as +God made little apples." + +"That's all right; I don't blame yo'," argued Calhoun. Bennett. "Do not +misunderstand me, suh. I agree with yo', lock, stock, an' barrel. My point +is that yo' must be circumspect. Challenge him, that's the way." + +"He isn't worth my challenge, sir, nor the challenge of any decent man. You +know that, sir," + +"Well, street shootings have got to be a little, a little----" + +He fell silent, and Keith, looked up in surprise to see why. A man was +slowly passing the table. He was a thick, tall, strong man, moving with a +freedom that bespoke smoothly working muscles. His complexion was florid; +and this, in conjunction with a sweeping blue-black moustache, gave him +exactly the appearance of a gambler or bartender. Only as he passed the +table and responded gravely to the formal salutes, Keith caught a flash of +his eye. It was gray, hard as steel, forceful, but so far from being cold +it seemed to glow and change with an inner fire, The bartender impression +was swept into limbo forever. + +"That's one good reason why," said Calhoun Bennett, when this man had gone +on. + +But Markle overflowed with a torrent of vituperative profanity. His face +was congested and purple with the violence of his emotions. Keith stared in +astonishment at the depth of hatred stirred. He turned for explanation to +the man next him, Judge Girvin, a gentleman of the old school, weighty, +authoritative, a little pompous. + +"That is Coleman," Judge Girvin told him. "W.T. Coleman, the leader of the +vigilance movement of last year." + +"That's why," repeated Calhoun Bennett, with quiet vindictiveness, +"lawlessness, disrespect foh law and order, mob rule. Since this strangler +business, no man can predict what the lawless element may do!" + +This speech was the signal for an outburst against the Vigilance Committee, +so unanimous and hearty that Keith was rather taken aback. He voiced his +bewilderment. + +"Why, gentlemen, I am, of course, only in the most distant touch with these +events; but the impression East is certainly very general that the +Vigilantes did rather a good piece of work in clearing the city of crime." + +They turned on him with a savagery that took his breath. Keith, laughing, +held up both hands. + +"Don't shoot, don't shoot! I'll come down!" he cried. "I told you I didn't +know anything about it!" + +They checked themselves, suddenly ashamed of their heat. Calhoun Bennett +voiced their feeling of apology. + +"Yo' must accept our excuses, Mr, Keith, but this is a mattah on which we +feel strongly. Our indignation was naturally not directed against yo', +suh." + +But Judge Girvin, ponderous, formal, dignified, was making a pronouncement. + +"Undoubtedly, young sir," he rolled forth at Keith, "undoubtedly a great +many scoundrels were cleared from the city at that time. That no one would +have the temerity to deny. But you, sir, as a lawyer, realize with us that +even pure and equitable justice without due process of law is against the +interests of society as a coherent whole. Infringement of law, even for a +good purpose, invariably brings about ultimate contempt, for all law. In +the absence of regularly constituted tribunals, as in a primitive society-- +such as that prior to the Constitutional Convention of September, 1849--it +may become necessary that informal plebiscites be countenanced. But in the +presence of regularly constituted and appointed tribunals, extra-legal +functions are not to be undertaken by the chance comer. If defects occur in +the administration of the law, the remedy is in the hand of the public. The +voter----" he went on at length, elaborating the legal view. Everybody +listened with respect and approval until he had finished. But then up spoke +Judge Caldwell, the round, shining, perspiring, untidy, jovial, Silenus- +like jurist with the blunt fingers. + +"We all agree with you theoretically, Judge," said he. "What these other +fellows object to, I imagine, is that the law has such a hell of a hang +fire to it." + +Judge Girvin's eyes flashed, and he tossed back his white mane. "The due +forms of the law are our heritage from the ages!" he thundered back. "The +so-called delays and technicalities are the checks devised by human +experience against the rash judgments and rasher actions by the volatile +element of society! They are the safeguards, the bulwarks of society! It is +better that a hundred guilty men escape than that one innocent man should +suffer!" + +The old judge was magnificent, his eyes alight, his nostrils expanded, his +head reared back defiantly, all the great power of his magnetism and his +authority brought to bear. Keith was thrilled. He considered that the +discussion had been lifted to a high moral plane. + +By rights Judge Caldwell should have been crushed, but he seemed +undisturbed, + +"Well," he remarked comfortably, "on that low average we must have quite a +few innocent men among us after all." + +"What do you mean, sir?" demanded Judge Girvin, halted in mid career and +not catching the allusion. + +"Surely, Judge, you don't mean to imply that you endorse Coleman and his +gang?" put in Calhoun Bennett courteously but incredulously. + +"Endorse them? Certainly not!" disclaimed Caldwell. "I need my job," he +added with a chuckle. + +Bennett tossed back his hair, and a faint disgust appeared in his dark +eyes, but he said nothing more. Caldwell lit a cigar with pudgy fingers. + +"My advice to you," he said to Markle, "is that if you think you're going +to have to kill this man in self-defence"--he rolled an unabashed and +comical eye at the company--"you be sure to see our old friend, Sheriff +Webb, gets you to jail promptly." He heaved to his feet, "Might even send +him advance word," he suggested, and waddled away toward the bar. + +A dead silence succeeded his departure. None of the younger men ventured a +word. Finally Judge Girvin, with a belated idea of upholding the honour of +the bench, turned to Keith. + +"Judge Caldwell's humour is a little trying at times, but he is +essentially sound." + +The young Englishman, Morrell, uttered a high cackle. + +"Quite right," he observed; "he'll fix it all right for you, Markle." + +At the bad taste of what they thought an example of English stupidity every +one sat aghast. Keith managed to cover the situation by ordering another +round of drinks. Morrell seemed quite pleased with himself. + +"Got a rise out of the old Johnny, what?" he remarked to Keith aside. + +Judge Caldwell returned. The conversation became general. Vast projects +were discussed with the light touch--public works, the purchase of a +theatre for the town hall, the sale by auction of city or state lands, the +extension of wharves, the granting of franchises, and many other affairs, +involving, apparently, millions of money. All these things were spoken of +as from the inside. Keith, sipping his drinks quietly, sat apart and +listened. He felt himself in the current of big affairs. Occasionally, men +sauntered by, paused a moment. Keith noticed that they greeted his +companions with respect and deference. He experienced a feeling of being at +the centre of things. The evening drifted by pleasantly. + +Along toward midnight, John Sherwood, without a hat, stopped long enough to +exchange a few joking remarks, then sauntered on. + +"I know him," Keith told Calhoun Bennett. "That's John Sherwood. He's at +our hotel. What does _he_ do?" + +"Oh, don't you know who he is?" replied Bennett. "He's the owner of this +place." + +"A gambler?" cried Keith, a trifle dashed. + +"Biggest in town. But square." + +Keith for a moment was a little nonplussed. The sudden intimacy rose up to +confront him. They were kind people, and Mrs. Sherwood was apparently +everything she should be--but a public gambler! Of course he had no +prejudices--but Nan-- + + + + +VIII + + +Keith returned to the hotel very late, and somewhat exalted. He was +bubbling over with good stories, interesting information, and ideas; so he +awakened Nan, and sat on the edge of the bed, and proceeded +enthusiastically to tell her all about it. She was very sleepy. Also an +exasperated inhabitant of the next room pounded on the thin partition. +Reluctantly Keith desisted. It took him some time to get to sleep, as the +excitement was seething in his veins. + +He came to consciousness after a restless night. The sun was streaming in +at the window. He felt dull and heavy, with a slight headache and a +weariness in all his muscles. Worst of all, Nan, in a ravishing pink fluffy +affair, was bending over him, her eyes dancing with amusement and mischief. + +"And how is my little madcap this morning?" she inquired with mock +solicitude. This stung Keith to some show of energy, and he got up. + +The sun was really very bright. A dash of cold water made him feel better. +Enthusiasm began to flow back like a tide. The importance of the evening +before reasserted its claims on his imagination. As he dressed he told Nan +all about it. In the midst of a glowing eulogy of their prospects, he +checked himself with a chuckle. + +"Guess what the Sherwoods are," said he. + +Nan, who had been half listening up to this time, gave him her whole +attention. + +"A gambler! A common gambler!" she repeated after him, a little dismayed. + +"I felt the same way for a minute or so," he answered her tone cheerfully. +"But after all I remembered--you must remember--that society here is very +mixed. And anyway, Sherwood is no 'common gambler'; I should say he was a +most _un_common gambler!" He chuckled at his little joke. "All sorts of +people are received here. We've got to get used to that. And certainly no +one could hope anywhere to find nicer--more presentable--people." + +She nodded, but with a reservation. + +"Surely nowhere would you find kinder people," went on Keith. "See how they +took us in!" + +"Look out they don't take you in, Milton," she interjected suddenly. + +Keith, brought up short, sobered at this. + +"That is unjust, Nan," he said gravely. + +She said nothing, but showed no signs of having been convinced. After her +first need had passed, Nan Keith's natural reserve had asserted itself. +This was the result of heredity and training, as part of herself, something +she could not help. Its tendency was always to draw back from too great or +too sudden intimacies. There was nothing snobbish in this; it was a sort of +instinct, a natural reaction. She liked Mrs. Sherwood, admired her slow, +complete poise, approved her air of breeding and the things by which she +had surrounded herself. The older woman's kindness had struck in her a deep +chord of appreciation. But somehow circumstances had hurried her too much. +Her defensive antagonism, not to Mrs. Sherwood as a person, but to sudden +intimacy as such, had been aroused. It had had, in her own mind, no excuse. +She knew she ought to be grateful and cordial; she felt that she was not +quite ready. The fact that the Sherwoods had proved to be "common gamblers" +gave just the little excuse her conscience needed to draw back a trifle. +This, it should be added, was also quite instinctive, not at all a +formulated thought. + +She said nothing for some time; then remarked mysteriously: + +"Perhaps that's why they go to meet boats." + +Keith, who was miles beyond the Sherwoods by now, looked bewildered. + +Keith had letters of business introduction to Palmer, Cook & Co., a banking +firm powerful and respected at the time, but destined to become involved in +scandal. The most pressing need, both he and Nan had determined, was a +house of their own; the hotel was at once uncomfortable and expensive. +Accordingly a callow, chipper, self-confident, blond little clerk was +assigned to show them about. He had arrived from the East only six months +ago; but this was six months earlier than the Keiths, so he put on all the +airs of an old-timer. In a two-seated calash, furnished by the bankers, +they drove to the westerly part of the town. The plank streets soon ran out +into sand or rutty earth roads. These bored their way relentlessly between +sand hills in the process of removal. Steam paddies coughed and clanked in +all directions. Many houses had, by these operations, been left perched +high and dry far above the grade of the new streets. Often the sand was +crumbling away from beneath their outer corners. All sorts of nondescript +ramshackle and temporary stairs had been improvised to get their +inhabitants in or out. The latter seemed to be clinging to their tenements +as long as possible. + +"They often cave in," explained the clerk, "and the whole kit and kaboodle +comes sailing down into the street. Sometimes it happens at night," he +added darkly. + +"But isn't anybody hurt?" cried Nan. + +"Lots of 'em," replied the clerk cheerfully "Git dap!" + +They now executed a flank attack on the "fashionable" quarter of the town. + +"They're grading the street down below," the clerk justified his roundabout +course. + +Here were a number of isolated, scattered wooden houses, of some size and +of much scroll and jigsaw work. Some of them had little ornamental iron +fencelets running along their ridgepoles, or lightning rods on the chimneys +or at the corners, although thunderstorms were practically unknown. The +clerk at once began to talk of these as "mansions." He drew up before one +of them, hitched the horse, and invited his clients to descend. Nan looked +at the exterior a trifle doubtfully. It was a high-peaked, slender house, +drawn together as though it felt cold; with carved wooden panels over each +window, miniature balconies with elaborate spindly columns beneath, and a +haughty, high, narrow porch partially clothing a varnished front door +flanked with narrow strips of coloured glass. + +The clerk produced a key. The interior also was high and narrow. Much +glistening varnish characterized the front hall. They inspected one after +another the various rooms. The house was partly furnished. In the showrooms +hung heavy red curtains held back by cords with gilt tassels. Each +fireplace was framed by a mantel of white marble. But the glory was the +drawing-room. This had been frescoed in pale blue, and all about the wall +and even across part of the ceiling had been draped festoon after festoon +of fishnet. Only this was not real fishnet, as a closer inspection showed. +It had been cunningly painted! In the dim light, and to a person with an +optimistic imagination, the illusion was almost perfect. Nan choked +suddenly at the sight of this; then her eyes widened to a baby stare, and +she become preternaturally solemn. + +They looked it all over from top to bottom; the clerk fairly tiptoeing +about with the bent-backed air of one who handles a precious jade vase. +From the front windows he showed them a really magnificent view, with the +blue waters of the bay shining, and the Contra Costa shore shimmering in +the haze. + +"In the residence next door to the west dwell most desirable neighbours," +he urged, "the Morrells. They are English, or at least he is." + +"I met him last night," said Keith to Nan; "he looked like a good sort." + +"Who is in the big house over there?" asked Nan, indicating a very +elaborate structure diagonally opposite. + +"That--oh, that--well, that is in rather a state of transition, as it +were," stammered the little clerk, and at once rattled on about something +else. This magnificent mansion, he explained, was the only one Palmer, Cook +& Co. had on their lists for the moment. + +Therefore he drove them back to the Bella Union. Keith departed with him to +look up a suitable office downtown, + +Nan bowed solemnly to his solemn salutation in farewell, and turned as +quickly as she could to the interior of the hotel. Sherwood sat in his +accustomed place, his big steel spectacles on his nose, his paper spread +out before him. He arose and bowed. She nodded, but did not pause. Once +inside the hall, she picked up her skirts and fairly flew up the stairs to +her room. Slamming the door shut, she locked it, then sank on the edge of +the bed and laughed--laughed until she wiped the tears from her cheeks, +rocking back and forth and hugging herself in an ecstasy. Every few moments +she would pull up; then some unconsidered enormity would strike her afresh +and she would go off into another paroxysm. After a while, much relieved, +she wiped her eyes and arose. + +"This place will be the death of me yet," she told her distorted image in +the mirror. + +She rummaged in one of her trunks, produced writing materials, and started +a letter to an Eastern friend. This occupied her fully for two hours. At +that period it was customary to "indite epistles" with a "literary +flavour," a practice that immensely tickled those who did the inditing. Nan +became wholly interested and quite pleased with herself. Her first +impressions, she found when she came to write them down, were stimulating +and interesting. She was full of enthusiasm; but had she been capable of a +real analysis she would have found it quite different from Keith's +enthusiasm. She looked on this strange, uncouth, vital city from the +outside, from the superior standpoint. She appreciated it as she would have +appreciated the "quaintness" of the villagers in some foreign town. + +About noon Keith returned. + +"I've looked into every possibility," he told her. "Honest, Nan, I don't +see exactly what we are to do unless we build for ourselves. That Boyle +house is the only house in town for rent--that is of any size and in a +respectable quarter. You see they are too new out here to have built houses +for rent yet; and if you find any vacant at all, it is sheer good fortune. +Of course to stay in this little box is impossible, and--" + +She had been contemplating him, her eyes dancing with amusement. + +"You've taken it!" she accused him. + +"Well--I--yes," he admitted, a little red. + +She laughed. + +"I knew it," she said. "When can we move in? I want to get started." + + + + +IX + + +Keith's first plunge into the teeming life of the place had to suffice him +for all the rest of that week. There seemed so many pressing things to do +at home. The Boyle house was only partly furnished. Each morning he and Nan +went downtown and prospected for things needed. This was Nan's first +experience of the sort; and she confessed to a ludicrous surprise over the +fact that pots, pans, brooms, kitchen utensils, and such homely matters had +to be thought of and bought. + +"I had a sort of notion they grew on the premises," she said. + +Mrs. Sherwood gave them much valuable advice, particularly as to auctions. +In the Keiths limited experience auctions generally had meant cheap or +second-hand articles, but out here the reverse was the case. A madness +possessed otherwise conservative Eastern merchants--especially of the staid +city of Boston--to send out on speculation immense cargoes of all sorts of +goods. These were the despair of consignees. Heavy freights, high interest +charges, tremendous warehouse rates, speedily ate up whatever chance of +profits a fresh consignment might have. The only solution was to sell out +as promptly as possible; and the quickest method was the auction. +Therefore, auctions were everywhere in progress, and the professional +auctioneers were a large, influential, and skilful class of people. Their +advertisements made the bulk of the newspapers. They dressed well, carried +an air of consequence, furnished refreshments, brass bands, or other +entertainments to their patrons. The era of fabulous prices was at an end, +but the era of wild speculation as to what the public was going to want was +in full tide. Keith and Nan found these auctions great fun, and piece by +piece they accumulated the items of their house furnishing. It was slow +work, but amusing. At times Mrs. Sherwood accompanied them, but not often. +Her advice was always good. + +As to Mrs. Sherwood, Nan Keith found her attitude very vague. There was no +doubt that she liked her personally, admired her slow, purposeful, half- +indolent movements, the poise of her small, patrician head, the +unconscious, easy grace of her body, the direct commonsense quality of her +mind. One met her face to face; there were no frills and furbelows of the +spirit. Also, Nan was grateful for the other woman's first kindness and +real sympathy, and she wanted to "play the game." But, on the other hand, +all her social training and her instinct of formalism tended to hold her +aloof. She blamed herself intellectually for this feeling; but since it was +a feeling, and had nothing to do with intellect, it persisted. + +In the auction rooms, also, she seemed to meet--be formally introduced to-- +a bewildering number of people, most of whom she could not place at all. +There seemed to be no reason for meeting them; certainly she would not have +met them in the East. Nevertheless, they all shook her by the hand, and +bowed to her whenever subsequently they passed her on the street. Keith +told her this was all usual and proper in this new and mixed social order; +and she was perfectly willing to make the effort. She was really charming +to everybody. The consciousness that she was successfully adapting herself +to their primitive provincial scope, and her very gracious condescension to +all types, filled her with respect for her democracy and breadth of mind. + +The afternoon they spent at the house receiving boxes and packages. Keith +worked busily, happily, feverishly, in his shirt sleeves. He attacked the +job on the principle of a whirlwind campaign, hammering, ripping, throwing +papers down, deciding instantly where this or that chair or table was to +stand, tearing on to the next, enjoying himself dustily and hugely. + +Nan was more leisurely. She found time to gossip with the drayman who +brought up the goods, actually came to a liking and a warm friendly feeling +for him as a person. This was a new experience for Nan, and she explored it +curiously. + +John McGlynn was a teamster, but likewise a thoroughly independent and +capable citizen. He was of the lank, hewn, lean-faced, hawk-nosed type, +deliberate in movement and speech, with a twinkling, contemplative, +appraising eye, and an unhurried drawl. He told Nan he had come out in '49. + +"No, ma'am," he disclaimed vigorously, "I didn't go to the mines. I am a +teamster, and I always did teaming." He did not add, as he might have done, +that in those days of the individual he had been an important influence. + +His great pride was his team and wagon, and that pride was justified. The +wagon was a heavy flat affair, gayly decorated, and on the sides of the box +were paintings of landscapes. The horses were great, magnificent creatures, +with arching thick necks, long wavy manes and forelocks, soft, intelligent +eyes, and with great hoofs and hairy fetlocks. They carried themselves in +conscious pride, Their harness was heavy with silver and with many white +and coloured rings. In colour they were dapple gray. + +"That team," said John McGlynn, "is a perfect match. Took me two years to +get them together. Wuth a mint of money. That Kate, there, is a regular +character. You'd be surprised how cute she is. I often wonder who Kate +_is_. She must be some very famous woman." + +John McGlynn was a very wonderful and very accommodating person, Nan +thought. He would help carry things in, and was willing to unpack or to +carry out the mess Keith's mad career left behind, it. Also he cast an eye +on the garden possibilities, and issued friendly, expert advice to which +Nan listened, breathless. They held long intimate consultations as to the +treatment of the soil. + +"A few posies does sort of brighten things up; they're wuth while," quoth +John. + +Without previous consultation, he appeared one day accompanied by a rotund, +bland, gorgeous Chinaman, perched beside him on his elevated seat. + +"This is Wing Woh, a friend of mine," he announced. "You got to have a +Chink, of course. You can't run that sized house without help. Wing knows +all the Chinks in town, and bosses about half of them." + +Wing Woh descended and without a word walked into the house. He was a very +ornate person, dressed in a skull cap with a red coral button atop, a +brocaded pale lavendar tunic of silk, baggy pale green trousers tied close +around the ankles, snow-white socks and the typical shoe. Gravely, +solemnly, methodically he went over the entire house; then returned and +clambered up beside John. + +"All light," he vouchsafed to the astonished Nan. + +Next morning she found waiting on the veranda a smiling "china boy" dressed +all in clean white. A small cloth bundle lay at his feet. + +"My name Wing Sam," he announced; "I wo'k you thi'ty dolla' month. Where +you keep him bloom?" + +That day John McGlynn stopped after unloading his boxes to give a little +advice. + +"Chinks are queer," said he. "When you show this fellow how to do anything, +be sure to show him right, because that's the way he's going to do it +forever after. You can't change him. And show him; don't tell him. And let +him do things his own way as much as you can, instead of insisting on your +way." + +McGlynn also advised Keith as to where he could to the best advantage hire +a horse and buggy by the month. + +"You want a good safe animal, so Mrs. Keith can drive him; but you don't +want a cow. Jump aboard and I'll take you around. Never mind your coat," he +told Keith, "it's warm." + +So they "jumped aboard" and drove down the street. Nan gurgled with +amusement over the episode. She sat on the high seat beside John McGlynn's +lank figure, above the broad backs of the great horses; and Keith in his +shirtsleeves, his hair every which way, a smudge of black across his nose, +balanced in the flat dray body behind. Nan tried to imagine the sensation +they would create in Baltimore, and laughed aloud. + +"Is sort of funny," commented John McGlynn sympathetically. "But everything +goes out here." + +Nan, aghast at the uncanny perspicacity of the man, choked silently. In her +world there had always been a sort of vague, unexpressed feeling that the +"lower classes" were dull. + +They used the horse and buggy a great deal. It was delivered at the hotel +door every morning and taken from the same place every evening. Innumerable +errands downtown for things forgotten kept it busy. At night they returned +to the hotel pretty well tired out. It was a tremendous task, much as they +might be enjoying it. + +"Seems to me the more we do the worse it gets," said Keith. "Let's dig some +sort of a hole and move in anyway." + +"In a few days," agreed Nan, who as general-in-chief had a much clearer +idea of the actual state of affairs than the dusty private. + + + + +X + + +One morning the accumulated fatigue had its way, and they overslept +scandalously. It was after ten o'clock before they were ready to drive up +the street. As they turned the corner from Kearney Street they were saluted +by the ringing of numerous bells. + +"Why, it's Sunday!" cried Keith, after a moment's calculation. In the +unexpectedness of this discovery he reined in the horse. + +"It will never do to work to-day," she answered his unspoken thought. "I +suppose we ought to go to church." + +But Keith turned the horse's head to the left. + +"Church?" he returned with great decision. "We're going on a spree. This is +a day of rest, and we've earned it." + +"Where?" asked Nan, a trifle shocked at his implication as to church. + +"I haven't the remotest idea," said Keith. + +They drove along a plank road leading out of town. It proved to be thronged +with people, all going in the same direction. The shuffle of their feet on +the planks and the murmur of their many voices were punctuated by the +_klop, klop_ of hoofs and occasional shouts of laughter. All races of the +earth seemed to be represented. It was like a Congress of the Nations at +some great exposition. French, Germans, Italians, Russians, Dutchmen, +British, were to be recognized and to be expected. But also were strange +peoples--Turks, Arabs, Negroes, Chinese, Kanakas, East Indians, the +gorgeous members of the Spanish races, and nondescript queer people to whom +neither Nan nor Keith could assign a native habitat. At every step one or +the other called delighted attention to some new exhibit. Most +extraordinary were, possibly, the men from the gold mines of the Sierras, +These were mostly young, but long haired, bearded, rough, wilder than any +mortal man need be. They walked with a wide swagger. Their clothes were +exaggeratedly coarse, but they ornamented themselves with bright silk +handkerchiefs; with feathers, flowers; with squirrel or buck-tails In their +hats; with long heavy chains of nuggets; with glittering and prominently +displayed pistols, revolvers, stilettos, knives, or dirks. Some had plaited +their beards in three tails; others had tied their long hair under their +chins. But even the most bizarre seemed to attract no attention. San +Francisco was accustomed to it. + +Indeed, the few fashionable strollers were much more stared at. Most of the +well dressed were in some sort of vehicle. The Keiths saw many buggies like +their own. A few very smart, or rather very ornamental, double rigs dashed +by. In these sat generally good-looking but rather loud young women, who +stared straight ahead with an assumption of supreme indifference. Hacks or +omnibuses careered along. In these the company was generally merry but +mixed, though occasionally a good-looking couple had hired an ordinary +public conveyance. Horsemen and horsewomen were numerous. Some of these +were very dashing indeed, the women with long trailing skirts and high hats +from which floated veils; the men with skin-tight trousers strapped under +varnished boots, and long split-skirted coats. Others were simply plain a- +horseback. The native Californians with their heavy, silver-mounted +saddles, braided rawhide reins and bridles, their sombreros, their +picturesque costumes, and their magnificent fiery horses made a fine +appearance. Occasionally screaming, bouncing Chinese, hanging on with both +hands, would dash by at full speed, their horses quite uncontrolled, their +garments flying, ecstatically scared and happy, causing great confusion, +and pursued by curses. + +"Evidently we're headed in the right direction," remarked Keith. + +After a drive of two or three miles, never far from the bay they arrived +at what had evidently been a sleepy little village. The original low, +picturesque, red-tiled adobe buildings still clustered about the Mission. +But much had been added. The Keiths found themselves in an immense +confusion. Screaming signs cried everywhere for attention--advertising bear +pits, cock fights, theatrical attractions, side shows, and the like. +Innumerable hotels and restaurants, small, cheap, and tawdry, offered their +hospitality, the liquid part of which was already being widely accepted. +Men were striking pegs with hammers, throwing balls at negroes' heads +thrust through canvas, shooting at targets. A racecourse was surrounded. +Dust rose in choking clouds, and the sun beat down heavily. + +"Goodness, what a place!" cried Nan in dismay. + +Had they known it, there were many quiet, attractive, outlying resorts +catering to and frequented by the fashionables, for "the Mission" was at +that time in its heyday as a Sunday amusement for all classes. As it was, +Keith drove on through the village, and so out to a winding country road. + +"This is heavenly," said Nan, and laid aside her veil. + +The road wound and meandered through the low hills of the peninsula. The +sun beat down on them in a flood, only its heat, no longer oppressive, had +become grateful. + +"Doesn't it feel good on your back!" exclaimed Nan, recognizing this +quality. "One seems to soak it in--just the way a thirsty plant soaks +water." + +The rounded hills were turning a ripe soft brown. Across their crests the +sky looked very blue. High in the heavens some buzzards were sailing. +Innumerable quail called. On tree tops perched yellow-breasted meadow larks +with golden voices. In the bottom of the narrow valley where the road wound +were green willow trees and a little trickle of water. From the ground came +upward waves of heat and a pungent clean odour of some weed. Nan was +excited and keenly receptive to impressions. + +"It's a hot day!" she cried, "and the road is dusty. By rights it ought to +be disagreeable. But it isn't! Why is that?" + +The little valley widened into a pocket. Back from the road stood a low +white much house. Its veranda was smothered in the gorgeousness of +bougainvillaea. A grave, elderly, bearded Spaniard, on horseback, passed +them at a smooth shuffling little trot, and gave them a sonorous _buenas +dias_, The road mounted rapidly. Once when Keith had reined in to breathe +the horse, they heard the droning crescendo hum of a new swarm of bees +passing overhead. + +"Isn't this nice!" cried Nan, snuggling against Keith's arm. + +Suddenly, over the crest and down the other side, they came on sand hills. +The horse plodded along at a walk. Nan hung far out watching, fascinated, +the smooth, clean sand dividing before the wheels and flowing back over the +rim, and so over a little rise, and the sea was before them. + +"Oh, the Pacific!" exclaimed she, sitting up very straight. + +The horse broke into a trot along the smooth hard shore. The wind was +coming in from the wide spaces. A taste of salt was in the air. Foam +wreaths advanced and receded with the edge of the wash, or occasionally +blew in a mass across the flat, until gradually they scattered and +dissipated. The horse pricked up his ears, breathed deep of the fresh cool +air, expanded his nostrils snorting softly, pretended to shy at the foam +wreaths. The wash advanced and drew back with a soft hissing sound; the +wind blew flat and low, so that even on the wet parts a fine, white, dried +mist of sand was always scurrying and hurrying along close to the ground. +Outside the surges reared and fell with a crash. + +After the tepid or heated atmosphere of the hills the air was unexpectedly +cool and vital. A flock of sickle-billed curlews stood motionless until +they were within fifty yards; then rose and flew just inside the line of +the breakers, uttering indescribably weird and lonely cries. A long file of +pelicans, their wings outspread, sailed close to the surface of the ocean, +undulating over the waves and into the hollows exactly paralleling, at a +height of only a few feet, the restless contour of the sea. Occasionally +they would all flop their wings two or three times in unison. + +"I believe it's a sort of game--they're having fun!" stated Nan with +conviction. + +Everything seemed to be having fun. Close to the wash were forty or fifty +tiny white sanderlings in a compact band. When the wash receded they +followed it with an incredibly rapid twinkling of little legs; and when +again the wave rushed, shoreward, _scuttle, scuttle, scuttle_ went they, +keeping always just at the edge of the water. Never were they forced to +wing; yet never did they permit the distance to widen between themselves +and the inrushing or outrushing wave. There were also sundry ducks. These +swam just inside the breakers, and were carried backward and forward by the +surges. Always they faced seaward. At the very last instant, as a great +curler bent over them, they dipped their heads and dived. If the wave did +not break, however, they rode over its top. Their accuracy of eye was +uncanny. Time after time they gauged the wave so closely that they just +flipped over the crest as it crashed with a roar beneath them. A tenth of a +second later would have destroyed them. Keith reined up the horse to watch +them and the sanderlings. + +"It _is_ a game," he agreed after a while, "just like the pelicans. It +isn't considered sporting for sanderlings to get more than three inches +away from the edge of the wash; or for a duck to dive unless he actually +has to. It must be a game; for they certainly aren't catching anything." + +At this moment the sanderlings as though at a signal sprang into the air, +wheeled back and forth with instantaneous precision, and departed. The +ducks, too, dove, and came up only outside the surf. + +"Good little sportsmen," laughed Keith; "they play the game for its own +sake. They don't like an audience." + +After a few miles they came to a cliff reaching down to the beach and +completely barring the way. Off shore were rocky islets covered with seals +and sea lions. A lone blue heron stood atop a sand dune, absolutely +motionless. + +"I don't know where we are, or how we get out," said Keith, "but I'm going +to take that chap there as a sign post," and he turned his horse directly +toward the heron. + +Sure enough, a track led them through the sand, and by a zigzag route to +the top of the knoll that had barred their way along the shore. They came +to an edge. Before them lay an arm of the sea, sweeping and eddying with a +strong incoming tide. Over the way stood a great mountain, like a sentinel. +Far to their right the arm widened. There was a glimpse of sparkling blue, +and of the pearl of far-off hills, and the haze of a distant dim peak. + +"It's the Golden Gate!" cried Keith in sudden enlightenment. + +He told her that the mountain over the way must be Tamalpais; that the +pearl-gray, far-off hills must be Contra Costa; that the distant dim peak +was undoubtedly Mount Diabolo. She repeated the syllables after him softly, +charmed by their music. + +Simultaneously they discovered that they were hungry. The wind whipped in +from the sea. An outpost tent or so marked the distant invisible city over +the hills. Keith turned his horse's head toward them. They drove back +across what are now the Presidio hills. + +But in a hollow they came upon another ranch house, like the first--low, +white, red roofed, covered with vines. Keith insisted on driving to it. A +number of saddled horses dozed before the door, a half-dozen dogs sprawled +in the dust, fowls picked their way between the horses' legs or over the +dogs' recumbent forms. At the sound of wheels several people came from the +shadow of the porch into the open. They proved to be Spanish Californians +dressed in the flat sombreros, the short velvet jackets, the slashed +trousers, and soft leather _zapatos_. The men, handsome, lithe, indolent, +pressed around the wheels of the buggy, showing their white teeth in +pleasant smiles. + +"Can we get anything to eat here?" asked Keith. + +They all smiled again most amiably. The elder swept off his hat with a free +gesture. + +"_A piedes ouestros, senora_," he said, "_pero no hablo Ingles. Habla usted +Espanol?_" + +Keith understood the last three words. + +"No," he shook his head violently, "no _Espanol_. Hungry." He pointed to +Nan, then to himself: "She, me, hungry." + +This noble effort brought no results, except that the Californians looked +more politely distressed and solicitous than ever. + +"They don't understand us," murmured Nan; "don't you think we'd better +drive on?" + +But Keith, who had now descended from the buggy, resorted to sign language. +He rubbed his stomach pathetically and pointed down his open mouth; as an +afterthought he rubbed the horse's belly; then, with apparent intention, he +advanced toward Nan. A furious red inundated her face and neck, and she +held her little parasol threateningly between them. Everybody burst into +laughter. + +"_Si! si! si!_" they cried. + +Several started to unharness the horse. Others held out their hands. After +a moment's hesitation Nan accepted their aid and descended. Keith's +performance was evidently considered a great joke. + +On the low veranda were two women, one most enormously fat, the other young +and lithe. They were dressed almost exactly alike, their blue--black hair +parted smoothly over their foreheads but built up to a high structure +behind, filmy _rebosas_ over high combs, and skirts with many flowered +flounces. They both had soft, gentle eyes, and they were both so heavily +powdered that their complexions were almost blue. All the men explained to +them at once. The younger answered gayly; the older listened with entire +placidity. But when the account was finished, she reached out to pat Nan's +hand, and to smile reassuringly. + +Various foods and a flask of red wine were brought. There was no +constraint, for Keith threw himself with delighted abandon into experiments +with sign language. + +"_Esta simpatica_," the Californians told each other over and again. + +Their manners were elaborate, dignified, deliberate, and beautiful. Keith, +ordinarily rather direct and brusque, to Nan's great amusement became +exactly like them. They outvied each other. The women touched smilingly the +stuff of Nan's gown, and directly admired her various feminine trappings. +She, thus encouraged, begged permission to examine more closely the lace of +the _rebosas_ or the beautiful embroidery on the shawls. A little feeling +of intimacy drew them all together, although they understood no word of +each other's language. + +One of the dogs now approached and gravely laid its nose on Nan's knee, +gazing up at her with searching soft eyes. The older woman cried out +scandalized, but Nan shook her head, and patted the beast's nose. + +"You like?" asked the woman. + +"Why, you do talk English!" cried Nan. + +But either these two words were all the woman had, or she was unwilling to +adventure further. + +"You like?" she repeated again, after a moment, and then, observing Nan's +interest, she uttered a command to one of the numerous ragged small boys +standing about. The urchin darted away, to return after a moment with a +basket, which he emptied on the ground. Four fuzzy puppies rolled out. + +"Oh, the darlings!" cried Nan. + +The little animals proceeded at once to roll one another over, growling +fiercely, charging uncertainly about, gazing indeterminately through their +blue infantile eyes. The mother left her position at Nan's knee to hover +over them; turning them over with her nose, licking them, skipping nimbly +sidewise when they charged down upon her with an idea of nourishment. + +Nan was enchanted. She left the bench to stoop to their level, tumbling +them over on their backs; playfully boxing their ears, working them up to a +wild state of yapping enthusiasm. + +"The little darlings!" she cried; "just see their fat little tummies! And +their teeth are just like needles. No, no, you mustn't! You'll tear my +flounces! Look, Milton, see this little rascal pull at my handkerchief!" + +Her cheeks were flushed, and as she looked up laughing from beneath her +hat, she made a very charming picture. + +"You like," stated the Californian woman with conviction. + +After a while it became time to go. Vaqueros brought out the horse and +harnessed it to the buggy. Keith made a movement to offer payment, but +correctly interpreted the situation and refrained. They mounted the +vehicle. + +"_Muchas gracias!_" Nan enunciated slowly. + +This effort was received with an admiring acclaim that flushed Nan with an +inordinate pride. She had picked up the phrase from hearing it used at +table. The fat woman came forward, one of the puppies tucked under her arm. +In spite of her apparently unwieldy size she moved gracefully and lightly. + +"You like?" she inquired, holding the squirming puppy at arm's length. + +"_Si, si, muchas gracias!_" cried Nan eagerly, and employing at once all +her Spanish vocabulary. She deposited the puppy in her lap and reached out +to shake hands. Keith flicked the horse with his whip. He, too, had +recollected a word of Spanish, and he used it now. + +"_Adios!_" he shouted. + +But their hosts had a better phrase. + +"_Vaya Con Dios!_" they cried in chorus. + +Nan was in raptures over the whole episode, but especially over the puppy. +The latter, with the instantaneous adaptability of extreme youth, had +snuggled down into a compact ball, and was blinking one hazy dark blue eye +upward at his new mistress. + +"Weren't they nice people," cried Nan, "and wasn't it an adventure? And +isn't he just the dearest, cutest little thing? You're not a little Spanish +dog any more, you know. You're a--what is it they call us?--oh, yes! You're +a gringo now. Why, that's a fine idea! Your name is Gringo!" + +And Gringo he became henceforth. + +"What kind of a dog is he?" she asked. + +Keith grinned sardonically. + +"Of course I do not know his honoured father," said he, "so I cannot offer +an opinion as to that half of him. But on his mother's side he is +bloodhound, bulldog, collie, setter, pointer, St. Bernard, and Old English +sheepdog." + +"Which?"' asked Nan puzzled. + +"All," asserted Keith. + +Now suddenly the sun was blotted out. They looked back: a white bank of fog +was rolling in from the sea. It flowed over the hills like a flood, +reaching long wisps down into the hollows, setting inertly in the flats and +valleys, the upper part rolling on and over in a cascade. Beneath its +shadow the warmth and brightness of the world had died. + +"It strikes me we're going to be cold," remarked Keith, urging forward the +horse. + +The roadbed became more solid, and they trotted along freely. The horse, +also, was anxious to get home. Signs of habitations thickened. The wide +waste hills of the ranchos had been left behind. Here and there were +outlying dwellings, or road houses, the objectives of pleasure excursions +of various sorts and degrees of respectability from the city. From one of +the latter came a hail. + +"Oh, Keith! I say, Keith!" + +From a group of people preparing to enter a number of vehicles two men came +running. Ben Sansome and Morrell, somewhat out of breath, came alongside. +They were a little flushed and elevated, but very cordial, and full of +reproaches that Keith had so entirely dropped out of sight during the past +week. + +"I tell you, you must come over to our house for supper," said Morrell +finally. "Everybody comes." + +"The Morrells' Sunday night suppers are an institution," supplemented +Sansome. + +"I wish I could persuade you," urged Morrell. "I wonder where Mimi is. I +know Mrs. Morrell ought to call, and all that sort of thing, but this is +not a conventional place. We live next door, y'know. Do be delightful and +neighbourly, and come!" + +Nan hesitated; but the lure of the well-dressed company, so thoroughly at +ease with one another, was irresistible in the reaction. She accepted. + + + + +XI + + +The Keiths arrived to find the Morrells' informal party in full blast. The +front parlour was filled with a number of people making a great noise. Out +of the confusion Mrs. Morrell arose and came to them, as they stood where +the China-man had abandoned them. + +"Mimi" Morrell was a tall woman, not fat, but amply built, with a full bust +and hips. Her hair was of the peculiar metallic golden blond that might or +might not have been natural; her skin smooth and white, but coarse in +grain, would look better at night than by daylight. Her handsome, regular +features were rather hard and set in their expression when in absolute +repose, but absolute repose was rare to them. In action they softened to a +very considerable feminine allurement. She moved with decision, and +possibly her general attitude smacked the least bit of running things. She +gave the impression of keeping an eye open for everything going on about +her. To Nan she seemed tremendous, overwhelming, and a little magnificent. + +Immediately, without introductions, the whole party moved through the +double doors into the dining-room. There they took their places at a table +set out lavishly with food and drink in great quantity. Mrs. Morrell +explained in her high level voice that servants and service were always +dispensed with at her Sunday nights. She rather carelessly indicated a seat +to Mrs. Keith, and remarked to Keith that he was to sit next herself. +Otherwise the party distributed itself. Ben Sansome promptly annexed the +chair next to Nan, and started in to make himself agreeable. + +A complete freemasonry obtained among all the party. There was a great deal +of shouting back and forth, from one end of the table to the other. Each +seemed to have a nickname. One young man was known exclusively as "Popsy," +another answered as "Zou-zou," a third was called "Billy Goat"; a very +vivid, flashing young woman was "Teeny," and so on. They conversed, or +rather shouted, to a great extent by means of catch words or phrases, +alluding evidently to events the purport of which the Keiths could by no +possibility guess. There were a great many private jokes, the points of +which were obvious to only one or two. Every once in a while some one would +say "Number Seven!" and everybody would go off into convulsions of +laughter. The vivid young woman called Teeny suddenly shrieked, "How about +Friday, the twenty-third?" at Popsy, to Popsy's obvious consternation and +confusion. Immediately every one turned on either Popsy or Teeny, demanding +the true inwardness of the remark. Popsy defended himself, rather pink and +embarrassed. The young woman, a devilish knowing glint in her eyes, her red +underlip caught between her teeth, refused to answer. + +Keith warmed to this free and easy atmosphere. He was friendly and +sympathetic with the lively crowd. But in vain he tried for a point of +contact. All this badinage depended on a previous knowledge and intimacy, +and that, of course, he lacked. Mrs. Morrell, sitting beside him very +straight and commanding, delivered her general remarks in a high, clear +voice, turning her attention impartially now to one part of the noisy +table, now to another. + +Suddenly she abandoned the company to its own devices, and leaning her left +elbow on the table, she turned squarely to Keith, enveloping him with a +magnetic all-for-you look. + +"Do you know," she said abruptly, "something tells me you are musical." + +"Why, I am, a little," admitted Keith, surprised. "But how could you tell?" + +"La, now, I was sure you had a voice the first time I heard you speak. I +adore music, and I can always tell." + +"Do you sing, too?" asked Keith. + +"I? No, unfortunately. I have no more voice than a crow. I strum a bit, but +even that has been a good deal neglected lately. There's no temptation to +keep up one's music here. I don't know a single soul in all this city who +cares a snap of their finger for it." + +"We'll have to have some music together," suggested Keith. + +"I'd adore it. Isn't it lucky we're neighbours? I've been so interested"-- +she said it as though she had almost intended to say "amused"--"in watching +you this past week. You are the most domestic man I know. I never saw a man +work so singlemindedly at his house and home. Domesticity is a rare outworn +virtue here, I assure you. It is really quite touching to see a man so +devoted these days." + +She said these things idly, a little disjointedly, looking at him steadily +all the while. Her manner was detached, and yet somehow it impelled him +strongly to protest that he was really not a bit domestic. + +"Have you met any of the people of the place?" she shifted suddenly, + +"Well--I really haven't had much chance yet--a few of the men." + +"Well--you'll find things pretty mixed. Don't expect much; one has to take +things pretty much as one finds them." + +To this simple speech was appended one gesture only--a slight raising of +the eyebrows. Yet the effect was to sweep Keith into the intimacy of an +inner circle, to suggest that she, too, found society mixed, and to imply-- +very remotely--that at least certain members of the present company itself +were not quite what he--or she--would choose in another environment. In +unconscious response to this unspoken thought, Keith glanced about the +table. There was a good deal of drinking going on; and the fun was becoming +even more obvious and noisy. Mrs. Morrell occasionally sipped at her +champagne. She emitted a slight but rather disturbing perfume. + +"Why did you come out here, anyway?" she asked him. "I can't make out. I'm +curious." + +"Why shouldn't I?" demanded Keith. + +"Well, men come here either for money, for adventure, or to make a career." +She marked each on the tablecloth with the end of a fork. "Which is it?" + +"Guess," laughed Keith. + +"You don't need money--or else you have a wonderful nerve to take the Boyle +house. I believe you have the nerve, all right. Men with your sort of close +curly hair are never--bashful!" she laughed shortly. + +"Boyle's rent is safe--for a while," admitted Keith. + +"Career?" she went on, looking him in the eyes speculatively, and allowing +her gaze to sink deep into his. He noticed that her eyes were a gray green, +like semi-precious stones of some sorts, with surface lights, but also with +grayer radiations that seemed to go below the surface to smouldering +depths--disturbing eyes, like the perfume. "Career?" she repeated. "I think +you hold yourself better--a career in the riff-raff of this town." She +shook her head archly. "But adventure! Oh, la! There's plenty of that--all +sorts!" She gave the impression of meaning a great deal more than she said. +"I wish I were a man!" she exclaimed, and laughed. + +"I'm glad you're not," rejoined Keith sincerely. + +She tapped him lightly on the arm with her fan. + +"Oh, la!" she cried. + +Keith laughed meaningly and mischievously. He was feeling entirely at home +--in his mental shirtsleeves--thoroughly at ease. + +"You're a lawyer, are you not?" she asked him. + +"Try to be." + +"Going to practise?" + +"If any practice comes my way." + +She looked at him, smiling slowly. + +"Oh, it'll come fast enough." She seized her glass and held it to him. +"Here's to your career!" she cried. "Bottoms up!" + +They clinked glasses and drank. + +"You must meet people--influential people," she told him. "We must see what +we can do; I'll have some of them in." + +"You're simply fine to take all this trouble for me!" + +She tapped him again on the arm. + +"Silly! We take care of our own people, of _course!_ Let's plan it. Have +you any connections in town at all?" + +"Well, I've met quite a few people about town, and I have some letters." + +"Casual acquaintances are well enough, but your letters?" + +"I have one to Calhoun Bennett, and to Mr. Dempster, and Mr. Farwell, and +Truett--" + +But she was making a wry face. + +"What's the matter with, them?" he demanded. + +"Cal Bennett's all right--but the others--oh, I suppose they're all right +in a business way--but--" + +"But, what?" + +She made a helpless little gesture. + +"I can't describe it--you know--the sort that are always so keen on doing +their _duty!_" + +She laughed; and to his subconscious surprise Keith found himself saying +sympathetically: + +"I know the sort of people who always pay their debts!" + +They looked into each other's eyes and laughed in comradeship. In sober +life Keith did his duty reasonably well, and was never far behind +financially. + +She fell silent for a moment; then with a muttered "excuse me," she leaned +directly across his shoulder to impart something low-voiced and giggly to +the woman on his right. To do this she leaned her breast against his arm +and shoulder. The conversation lasted some seconds. Keith could not hear a +word of it; but he was disturbingly aware of her perfume, the softness of +her body, and the warmth that struck even through the intervening clothing. +She drew back with a half apology. + +"Feminine nonsense," she told him. "Mere man couldn't be expected to +understand." She was herself a little flushed from leaning over, but she +appeared not to notice Keith's rather breathless state. He muttered +something, and gulped at his champagne. + +"Do you know Mrs. Sherwood?" he asked, merely to say something, + +But to his surprise Mrs, Morrell answered him shortly, her manner changing: + +"No, I don't. We draw the line _somewhere_!" + +Again she addressed the woman on the right, but this time without leaning +across: + +"Oh, Amy, the fair Patricia has another victim!" and laughed rather +shrilly. Suddenly she rapped the table with the handle of a knife. "Stop +it!" she cried to the company at large. "You're making too much noise!" + +They all turned to her except one youth who was too noisily busy with his +partner to have heard her. Failing in another attempt to get his attention, +Mrs. Morrell picked up a chunk of French bread and hurled it at him. + +"Good shot!" "Bravo!" "Encore!" came a burst of applause, as the bread, +largely by accident, took him squarely between the eyes. + +The youth, though astonished, was game. He retaliated in kind. Keith +whipped up an empty plate and intercepted it. The youth's partner came to +his assistance. Keith, a plate in either hand, deftly protected Mrs. +Morrell from the flying missiles. The implied challenge was instantly +accepted by all. The air was full of bread. Keith's dexterity was tested to +the utmost, but he came through the battle with flying colours. Everybody +threw bread. There was much explosive laughter, that soon became fairly +exhausting. The battle ceased, both because the combatants were out of +ammunition, and because they were too weak from mirth to proceed. Keith +with elaborate mock gallantry turned and presented Mrs. Morrell with the +two plates. + +"The spoils of war!" he told her. + +"He should be decorated for conspicuous gallantry on the field of battle!" +cried some one. + +The idea took. But they could find nothing appropriate until Teeny +McFarlane deliberately stepped up on the table and broke from the glass +chandelier one of its numerous dangling prisms. This called forth a mild +protest from Morrell--"Oh, I say!"--which was drowned in a wild shriek of +delight. The process of stepping down from the table tilted Teeny's wide +skirts so that for an instant a slim silken leg was plainly visible as far +as the knee. "Oh! oh!" cried every one. Some pretended to be shocked, and +covered their faces with spread fingers; others feigned to try for another +look. Teeny was quite unperturbed. + +Keith was the centre of attention and a great success. But there were no +more tete-a-tetes. Mrs. Morrell managed to convey the idea that she was +displeased, and Keith was of a sufficiently generous and ingenuous +disposition to be intrigued by the fact. He had no chance to probe the +matter. In a moment or so Mrs. Morrell rose and strolled toward the +drawing-room. The others straggled after her. She rather liked thus to +emphasize her lack of convention as a hostess, making a pose of never +remembering the proper thing to do. Now she moved here and there, laughing +her shrill rather mirthless laugh, calling everybody "dearie," uttering +abrupt little platitudes. Keith found himself left behind, and rather out +in the cold. The company had quite frankly segregated itself into couples. +The room was well adapted to this, filled as it was with comfortable chairs +arranged with apparent carelessness two by two. The men lighted cigars. +Keith saw Nan's eyes widen at this. She was sitting near the fire, and +Sansome had penned her in beyond the possibility of invasion by a third. At +this date smoking was a more or less doubtfully considered habit, and in +the best society men smoked only in certain rigidly specified +circumstances. In a drawing-room such an action might be considered the +fair equivalent to powdering the feminine nose. + +In such a condition, Keith was left rather awkwardly alone, and was fairly +thrust upon a fictitious interest in a photograph album, at which he +glowered for some moments. Then by a well-planned and skilfully executed +flank movement he caught Mrs. Morrell. + +"Look here," he demanded; "what has the standing army done to deserve +abandonment in a hostile country?" + +But she looked at him directly, without response to his playful manner. + +"My friend," she said, "this is a pretty free and easy town, as no doubt +you have observed, and society is very mixed. But we haven't yet come to +receiving women like Mrs. Sherwood, or relishing their being mentioned to +us." + +"Why, what's the matter with her?" demanded Keith, astonished. "Is she as +far from respectability as all that?" + +"Respectable! That word isn't understood in San Francisco." She appeared +suddenly to soften. "You're a dear innocent boy, so you are, and you've got +a dear innocent little wife, and I'll have to look out for you." + +Before the deliberate and superior mockery in her eyes as well as in her +voice, Keith felt somehow like a small boy. He was stung to a momentary +astonishing fury. + +"By God--" he began, and checked himself with difficulty. + +She smiled at him slowly. + +"Perhaps I didn't mean all of that," she said; "perhaps only half of it," +she added with significance. "My personal opinion is that you are likely to +be a curly haired little devil; and when you look at me like that, I'm glad +we're not alone." + +She looked at him an enigmatic moment, then turned away from the table near +which they had been standing. "Come, help me break up some of this +'twosing,'" she said. + +Shortly after this the party dispersed. Mrs. Morrell said good-bye to them +carelessly, or not at all, according as it happened. + +"You must come again, come often," she told the Keiths. "It's pretty dull +unless you make your own fun." She was half sleepily conventional, her lids +heavy. "Perhaps we can have some music soon," she added. The words were +careless, but she shot Keith an especial gleam. + +The Keiths walked sociably home together, almost in silence. Keith, after +his habit, super-excited with all the fun, the row, and the half-guilty +boyish feeling of having done a little something he ought not to have done, +did not want to seem too enthusiastic. + +"Jolly crowd," he remarked. + +"They were certainly noisy enough," said Nan indifferently; then after a +moment, "Where _do_ you suppose some of them get their clothes?" + +Keith's mind was full of the excitement of the evening. He found himself +reviewing the company, appraising it, wondering about it. Was Teeny +McFarlane as gay as she appeared? He had never seen women smoke before; but +that dark girl with the red thing in her hair puffed a cigarette. Perhaps +she was Spanish--he had not met her. And Mrs. Morrell--hanged if he quite +dared make her out--it wouldn't do to jump to conclusions nor too hastily +to apply Eastern standards; this was a new country, fatal to make a fool +mistake; well-built creature, by gad-- + +Nan interrupted his thoughts. He came to with a start. + +"I think we'd better put the big armchair in the front room, after all," +she was saying. + + + + +XII + + +Next morning Keith allayed what little uneasiness his conscience might +harbour by remarking, as he adjusted his collar: + +"Mrs. Morrell is an amusing type, don't you think? She's a bit vulgar, but +she seems good hearted. Wonder what colour her hair used to be?" + +"I suppose they are all right," said Nan. "They are a little rowdy. They +gave me a headache." + +Illogically rehabilitated in his own self-esteem, Keith went on dressing. +He was "on" to Mrs. Morrell; her methods were pretty obvious. Wonder if she +thought she had really fooled him? Next time he would be on guard and beat +her at her own game. She was not a woman to his taste, anyway--he glanced +admiringly at Nan's clean profile against the light--but she was full of +vitality, she was keen, she was brimming with the joy of life. + +The long drive over the Peninsula to the sea and back, the episode of the +Spanish people, the rowdy supper party, had one effect, however: it had +made so decided a break in the routine that Keith found himself thrust +quite outside it. He had worked feverishly all the week, at about double +speed; and in ordinary course would have gone on working feverishly at +double speed for another week. Now, suddenly, the thought was irksome. He +did not analyze this; but, characteristically, discovered an irrefutable +reason for not going on with it. They rescued Gringo from Sam's care, and +drove up to the house. On the way Keith said: + +"Look here, Nan; do you suppose you and Wing can get on all right this +morning? All the heavy work is done. I really ought to be settling the +office and getting some lines laid for business." + +"Why, of course we can get on, silly!" she rejoined. "This isn't your job, +anyway. Of course you ought to attend to your business." + +Keith again consulted Palmer, Cook & Co. The same clerk showed him offices. +He was appalled at the rents. Even a miserable little back room in the +obscurer blocks commanded a sum higher than he had anticipated paying. +After looking at a dozen, he finally decided on a front room in the +Merchants' Exchange Building. This was one of the most expensive, but Keith +was tired of looking. The best is the greatest economy in the long run, he +told himself, and with a lawyer, new-come, appearances count for much in +getting clients. Must get the clients, though, to support this sort of +thing! The rest of the morning he spent buying furniture. + +About noon he walked back to the Bella Union. His horse and buggy were not +hitched to the rail, so he concluded Nan had not yet returned for lunch. +Mrs. Sherwood, however, was seated in a rocker at the sunny end of the long +veranda. She looked most attractive, her small smooth head bent over some +sort of fancywork. Before she looked up Keith had leisure to note the poise +of her head and shoulders, the fine long lines of her figure, and the +arched-browed serenity of her eyes. Different type this from the full- +breasted Morrell, more--more patrician! Rather absurd in view of their +respective places in society, but a fact. Keith found himself swiftly +speculating on Mrs. Sherwood's origin and experience. She was endowed with +a new glamour because of Mrs. Morrell's enigmatic remark the evening +before, and also--for Keith was very human--with a new attraction. Feeling +vaguely and boyishly devilish, Keith. stopped. + +She nodded at him, laying her work aside. + +"You are practically invisible." she told him. + +"Making ourselves a habitation. Seen Mrs. Keith?" + +"No. I don't think she's come in." + +Keith hesitated, then: + +"I think I'll go up to the house for her." + +Mrs. Sherwood nodded, and resumed her work calmly, without further remark. + +At the house Keith found Nan, her apron on, her hair done up under a dust +cap, very busy. + +"Noon?" she cried, astonished. "It can't be! But I can't stop now. I think +I'll have Wing pick me up a lunch. There's plenty in the house. It's too +much bother to clean up." + +Keith demurred; then wanted to stay for the pick-up lunch himself. Nan +would have none of it. She was full of repressed enthusiasm and eagerness, +but she wanted to get rid of him. + +"There's not enough. I wouldn't have you around. Go away, that's a good +boy! If you'll leave Wing and me entirely alone we'll be ready to move in +to-morrow." + +"Where's Gringo?" asked Keith by way of indirect yielding--he had really no +desire for a picked-up lunch. + +"The little rascal! He started to chew everything in the place, so I tied +him in the backyard. He pulls and flops dreadfully. Do you think he'll +strangle himself?" + +Keith looked out the window. Gringo, all four feet planted, was +determinedly straining back against his tether. The collar had pulled +forward all the loose skin of his neck, so that his eyes and features were +lost in wrinkles. + +"He doesn't yap," volunteered Nan. + +Keith gave it as his opinion that Gringo would stop short of suicide, +commended Gringo's taciturnity and evident perseverance, and departed for +the hotel. In the dining-room he saw Mrs. Sherwood in a riding habit, +eating alone. Keith hesitated, then took the vacant seat opposite. She +accorded this permission cordially, but without coquetry, remarking that +Sherwood often did not get in at noon. Immediately she turned the +conversation to Keith's affairs, inquiring in detail as to how the settling +was getting on, when they expected to get in, how they liked the house, +whether they had bought all the furniture. + +"You remember I directed you to the auctions?" she said. + +She asked all these questions directly, as a man would, and listened to his +replies. + +"I suppose you have an office picked out?" she surmised. + +At his mention of the Merchants' Exchange Building she raised her arched +eyebrows half humorously. + +"You picked out an expensive place." + +Keith went over his reasoning, to which she listened with a half smile. + +"You may be right," she commented; "the reasoning is perfectly sound. But +that means you must get the business in order to make it pay. What are your +plans?" + +He confessed that as yet they were rather vague; there had not been time to +do much--too busy settling. + +"The usual thing, I suppose," he added: "get acquainted, hang out a +shingle, mix with people, sit down and starve in the traditional manner of +young lawyers." + +He laughed lightly, but she refused to joke. + +"There are a good many lawyers here--and most of them poor ones," she told +him. "The difficulty is to stand out above the ruck, to become noticed. You +must get to know all classes, of course; but especially those of your own +profession, men on the bench. Yes, especially men on the bench, they may +help you more than any others--" + +He seemed to catch a little cynicism in her implied meaning, and +experienced a sense of shock on his professional side. + +"You don't mean that judges are--" + +"Susceptible to influence?" She finished the sentence for him with an +amused little laugh. She studied him for an instant with new interest, +"They're human--more human here than anywhere else--like the rest of us-- +they respond to kind treatment--" She laughed again, but at the sight of +his face her own became grave. She checked herself. "Everything is so new +out here. In older countries the precedents have all been established. Out +here there are practically none. They are being made now, every day, by the +present judges. Naturally personal influence might get a hearing for one +point of view or the other--" + +"I see what you mean," he agreed, his face clearing. + +"Join a good fire company," she advised him. "That is the first thing to +do. Each company represents something different, a different class of men." + +"Which would you advise?" asked Keith seriously. + +"That is a matter for your own judgment. Only, investigate well. Meet all +the people you can. Know the newspaper men, and the big merchants. In your +profession you must cultivate men like Terry, Girvin, Shattuck, Gwin. Keep +your eyes open. Be bold and use your wits. Above all, make friends; that's +it, _make friends_--everybody, everywhere. Don't despise anybody. You will +get plenty of chances." She was sitting erect, and her eyes were flashing. +Her usual slow indolent grace had fallen from her; she radiated energy. Her +slender figure took on a new appearance of knit strength. "Such chances! My +heavens! if I were a man!" + +"You'd make a bully man!" cried Keith. Mrs. Morrell, uttering the same +wish, had received from him a different reply, but he had forgotten that. + +She laughed again, the tension broke, and she sank back into her usual +relaxed poise. + +"But, thank heavens, I'm not," said she. + + + + +XIII + + +Affairs for the Keiths passed through another week of what might be called +the transition stage. It took them that long to settle down in their new +house and into some semblance of a routine--two days to the actual +installation, and the evenings full of small matters to arrange. Nan was +busy all day long playing with her new toy. The housekeeping was +fascinating, and Wing Sam a mixture of delight and despair. Like most women +who have led the sheltered life, she had not realized as yet that the +customs of her own fraction of one per cent, were not immutable. Therefore, +she tried to model the household exactly in the pattern of those to which +she had been accustomed. Wing Sam blandly refused to be moulded. + +Thus Nan spent all one morning drilling him in the proper etiquette of +answering doors. Mindful of John McGlynn's advice, she did this by precept, +ringing her own door bell, presenting a card as though calling on herself. +Wing Sam's placid exterior changed not. A half hour later the door bell +rang, but no Wing Sam appeared to answer it. It rang again, and again, +until Nan herself opened the door. On the doorstep stood Wing Sam himself. + +"I foolee you, too," he announced with huge delight. + +Painstakingly Nan conveyed to him that this was neither an amusing game nor +a practical joke. Later in the day the door bell rang again. Nan, hovering +near to gauge the result of her training, saw Wing Sam plant himself firmly +in the opening. + +"You got ticket?" he demanded sternly of the deliveryman outside. "You no +got ticket, you no get in!" + +Which, Nan rather hysterically gathered, was what Wing Sam had gained of +the calling-card idea. After that, temporarily as she thought, Nan +permitted him to go back to his own method, which, had she known it, was +the method of every Chinese servant in California. The visitor found his +bell answered by a blandly smiling Wing Sam, who cheerfully remarked: +"Hullo!" It was friendly, and it didn't matter; but at that stage of her +development Nan was more or less scandalized. + +Nan's sense of humour always came to her assistance by evening, and she had +many amusing anecdotes to tell Keith, over which both of them laughed +merrily. Gringo added somewhat to the complications in life. He was a fat, +roly-poly, soft-boned, ingratiating puppy, with a tail that waved +energetically but uncontrolledly. Gringo at times was very naughty, and +very much in the way. But when exasperation turned to vengeance he had a +way of keeling over on his back, spreading his hind legs apart in a manner +to expose his stomach freely to brutal assault, and casting one calm china- +blue eye upward. + +"Can there anywhere exist any one so hard-hearted as to injure a poor, +absolutely defenceless dog?" he inquired, with full confidence in the +answer. + +The iniquities of Gringo and the eccentricities of Wing Sam Nan detailed at +length, and also her experiences with the natives. She as yet looked on +every one as natives. Only later could she expand to the point of including +them in her cosmos of people. Nan was transplanted, and her roots had not +yet struck down into the soil. In her shopping peregrinations she was +making casual acquaintance, and she had not yet become accustomed to it. + +"I bought some darling little casseroles at Phelan's to-day," she said. +"The whole Phelan family waited on me. Where do you suppose the women get +their perfectly awful clothes? Mrs. Phelan offered to take me to her +milliner!" or "You know Wilkins--the furniture man where we got the big +armchair? I was in there to-day, and he apologized because his wife hadn't +called!" + +They went to bed early, because they were both very tired. + +Keith also had generally passed an interesting day. Immediately after +breakfast he went to his office, and conscientiously sat a while. Sometimes +he wrote letters or cast up accounts; but there could not be much of this +to do. About ten or eleven o'clock his impatient temperament had had enough +of this, so he drifted over to the Monumental engine house. After +considerable thought he had decided to join this company. It represented +about the class of men with whom he wanted to affiliate himself--the +influential men of the lawyer, Southern-politician, large business men +type. There were many of these volunteer organizations. Their main purpose +was to fight fire; but they subserved other objects as well--political, +social, and financial. David Broderick, for example, already hated and +feared, partly owned and financed a company of ward-heelers who were +introducing and establishing the Tammany type of spoils politics. Casey, +later in serious trouble, practically manipulated another. + +Among the Monumentals, Keith delighted especially in Bert Taylor. Bert +Taylor likewise delighted in Keith. The little chubby man's enthusiasm for +the company, while recognized as most valuable to the company's welfare, +had ended by boring most of the company's members. But Keith was a new +listener and avid for information. He had had no notion of how complicated +the whole matter could be. Bert Taylor dissertated sometimes on one phase +of the subject, sometimes on another. + +"It's drills we need, and the fellows won't drill enough!" was Bert +Taylor's constant complaint. "What do they know about hose? They run it out +any way it comes; and roll it up anyhow, instead of doing a proper job." + +"How should you do it?" asked Keith. + +"It ought to be laid right--so there's no bends or sharp angles in it; it +should never be laid over heaps of stones, or any kind of uneven surface-- +it all increases the water resistance. If there are any bends or curves +they should be regular and even. The hose ought never to rest against a +sharp edge or angle. And when you coil it up you ought to reverse the sides +every time, so it will wear even and stretch even. Do they do it? Not +unless I stand over them with a club!" + +He showed Keith the hose, made of India rubber, a comparatively new thing, +for heretofore hose had been made of riveted leather. Bert Taylor made him +feel the inside of this hose with his forefinger to test its superlative +smoothness. + +"Mighty little resistance there!" he cried triumphantly. + +The nozzles, all in racks, he handled with almost reverent care. + +"These are the boys that cost the money," said Taylor. "If the inside isn't +polished like a mirror the water doesn't come smooth. And the least little +dent makes the stream ragged and broken. Nothing looks worse--and it isn't +as effective on the fire. It ought to be thrown like a solid rod of water. +I can't get the boys to realize that the slightest bruise, dent, or burr +throws the stream in a ragged feathery foam. The result of that is that a +lot of water is dissipated and lost." + +Keith, who had taken hold of the nozzle rather negligently, returned it +with the reverent care due crown jewels. + +"How long a stream will it throw?" he asked. + +"With thirty men on a side she's done a hundred and twelve feet high, and +two hundred and eighteen for distance," said Bert with simple pride. + +He picked up the nozzle again. + +"See here. Here's an invention of my own. Cost money to put it in, too, +because every other nozzle on earth is made wrong." + +He explained that other nozzles are made so that the thread of the hose +screwed into the nozzle; while in his, the thread of the nozzle screwed +into the hose. + +"If there's a leak or a bad connection," explained Bert, "with the old +type, the water is blown back into the fireman's face, and he is blinded. +His whole efficiency depends on a close joint. But with my scheme the leak +is blown forward, away from the lineman. It's a perfectly sound scheme, but +I can't make them see it." + +"Sounds reasonable," observed Keith, examining perfunctorily a device to +which later he was to owe his life. + +Item by item they went over the details of equipment--the scaling ladders, +the jumping sheets, the branch pipes, the suction pipes, the flat roses, +standcocks, goose necks, the dogtails, dam boards, shovels, saws, poleaxes, +hooks, and ropes. From a consideration of them the two branched off to the +generalities of fire fighting. Keith learned that the combating of a fire, +the driving it into a corner, outflanking it, was a fine art. + +"I say always, _get in close_," said Taylor. "A fire can be _put_ out as +well as just drowned out." + +It struck Keith as interesting that in a room a stream should always be +directed at the top of a fire, so that the water running down helps +extinguish the flames below, whereas in attack at the bottom or centre +merely puts out the immediate blaze, leaving the rest to spread upward or +sideways. Taylor put himself on record against fighting fire from the +street. + +"Don't want a whole lot of water and row," he maintained. "Get in close +quarters and make every drop count." + +When Bert's enthusiasm palled, Keith always found men in the reading-room. +The engine house was a sort of clearing house for politics, business +schemes, personal affairs, or differences. + +Once a day, also, as part of his job in his profession, Keith went to the +courthouse. There he sat in the enclosure reserved for lawyers and listened +to the proceedings, his legal mind alert and interested in the technical +battles. At no time in the world's history has sheer technicality +unleavened by common sense been carried further than in the early +California courts. Even in the most law-ridden times elsewhere a certain +check has been exercised by public opinion or the presence of business +interests. But here was as yet no public opinion; and business interests, +their energies fully taxed by the necessities of a new country, were +willing to pay heavily to be let alone. Consequently, lawyers were +permitted to play out their fascinating game to their hearts' content, and +totally without reference to expedience or to the justice of the case. The +battles were indeed intensely technical and shadowy. Points within points +were fought bitterly. Often for days the real case at issue was forgotten. + +Only one of the more obvious instances of technical triumph need be cited. +One man killed another, on a public street, before many witnesses. The +indictment was, however, thrown out and he released because it stated only +that the victim was killed by a pistol, and failed to specify that his +death was due to the discharge of said pistol. The lawyer who evolved this +brilliant idea was greatly admired and warmly congratulated. + +The wheels of the law ground very slowly. One of the simplest and most +effective expedients of defence was delay. A case could be postponed and +remanded, often until the witnesses were scattered or influenced. But there +were infinite numbers of legal expedients, all most interesting to a man of +Keith's profession. His sense of justice was naturally strong and warm, and +an appeal to it outside a courtroom or a law office always got an immediate +and commonsense response. But inside the law his mind automatically closed, +and a "case" could have only legal aspects. Which is true of the majority +of lawyers to-day. + +On the adjournment of court Keith generally drifted over to the El Dorado +or the Empire, where he spent an hour or so loafing with some of his +numerous acquaintances. He was of the temperament that makes itself quickly +popular, the laughing, hearty sort, full of badinage, and genuinely liking +most men with whom he came in contact. There was always much joking in the +air, but back of it was a certain reserve, a certain wariness, for every +second man was a professed "fire-eater," given to feeling insulted on the +slightest grounds, and flying to the duel or the street fight instanter. + +This hour was always most pleasant to Keith; nevertheless, he went home +about five o'clock in order to enjoy an hour or so of daylight about the +place. He performed prodigies of digging in the new garden: constructing +terraces, flower beds, walks, and the like. While the actual construction +work was under way he was greatly interested, but cared nothing for the +finished product or the mere growing of the flowers. + +Gringo received his share of training, at first to his intense disgust. +Twice he refused obedience, and the matter being pressed, resorted to the +simple expedient of retiring from the scene. Keith dropped everything and +pursued. Gringo crawled under things, but was followed even to the dustiest +and cob-webbiest farthest corner under the porch; he tried swiftness and +dodging, but was trailed in all his doublings and twistings at top speed; +he tried running straight away over the sand hills, and at first left his +horrible master behind, but the horrible master possessed a horrible +persistence. Finally he shut his eyes and squatted, expecting instant +annihilation, but instead was haled back to the exact scene of his +disobedience, and the command repeated. Nan laughed until the tears came, +over the large, warm, red-faced man after the small, obstinate, scared pup, +but Keith refused to joke. + +"If he finds he can't get away, no matter what happens, I'll never have to +do it again," he panted. "But if he wins out, even once, it'll be an awful +job." + +Gringo tried twice. Then, his faith in his ability to escape completely +shattered, he gave up. After that he adored Keith and was always under his +feet. + +Keith saw nothing of any of the women. Mrs. Sherwood seemed to have dropped +from their ken when they left the hotel. Once Keith inquired casually about +Mrs. Morrell. + +"She's been over twice to see the place," replied Nan. + +"We ought to go over there to call," proffered Keith vaguely; but there the +matter rested. + + + + +XIV + + +One night Keith was awakened by Nan's suddenly sitting up in bed. There +came to his struggling consciousness the persistent steady clangour of many +deep bells. Slowly recognition filtered into his mind--the fire bells! + +He hastily pulled on some clothes and ran down the front stairs, stumbling +over Gringo, who uttered an outraged yelp. From the street he could see a +red glow in the sky. At top speed he ran down the street in the direction +of the Monumental. In the half darkness he could make out other figures +running. The deep tones of the bells continued to smite his ear, but now in +addition he heard the tinkling and clinking of innumerable smaller bells-- +those on the machines. He dashed around a corner to encounter a double line +of men, running at full speed, hauling on a long rope attached to an +engine. Their mouths were open, and they were all yelling. The light engine +careened and swayed and bumped. Two men clung to the short steering tongue, +trying to guide it. They were thrown violently from side to side, dragged +here and there, tripping, hauling, falling across the tongue, but managing +to keep the machine from dashing off at a tangent. Above them, high and +precarious, swayed the short stout figure of Bert Taylor. He was in full +regalia--leather helmet, heavy leather belt, long-tailed coat, and in his +free hand the chased silver speaking trumpet with the red tassels that +usually hung on the wall. He was in his glory, dominating the horde. His +keen eye, roving everywhere, seeing everything, saw Keith. + +"Catch hold!" he roared through the trumpet. + +Keith made a flying grab at a vacant place on the line, caught it, was +almost jerked from his feet, recovered himself, and charged on, yelling +like the rest. + +But now Bert Taylor began to shriek something excitedly. It became evident, +from glimpses caught down the side streets, but especially through the many +vacant lots, that another engine was paralleling their own course a block +away. + +"Jump her, boys, jump her!" shrieked Bert Taylor. "For God's sake, don't +let those Eurekas beat you!" + +He danced about on top of the waterbox of the engine, in imminent peril of +being jerked from his place, battering his silver trumpet insanely against +the brake rods, beseeching, threatening profanely. And profanity at that +time was a fine art. Men studied its alliteration, the gorgeousness of its +imagery, the blast of its fire. The art has been lost, existing still, in a +debased form, only among mule drivers, sailors, and the owners of certain +makes of automobiles. The men on the rope responded nobly. The roar of +their going over the plank road was like hollow thunder. A man dropped out. +Next day it was discovered he had broken his leg in a hole. At tremendous +speed they charged through the ring of spectators, and drew up, proud and +panting, victors by a hundred feet, to receive the plaudits of the +multitude. A handsome man on a handsome horse rode up. + +"Monumentals on the fire! Eurekas on cistern number twenty!" he commanded +briefly. + +This was Charles Duane, the unpaid fire chief; a likable, efficient man, +but too fond of the wrong sort of friends. + +Now it became evident to Keith why Bert Taylor had urged them so strongly +in the race. The fire was too distant from the water supply to be carried +in one length of hose. Therefore, one engine was required to relay to +another, pumping the water from the cistern, through the hose, and into the +waterbox of the other engine. The other engine pumped it from its own +waterbox on to the fire. The latter, of course, was the position of honour. + +The Eurekas fell back grumbling, and uttering open threats to wash their +rivals. By this they meant that they would pump water into the Monumentals +faster than the latter could pump it out, thus overflowing and eternally +disgracing them. They dropped their suction hose into the cistern, and one +of their number held the end of the main hose over a little trapdoor in the +Monumental's box. The crews sprang to the long brake handles on either +side, and at once the regular _thud, thud, thud_ of the pumps took up its +rhythm. The hose writhed and swelled; the light engines quivered. Bert +Taylor and the Eureka foreman, Carter by name, walked back and forth as on +their quarterdecks, exhorting their men. Relays, in uniform assumed on the +spot, stood ready at hand. Nobody in either crew knew or cared anything +whatsoever about the fire. As the race became closer, the foremen got more +excited, begging their crews to increase the stroke, beating their speaking +trumpets into shapeless battered relics. An astute observer would now have +understood one reason why the jewellery stores carried such a variety of +fancy speaking trumpets. They were for presentation by grateful owners +after the fire had been extinguished, and it was generally necessary to get +a new one for each fire. + +Keith, acting under previous instructions, promptly seized a helmet and +poleaxe and made his way to the front. The fire had started in one of many +flimsy wooden buildings, and had rapidly spread to threaten a whole +district. Men from the hook and ladder companies were already at work on +some of the hopeless cases. A fireman or two mounted ladders to the eaves, +dragging with them a heavy hook on the end of a long pole. Cutting a small +hole with their axes, they hooked on this apparatus and descended. As many +firemen and volunteers as could get hold of the pole and the rope attached +to it, now began to pull. + +"Yo, heave ho!" they cried. + +The timbers cracked, broke, the whole side of the house came out with a +grand and satisfying crash. An inferno of flame was thereby laid open to +the streams from the hose lines. It was grand destructive fun for +everybody, especially for the boys of all ages, which included in spirit +about every male person present. + +This sort of work was intended, of course, to confine or check the fire +within the area already affected, and could accomplish nothing toward +saving the structures already alight. The roar of the flames, the hissing +of firebrands sucked upward, the crash of timbers, the shrieks of the +foremen through their trumpets, the yells of applause or of sarcasm from +the crowd, and the _thud, thud, thud, thud_ of numerous brake bars made a +fine pandemonium. Everybody except the owners or tenants of the buildings +was delighted. + +Keith, with two others, was instructed to carry the Monumental nozzle to +the roof of a house not afire. Proudly they proceeded to use their scaling +ladders. These were a series of short sections, each about six feet long, +the tops slightly narrower than the bottoms. By means of slots these could +be fitted together. First, Keith erected one of them against the wall of +the building, at an angle, and ascended it, carrying another section across +his shoulder. When he reached a certain rung, which was painted red, he +thrust his foot through the ladder and against the wall, pushed the ladder +away from the wall, and fitted the section he was carrying to the top of +the section on which he was standing. He then hauled up another section and +repeated. When the ladder had reached to the eaves, he and his companions +dragged the squirting, writhing hose up with them, chopped footholds in the +roof, and lay flat to look over the ridgepole as over a breastwork. All +this to the tune of admiring plaudits and with a pleasing glow of heroism. +There was a skylight, but either they overlooked or scorned that prosaic +expedient. + +At the other end of the ridgepole Keith made out the dark forms of two men +from another company. His own companions, acting under orders, now +descended the ladder, leaving him alone. + +The next building was a raging furnace, and on it Keith directed the heavy +stream from his nozzle. It was great fun. At first the water seemed to have +no effect whatever, but after a little it began to win. The flames were +beaten back, broken into detachments. Finally, Keith got to the point of +chasing down small individual outbreaks, driving them into their lairs, +drowning them as they crouched. He was wholly interested, and the boy in +him, with a shamefaced half apology to the man in him, pretended that he +was a soldier directing a battery against an enemy. + +Along the ridgepole cautiously sidled the two men of the other company, +dragging their hose. Keith now recognized them. One was a vivid, debonair, +all-confident, magnetic individual named Talbot Ward, a merchant, promoter, +speculator, whom everybody liked and trusted; the other a fair Hercules of +a man, slow and powerful in everything, called Frank Munro. + +"Look here," said Ward, "does it strike you this roof's getting hot?" + +Recalled to himself, Keith immediately became aware of the fact. + +"The house is afire beneath us," said Ward; "we've got to get out." + +"What's the matter with your ladder?" asked Keith. + +"They took it away." + +"We'll use mine." + +They let themselves cautiously down the footholds that had been chopped in +the roof, and looked over. A blast of smoke and flame met them in the face. + +"Good Lord, she's all afire!" cried Keith, aghast. + +The flames were licking around the scaling ladder, which was already +blazing. Keith directed the stream from his hose straight down, but with no +other result than to break the charred ladder. + +They crawled back to the ridgepole, and worked their hose lines around to +the end of the building, out of the flames. Here a two-story drop +confronted them. + +"This thing is going to fall under us if we don't do something," muttered +Ward. + +"Duane's forgotten us, and those crazy idiots at the engines are too busy +trying to keep from being washed," surmised Keith. + +"Look here," said Munro suddenly; "I'll brace against a chimney and hang on +to the hose, and you can slide down it like a rope." + +"How about you?" demanded Ward crisply. + +"You can run for more ladders, once you're on the ground." + +At this moment the water failed in Keith's hose. He stared at the nozzle, +then rapidly began to unscrew it. + +"Cistern empty or hose burst," surmised Munro. + +But Talbot Ward, cocking his ear toward a distant pandemonium of cheering, +guessed the true cause. + +"Sucked," said he. By this he meant that the Monumental crew had succeeded +in emptying their water box in spite of the Eureka's best efforts. + +"Get off your nozzle quick!" urged Keith. + +Munro, without stopping to ask why, bent his great strength to the task; +and it was a task, for in his hose the pressure of the water was +tremendous. It spurted back all over him, and at the last the nozzle was +fairly blown away from him. + +"Now couple my hose to yours quick, quick, before my hose fills!" cried +Keith. + +"They won't go--" Munro began to object. + +"Yes, they will, mine's a special thread," urged Keith, who had remembered +Bert Taylor's reversed nozzle. + +All three bent their energies to catching the threads. It was a fearful +job, for the strength of the water had first to be overcome. Keith was +terribly excited. Time was precious, for not only might the roof give way +beneath them, but at any moment the water might come again in Keith's hose. +Then it would be physically impossible to make the coupling. All three men +concentrated their efforts on it, their feet gripping the irregularities of +the roof or slipping on the shingles. Frank Munro bent his enormous back to +the task, the veins standing out in his temples, his face turning purple +with the effort. Keith helped him as well as he was able. Talbot Ward, +coolly, deliberately, delicately, as though he had all the time in the +world, manipulated the coupling, feeling gingerly for the thread. The water +spurted, fanned, sprayed, escaping with violence, first at one point, then +at another, drenching and blinding them. + +"There!" breathed Ward at last, and with a few twists, of his sinewy hands +brought the couplings into close connection. Munro relaxed, drawing two or +three deep breaths. Without the aid of his great strength the task could +not have been accomplished. + +"Hook her over the chimney," gasped Keith. + +With some difficulty they lifted the loop of the throbbing hose over the +chimney. + +"Down we go!" cried Keith, and slid hand over hand down the way thus made +for them. The others immediately followed, and all three stood looking +back. It was a wonder the building had stood so long, for in both stories +it was afire, and the walls had apparently burned quite through. Indeed, a +moment later the whole structure collapsed. A fountain of sparks and brands +sprang upward in the mighty suction. + +"There goes our good hose!" said Keith. + +The remark brought them to wrath and a desire for vengeance. + +"I'm going to lick somebody!" cried Keith, starting determinedly in the +direction of the engine. + +"We'll help," growled Munro. + +But when they came in sight of the engine their anger evaporated, and they +clung to each other, weak with mirth. + +For the Monumental was "washed," and washed aplenty. This was natural, for +now the water was pouring into her box from _both_ directions, and would +continue so to pour until the hose coupled to Ward's engine had burned +through. The water was fairly spouting up from the box, not merely +overflowing. Her crew were still working, but raggedly and dispiritedly. +Bert Taylor, his trumpet battered beyond all recognition, was fairly +voiceless with rage. An interested and ribaldry facetious crowd spared not +its sarcasm. + +"My crowd must be in the same fix!" gurgled Ward; "the back pressure has +'washed' them, too." Then the full splendour of the situation burst on him, +and he fell again on Munro for support. + +"Don't you see," he gasped. "They'll never know! The hose will burn +through. Unless we tell, they'll never know! We've got even, all right." + +At this moment Duane rode up, foaming at the mouth, and desiring to know +what the assorted adjectives they were doing there. The crews awoke to +their isolation and general uselessness. Bert Taylor, still simmering, +descended from his perch. They followed the hose lines to glowing coals! + +"Here, this won't do," said Talbot; so they reported themselves before the +news of a tragedy had had time to spread. + +The fire was now practically under control. It had swept a city block +pretty clean, but had been confined to that area. An hour later they +dragged their engine rather dispiritedly back to the house. Ordinarily they +would have been in high spirits. Fires were to these men a good deal of a +lark. The crews were very effective and well drilled, and the saving of +property was as well done as possible, but that was all secondary to the +game of it. But to-night they had been "washed," they had lost the game, +and the fact that they had put out the fire cut very little figure. There +was much bickering. It seemed that Bert Taylor, in his enthusiasm, had, out +of his own pocket, hired extra men who appeared at the critical moment to +relieve the tired men at the brakes; and it was under their fresh impetus +that the Monumental had so triumphantly "sucked." Now Bert Taylor was +freely blamed. The regular men stoutly maintained that if they had been +left alone this would never have happened. + +"These whiskey bummers never can last!" they said. Everybody trooped +upstairs to the main rooms, where refreshments were served. After some +consideration Keith decided to tell his story in explanation of how it was +that the Monumentals were washed. Instantly the company cheered up, A +clamour broke out. This was great! With Talbot Ward and Munro to +corroborate, no one could doubt the story. Taylor ran about jubilantly, +returning every few moments to pat Keith on the shoulder. + +"Fine! fine!" he cried. "We've got those _Eurekas_! I can't wait for +morning!" + + + + +XV + + +Keith got home about daylight to find Nan, terribly anxious, waiting up for +him. He brushed away her anxiety with the usual masculine impatience at +being made a fuss over, gave a brief account of the fire--omitting mention +of his narrow escape--and insisted that she go to bed. After a few moments +she obeyed, and immediately fell asleep. Keith bathed himself and changed, +made a cup of coffee, and wandered about rather impatiently waiting for +time to go downtown. Wing Sam appeared, the morning paper came. The sun +gained strength, and finally tempted him outside. + +For some time he prowled around, examining Nan's efforts at gardening. +There was not much to show as yet, but Keith had already the eye of faith +so essential to the Californian, and saw plainly trees, shrubs, and flowers +where now only spears of green were visible. The Morrells' garden next door +was already well grown, and he cast on it an appraising eye. No sign of +life showed about the place except a thread of smoke from the kitchen +chimney. It was still early. + +Nevertheless, five minutes later Mrs. Morrell opened the side door and +stepped forth. She had on a wide leghorn hat, and carried a basket and +scissors as though to gather flowers. Immediately she caught sight of Keith +and waved him a gay greeting. He vaulted the fence and joined her. + +"Aren't these early morning hours perfect? Isn't this glorious sunshine?" +she greeted him. + +As a matter of fact Mrs. Morrell seldom rose before noon, and detested +early morning hours and glorious sunshine. She was inclined to consider the +usual remarks in their praise as sheer affectation. But she adored fires, +and often went to them when they promised well enough. Sometimes she +attended in company with certain of her men friends; and sometimes alone, +cloaked as a man. She liked the destruction and stimulation of them. She +had been to the fire just extinguished, and seeing Keith in the garden, had +put on her fluffiest and gone out to him. It was time this most attractive +young man next door paid her more attention. + +"How does the hero of the fire survive?" she asked him archly. + +"Hero?" + +"Don't pretend ignorance. Charles told me all about it. He heard your tale +at the Monumental." + +"It's hardly heroism to get out of a scrape the best way possible." + +"It's heroic to save lives, I think; but especially heroic to keep your +head in an emergency." + +"Mr. Morrell all right?" asked Keith, to change the subject. + +"He is sleeping off the fire--and the after effects. You men need watching +every minute--even when we think you must be in danger of your lives." + +She laughed and clipped a few flowers at random. + +"Have you been moving furniture all these days? We've seen nothing of you. +I thought we were going to have some music. I do my little five-finger +exercises all by myself and nobody knows but I am playing Beethoven. You +ought in Christian charity to help me out--whether you want to or not. What +do you think of our garden? Don't you adore flowers?" + +"No, I don't believe I do," replied Keith bluntly. "I like to see a pretty +woman amongst 'em," he went on gallantly, "they set her off. It's like +dresses. No good to show me pretty frocks--unless they're filled." + +"La! You are so clever; at times I'm really afraid of you," said she. + +She went on tossing a few blooms into her basket. Under the stimulus of the +fire she had acted on impulse in going out into the garden. She realized it +as perhaps a mistake. Keith's early morning freshness and fitness made her +feel less sure of herself than usual. She had an uneasy impression that she +was not at her best, and this reacted on her ability to exercise her usual +magnetism. In fact, Keith, the least observant of men in such things, could +not avoid noticing her rather second-hand looking skin, and that her +features were more pronounced than he had thought. + +"Do come over this evening for some music," she begged. "You can take a nap +this afternoon, and you can go home early." + +Keith had been just a little uneasy over this second interview with Mrs. +Morrell. His straightforward nature was inclined to look back on the +impression she had made on him at the supper party with a half-guilty sense +of some sort of vague disloyalty he could not formulate. Now he felt much +satisfied with himself, and quite relieved. Therefore, he accepted. + +"I shall be very glad to," said he. + +At breakfast, which was rather late, he told Nan of the meeting and the +invitation. Nan's clear lines, fresh creamy skin, bright young eyes, looked +more than usually attractive to him. + +"Perhaps she _can_ play," he said. "Let's go find out. And you must wear +your prettiest gown; I'm proud of my wife, and I want her to look her very +best." + +A little later he remarked: + +"I wonder if she isn't considerably older than Morrell." + + + + +XVI + + +When he had at last reached downtown after his late breakfast, Keith found +it in a fair turmoil. Knots of men stood everywhere arguing, sometimes very +heatedly. Eureka members were openly expressing their anger over what they +called Taylor's "dirty trick" in putting hirelings on the brakes, men who +did not belong to the Monumental organization at all. If it had not been +for that the Monumentals could never have "sucked" at all. On the other +hand, the Monumentals and their friends were vehemently asserting that they +were well within their rights. Fists were brandished. Several fights +started, but were stopped before they had become serious. + +Keith avoided these storm centres, waving a friendly hand, but smilingly +refusing to be drawn in. Near the Merchants' Exchange, however, he came on +a quieter, attentive group, in the centre of which stood Calhoun Bennett. +The Southerner's head was thrown back haughtily, but he was listening with +entire courtesy to a violent harangue from a burly, red-faced man in rough +clothes. + +"And I tell you that sort of a trick won't go down with nobody, and the +story of why you were washed won't wash itself. It's too thin." + +"I have the honah, suh," said Bennett formally, "to info'm yo' that yo' do +not know what yo' are talkin' about." + +His silken tones apparently enraged the man. + +"You silk-stockinged----of a----!" said he. + +Without haste Calhoun Bennett rapped the man across the face with his light +rattan cane. Venting a howl of rage, the Eureka partisan leaped forward. +Calhoun Bennett, quick as a flash, drew a small derringer and fired; and +the man went down in a heap. Superbly nonchalant, Bennett, without a glance +at his victim, turned away, the ring of spectators parting to let him +through. He saw Keith, and at once joined him, drawing the young man's arm +through his own. Keith, looking back, saw the man already sitting up, +feeling his shoulder and cursing vigorously. + +Bennett was fairly radiating rage, which, however, he managed to suppress +beneath a well-bred exterior calm. + +"These hounds, suh," he told Keith, "profess not to believe us, suh! They +profess, suh, that our explanation of how we were washed is a fabrication. +You will oblige me, suh, by profferin' yo' personal testimony in the case." + +He faced Keith resolutely toward the Eureka engine house. Keith spared a +thought to wonder what he was being let in for by this handsome young fire- +eater, but he went along unprotesting. + +Around the Eureka engine house was a big crowd of men. These fell silent as +Bennett and Keith approached. The Eurekas represented quite a different +social order from the Monumentals. Its membership was recruited from those +who in the East had been small farmers, artisans, or workingmen in the more +skilled trades; independent, plain, rather rough, thoroughly democratic, a +trifle contemptuous of "silk stockings," outspoken, with little heed for +niceties of etiquette or conduct. Bennett pushed his way through them to +where stood Carter, the chief, and several of the more influential. Keith, +looking at them, met their eyes directed squarely into his. They were +steady, clear-looking, solid, rather coarse-grained, grave men. + +"I have brought Mr. Keith here, who was an eyewitness, to give his +testimony as to the events of last evenin'," said Bennett formally. + +Keith told his story. It was received in a blank noncommittal silence. The +men all looked at him steadily, and said nothing. Somehow, he was +impressed. This silence seemed to him, fancifully, more than mere lack of +words--it conveyed a sense of reserve force, of quiet appraisal of himself +and his words, of the experiences of men who have been close to realities, +who have _done_ things in the world. Keith felt himself to be better +educated, to own a better brain, to have a wider outlook, to be possessed, +in short, of all the advantages of superiority. He had never mingled with +rough men, and he had always looked down on them. In this attitude was no +condescension and no priggishness, Now he felt, somehow, that the best of +these men had something that he had not suspected, some force of character +that raised them above his previous conception. They might be more than +mere "filling" in a city's population; they might well come to be an +element to be reckoned with. + +When he had quite finished his story, there ensued a slight pause. Then +said Carter: + +"We believe Mr. Keith. If Mr. Ward and Frank Munro were there, of course +there can be no doubt." Somehow Keith could not resent the implication; it +was too impersonally delivered. Carter went on with cold formality and +emphasis; "Mr. Keith had a very narrow escape. It was lucky for him that +your hired men had 'sucked' your waterbox. In view of that we can, of +course, no longer regret the fact." + +"It was a dirty trick just the same!" growled a voice out of the crowd. + +Carter turned a deliberate look in that direction, and nothing more was +said. Bennett ignored the interruption, bowed frigidly, and turned away. +The Eureka leaders nodded. In dead silence Keith and Bennett withdrew. + +"That settles _that_!" observed Bennett, when at a little distance. "A lot +of cheap shopkeepers! It makes me disgusted every time I have anythin' to +do with them!" + +As they walked away, one of the hangers-on of the police court approached, +touching his hat. + +"For you, Mr. Bennett," he said most respectfully, proffering a paper. + +"Me?" observed Bennett, surprised. He unfolded the paper, glanced at it, +and laughed. "I'm arrested for wingin' that 'shoulder-striker' up the +street a while back," he told Keith. + +"Anything I can do?" asked Keith anxiously. + +"Not a thing, thank you. There'll be no trouble at all--just a little +nuisance. May call you for a witness later." + +He went away with the officer, but shortly after Keith saw him on the +street again. The matter had been easily arranged. + +Keith went to his office. In spite of himself he could not entirely take +Bennett's point of view. Several of the men at Eureka headquarters looked +interesting--he would like to know them--perhaps more than interesting, the +potentiality of a reasoning and directed power. + + + + +XVII + + +The afternoon nap suggested by Mrs. Morrell was not enjoyed, and Keith +returned home feeling pretty tired and inclined to a quiet evening. Nan had +to remind him of his engagement. + +"Oh, let's send a note over by Wing," he said, a little crossly. "I don't +feel like making an effort to-night." + +But Nan's convention could not approve of anything quite so radically a +last-minute decision. + +"It's a little late in the day for that," she pointed out. "She may have +stayed in just to see us. We can leave early." + +Keith went, grumbling. They found Mrs. Morrell in full evening dress, +showing her neck and shoulders, which were her best points, for she was +full bosomed and rounded without losing firmness of flesh. Nan was a trifle +taken back at this gorgeousness, for she had not dressed. Keith, with his +usual directness, made no secret of pretending to be utterly overwhelmed. + +"I didn't know we were expected to dress for a real concert with flowers!" +he cried, laughing. + +Mrs. Morrell shrugged her fine shoulders indifferently. + +"This old rag!" she said. "Don't let that bother you. I always like to put +on something cool for the evening. It's such a relief." + +It developed that Morrell had an engagement, and could not stay. + +"He was so disappointed," purred Mrs. Morrell. + +She was all eager for the music, brushing aside this and other +preliminaries. + +"You play, sing?" she asked Nan. "What a pity! I'm afraid you're going to +be terribly bored." + +She turned instantly to Keith, hurrying him to the piano, giving the +impression of being too eager to wait--almost the eagerness of a drunkard +in the presence of drink. And this in turn conveyed a vibrating feeling of +magnetism, of temperament under restraint, of possibilities veiled. The +impact struck Keith's responsive nature full. He waked up, approached the +piano with reviving interest. She struck idle chords and flashed at him +over her shoulder a brilliant smile. + +"What shall it be?" she demanded, still with the undercurrent of eagerness. +"You choose--a man's song--something soulful. I'm just in the mood." + +"Do you know the 'Bedouin Love Song?'" he inquired. + +"The 'Bedouin Love Song?' No--I'm afraid not. We are so far out of the +world." + +"It's a new thing. It goes like this." + +He hummed the air, and she followed it hesitatingly, feeling out the +accompaniment. Mrs. Morrell knew her instrument and had a quick ear. +Occasionally Keith leaned over her shoulder to strike for her an elusive +chord or modulation. In so doing he had to press close, and for all his +honest absorption in the matter at hand, could not help becoming aware of +her subtle perfume, the shine of her flesh, and the brightness of her crown +of hair. + +"You play it," she said suddenly. + +But he disclaimed the ability. + +"I don't know it any better than you do, and you improvise wonderfully." + +They became entirely absorbed in this most fascinating of tasks, the +working out little by little of a complicated accompaniment. + +"There!" she cried gayly at last. "I believe I have it. Let's try." + +Keith had a strong smooth baritone, not too well trained, but free from +glaring faults and mannerisms. It filled the little drawing-room ringingly. +He liked the song, and he sang it with fire and a certain defiance that +suited it. At its conclusion Mrs. Morrell sprang to her feet, breathing +quickly, her usual hard, quick artificiality of manner quite melted. + +"It's wonderful!" she cried. "It lifts one right up! It makes me feel I'd +run away----" She checked herself abruptly, and turned to where Nan sat in +an armchair outside the circle of light, "Don't you just _adore_ it?" she +asked in a more restrained manner, and turned back to Keith, who was +standing a little flushed and excited by the song, "You have just the voice +for it--with that vibrating deep quality." She reseated herself at the +piano and struck several loud chords. Under cover of them she added, half +under her breath, as though to herself, but distinctly audible to the man +at her shoulder; "Luck for us all that you are already taken." + +Keith would have been no more than human if he had not followed this cue +with a look. She did not lower her eyes, but gave him back his gaze +directly. It was as though some secret understanding sprang up between +them, though Keith,--in half-angry confusion, could not have analyzed it. + +After this they compared notes until they found several songs they both +knew. Mrs. Morrell brushed aside Keith's suggestion that she herself should +sing, but she did it in a way that left the implication that he was the +important one vocally. + +"No, no! I've been starved too long. I'm as tired of my little reed of a +voice as of the tinkle of a musical box." + +The close of the evening was brought about only by the return of Morrell +from his engagement. Keith had utterly forgotten his fatigue, and was +tingling with the enthusiasm to which his nature always rose under +stimulus. The Englishman, very self-contained, clean-cut, incisive, brought +a new atmosphere. He was cordial and polite, but not expansive. Keith came +down from the clouds. He remembered, with compunction, Nan sitting in the +armchair, the lateness of the hour, his own fatigue. + +"You should hear Mr. Keith's new song, Charley," said Mrs, Morrell. "It's +the most wonderful thing! The 'Bedouin Love Song,' You must surely sing it +at the Firemen's Ball. It will make a great hit. No, you surely must. With +a voice like yours it is selfish not to use it for the benefit of all. +Don't you agree with me, Mrs. Keith?" + +"I'll sing it, if you will play my accompaniment," said Keith. + +On their way home Keith's enthusiasm bubbled up again. + +"Isn't it great luck to find somebody to practise with?" he cried-- +"Unexpected luck in a place like this! I wish you cared for music." + +"Oh, I do," said Nan. "I love it. But I just can't do it, that's all." + +"Did you like it to-night?" + +"I liked it when you really _sang_" replied Nan with a little yawn, "but it +always took you such a time to get at it." + +A short silence fell. + +"Are you really going to sing at the Firemen's Ball?" she asked curiously. + +"I haven't been asked yet," he reminded her. "Don't you think it a good +idea?" + +"Oh, I don't know," said Nan, but her voice had a little edge. Keith felt +it, and made the usual masculine blunder. He stopped short, thunderstruck +at a new idea. + +"Why, Nan," he cried reproachfully, "I don't believe you like her!" + +"Like her!" she flashed back, her anger leaping to unreasonable +proportions--"that old frump!" + +No sooner had the door closed after them than Morrell's conventional smile +faded, and his countenance fell into its usual hard, cold impassivity. + +"Well, what is the game there?" he demanded. + +"There is no game," she replied indifferently. + +"There is very little money there, I warn you," he persisted. + +She turned on him with sudden fury. + +"Oh, shut up!" she cried. "I know my own business!" + +"And I know mine," he told her, slowly and dangerously. "And I warn you to +go slow unless I give the word." + +She stared at him a moment, and he stared back. Then, quite deliberately, +she walked over to him until her breast almost touched him. Her eyes were +half closed, and a little smile parted her full lips. + +"Charley," she drawled wickedly, "I warn _you_ to go slow. And I warn you +not to interfere with me--or I might interfere with you!" + +Morrell shrugged his shoulders, and turned away with an assumption of +indifference. + +"Please yourself. But I can't afford a scandal just now." + +"_You_ can't afford a _scandal!_" she cried, and laughed hardly. + +"Not just now," he repeated. + + + + +XVIII + + +Perhaps this unwise antagonizing by her husband, perhaps the idleness with +which the well-to-do woman was afflicted, perhaps a genuine liking for +Keith, gave Mrs. Morrell just the impulse needed. At any rate, she used the +common bond of music to bring him much into her company. This was not a +difficult matter. Keith was extravagantly fond of just this sort of +experimental amateur excursions into lighter music, and he liked Mrs. +Morrell. She was a good sort, straightforward and honest and direct, no +nonsense in her, but she knew her way about, and a man could have a sort of +pleasing, harmless flirtation to which she knew how to play up. There was +not, nor could there be--in Keith's mind--any harm in their relations. Nan +was the woman for him; but that didn't mean that he was never to see +anybody else, or that other women might not--of course in unessential and +superficial ways--answer some of his varied needs. + +Mrs. Morrell was skilful at keeping up his interest, and she was equally +skilful in gradually excluding Nan. This was not difficult, for Nan was +secretly bored by the eternal practising, and repelled by Mrs. Morrell's +efforts to be fascinating. She saw them plainly enough, but was at first +merely amused and faintly disgusted, for she was proud enough to believe +absolutely that such crude methods could have no effect on Milton, +overlooking the fact that the crudities of women never appear as plainly to +a man as they do to another woman. For a woman is in the know. At first she +offered one excuse or another, in an attempt to be both polite and +plausible. She much preferred a book at home, or a whole free evening to +work at making her house attractive. Later, Keith got into the habit of +taking her attitude for granted. + +"I promised to run over to the Morrells' this evening," he would say, "More +music. Of course you won't care to come. You won't be lonely? I won't be +gone late." + +"Of course not," she laughed. "I'm thankful for the chance to get through +with the blue room." + +Nevertheless, after a time she began to experience a faint, unreasonable +resentment; and Keith an equally faint, equally unreasonable feeling of +guilt. + +Left to itself this situation would, therefore, have righted itself, but +Mrs. Morrell was keen enough to give it the required directing touches: + +"Too bad we can't tear your wife away from her house and garden." + +"If you only had some one to practise with regularly at home! Your voice +ought to be systematically cultivated. It is wonderful!" + +And later: + +"You ought not to come here so much, I suppose--" rather doubtfully, "Any +sort of practice and accompaniment--even my poor efforts--does you so much +good! You or I would understand perfectly, but it is sometimes so difficult +for the inexperienced domestic type to comprehend! An older woman who +understands men knows--but come, we must sing that once more." + +The effect of these and a thousand similar speeches injected apparently at +random here and there in the tide of other things was at once to intensify +Keith's vague feeling of guilt, and to put it in the light somehow of an +injustice to himself. He had an unformulated notion that if Nan would or +could only understand the situation and be a good fellow that every one +would be happy; but as she was a mere woman, with a woman's prejudices, +this was impossible. It was absurd to expect him to give up his music just +because she wanted to be different! He had really nothing whatever to +conceal; and yet it actually seemed that difficulty and concealment would +be necessary if this sort of unspoken reproach were kept up. Women were so +confoundedly single-minded! + +And as the normal, healthy, non-introspective male tends to avoid +discomfort, even of his own making, it thus came about that Keith spent +less and less time at home. He did not explain to himself why. It was +certainly no lessening of his affection for Nan. Only he felt absolutely +sure of her, and the mental situation sketched above left him more open to +the lure of downtown, which to any live man was in those days especially +great. Every evening the "fellows" got together, jawed things over, played +pool, had a drink or so, wandered from one place to another, looked with +the vivid interest of the young and able-bodied on the seething, colourful, +vital life of the new community. It was all harmless and mighty pleasant. +Keith argued that he was "establishing connections" and meeting men who +could do his profession good, which was more or less true; but it took him +from home evenings. + +Nan, at first, quite innocently played into his hands. She really preferred +to stay at home rather than be bored at the Morrells'. Later, when this +tradition had been established, she began to be disturbed, not by any +suspicion that Milton's interest was straying, but by a feeling of neglect. +She was hurt. And little by little, in spite of herself, a jealousy of the +woman next door began to tinge her solitude. Her nature was too noble and +generous to harbour such a sentiment without a struggle. She blamed herself +for unworthy and wretched jealousy, and yet she could not help herself. +Often, especially at first, Keith in an impulse would throw over his plans, +and ask her to go to the theatre or a concert, of which there were many and +excellent. She generally declined, not because she did not want to go, but +because of that impelling desire, universal in the feminine soul, to be a +little wooed to it, to be compelled by gentle persuasion that should at +once make up for the past and be an earnest for the future. Only Keith took +her refusal at its face value. Nan was lonely and hurt. + +Her refusals to respond to his rather spasmodic attempts to be nice to her +were adopted by Keith's subconscious needs for comfort. If she didn't want +to see anything of life, she shouldn't expect him to bury himself. His +restless mind gradually adopted the fiction persistently held before him by +Mrs. Morrell that his wife was indeed a domestic little body, fond only of +her home and garden. As soon as he had hypnotized himself into the full +acceptance of this, he felt much happier, His uneasiness fell from him, and +he continued life with zest. If any one had told him that he was neglecting +Nan, he probably would have been surprised. They were busy; they met +amicably; there were no reproaches; they managed to get about and enjoy +things together quite a lot. + +The basis for the latter illusion rested on the Sunday excursions and +picnics. Both the Keiths always attended them. There was invariably the +same crowd--the Morrells; Dick Blatchford, the contractor, and his fat, +coarse-grained, good-natured Irish wife; Calhoun Bennett; Ben Sansome: +Sally Warner, a dashing grass widow, whose unknown elderly husband seemed +to be always away "at the mines"; Teeny McFarlane, small, dainty, precise, +blond, exquisite, cool, with very self-possessed manners and decided ways, +but with the capacity for occasionally and with deliberation outdoing the +worst of them, about whom were whispered furtive things the rumour of which +died before her armoured front; her husband, a fat, jolly, round-faced, +somewhat pop-eyed man who adored her and was absolutely ignorant of one +side of her. These and a sprinkling of "fast" youths made the party. +Sometimes the celebrated Sam Brannan went along, loud, coarse, shrewd, bull +voiced, kindly when not crossed, unscrupulous, dictatorial, and +overbearing, They all got to know each other very well and to be very free +in one another's society, + +The usual procedure was to drive in buggies, sometimes to the beach, +sometimes down the peninsula, starting rather early, and staying out all +day. Occasionally rather elaborate lunches were brought, with servants to +spread them; but the usual custom was to stop at one of the numerous road +houses. No man drove, walked, or talked with his own wife; nevertheless, +these affairs though rowdy, noisy, and "fast" enough, were essentially +harmless. The respectable members of the community were sufficiently +shocked, however. Gay dresses, gay laughter, gay behaviour, gay scorn of +convention, above all, the resort to the mysterious naughty road houses +were enough. It must be confessed that at times things seemed to go a bit +far; but Nan, who was at first bewildered and shocked, noticed that the +women did many things in public and nothing in private. As already her mind +and tolerance were adapting themselves to new things, she was able to +accept it all philosophically as part of a new phase of life. + +These people had no misgivings about themselves, and they passed judgment +on others with entire assurance. In their slang all with whom they came +into contact were either "hearses" or "live Mollies." There was nothing +racial, local, or social in this division. A family might be divided, one +member being a live Molly, and all the rest the most dismal of hearses. +Occasionally a stranger might be brought along. He did not know it, but +always he was very carefully watched and appraised: his status discussed +and decided at the supper to which the same people--minus all strangers-- +gathered later. At one of these discussions a third estate came into being. + +Teeny McFarlane had that day brought with her a young man of about twenty- +four or twenty-five, well dressed, of pleasant features, agreeable in +manner, well spoken, but quiet. + +"He isn't a live Molly," stated Sally positively. + +"Well, Sally took a walk with him," observed Sam Brannan dryly; "she ought +to know!" + +"Don't need to take a walk with him," countered Sally; "just take a talk +with him--or try to.". + +"I did try to," interpolated Mrs. Morrell. + +"May as well make it unanimous, looks like," said Sam. "He goes for a +hearse." + +But Teeny McFarlane interposed in her positive, precise little way. + +"I object," she drawled. "He certainly isn't as bad as all that. He's a +nice boy, and he never bored anybody in his life. Did he bore you, Sally?" + +"I can't say he did, now you mention it. He's one of those nice doggy +people you don't mind having around." + +They discussed the matter animatedly. Teeny McFarlane developed an +unexpected obstinacy. She did not suggest that the young man was to be +included in any of the future parties; indeed, she answered the direct +question decidedly in the negative; no, there was no use trying to include +anybody unless they decidedly "belonged." + +"You wouldn't call him a live Molly, now would you, Teeny?" implored Cal +Bennett. + +"No," she answered slowly, "I suppose not. But he is _not_ a hearse." + +The men, all but Popsy McFarlane, were inspecting Teeny's cool, unrevealing +exterior with covert curiosity. She was always an enigma to them. Each man +was asking himself why her interest in the mere labelling of this stranger. + +"He isn't a live Molly and she objects to his being a hearse," laughed +Sally. "He must be something between them. What," she inquired, with the +air of propounding a conundrum, "is between a live Molly and a hearse?" + +"Give it up!" they cried unanimously. + +Sally looked nonplussed, then shrieked: "Why, the pallbearers, of course!" + +The silly phrase caught. Thereafter, those who were acknowledged to be all +right enough but not of their feather were known as "pallbearers." + +The Keiths were live Mollies. He was decidedly one. His appearance alone +inspired good nature and high spirits, he looked so clean, vividly +coloured, enthusiastic, alive to his finger tips. He was always game for +anything, no matter how ridiculous it made him, or in what sort of a so- +called false position it might place him. When he had reached a certain +state of dancing-eyed joyous recklessness, Nan was always athrill as to +what he might do next. And Nan, spite of her quieter ways and the reserves +imposed on her by her breeding, was altogether too pretty and too much of a +real person ever to be classed as a hearse. With her ravishing Eastern +toilettes, her clear, creamy complexion, and the clean-cut lines of her +throat, chin, and cheeks, she always made the other women look a little too +vividly accented. The men all admired her on sight, and at first did their +best to interest her. They succeeded, for in general they were of vital +stuff, but not in the intimately personal way they desired. Her nature +found no thrill in experiment. One by one they gave her up in the favour of +less attractive but livelier or more complaisant companions; but they +continued to like her and to pay her much general attention. She never, in +any nuance of manner, even tried to make a difference; nevertheless, their +attitude toward her was always more deferential than to the other women. + +Ben Sansome was the one exception to the first part of the above statement. +Her gentle but obvious withdrawals from his advances piqued his conceit. +Ben was a spoiled youth, with plenty of money; and he had always been a +spoiled youth, with plenty of money. Why he had come to San Francisco no +one knew. Possibly he did not know himself; for as his affairs had always +been idle, he had drifted much, and might have drifted here. Whatever the +reason, the fact remained that in this busy, new, and ambitious community +he was the one example professionally of the gilded youth. His waistcoats, +gloves, varnished boots, jewellery, handkerchiefs were always patterns to +the other amateur, gilded youths who had also other things to do. His +social tact was enormous, and a recognized institution. If there had been +cotillons, he would have led them; but as there were no cotillons, he +contented himself with being an _arbiter elegantiarum_. He rather prided +himself on his knowledge of such things as jades, old prints, and obscure +poets of whom nobody else had ever heard. Naturally he had always been a +great success with women, both as harmless parlour ornaments, and in more +dangerous ways. In San Francisco he had probably carried farther than he +would have carried anywhere else. He had sustained no serious reverses, +because difficult game had not heretofore interested him. Entering half +interestedly with Nan into what he vaguely intended as one of his numerous, +harmless, artistic, perfumed flirtationlets, he had found himself +unexpectedly held at arm's length. Just this was needed to fillip his +fancy. He went into the game as a game. Sansome made himself useful. By +dint of being on hand whenever Keith's carelessness had left her in need of +an escort, and only then, he managed to establish himself on a recognized +footing as a sort of privileged, charming, useful, harmless family friend. + +Outside this small, rather lively coterie the Keiths had very few friends. +It must be confessed that the mothers of the future leaders of San +Francisco society, and the bearers of what were to be her proudest names, +were mostly "hearses." Their husbands were the forceful, able men of the +city, but they themselves were conventional as only conventional women can +be when goaded into it by a general free-and-easy, unconventional +atmosphere. That was their only method of showing disapproval. The effect +was worthy but dull. It was a pity, for among them were many intelligent, +charming women who needed only a different atmosphere, to expand. The +Keiths never saw them, and gained their ideas of them only from the +merciless raillery of the "live Mollies." + +All this implied more or less entertaining, and entertaining was expensive. +The Boyle house was expensive for that matter; and about everything else, +save Chinese servants, and, temporarily, whatever the latest clipper ship +had glutted the market with. Keith had brought with him a fair sum of money +with which to make his start; but under this constant drainage, it dwindled +to what was for those times a comparatively small sum. Clients did not +come. There were more men practising law than all the other professions. In +spite of wide acquaintance and an attractive popular personality, Keith had +not as yet made a start. He did not worry--that was not his nature--but he +began to realize that he must do one of two things: either make some money, +somehow, or give up his present mode of living. The latter course was +unthinkable! + + + + +XIX + + +One morning Keith was sitting in his office cogitating these things. His +door opened and a meek, mild little wisp of a man sidled in. He held his +hat in his hand, revealing clearly sandy hair and a narrow forehead. His +eyebrows and lashes were sandy, his eyes pale blue, his mouth weak but +obstinate. On invitation he seated himself on the edge of the chair, and +laid his hat carefully beside him on the floor. + +"I am Dr. Jacob Jones," he said, blinking at Keith. "You have heard of me?" + +"I am afraid I have not," said Keith pleasantly. + +The little man sighed. + +"I have held the City Hospital contract for three years," he explained, +"and they owe me a lot of money. I thought you might collect some of it." + +"I think if you'd put in a claim through the usual channels you'd receive +your dues," advised Keith, somewhat puzzled. He had not heard that the city +was refusing to pay legitimate claims. + +"I've done that, and they've given me these," said Doctor Jones, handing +Keith a bundle of papers. + +Keith glanced at them. + +"This is 'scrip,'" he said. "It's perfectly good. When the city is without +current funds it issues this scrip, bearing interest at 3 per cent. a +month. It's all right." + +"Yes, I know," said the little man ineffectually, "but I don't want scrip." + +Keith ran it over. It amounted to something like eleven thousand dollars. + +"What do you want done about it?" he asked, + +"I want you to collect the money for me." + +But Keith, had recollected something. + +"Just wait a minute, please," he begged, and darted across the hall to a +friend's office, returning after a moment with a file of legislative +reports. "I thought I'd heard something about it; here it is. The State +Legislature has voted an issue of 10 per cent. bonds to take up the scrip." + +"I don't understand," said Doctor Jones. + +"Why, you take your scrip to the proper official and exchange it for an +equal value of State bonds." + +"But what good does that do me?" cried Jones excitedly. "It doesn't get me +my money. They don't guarantee I can sell the bonds at par, do they? And +answer me this: isn't it just a scheme to cheat me of my interest? As I +understand it, instead of 3 per cent. a month I'm to get 10 per cent. a +year?" + +"That's the effect," corroborated Keith. + +"Well, I don't want bonds, I want money, as is my due." + +"Wait a minute," said Keith. He read the report again slowly. "This says +that holders of scrip _may_ exchange, for bonds; it does not say they +_must_ exchange," he said finally. "If that interpretation is made of the +law, suit and judgment would lie against the city. Do you want to try +that?" + +"Of course I want to try it!" cried Jones. + +"Well, bring me your contract and vouchers, and any other papers to do with +the case, and I'll see what can be done." + +"I have them right here," said Doctor Jones. + +This, as Keith's first case, interested him more than its intrinsic worth +warranted. It amused him to bring all his powers to bear, fighting strongly +for the technical point, and finally establishing it in court. In spite of +the evident intention of the Legislature that city scrip should be retired +in favour of bonds, it was ruled that the word _may_ in place of the word +_must_ practically nullified that intention. Judgment was obtained against +the city for eleven thousand dollars, and the sheriff was formally +instructed to sell certain water-front lots in order to satisfy that +judgment. The sale was duly advertised in the papers. + +Next morning, after the first insertion of this advertisement, Keith had +three more callers. These were men of importance: namely, John Geary, the +first postmaster and last _alcalde_ of the new city; William Hooper, and +James King of William, at that time still a banker. These were grave, +solid, and weighty citizens, plainly dressed, earnest, and forceful. They +responded politely but formally to Keith's salute, and seated themselves. + +"You were, I understand, counsel for Doctor Jones in obtaining judgment on +the hospital scrip?" inquired Geary. + +"That is correct," acknowledged Keith. + +"We have called to inform you of a fact that perhaps escaped your notice: +namely, that these gentlemen and myself have been appointed by the +Legislature as commissioners to manage the funded debt of the city; that, +for that purpose, title of all city lands has been put in our hands." + +"No, I did not know that," said Keith. + +"Therefore, you see," went on Geary, "the sheriff cannot pass title to any +lots that might be sold to satisfy Doctor Jones's judgment." + +Keith pondered, his alert mind seizing with avidity on this new and +interesting situation. + +"No, I cannot quite see that," he said at last; "the actual title is in the +city. It owns its property. You gentlemen do not claim to own it, as +individuals. You have delegated to you the power to pass title, just as the +sheriff and one or two others have that power; but you have not the _sole_ +power." + +"We have advice that title conveyed under this judgment will be invalid." + +"That is a matter for the courts to settle." + +"The courts----" began Hooper explosively, but Geary overrode him. + +"If all the creditors of the city were to adopt the course pursued by +Doctor Jones, the city would soon be bankrupt of resources." + +"That is true," agreed Keith. + +"Then cannot I appeal to your sense of civic patriotism?" + +"Gentlemen," replied Keith, "you seem to forget that in this matter I am +not acting for myself, but for a client. If it were my affair, I might feel +inclined to discuss the matter with you more in detail. But I am only an +agent." + +"But----" interrupted Hooper again. + +"That is quite true," interjected James King of William. + +"Well, we shall see your client," went on Geary, "But I might state that on +the side of his own best interests he would do well to go slow. There is at +least a considerable doubt as to the legality of this sale. It is unlikely +that people will care to bid." + +After some further polite conversation they took their leave. Keith quickly +discovered that the opinion held by the commissioners was shared by most of +his friends. They acknowledged the brilliance of his legal victory, admired +it heartily, and congratulated him; but they considered that victory +barren. + +"Nobody will buy; you won't get two bits a lot bid," they all told him. + +Little Doctor Jones came to him much depressed. The commissioners had +talked with him. + +"Do you want my advice?" asked Keith, "Then do this: stick to your guns." + +But little Jones was scared. + +"I want my money," said he; "perhaps I'd better take those bonds after +all." + +"Look here," suddenly said Keith, who had been making up his mind. "I'll +guarantee you the full amount in cash, within, say, two weeks, but only on +this condition: that you go out now, and spread it about everywhere that +you are going to stand pat. Tell 'em all you are going to push through this +sale." + +"How do I know----" + +"Take a chance," interrupted Keith. "If at the end of two weeks I don't pay +you cash, you can do what you please. Call off the sheriff's sale at the +last minute; I'll pay the costs myself. Come, that's fair enough. You can't +lose a cent." + +"All right," agreed Jones after a minute. + +"Remember: it's part of the bargain that you state everywhere that you're +going to force this sale, and that you don't let anybody bluff you." + +The affair made quite a little stir. Men like Sam Brannan, Dick Blatchford, +the contractor, and Jim Polk discussed Keith and his ability. + +"Got a pretty wife, too," added Brannan. "--never heard of the fall of +man." + +"Well, she's going to, if the Morrell woman has her way," observed Ben +Sansome dryly. + +Polk stretched his long legs, and smiled his desiccated little smile. + +"He's a pretty enterprising youngster--more ways than one," said he. + + + + +XX + + +On the evening of the third day after his latest interview with Doctor +Jones, Keith threw down his paper with a cry of triumph. He had been +scanning the columns of every issue with minute care, combing even the fine +print for the auctioneer's advertisements. Here was what he wanted: top of +column, third page, where every one would be sure to see it. The +commissioners issued a signed statement, calling public attention to the +details of their appointment, and warning that titles issued under +sheriff's sale would be considered invalid. + +Keith read this with great attention, then drew his personal check against +Palmer, Cook & Co. for eleven thousand dollars in favour of Doctor Jones. +After some search he unearthed the little man in a downtown rookery, and +from him obtained an assignment of his judgment against the city. Doctor +Jones lost no time spreading the news, with the additional statement that +he considered himself well out of the mess. He proceeded to order himself a +long-coveted microscope, and was thenceforth lost to sight among low-tide +rocks and marine algae. The sheriff's sale came off at the advertised date. +There were no bidders; the commissioners' warning had had its effect. Keith +himself bought in the lots for $5,000. This check about exhausted his +resources. This, less costs, was, of course, paid back to himself as holder +of the judgment. He had title, such as it was, for about what he had given +Jones. + +The bargain amused Keith's acquaintance hugely. Whenever he appeared he was +deluged with chaff, all of which he took, good naturedly. He was +considered, in a moment of aberration, to have bought an exceedingly +doubtful equity. Some thought, he must have a great deal of money, arguing +that only the owner of a fat bank account could afford to take such fliers; +others considered that he must have very little sense. Keith was apparently +unperturbed. He at once began to look about him, considering the next step +in his scheme. Since this investment had taken nearly every cent he had +left, it was incumbent to raise more money at once. + +He called on John Sherwood at the Empire. The gambler listened to him +attentively. + +"I can't go into it," he said, when Keith had finished. A slight smile +sketched itself on his strong, impassive face. "Not that I do not believe +it will work; I think it will. But I have long made it a rule never to try +to make money outside my own business--which is gambling. I never adopt +ordinary honest methods." + +Keith's honest but legally trained mind failed to notice the quiet sarcasm +of this. "Well, you know everybody in town. Where can I go?" + +Sherwood thought a moment. + +"I'll take you to Malcolm Neil," he said at last. It was Keith's turn to +look thoughtful. + +"All right," he said at last. "But not just right away. Give me a couple of +days to get ready." + +At the appointed time Sherwood escorted Keith to Malcolm Neil's office, +introduced and left him. Keith took the proffered wooden chair, examining +his man with the keenest attention. + +Malcolm Neil, spite of his Scotch name, was a New Englander by birth. He +had come out in '49, intending, like everybody else, to go to the mines, +but had never gone farther than San Francisco. The new city offered ample +scope for his talents, and he speedily became, not only rich, but a +dominating personality among financial circles. He accomplished this by +supplementing his natural ability with absolute singleness of purpose. It +was known that his sole idea was the making of money. He was reputed to be +hard, devoid of sentiment, unscrupulous. Naturally he enjoyed no +popularity, but a vast respect. More people had heard of him, or felt his +power, than had seen him; for he went little abroad, and preferred to work +through agents. John Sherwood's service in obtaining for Keith a personal +interview was a very real one. Neil's offices were small, dingy, and ill +lighted, at the back of one of the older and cheaper buildings. In the +outer of the two were three bookkeepers; the other contained only a desk, +two chairs, and an engraving of Daniel Webster addressing the Senate. + +The man himself sat humped over slightly, his head thrust a little forward +as though on the point of launching a truculent challenge. He was lean, +gray, with bushy, overhanging brows, eyes with glinting metallic surfaces, +had long sinewy hands, and a carved granite and inscrutable face, His few +words of greeting revealed his voice as harsh, grating and domineering. + +Keith, reading his man, wasted no time in preliminaries. + +"Mr. Neil," he said, "I have a scheme by which a great deal of money can be +made." + +Neil grunted. If it had not been for the fact that John Sherwood had +introduced the maker of that speech, the interview would have here +terminated. Malcolm Neil deeply distrusted men with schemes to make large +sums of money. After a time, as Keith still waited, he growled; + +"What is it?" + +"That," said Keith, "I shall not disclose until my standing in the matter +is assured." + +"What do you want?" growled Neil. + +"Fifty per cent of the profits, if you go in." + +"What do you want of me?" + +"The capital." + +"What is the scheme?" + +"That I cannot tell you without some assurance of your good intention." + +"What do you expect?" rasped Neil, "that I go into this blind?" + +"I have prepared this paper," said Keith, handing him a document. + +Neil glanced over the paper, then read it through slowly, with great care. +When he had finished, he looked up at Keith, and there was a gleam of +admiration in his frosty eye. + +"You are a lawyer, I take it?" he surmised. + +Keith nodded. Neil went over the document for the third time. + +"And a good one," added Neil. "This is watertight. It seems to be a +contract agreeing to the division you suggest, _providing_ I go into the +scheme. Very well, I'll sign this." He raised his voice. "Samuels, come in +and witness this. Now, what is the scheme?" + +Keith produced another paper. + +"It is written out in detail here." + +Neil reached for it, but Keith drew it back. + +"One moment." + +He turned it over on the blank side and wrote: + +"This is in full the financial deal referred to in contract entered into +this 7th of June, 1852, by Malcolm Neil and Milton Keith." + +To this he appended his signature, then handed the pen to Neil. + +"Sign," he requested. + +Neil took the pen, but hesitated for some moments, his alert brain seeking +some way out. Finally and grudgingly he signed. Then he leaned back in his +chair, eying Keith with rather a wintry humour, though he made no comment. +He reached again for the paper, but Keith put his hand on it. + +"What more do you want?" inquired Neil in amused tones. His sense of humour +had been touched on its only vulnerable point. He appreciated keen and +subtle practice when he saw it, + +"Not a thing," laughed Keith, "but a few words of explanation before you +read that will make it more easily understood. Can you tell me how much +water lots are worth?" + +"Five to eight thousand for fifty varas." + +"All right. I've bought ten fifty vara lots at sheriff's sale for five +thousand dollars." + +Neil's eye went cold. + +"I've heard of that. Your title is no good. The reason you got them so +cheaply was that nobody would bid because of that." + +"That's for the courts to decide. The fact remains that I've a title, even +though clouded, at $500 per lot." + +"Proceed." + +"Well, the commissioners are now advertising a sale of these same lots at +auction on the 15th." + +"So I see." + +"Well," said Keith softly, "it strikes me that whoever buys these lots then +is due for a heap of trouble." + +"How so?" + +"My title from the sheriff may be clouded, but it will be contested against +the title given at that sale. The purchaser will have to defend himself up +to the highest court. I can promise him a good fight." + +Neil was now watching him steadily, + +"If that fact could be widely advertised," went on Keith slowly, "by way of +a threat, so to speak, it strikes me it would be very apt to discourage +bidding at the commissioners' sale. Nobody wants to buy a lot of lawsuits, +at any price. In absence of competition, a fifty vara lot might be sold for +as low as--say $500." + +Neil nodded, Keith leaned forward. + +"Now here's my real idea: suppose _I_ buy in against this timid bidding. +Suppose _I_ am the one who gets the commissioners' title for $500. Then I +have both titles. And I am not likely to contest against myself. It's cost +me $1,000 per lot--$500 at each sale--a profit of from $4,000 to $7,000 on +each lot." + +He leaned back. Malcolm Neil sat like a graven image, no expression showing +on his flintlike face nor in his eyes. At length he chuckled harshly. Then, +and not until then, Keith proceeded: + +"But that isn't all. There's plenty more scrip afloat. If you can buy up as +much of it as you can scrape together, I'll get judgment for it in the +courts, and we can enlarge the deal until somebody smells a rat. We need +several things." + +"What?" + +"Secrecy." + +Neil made no reply, but the lines of his mouth straightened. + +"Influence to push matters along in official circles." + +"Matters will be pushed along." + +"A newspaper." + +"Leave that to me." + +"Agents--not known to be connected with us." + +Neil nodded. + +"Working capital--but that is provided for in the contract. And"--he +hesitated--"it will not harm to have these matters brought before a court +whose judge is not unfriendly." + +"I can arrange for that, Mr. Keith." + +Keith arose. + +"Then that is settled." He picked up the duplicate copy of the contract. +"There remains only one other formality." + +"Yes? What?" + +"Your check for $12,000." + +"What for?" + +"For my expenses in this matter up to date." + +"What!" cried Neil. + +"The contract specifies that you are to furnish the working capital," Keith +pointed out. + +"But that means the future--" + +"It doesn't say so." + +Neil paused a moment. + +"This contract would not hold in law, and you know it," he asserted boldly. +"It would be held to be an illegal conspiracy." + +"I would be pleased to have you point out the illegality in court," said +Keith coldly, his manner as frosty as Neil's. "And if conspiracy exists, +your name is affixed to it." + +Neil pondered this point a moment, then drew his checkbook toward him with +a grim little smile. + +"Young man, you win," said he. + +Keith thawed to sunniness at once. + +"Oh, we'll work together all right, once we understand each other," he +laughed. "Send your man out after scrip. Let him report to me." + +Neil arose rather stiffly, and extended his hand. + +"All right, all right!" he muttered, as though impatient. "Keep In touch. +Good-day. Good-day." + + + + + +XXI + + +The time for the annual Firemen's Ball was now at hand. At this period the +Firemen's Ball was an institution of the first social importance. As has +been shown, the various organizations were voluntary associations, and in +their ranks birds of a feather flocked together. On the common meeting +ground of the big annual function all elements met, even--if they did not +mingle as freely as they might. + +In any case, the affair was very elaborate and very gorgeous. Preparations +were in the hands of special committees months in advance. One company had +charge of the refreshments, another of the music, a third of the floor +arrangements, and so on. There was much jealous anxiety that each should do +its part thoroughly and lavishly, for the honour of its organization. The +members of each committee were distinguished by coloured ribbons, which +they wore importantly everywhere. An air of preoccupied business was the +proper thing for days before the event. + +It was held this year in one of the armouries. The decoration committee had +done its most desperate. Flags of all nations and strips of coloured +bunting draped the rafters; greens from the Sausalito Hills framed the +windows and doors; huge oiled Chinese lanterns swayed from the roofs. The +floor shone like glass. At either end bowers of green half concealed the +orchestras--two of them, that the music might never cease. The side rooms +were set for refreshments. Many chairs lined the walls. Hundreds of lamps +and reflectors had been nailed up in every conceivable place. It took a +negro over an hour to light them all. Near the door stood a wide, flat +table piled high with programs for the dancers. These were elaborate +affairs, and had cost a mint of money--vellum folders, emblazoned in colour +outside, with a sort of fireman heraldry and the motto: "We strive to +save." Gilded pencils on short silken tasselled cords dangled from their +corners. + +At eight o'clock the lights were all blazing, the orchestras were tuning, +and the floor fluttered with anxious labelled committeemen dashing to and +fro. There was nothing for them to do, but they were nervous. By half-past +eight the first arrivals could be seen hesitating at the outer door, as +though reluctant to make a plunge; herded finally to the right and left of +men's and women's dressing-rooms. After a long, chattering interval, +encouraged by the slow accumulation of numbers, a little group debouched on +the main, floor. Its members all talked and laughed feverishly, and tried +with varying success to assume an accustomed ease they did not feel. Most +of the women, somehow, seemed all white gloves and dancing slippers, and +bore themselves rather like affable, slightly scared rabbits. The men +suddenly became very facetious, swapping jokes in loud tones. + +The orchestra at the far end immediately struck up, but nobody ventured on +the huge and empty floor. Masters of ceremonies, much bebadged, rather +conscious of white gloves, strove earnestly with hurried, ingratiating +smiles to induce the younger members to break the ice. Ben Sansome, +remarkable among them for his social ease and the unobtrusive correctness +of his appointments, responsible head of the reception committee, +masterfully seized a blushing, protesting damsel and whirled her away. +This, however, was merely an informal sort of opening. The real bail could +start only with the grand march; and the grand march was a pompous and +intricate affair, possible only after the arrival of the city's elite. +Partners for the grand march had been bespoken months before. + +The Keiths arrived about half-past nine. Nan was looking particularly well +in her girlish fashion. Her usual delicate colour was heightened by +anticipation, for she intended ardently to "have a good time." For this +occasion, too, she had put on the best of her new Eastern clothes, and was +confident of the sensation they would create in the feminine breast. The +gown was of silk the colour of pomegranate blossoms, light and filmy, with +the wide skirts of the day, the short sleeves, the low neck. Over bodice +and skirt had been gracefully trailed long sprays of blossoms. Similar +flowers wreathed her head, on which the hair was done low and smooth, with +a golden arrow securing it. A fine golden chain spanned her waist. From it +dangled smaller chains at the ends of which depended little golden hands. +These held up the front of the skirt artistically, at just the right height +for dancing and to show flounces and ravishing petticoats beneath. It was +an innovation of the sort the feminine heart delights in, a brand-new thing +straight from Paris. Nan's gloves were of half length, the backs of the +hands embroidered and displaying each several small sparkling jewels. The +broad golden bracelets had been clasped outside the gloves. Around her +little finger was a ring from which depended, on the end of a chain, a +larger ring, and through this larger ring hung her dainty lace +handkerchief. This was innovation number two. The men all stared at her +proud, delicate, flowerlike effect of fresh beauty; but every woman +present, and Nan knew it, noted first, the cut of her gown, second, the +dangling little golden hands, and third, the handkerchief ring. She knew +that not later than to-morrow at least a half-dozen urgent orders would be +booked at Palmerston's; but she knew, also, that at least six months must +elapse before those orders could be filled. As for the rest, her stockings +were white, her slippers ribboned with cross-ties up the ankles, she +carried a stiff and formal bouquet, as big around as a plate, composed of +wired flowers ornamented with a "cape" of lace paper; but those things were +common. + +Altogether, Nan looked extraordinarily well, made a sensation. Keith was +pleased and proud of her. He picked one of the blazoned vellum cards from +the table and scrawled his initials opposite half a dozen dances. + +"I'm going to hold you to those, you know," he said. + +They proceeded, leisurely across the floor, and Keith established her in +one of the chairs. + +"I'll go get some of the men I want you to meet," said he. When he returned +with Bernard Black he found Nan already surrounded, Ben Sansome was there, +and Calhoun Bennett, and a half-dozen others, either acquaintances made on +some of the Sundays, or young men brought up by Sansome in his capacity of +Master of Ceremonies. She was having a good time laughing, her colour high, +Keith looked about him with the intention of filling his own card. + +Mrs, Morrell, surrounded by a hilarious group of the younger fry, was just +entering the room. She was dressed in flame colour, and her gown was cut +very low, plainly to reveal the swell of her ample bosom. Her evening +gloves and slippers were golden, as was a broad metallic woven band around +her waist. Altogether, striking, rather a conspicuous effort than an +artistic success, any woman would have said; but there could be no doubt +that she had provided a glittering bait for the attentions of the men. + +Keith immediately made his way across to her. + +"You are ravishing this evening," he said, reaching for her card. It was +full. Keith was chopfallen. + +"Take me to Mrs. Keith," asked Mrs. Morrell, taking the card again, "She +looks charming to-night; that simple style just suits her wide-eyed +innocence." + +She placed her fingers lightly on Keith's arm and moved away, nodding over +her shoulder at the rather nonplussed young men who had come in with her. +Thus rid of them, she turned again to Keith. + +"You didn't think I'd forget you!" she said, as though, reproachfully. +"See, I kept you four dances. I put down those initials myself. Now don't +you think I'm a pretty good sort?" + +"Indeed I do! Which ones are they?" asked Keith, opening his own card. + +"The third, seventh, ninth, and eleventh." + +Keith hesitated for an appreciable instant. The seventh and eleventh he had +put down for Nan. But somehow in the face of this smiling, cynical-looking, +vivid creature, he rather shrank from saying that he had them with his +wife. He swiftly reflected that, after all, he had four others with Nan, +that she was so surrounded with admirers that she could not go partnerless, +and that he would explain. + +"Delightful!" he cried, pencilling his program. + +Mrs. Morrell fluttered down alongside Mrs. Keith with much small talk. +After a moment the music started for the grand march. Everybody took the +floor. + +"Where can Charley be!" cried Mrs. Morrell in apparent distress. "Don't +wait here with me. I assure you I do not in the least mind sitting alone." + +But she said it in a fashion that made it impossible, and in this manner +Nan lost her first engagement with her husband. Not that it mattered +particularly, she told herself, grand marches were rather silly things, and +yet she could not avoid a feeling of thwarted pique at being so tied to the +wall. + +At the close of the march, and after the couples had pretty well resumed +their seats, Mrs. Sherwood entered, unattended and very leisurely. She +made, in her quieter manner, a greater sensation than had Mrs. Morrell. +Quite self-possessed, carrying herself with her customary poise, dressed +unobtrusively in black and gold, but with the distinction of an indubitable +Parisian model, moving without self-consciousness in contrast to many of +the other women, her small head high, her direct gaze a-smoulder with lazy +amusement, she glided across the middle of the floor. The eyes of every +woman in the ballroom were upon her. The "respectable" element stared +shamelessly, making comments aside. Those a little _declasse_, on the +fringe of society, or the "faster" women like Mrs. Morrell--who might in a +way be considered her rivals--were apparently quite unaware of her. She +made her unhasting way to a vacant chair, sat down, and looked calmly about +her. + +Immediately she was surrounded by a swarm of the unattached men. The +attached men became very attentive to their partners. + +"Hullo," remarked Keith cheerfully. "There's Mrs. Sherwood. I must go over +and say good-evening to her." + +On sudden impulse Nan rose with him. She instinctively disliked her present +company and the situation; and a sudden pang of conscience had told her +that not once since she had left the Bella Union had she laid eyes on the +woman who had received her with so much kindness. + +"Take me with you," she said to Keith. + +"My dear!" cried Mrs. Morrell. "You wouldn't! Take my advice--you're young +and innocent!" + +She sought one of those exclusive, private-joke glances at Keith, but +failed to catch his eye. + +"She was very kind to me when I arrived," said Nan serenely. Keith, +hesitated; then his impulsive, warm-hearted loyalty spoke. + +"Good for you, Nan!" he cried. + +They moved away, leaving Mrs. Morrell alone, biting her lip and planning +revenges. + +The group around Mrs. Sherwood fell away at their approach. Nan sat down +next her, leaning forward with a pretty and girlish, impulsiveness. + +"It's ages since I have seen you, and I have no excuse to offer," she said. +"The days slip by." + +"I know," said Mrs. Sherwood. "New house, new Chinaman, even new dog-- +enough to drive the most important thoughts out of one's head. But you've +come out to-night like a flower, my dear. Your gown is charming, and it +suits you so well!" + +She chatted on, speaking of the floor, the music, the decorations, the +crowd. + +"I love this sort of thing," she remarked. "People in the mass amuse me. +Jack couldn't get away until midnight, but I wouldn't wait for him. I told +him it didn't worry me a bit to come without an escort," smoothing away +what little embarrassment might linger. The music started up again. The +Keiths arose and made their adieux. Mrs, Sherwood looked after them, her +bright eyes tender. Mrs. Keith was the only woman who had yet spoken to +her. + +"Isn't she simply stunning?" cried Keith. "She has something about her that +makes most of these others look cheap." + +"She's really wonderfully attractive and distinguished looking," agreed +Nan. + +"If she were only a little less practical--a little softer; more feminine-- +she'd be a sure-enough man killer. As it is, she needs a little more--you +know what I mean--" + +"More after Mrs. Morrell's fashion," suggested Nan a trifle wickedly. It +popped out on the impulse, and the next instant Nan would have given +anything if the words had not been said. Keith was arrested in mid- +enthusiasm as though by cold water. He checked himself, looked at her +sharply, then accepted the pseudo-challenge. + +"Well, Mrs. Morrell, for all her little vulgarities, impresses you as being +a very human sort of person." + +He felt a sudden and unreasoning anger, possibly because the shot had hit a +tender place. + +"Shall we dance?" he suggested formally. + +"I'm sorry," replied Nan, "I have this with Mr. Sansome; there he comes." + +For the first time Keith felt a little irritated at the ubiquitous Sansome; +but his sense of justice, while it could not smooth his ruffled feelings, +nevertheless made itself heard. + +"What I need is a drink," he told himself. + +At the buffet he found a crowd of the non-dancing men, or those who had +failed to get the early numbers. Here were many of his acquaintances; among +them, to his surprise, he recognized the grim features of Malcolm Neil. All +were drinking champagne. Keith joined them. They chaffed him unmercifully +about his purchases of clouded titles in water lots, and he answered them +in kind, aware of Neil's sardonically humorous eye fixed on him. But at the +first bars of the next dance he bolted in search of Mrs. Morrell, with +whom, he remembered, he had this number. + +Mrs. Morrell danced smoothly and lightly for a woman of her size, but was +inclined to snuggle up too close, to permit undistracted guidance to her +partner. It was almost impossible to avoid collisions with other couples, +unless one possessed a Spartan mind and an iron will. In spite of himself, +Keith became increasingly aware of her breast pressing against his chest; +her smooth arm against his shoulder; the occasional passing contact of her, +scarcely veiled from the sense of touch by the thin flame-coloured silk; +the perfume she affected; the faint odour of her bright blond hair. In an +attempt to break the spell he made some banal remark, but she shook her +head impatiently. She danced with her eyes half closed. When the music +stopped she drew a deep sighing breath. + +"You dance--oh, divinely!" she cried. "I might have known it." + +She moved away, and Keith followed her, a trifle intoxicated. + +"Let me see your card," she demanded abruptly. "Why, you haven't done your +duty; this is hardly a third filled!" + +"I hadn't started to fill it--and then you came in," breathed Keith. + +They were opposite the door leading into one of the numerous small rooms +off the main floor of the armoury. + +"Let's sit here--and you can get me a punch," she suggested. + +He brought the punch, and she drank it slowly, leaning back in an easy +chair. The place was dimly lighted, and her blond, full beauty was more +effective than in the more brilliantly lighted ballroom. Mrs. Morrell +exerted all her fascination. The next dance was half over before either +Keith or--apparently--Mrs. Morrell became aware of the fact. + +"Oh, you must run!" she cried, apparently greatly exercised. "Don't mind +me; go and find your partner." + +Keith replied, that he had this dance free, a fact of which her inspection +of his card had perfectly informed her. In answer to his return +solicitation as to her own partner, she shrugged her shoulders. + +"Oh, he'll find me," she said indifferently. "This is very cozy here." + +They resumed what had become an ardent flirtation. Toward the end of the +dance Mrs. Morrell's partner came in, looking very flurried. Before he +could say a word, Mrs. Morrell began reproachfully to chide him with lack +of diligence. + +"I've been waiting just _rooted_ to this spot!" she said truthfully. + +"Shall we dance?" suggested the unfortunate young man. + +"It's nearly over," replied Mrs. Morrell carelessly. "Do sit down with us. +Get yourself something to drink. _Don't go!_" she commanded Keith fiercely +under her breath. + +At the beginning of the fourth dance, however, her next partner found her +and led her away. She "made a face" over her shoulder at Keith. + +When a woman makes up her mind to monopolize a man who has not acquired the +fine arts of rudeness and escape she generally succeeds. Keith's cordial +nature was incapable of rudeness. Besides, being a perfectly normal man, +and Mrs. Morrell experienced and attractive, he liked being monopolized. It +crossed his mind once or twice that he might be in for a scolding when he +got home. Nan might be absurd. But he was so secure in his essential +loyalty to Nan that his present conduct was more in the nature of a +delightfully naughty escapade than anything else. He stole the apples now, +and later would go dutifully for his licking. Men of Keith's nature are +easily held and managed by a wise woman, but the woman must be very wise. +Keith loved celebrations. On the wings of an occasion he rose joyfully and +readily to incredible altitudes of high-spirited but harmless recklessness. +Birthdays, anniversaries, New Years, Christmas, arrivals, departures, he +seized upon with rapture. Each had its appropriate ceremonial, its +traditional drink, the painstaking brewing of which was a sacred rite. On +such occasions he tossed aside the cloak of the everyday. A "celebration" +meant that you were different. Humdrum life and habits must be relegated to +the background. It was permitted that, unabashed, you be as silly, as +frivolous, as inconsequential, as boisterous, as lighthearted, as +delightfully irresponsible as your ordinary concealed boyishness pleased. +Customary repressions had nothing to do here. This was a celebration! And +in the aforementioned our very wise woman would have seen--a safety valve. + +Keith was off on a celebration to-night: an unpremeditated, freakish, +impish, essentially harmless celebration, with a faint flavour of mischief +in it because he had Nan in the back of his head all the time. He played up +to Mrs. Morrell with exuberance, with honestly no thought except that he +was having a whacking good time, and that old Nan was being teased. It was +characteristic that for the time being he fell completely under Mrs. +Morrell's fascination. They were together fully half the time, appearing on +the floor only occasionally, then disappearing in one or the other of the +many nooks. Mrs. Morrell "bolted" her dances shamelessly. Keith thought her +awfully amusing and ingenious in the way she managed this. Sometimes they +hid in out-of-the-way places. Sometimes she pretended to have mistaken the +dance. "The sixth, are you very _sure_? I'm convinced it is only the +fifth." Keith's conscience troubled him a little concerning the few names +on his own card. + +"I have this with Mrs. Wilkins," said he. "I really ought to go and look +her up." + +She took his card from him and deliberately tore it to small bits which she +blew from the palm of her gloved hand. He protested in real dismay, but she +looked him challengingly, recklessly, in the eye, until he laughed, too. + +All this was, of course, well noticed. Keith, again characteristically, had +not taken into consideration the great public. Nan might have remained +comparatively indifferent to Keith's philandering about for an evening with +the Morrell creature--she had by now a dim but growing understanding of +"celebrations"--but that he should deliberately neglect and insult her in +the face of all San Francisco was too much. Her high, young enjoyment of +the evening fell to ashes. She was furiously angry, but she was a +thoroughbred. Only a heightened colour and a sparkling eye might have +betrayed her to an astute woman. Observing her, Ben Sansome took heart. It +was evident to him that the Keiths had long since reached an absolute +indifference in their relations, that they lived the conventional, +tolerant, separate lives of the majority of married couples in Ben +Sansome's smart acquaintance. He ventured to apply himself more +assiduously, and was by no means badly received. + +Keith remembered the next dance with his wife. He could not find her, +although, a trifle conscience stricken, he searched everywhere. After the +music had finished, she emerged from the dressing-room; the next time she +could not be found at all. Evidently she was avoiding him with intention. + +Mrs. Sherwood, after each dance, returned invariably to the same chair near +the middle of one wall. There, owing to the fact that the "respectables" +withdrew from the chairs on either side, withdrew gradually and without +open rudeness, she held centre of a little court of her own. This made of +it a sort of post of observation from which she could review all that was +going on. She had no lack of partners, for she danced wonderfully, and in +looks was quite the most distinguished woman there. Keith's dance with her +came and went, but no Keith appeared to claim it. Mrs. Sherwood smiled a +little grimly, and her glance strayed down the wall opposite until it +rested on Nan. She examined the girl speculatively. Nan was apparently +completely absorbed in Ben Sansome; but there was in her manner something +feverish, hectic, a mere nothing, which did not escape Mrs. Sherwood's keen +eye. + +About midnight Sherwood appeared, and at once made his way to his wife's +side. He was punctiliously dressed in the mode: a "swallowtail," bright, +soft silk tie of ample proportions, frilled linen, and sparkling studs. He +bent with an old-world formality over his wife's hand. She swept away her +skirts from the chair at her side, her eyes sparkling softly with pleasure. + +"You won't mind," she said carelessly to the young men surrounding her, "I +want to talk to Jack for a minute." + +They arose, laughing a little. + +"That is your one fault, Mrs. Sherwood," said one, "you are altogether too +fond of your husband." + +"Well, how are things going?" asked Sherwood, as they moved away. + +"I'm having a good time. But you're very late, Jack," + +"I know--I wanted to come earlier. Everything all right?" + +At the question a little frown sketched itself on her clear brow. + +"In general, yes," she said. "But they've got that Lewis boy out in the bar +filling him up on champagne." + +"That's a pity." + +"It's a burning shame!" said she, "And I'd like to shake young Keith. He's +dangled after the Morrell woman from start to finish in a manner scandalous +to behold." + +Sherwood laughed. + +"The 'Morrell woman' will do his education good," he remarked. + +"Well, she isn't doing that poor little Mrs. Keith's education any good," +returned Mrs. Sherwood rather tartly. + +Sherwood surveyed Nan and Ben Sansome leisurely. + +"I must say she doesn't look crushed," he said, after a moment. + +"Do you expect her to weep violently?" asked Mrs. Sherwood. + +He accepted good naturedly the customary feminine scorn for the customary +masculine obtuseness. + +"Well, I don't know that we can help it," said he, philosophically. + +Mrs. Sherwood appeared to come to a sudden resolution. She arose. + +"You go get that Lewis boy away from the bar," she commanded. + +Deliberately she shook and arranged her full skirts. The man with whom she +had this dance, and who had been waiting dutifully for the conference to +close, darted forward. She shook her head at him smilingly. + +"I'm going to let you off," she told him. "You won't mind. I have something +extra special to do." + +She swept quite alone across the middle of the ballroom, serene, self- +possessed; and walked directly toward Keith and Mrs. + +Morrell, who were seated together at the other end. A perceptible pause +seemed to descend. The music kept on playing, couples kept on dancing, but, +nevertheless, suddenly the air was charged with attention. Sherwood looked +after her with mingled astonishment and fond pride. + +"A frontal attack, egad!" said he to himself. + +Keith and Mrs. Morrell pretended, as long as they decently could, not to +see her. She swam leisurely toward them. Finally Keith arose hastily; Mrs. +Morrell stared straight ahead. + +"Young man," accused Mrs. Sherwood, with a faint amusement in her rich, low +voice, "do you know that this is our dance?" + +Keith excused his apparent lapse volubly, telling several times over that +his program had been destroyed, that he was abject when he thought of the +light this put him in. + +"It is only when angels like yourself condescend to reach me a helping hand +that I have even a chance to right myself," he added. He thought this +rather a good touch. + +Mrs. Sherwood stood before him easily, in perfect repose of manner, the +half smile still sketching her lips. She said just nothing at all in +response to his glib excuses; but when he had quite finished she laid her +hand in his arm. Mrs. Morrell, her colour high, continued to stare straight +ahead, immobile except for the tapping of one foot. To Keith's request to +be excused she vouchsafed a stiff half nod, partly in his direction. + +They danced. Mrs. Sherwood, like most people who have command enough of +their muscles to be able to keep them in graceful repose, danced +marvellously well. When she stopped after a single turn of the room, Keith +expostulated vigorously. + +"You are a perfect partner," he told her. + +"Take me in here and get me a sherbet," she commanded, without replying to +his protests. "That's good," she said, when she had tasted it. "Now sit +down and listen to me. You are making a perfect spectacle of yourself. +Don't you know it?" + +Keith stiffened to an extreme formality. + +"I beg your pardon!" said he freezingly. + +"That may be your personal individual right"--went on Mrs. Sherwood's low, +rich voice evenly. She was not even looking at him, but rather idly toward +the open door into the ballroom. Her fan swung from one finger; every line +of her body was relaxed. She might have been tossing him ordinary +commonplaces from the surface of a detached mind--"making a spectacle of +yourself," she explained; "but you're making a perfect spectacle of your +wife as well--and in public. That is not your right at all." + +Keith sprang to his feet, furious. + +"You are meddling with what is really my own business, madam," said he. + +For the first time she looked up at him, dearly and steadily. In the eyes. + +"Very well. That is true. Stop a moment and think. Are you attending to +your business yourself, even decently? Yes, I understand; you are angry +with me. If I were a man, you would challenge me to a duel and all that +sort of thing." She smiled indifferently. "Let's take that for granted and +get on. Sweep it aside. You are man enough to do it, or I mistake you +greatly. Look down into yourself for even one second. Are you playing fair +all around? _Aren't you a little ashamed?_" + +She held him with, her clear, level gaze. His own did not fall before it, +and his head went back, but slowly his face and neck turned red. Thus they +stared at each other for a full half minute, she smiling slightly, +perfectly cool; he seething with a suppressed emotion of some sort. Then +she turned indolently away. + +"You're too fine to do things like that," she said, with a new softness in +her voice; "we all have too much faith in you. The common tricks would not +appeal to you, except in idleness; is it not so?" + +She smiled up at him, a little sidewise. Keith caught his breath. For a +fleeting instant this extraordinary woman deigned to exert her feminine +charms for the first time the coquette looked from her eyes; for the first +time he saw mysteriously deep in her veiled nature a depth of possibility, +of rich possibility--he could not grasp it--it was gone. But in spite of +himself his pulses leaped like a flame. But now she was gazing again at the +ballroom door, cool, indolent, aloof, unapproachable. Yet just at that +instant, somehow, the other woman looked shallow, superficial, cold. His +glance fell on Mrs. Morrell still sitting where he had left her. Something +was wrong with her effect---- + +Analysis was submerged in a blaze of anger. This anger was not now against +the woman before him; his instinct prevented that. Nor against Mrs. Morrell +nor his wife; reluctant justice prevented that. Nor against himself--where +it really belonged. Things were out of joint; he felt cross-grained and +ugly. Mrs. Sherwood rose. + +"You may take me back now," said she. + +As they glided across the floor together, her small sleek head came just +above his shoulder. No embarrassment disturbed her manner. Keith could not +find in him a spark of resentment against her. She moved by his side with +an air of poise and detachment as a woman whose mind had long since weighed +and settled the affairs of her own cosmos so that trifles could not disturb +her. + +Leaving her in her accustomed chair, where Sherwood waited, Keith loyally +returned to Mrs. Morrell, who still sat alone. Subconsciously he noticed +something wrong with Mrs. Morrell. Her gowning was indeed rather a +conspicuous effort than an artistic success. She had badly torn her dress-- +perhaps that was it. + +Mrs. Morrell received him with every appearance of sympathy. + +"You poor thing!" she cried. "What a fearful situation! Of course I know +you couldn't help it." + +But Keith was grumpy and monosyllabic. He refused to discuss the situation +or Mrs. Sherwood, returning with an obvious effort to commonplaces. Mrs. +Morrell exerted all her fascination to get him back to the former level. A +little cold imp sat in the back of Keith's brain and criticised +sardonically; Why will big women persist in being kittenish? Why doesn't +she mend that awful rent, it's fairly sloppy! Suppose she thinks that kind +of talk is funny! I _do_ wish she wouldn't laugh in that shrill, cackling +fashion! In short, the very tricks that an hour ago were jolly and amusing +were now tiresome. Having been distrait, ungallant, masculinely put out for +another fifteen minutes, he abruptly excused himself, sought out Nan, and +went home. + +From her point of observation, Mrs. Sherwood watched them go. Nan looked +very tired, and every line of Keith's figure expressed a grumpy moroseness. + +"Congratulations," said Sherwood. + +"He certainly is a child of nature," returned his wife. "Look at him! He is +cross, so he _looks_ cross. That this is a ballroom and that all San +Francisco is present is a mere detail." + +"How did you break it up?" asked Sherwood curiously. + +"Men are so utterly ridiculous! He had built up a lot of illusions for +himself, but his instincts are true and good. It needed only a touch. It +was absurdly simple." + +"He'll go back to the Morrell to-morrow," asserted Sherwood confidently. + +She shook her head. + +"Not to her. He _sees_ her now. And not to-morrow. But eventually to +somebody, perhaps. He has curly hair." + +Sherwood laughed. + +"Shear him, like Sampson," he suggested. "But it strikes me he has about +the most attractive woman--bar one--in town right at home." + +"She'd have no trouble in holding him if she were only _awake_. But she's +only a dear little child--and about as helpless. She has very little +subtlety. I'm afraid she'll follow the instincts of her training. She'll be +too proud to do anything herself to attract her husband, once his +attentions to her seem to drop off. She'll just become cold and proud--and +perhaps eventually turn elsewhere." + +"I don't believe she's a bit that kind," asserted Sherwood positively. + +"Nor do I. But, Jack, a woman lonely enough has fancies, that in the long +run may become convictions." + + + + +XXII + + +Mrs. Sherwood was completely right. Keith had _seen_ Mrs. Morrell. The +glamour had fallen from her at a touch. He did not in the least understand +how this had happened, and considered that it was his own fault. Mrs. +Morrell had not changed in the least, but he had, somehow. He looked upon +himself as fickle, disloyal, altogether despicable. Yet for the life of him +he could not get up the slightest spark of enthusiasm for musical evenings, +Sunday night suppers, or week-end excursions into the country. They had +fallen dead to his taste; and with the sudden revolt to which such +temperaments as his are subject, he could not bear even the thought of them +without a feeling of incipient boredom. The blow administered to his self- +respect put him quite out of conceit with himself and the world in general. +If he had followed his natural instinct, he would instanter have thrown, +overboard all the Morrell episode, bag and baggage. + +But that was, of course, impossible. Keith felt his obligations; he was a +man of honour; he had respect for the feelings of others; he could not make +friendly people the victims of his own outrageous freaks. That was out of +the question! + +Mrs. Morrell sent for him. She had been puzzled by the episode of the +evening before. It would have been absolutely incredible to her that a +hundred words from a woman who was not her rival could have destroyed her +influence over this man. She had considerable knowledge of men, and she had +played her cards carefully. But she realized that something was the matter; +and she thought that the time had come to use the power she had gained. A +note dispatched by the Chinaman would do. + +Keith obeyed the summons. He knew himself well enough to realize that the +intimacy, such as it was, must come to a pretty abrupt termination. +Otherwise, he would shortly get very bored; and when he got very bored he +became, in spite of himself, reserved and self-contained to the point of +rudeness. For the exact reason that he saw thus clearly, his conscience was +smiting him hard. Mrs. Morrell had done nothing to deserve this treatment. +He was a dastard, a coward, ashamed of himself. If she wanted to see him, +it was her due that he obey her summons promptly. He went with the vague +idea of making amends by doing whatever she seemed to require--for this +once. + +She entered the dim sitting-room clad in a flowing silken negligee, which +she excused on the ground of laziness. + +"I'm still a little tired from last night," she said, with a laugh. + +The soft material and informal cut clung to and defined the lines of her +figure, showing to especial advantage the long sweep of her hips, the +pliancy of her waist, the swell of her fine bust. A soft lilac colour set +off the glint of her fair hair. She was, in fact, feeling a little languid +from the reaction of the ball and in a sudden rush of emotion she admired +Keith's crisp freshness. Her eyes swam a little and her breast heaved. + +But the preliminary conversation went by jerks. Keith answered her advances +with an effort toward ease and cordiality, but with a guarded, unnatural +manner that sent a sudden premonitory chill to the woman's heart. Her +instinct warned her. As the minutes passed, her uneasiness grew to the +point of fear. Was she losing him? Why? This was no time for ordinary +methods. + +She arose and went to sit by his side. + +"What's the matter, dear?" she asked. + +"Nothing." + +"Why are you acting in this manner? What have I done?" + +"I'm not; you haven't done anything--of course." + +She suddenly leaned forward, looking into his eyes, projecting all the +force of her magnetism. She had before seen him respond, felt him quiver to +her tentative, mischievous advances, + +"Kiss me," she breathed. + +Poor Keith was having a miserable enough time. He clung to his first +thought--that this evening was her due, that he was in some way bound, in +ending everything, to pay whatever coin he had left. He obeyed her, +touching her lips lightly and coldly with his own. Never was chaster caress +bestowed on melting mood! + +She flung him violently aside, her face writhing and contorted with fury. +She was enlightened, completely, as she could have been enlightened in no +other manner. + +"You can go!" she cried hoarsely. "Get out! Don't dare enter this house +again!" + +He made some sort of spiritless, feeble protest, trying his best to put +some convincing quality into it. But she did not even listen. The +ungoverned tiger-cat part of her nature was in the ascendant, the fierce +pride of the woman living near the edge of the half-world. She would gladly +have killed him. At length he went, very confused, bewildered, miserable-- +and relieved! He left behind him a bitter enemy. + + + + +XXIII + + +In complete revulsion, Keith scuttled the frivolous world of women. As he +expressed it, he was sick of women. They made him tired. Too much fuss +trying to keep even with their vagaries. A man liked something he could +bite on. He plunged with all the enthusiasm and energy of his vivid +personality into his business deal of the water lots and into the +fascinating downtown life of the pioneer city. The mere fact that he had +ended that asinine Morrell affair somehow made him think he had made it all +up to Nan, and he settled back tacitly and without further preliminaries +into what his mood considered a most satisfactory domestic basis. That is, +he took his home and his home life for granted. It was there when he needed +it. He admired Nan greatly, and supplied her with plenty of money, and took +her to places when he could get the time. Some day, when things were not +quite so lively, they would go somewhere together. In the meantime he never +failed to ask her every evening if she had enjoyed herself that day; and +she never failed to reply that she had. Everything was most comfortable. + +After the Firemen's Ball Nan, somehow relieved of any definite uneasiness, +felt that she should be made much of, should be a little wooed, that Keith +should make up a little for having been somewhat of a naughty boy. When, +instead, she was left more alone than before, she was hurt and depressed. +Of course, Milton did not realize--but what was there for her? Wing Sam ran +the house; she worked a good deal in the garden, assisted by Gringo. +Probably at no time in modern history have wives been left so much alone +and so free as during this period. The man's world was so absorbing; the +woman's so empty. + +Ben Sansome dropped in quite often. He was always amusing, always +agreeable, interested in all sorts of things, ready to give his undivided +attention to any sort of a problem, no matter how trivial, to consider it +attentively, and to find for it a fair and square deliberate solution. This +is exceedingly comforting to the feminine mind. He taught Gringo not to +"jump up"; he found out what was the matter with the _Gold of Ophir_ +cutting; he discovered and took her to see just the shade of hangings she +had long sought for the blue room. Within a very short time he had +established himself on the footing of the casual old-time caller, happening +by, dropping in, commenting and advising detachedly, drifting on again +before his little visit had assumed rememberable proportions. He had always +the air of just leaning over the fence for a moment's chat; yet he +contrived to spend the most of an afternoon. He spoke of Keith often, +always in affectionate terms, as of a sort of pal, much as though he and +Nan _both_ owned him, he, of course, in a lesser degree. + +One afternoon, after he had actually been digging away at a bulb bed for +half an hour, Nan suggested that he come in for refreshment. Gradually this +became a habit. Sansome and Nan sat cozily either side the little Chinese +tea table. He visibly luxuriated. + +"You don't know what a privilege this is for me--for any lonesome bachelor +in this crude city--to have a home like this to come to occasionally." + +He hinted at his situation, but made of its details a dark mystery. The +final impression was one of surface lightness and gayety, but of inner +sadness. + +"It is a terrible city for a man without an anchor!" he said. "Keith is a +lucky fellow! If I only had some one, as he has, I might amount to +something." A gesture implied what a discouraged butterfly sort of person +he really was. + +"You ought to marry," said Nan gently. + +"Marry!" he cried. "Dear lady, whom? Where in this awful mixture they call +society could one find a woman to marry?" + +"There are plenty of nice women here," chided Nan. + +"Yes--and all of them taken by luckier fellows! You wouldn't have me marry +Sally Warner, would you--or any of the other half-dozen Sally Warners? I +might as well marry a gas chandelier, a grand piano, and a code of +immorals--but the standard of such women is so different from the standard +of women like yourself." + +Nan might pertinently have inquired what Ben Sansome did in this gallery, +anyhow; but so cold-blooded and direct an attack would have required a cool +detachment incompatible with his dark, good looks, his winning, appealing +manners, his thoughtfulness in little things, his almost helpless reliance +on her sympathy; in other words, it presupposed a rather cynical, elderly +person. And Nan was young, romantic, easily stirred. + +"All you need is to believe in yourself a little more," she said earnestly +and prettily. "Why don't you undertake something instead of drifting? Some +of the people you go with are not especially good for you--do you think +so?" + +"Good for me?" he laughed bitterly. "Who cares if I go to the dogs? They'd +rather like me to; it would keep them company! And I don't know that I care +much myself!" he muttered in a lower tone. + +She leaned forward, distressed, her eyes shining with expostulation. + +"You mustn't hold yourself so low," she told him vehemently. "You mustn't! +There are a great many people who believe in you. For their sake you should +try. If you would only be just a little bit serious--in regard to yourself, +I mean. A gay life is all very well----" + +"Gay?" he interrupted, then caught himself. "Yes, I suppose I do seem gay-- +God knows I try not to cry out--but, really, sometimes I'm near to ending +it all----" + +She was excited to a panic of negation. + +"Oh, no! no!" she expostulated vehemently. ("Egad, she's stunning when +she's aroused!" thought Sansome.) "You mustn't talk like that! It isn't +fair to yourself; it isn't fair to your manhood! Oh, how you do need some +one to pull you up! If I could only help!" + +He raised his head and looked directly at her, his dark, melancholy eyes +lighting slowly. + +"You have helped; you are helping," he murmured. "I suppose I have been +weak and a coward, I will try." + +"That's right. I am so glad," she said, glowing with sweetness and a desire +to aid. "Now you must turn over a new leaf," she hesitated. "Every way, I +mean," she added with a little blush. + +"I know I drink more than I ought," he supplied in accents of regret. + +"Don't you suppose you could do without?" she begged very gently. + +"Will you help me?" He turned on her quickly; then, his delicate instincts +perceiving a faint, instinctive recoil at his advance, he added: "Just let +me come here occasionally, into this quiet atmosphere, when it gets too +hard and I can see no light; just to get your help, the strength I shall +need to tide me over." + +He looked very handsome and romantic and young. He was apparently very, +deeply in earnest. Nan experienced a rash of pity, of protective maternal +emotion. + +"Yes, do come," she assented softly. + + + + +XXIV + + +All this time Keith was busy every minute of the day. The water-lot matter +was absorbing all his attention. Through skilful and secret agents Neil had +acquired a great deal of scrip issued by the city for various public works +and services which the holders had not yet exchanged for the new bonds. +These he turned over to Keith. Very quietly, by prearrangement, the latter +sued and obtained judgments. When all this had been fully accomplished--and +not before then--the veil of secrecy was rent. Rowlee's paper advertised a +forthcoming sale of water lots to satisfy the judgments. + +Then followed, for Keith, an anxious period of three days. But at the end +of that time the commissioners issued a signed warning that the titles +conveyed by this sale would not be considered legal. On seeing this, Keith +at once rushed around to Neil's office. + +"Here it is," he announced jubilantly. "They held off so long that I began +to be afraid they did not intend to play our game for us. But it's all +right." + +The matter was widely discussed; but next morning placards, bearing the +text of the commissioners' warning, were posted on every blank wall in town +and distributed as dodgers. These were attributed by the public to zeal on +the part of those officials; but the commissioners knew nothing about it. + +"Some anonymous friend of the city must have done it," Hooper told his +friends, and added, "We are delighted!" + +The unknown friend was Malcolm Neil himself. + +This warning had its effect. As Keith had predicted, nobody cared to put +good money into what was officially and authoritatively announced as a bad +title. At the sheriff's sale there were no bona fide bidders except the +secret agents of Malcolm Neil. The sheriff's titles--such as they were-- +went for a song. Immediately the ostensible purchasers were personally +warned by the commission; but they seemed satisfied. + +So matters rested until, a little later, the commissioners inserted in all +the papers the customary legal advertisements setting forth a sale by them, +under the State law, of these same water lots to satisfy the interest and +fill the sinking fund for the bonds. The next morning appeared a statement +signed by all the ostensible purchasers under the sheriff's sale. This +stated dearly and succinctly the intention to contest any titles given by +the commissioners, even to the highest courts. This was marked _advt_, to +indicate the newspaper's neutrality in the matter. Rowlee commented on the +situation editorially, He took the righteous and indignant attitude, +expressing extreme journalistic horror that such a hold-up should be +possible in a modern, civilized community, hurling editorial contempt on +the dastardly robbers who were thus intending to shake down the innocent +purchasers, etc. In fact, he laid it on thick, But he managed to insinuate +a doubt. Between the lines the least astute reader could read Rowlee's +belief that perhaps these first purchasers might have a case, iniquitous +but legal. He hammered away at this for a week. By the end of that time he +had, by the most effective, indirect methods--purporting all the time to be +attacking the signers of the warning--succeeded in instilling into the +public mind a substantial distrust of the stability of the titles to be +conveyed at the commissioners' sale. Malcolm Neil complimented him highly +at their final and secret interview. + +Again Keith's predictions were fulfilled to the letter. Nobody wanted to +buy a lawsuit. There were a few bidders, it is true, but they were faint +hearted. Another set of Malcolm's secret agents bid all the lots in at a +nominal figure. That very afternoon they all met in Neil's stuffy little +back office. Keith had the deeds prepared. All that was necessary was to +affix the signatures. The purchasers under both sales conveyed their rights +to Neil and Keith. The latter now possessed uncontested and incontestable +title. + + + + +XXV + + +Having personally delivered the deeds to the recorder's office, Keith went +home. In the relief from pressure, the triumph, and the exaltation, his +instinct carried him to the actual background of his life--his genuine but +preoccupied affection for Nan. The constraint, that had been so real to +her, had never been anything but nebulous to him. + +He burst into the house, capered around the room boyishly, seized her, and +waltzed her gayly about. Quite taken by surprise, Nan's first thought was +that he had been drinking too much; so naturally she failed to rise +instantly to the occasion. + +"Stop it, Milton!" she cried. "What has got into you! You're tearing me to +ribbons!" + +He laughed heartily. + +"You must think I'm crazy," he acknowledged. "Sit down here, and learn what +a great man your husband is." He poured out the story of the transaction, +omitting no details of the clever schemes by which it had been worked. He +was, above all, proud of his legal address and acumen--there was something +in Eastern training, after all; this lay right under their noses, but none +of them saw it until he came along and picked it up. "And there are some +pretty smart men out here, too, let me tell you that," he added. "They're +from all parts of the world, and they've had a hard practical education, +their eye teeth are cut!" His egotism over being keener than the +acknowledged big men was very fresh and charming. The money gained he +mentioned as an afterthought, only when the other aspect of the situation +had been exhausted. "The cold hard dollars are pretty welcome just now," he +told her. "There's about a quarter million in those lots--and we can +realize on all or part of them at any time. All came out of here!" He +tapped his forehead, and paused in his rapid pacing to and fro to look down +at her In the easy chair, "We are well off now. We needn't scrimp and +save"--it did not for the moment occur to him that they had not been doing +so--"I'm going to get you eight new gowns, and twelve new hats, and a +bushel of diamonds----" + +"I'm glad, very glad!" she cried, catching his enthusiasm, her mind for the +first time occupying itself seriously with the mechanism of the deal. At +first, when he had been explaining, she had not thrown off the impression +that he had been drinking, and so had paid little attention to his +explanations. "It sounds like magic. Tell me again--how you did it," + +Nothing loath, he went over it again, making clear the double clouding of +the titles. + +But Nan, being much alone, had the habit, shared with few women of that +time, of reading the newspapers. She had followed Rowlee's campaign, and +she had taken seriously the editor's diatribes, Rowlee had been talking for +effect. The ideals of ultimate civic honesty were yet fifty years in the +future, but he had stumbled on their principle. Nan's mind, untrained in +any business ethics, caught them; and her sure natural instincts had +accepted their essential justice. In recognizing Milton's connection as +promoter with just this deal, she was suddenly called upon to make +adjustments for which there was no time. She knew Milton would do nothing +wrong, and yet--he was waiting in triumph for her response. + +"It was very clever. And yet, somehow, it doesn't sound right--" she +puzzled, "Are you sure it's honest?" + +"Honest?" he snorted, halted in mid-career, "Of course it's honest! Why +isn't it honest?" + +Confronted with the direct question, she really did not know. She groped, +proffering tentatively some of the arguments half remembered from Rowlee's +editorial columns. But she confronted now a lawyer, sure of himself. Keith +explosively, and contemptuously demolished her contentions. Everything was +absolutely legal, every step of it. If a man hadn't a right to buy in +property at any sale and sell it again where he wanted, where in thunder +was our boasted liberty? Just the kind of fool notion women get! Keith in +his honest pride and triumph had come for sympathy and admiration. Turned +back on himself, he became vaguely resentful, and shortly left the house. + +Hardly had the front door closed after him when Nan burst into tears. She +had not meant it to come out that way at all. Of course she had had no real +thought that Milton would do anything dishonest; how absurd of him to take +it that way! She had simply expressed a queer instinctive thought that had +flashed across her mind; and now she could not for the life of her guess +how she had come to do so. Miserably and passionately she realized that she +had bungled it. + + + + +XXVI + + +But if Keith missed the appreciation of his triumph at home, he received +full meed of it downtown. In a corner of the Empire a dozen of the biggest +men in town were gathered. They were Sam Brannan; Palmer, of Palmer, Cook & +Co.; Colonel E. D. Baker, the original "silver-tongued orator"; Dick +Blatchford, the contractor; Judge Terry, of the Supreme Court; oily, coarse +Ned McGowan; Nugent and Rowlee, editors, and some others. They were doing +an exceedingly important part of their daily business: sipping their late +afternoon cocktails. Calhoun Bennett joined them. + +"Little item of news to interest you-all," drawled the Southerner. "I've +just come down from the recorder's office. The deeds for the water lots +have just been recorded." He paused. + +"Have a drink, Cal," urged Dick Blatchford, "and sit down. What of it?" + +"They were recorded in the names of Malcolm Neil and young Keith. I'll have +a cocktail." + +"That so? Pretty shaky title. Which sale did they record under?" + +"Both!" said Bennett. + +He stood until he saw that the significance of this had soaked in; then he +drew out a chair and sat down. Ned McGowan chuckled hoarsely. + +"Pretty slick!" said he. "Wonder some of us didn't think of that! I suppose +they went around and scared the purchasers until they got them, pretty +cheap. Trust old Neil to drive a bargain!" + +But Palmer, the banker, who had been thinking, here spoke up: + +"The purchasers were undoubtedly their agents," he surmised quietly. + +"By God, you're right!" cried Terry. "Old Malcolm is certainly the devil +without a tail!" + +"Speak of him and you get him," remarked Colonel Baker, pointing out Neil, +who had just entered. + +They raised a shout at him, until finally the old man, reluctantly and +crabbedly, sidled over to join them. + +"You're discovered, old fox!" cried Terry; "and the outraged dignity of the +law demands a drink." + +They plied him with half-facetious, half-envious congratulations. But Neil +would have none of them. + +"Not my scheme," he growled. "Entirely Keith's. I'm a sleeping partner +only. He engineered it all, thought of it all, dragged me in." + +"You must have made a good thing out of it, Mr. Neil," suggested Palmer +respectfully. + +The formidable old man eyed the speaker grumpily for a moment. + +"About a quarter million, cool, between us," he vouchsafed finally. He was, +for some reason, willing to brag a bit. + +This statement was received in admiring silence by all but Terry. Everybody +but that devil-may-care and lawless pillar of the law was afraid of Neil. +But Terry would joke with anybody. + +"I hope you're going to let him have a little of it, Neil," he laughed. + +The old man shifted his eyes from Palmer to Terry with much the air of +restraining heavy guns. Terry met the impact untroubled. + +"Judge," grunted the financier at last, "that young man will get his due +share. He has tied me up in a contract that even your honoured court would +find difficulty in breaking." + +With this parting shot he arose and stumped out. + +"If Malcolm Neil acknowledges he is tied up," observed Terry, who had not +been in the slightest degree disturbed, "he is certainly tied up!" + +"Consider the man who tied him," begged Colonel Baker. "He must, in the +language of the poets, be a lallapaloozer." + +"He's worth getting hold of," said Dick Blatchford. + +Therefore, when, a little later, Keith appeared, he was hailed jovially, +and invited to drink. Everybody was very cordial. Within five minutes he +was hail fellow with them all, joking with the most august of them on terms +of equality. Judge Terry, in whose court he had stood abashed, plied him +with cocktails; Colonel Baker told several stories, one of which was new; +Sam Brannan, with the mixture of coarseness, overbearing manners, and +fascination that made him personally attractive to men and some women, +called him "my boy"; and the rest of the party had whole-heartedly taken +him in and were treating him as one of themselves. Keith had known all +these men, of course, but they had been several cuts above him in +importance, and his relations with most of them had been formal. His whole +being glowed and expanded. After the first cocktail or two, and after a +little of this grateful petting, he had some difficulty in keeping himself +from getting too expansive, in holding himself down to becoming modesty, in +not talking too much. He quite realized the meaning of this sudden +cordiality; but he welcomed it as another endorsement, from the highest, +most unimpeachable sources, of his cleverness and legal acumen. + +They drank and talked until twilight. Then Keith began to make his excuses. +They shouted him down. + +"You're going to dinner with us, my son," stated Brannan. "They've opened +an oyster palace down the street, and we're going to sample it." + +"But my wife--" began Keith. + +"Permit me," interrupted Terry, bending his tall form in courtesy. "I am +about to dispatch a messenger to Mrs. Terry, and shall be pleased to +instruct him to call at your mansion also." + +It was so arranged. Immediately they adjourned to the new "Oyster Palace," +a very gaudy white and gilt monstrosity with mirrors and negro minstrels. +There were small private rooms, it seemed, and one of these was bespoken +from the smiling manager, flattered at the patronage of these substantial +men. + +San Francisco lived high in those days. It could pay, and for pay the best +will go anywhere. The dinner was quite perfect. There were more cocktails +and champagne. Under the influence of good fellowship and drinks, Keith was +finally prevailed upon to give the details of the whole transaction. +Perhaps this was a little indiscreet, but he was carried away by the +occasion. The noisy crowd suddenly became quiet, and listened with the +deepest attention. When Keith had finished, there ensued a short silence. +Then Judge Terry delivered his opinion. + +"Sound as a dollar," he pronounced at last. "Not a hole in it. Is that your +opinion, Colonel Baker?" + +"Clever piece of work," nodded the orator gravely. After this interim of +sobriety the dinner proceeded more and more noisily. The drink affected the +different men in different ways. A flush appeared high on the cheek bones +of Terry's lean face and an added dignity in his courtly manner. Brannan +became louder and more positive. On Blatchford his potations had no +appreciable effect except that his round face grew redder. Ned McGowan +dropped even his veneer of good breeding, became foul mouthed and profane, +full of unpublishable reminiscence to which nobody paid any particular +attention. Calhoun Bennett's speech became softer, more deliberate, more +consciously Southern. Keith, who was really most unaccustomed to the heavy +drinking then in vogue, was filled with a warm and friendly feeling toward +everybody. His thoughts were a bit vague, and he had difficulty in +focussing his mind sharply. The lights were very bright, and the room warm. + +Suddenly they were all in the open air under the stars. There seemed to +have been an unexplained interim. Everybody was smoking cigars. Keith was +tugging at his pocket and expostulating something about payment--something +to do with the dinner. Evidently some part of him had gone on talking and +thinking. The fresh air brought him back to the command. Various +suggestions were being proffered. Blatchford was for hiring rigs and +driving out to the Mission; Calhoun Bennett suggested the El Dorado; but +Sam Brannan's bull voice decided them. + +"I'm going to Belle's!" he roared, and at once started off up the street. +The idea was received with acclamation. They straggled up the street toward +the residential portion of town. + +Keith followed. The delayed action of the drink had thrown him into a +delicious whirling haze. He felt that he could be completely master of +himself at any moment merely by making the effort; only it did not at +present seem worth while. He knew where Belle's was: it was the ornate +house diagonally across the street from his own, the one concerning which +the clerk had been so evasive when they were house hunting. + +Belle's was a three-story frame building, differing in no outward essential +from the fashionable residences around it. On warm evenings there sometimes +came through the opened windows the sound of a piano, the clink of glasses, +loud laughter or singing. The chance bystander might have heard identically +the same from any other house in the neighbourhood. Only Belle's +occasionally--rarely occasionally--contributed a crash or an oath. Such +things were, however, quickly hushed. Belle's was run on respectable lines. +Men went in and out quite openly, with the tolerance of most, but to the +scandal of a few. Those curious, consulting the yellowed files of the +newspapers, can read little protests--signed with _nom de plumes_--from +young women, complaining that young men of their acquaintance, after +calling decorously on them, would cross quite openly to the house over the +way. Yet they were powerless, for a year or so at least, to break up the +custom. + +For Belle's was a carry-over from the 49-51 days when of social life there +was none at all. It differed from the merely disreputable house. Belle +prided herself on quiet conduct and many friends. In person she was a +middle-aged, still attractive Frenchwoman. She had furnished her parlours +very elaborately, and she insisted that both her employees and clients +should behave in the public rooms with the greatest circumspection. + +Indeed, a casual visitor, unacquainted with the character of the place, +might well have been deceived. The women sitting about were made up and +very decollete, to be sure, but their conduct, while not always of the +highest tone, was nevertheless quite devoid of freedom. Belle permitted no +overt word or action; nor was any visitor subjected to another expectation +than the occasional opening of a bottle of wine "for the good of the +house." + +But outside of the one fundamental rule of decency, the caller could make +himself comfortable in his own way. He could lounge, pound the piano, joke, +play games, smoke where he pleased, and enjoy what was then a rarity--the +company and conversation of nimble-witted, well-dressed, beautiful women +whose ideas were not narrow. Ultimate possibilities were always kept very +much in the background, but that there were possibilities made for present +relaxation or freedom. + +Twice a year Belle was in the habit of giving a grand party. The +invitations were engraved. Entertainment was on a sumptuous scale. There +were dancing, all sorts of card games, an elaborate supper, the best of +music, often professional entertainers of great merit. Everything was free +except wine. Nearly the whole masculine population turned out for Belle's +big party--judges, legislators, bankers, merchants, as well as the +professional politicians and the gamblers. The most prominent men of the +city frequented Belle's at other times openly, without fear of public +opinion--many of them merely for the sense of freedom and relaxation they +there enjoyed. Everybody was welcome. + +Keith, however, knowing the character of the place, had never been inside +its doors. Now, enveloped in his rosy haze, exceedingly contented with his +company, he followed where they led. At the door a neat coloured maid +relieved him of his hat and coat, and smiled a welcome. His dazzled vision +took in a long drawing-room, soft red carpets, red brocade curtains of +heavy material, with edges of gold fringe and with gold cords, chandeliers +of many dangling prisms, a white marble mantel, a grand piano, a few +pictures of the nude, and many chairs. Ravishingly beautiful, wonderfully +dressed women sat about in indolent attitudes. + +The hilarious party at once scattered through the room, Calhoun Bennett +went to the piano and began to play sentimental airs. Ned McGowan, his face +very red, enthroned himself in an easy chair, clasping girls who perched on +either arm. He talked to them in a low voice. They leaned over to hear, and +every moment or so they burst into shrieks of laughter. Judge Terry was +listening intently to some serious communication Belle herself was making +to him. Sam Brannan was roaring for champagne. The others were circulating +here and there, talking, playing practical jokes. Altogether, to Keith's +rosy vision, a colourful and delightful scene. Nobody paid him the least +attention. + +How long he stood there he did not know. The groups before him shifted and +changed confusedly. The lights seemed to blaze and to dim, and then to +blaze again. After a long interval he became aware of a touch on his arm. +He looked down. A piquant, dark-eyed, tilt-nosed girl was smiling up at +him. + +"Wat you do?" she was begging. "You come wiz me?" + +He focussed his attention on the room. It was almost empty. He saw the back +of Judge Terry disappearing into the street. He passed his hand across his +eyes. + +"Where are the others?" he asked confusedly. + +She laughed with significance. He looked down at her again. Her complexion +was a sort of dead white, her lips were red and glistening, her eyes were +darkened. He turned suddenly and left the house. The coloured maid, +disappointed in a tip, stood in the doorway, his hat and coat in her hands, +staring after him. The cool air a little cleared his brain. He stopped +short in the middle of the street, trying to collect himself. + +"I'm drunk," he solved finally, and proceeded very carefully toward his own +house. After each dozen steps he paused to collect his thoughts before +proceeding. In one of these pauses he distinctly heard a window slam shut; +there were plenty of louder things, he heard only the window. He hadn't the +least idea of the time of night, except that it must be very late. As a +matter of fact, it was not more than half-past ten. Near his own gate he +nearly ran into a woman strolling. With some instinct of apology, he turned +in her direction. As his bare head was revealed in the dim light, the woman +uttered a low laugh. + +"And was Belle as charming as ever?" demanded Mrs. Morrell sweetly but +icily. "Go in carefully now, so dear little wifey won't know." + +She laughed again and moved past him. He stared after her with a vague +sense of injustice, somehow; then went on. + + + + +XXVII + + +Keith was sorry next morning, but he was not repentant, in the sense of +feeling that he had done anything fatally wrong. He was disgusted with +himself. He wasted no regrets, but did register a very definite intention +not to let _that_ happen again! It was all harmless enough, once in a way, +but it was not his sort of thing. Nan would not understand it a bit--why +should she? His head ached, and he was feeling a little conscience-stricken +about Nan, anyway. He must take her around more, see more of her. Business +had been very absorbing lately, but now that this deal had been brought off +successfully, it was only due her and himself that he take a little time +off. In his present mood he convinced himself, as do most American business +or professional men, that he was being driven in his work, and that he +wanted nothing better than a let-up from the grind. As a matter of fact, +he--and they--love their work. + +In this frame of mind he started downtown, rather late. On the street he +met a number of his friends. A good many of them chaffed him good-naturedly +about the night before. By the time he reached his office he was feeling +much better. Things were assuming more of an everyday comfortable aspect. +He had not been seated ten minutes before Dick Blatchford drifted in, +smoking a black cigar that gave Keith a slight qualmish feeling. Dick +seemed quite unaffected by the evening before. + +"Hullo, Milt!" he boomed, rolling his heavy form into a chair, his round, +red face beaming. "How's the wild Injin this morning? Say, you're a wonder +when you get started! You needn't deny it; wasn't I there?" He shook his +head, chuckling fatly. "Look here," he went on, "I'm busy this morning--got +to get down to North Beach to see Harry Meigs--and I guess you are." He +tossed over a package of papers that he produced from an inside pocket. +"Look those over at your leisure. I think we better sue the sons of guns. +Let me know what you think." He fished about in a tight-drawn waistcoat +pocket with a chubby thumb and forefinger, pulled out a strip of paper, and +flipped it to Keith as casually as though it were a cigarette paper. +"There's a little something as a retainer," said he. "Well, be good!" + +After he had lumbered out, Keith examined the check. It was for one +thousand dollars. If anything were needed to restore his entire confidence +in himself, this retainer would have sufficed. The little spree was +regrettable, of course, but it had brought him a client--and a good one! + +Two days later Keith, who now had reason to spend more time in his office, +received another and less welcome visitor: this was Morrell. The young +Englishman, his clean-cut face composed to wooden immobility, his too- +close-set eyes squinting watchfully, came in as though on a social call. + +"Just dropped around to look at your diggin's," he told the surprised +Keith. "Not badly fixed here; good light and all.". + +He accepted a cigar, and sat for some moments, his hat and stick carefully +disposed on his knees. + +"Look here, Keith," he broke into a desultory chat after a few minutes. +"Deucedly awkward, and all that, of course; but I've been wondering whether +you would, be willing to tide me over--remittances late, and all that sort +of thing. Stony for the moment. Everything lovely when the mails arrive. +Neighbours, see a lot of each other, and that sort, you know." + +Keith was totally unprepared for this, and floundered. Morrell, watching +him calmly, went on: + +"Of course I wouldn't think of coming to you, old chap--plenty of people +glad to bank for me temporarily--but I wanted you to know just how we +stand--Mrs. Morrell and I--that we feel friendly to you, and all that sort +of thing, you know! You can rely on us--no uneasiness, you know." + +"Why, that's very kind of you," returned Keith, puzzled. + +"Not a bit! The way I looked at it was that a chap wouldn't borrow from a +man he wasn't friendly with, it isn't done." He laughed his high, cackling +laugh, "So I said to Mimi, 'the dear man must be worryin' his head off.' It +was lucky for you, old top, that a woman of the world with some sense saw +you the other night instead of some feather-headed gossipin' fool. But +Mimi's not that." + +Keith was slowly beginning to suspect, but as yet he considered his +suspicion unjust. + +"How much do you need?" he asked, + +"Five hundred dollars," replied Morrell coolly. + +"I doubt I have that sum free in ready cash." + +Morrell looked him in the eye. + +"I fancy you will be able to raise it," he said very deliberately. + +The men looked at each other. + +"This is blackmail, then," said Keith without excitement. + +Morrell became very stiff and English in manner. + +"Words do not frighten me, sir. This is a personal loan. It is an action +between friends, just as my silence on the subject of your peccadillo is a +friendly action. I mention that silence, not as a threat, but as an +evidence of my own friendly feeling. I see I have made a mistake." + +He arose, his bearing very frigid. Keith was naturally not in the least +deceived by this assumption of injured innocence, but he had been thinking. + +"Hold on!" he said. "You must forgive my being startled; and you must admit +you were a little unfortunate in your presentation. For this loan, what +security?" + +"My personal note," replied Morrell calmly. + +"I must look into my resources. I will let you know to-morrow." + +"Not later than to-morrow. I'll call at this hour," said Morrell with +meaning. + +After the Englishman had gone Keith considered the matter at leisure. +Although of a sanguine and excitable temperament When only little things +were involved, he was clear headed and uninfluenced by personal feeling in +real emergencies. + +First, would the Morrells carry out the implied threat? His instinct +supplied that answer. Of Morrell himself he had never had any trust. Now he +remembered what had never really struck him before: that Morrell, even in +this fast and loose society, had never been more than tolerated, and that, +apparently, only because of the liveliness of his wife. He had the +indefinable air of a bad 'un. And Keith's knowledge of women was broad +enough to tell him that Mrs. Morrell would be relentless. + +Second, would a denial avail against their story? His commonsense told him +that if the Morrells started this thing they would carry it through to a +finish. There was no sense in it otherwise, for such an attack would mean +the burning of most of their social bridges. Morrell could get witnesses +from Belle's--say, the coloured maid whom he had not tipped--and there were +his hat and coat. + +Third, could he afford to let them tell the tale? As far as his position in +the city, either professionally or socially, most decidedly yes. But at +home, as decidedly no. In her calmest, most judicial, trusting, loving +mood, Nan could never understand. Her breeding and upbringing were against +it. She could never comprehend the difference between such a place as +Belle's and any disreputable house--if there was a difference. This point +needed little argument. + +Then he must pay. + +Having definitely decided this, he repressed his natural inclinations +toward anger, drew the money, laid it aside in his drawer, and went on with +his work. When Morrell came, in next morning, very easy and debonair, he +handed out the gold pieces and took in return the man's note, without +relaxing the extreme gravity and formality of his manner. + +"Thanks, old chap!" cried Morrell. "You've saved my life. I won't forget." +He paused; then cackled harshly: "Good joke that! No, _I won't_ forget!" + +Keith bowed coldly, waiting. Morrell, with, a final cackle, made leisurely +for the door. As he laid his hand on the knob, Keith spoke: + +"By the way, Morrell." + +Morrell turned. + +"Take care you don't overdo this," advised Keith, very deliberately. + +Morrell examined him. Keith's face was grim. He smiled enigmatically. + +"Tact is a blessed gift, old top," said he, and went out. + + + + +XXVIII + + +This whole episode proved to be a turning-point in Keith's career. His +revulsion against the feminine--hence society--side of life brought about +by the affair of Mrs. Morrell, might soon have passed, and he might soon +have returned to the old round of picnics, excursions, dinners, and +parties, were it not that coincidentally a new and absorbing occupation was +thrust upon him. Dick Blatchford's case was only one of many that came to +him. He became completely immersed in the fascinating intricacies of the +law. + +As has been previously pointed out, nowhere before nor since has pure +legality been made such a fetish. It was a game played by lawyers, not an +attempt to get justice done. Since, in all criminal cases at least, the +prosecution was carried on by one man and his associates, poorly paid and +hence of mediocre ability, and the defence conducted by the keenest brains +in the profession, it followed that convictions were rare. Homicide in +various forms was little frowned upon. Duels were of frequent occurrence, +and, in several instances, regular excursions, with tickets, were organized +to see them. Street shootings of a more informal nature were too numerous +to count. Invariably an attempt, generally successful, was made to arrest +the homicide. If he had money, he hired the best lawyers, and rested +secure. If he had no money, he disappeared for a time. Almost everybody had +enough money, or enough friends with money, to adopt the former course. Of +1,200 murders--or "killings"--committed in the San Francisco of those days, +there was just _one_ legal conviction! + +It was a point of professional pride with a lawyer to get his client free. +Indeed, to fail would be equivalent to losing a very easy game. The whole +battery of technical delays, demurrers, etc., was at his command; a much +larger battery than even the absurd criminal courts of our present day can +muster. Delays to allow the dispersal of witnesses were easily arranged +for, as were changes of venue to courts either prejudiced in favour of the +strict interpretation of "law" or frankly venal. Of shadier expedients, +such as packing juries, there seemed no end. + +Your honourable, high-minded lawyers--which meant the well-dressed and +prosperous--had nothing to do with such dirty work; that is, directly. +There were plenty of lawyers not so honourable and high minded called in as +"counsel." These little lawyers, shoulder strikers, bribe givers and +takers, were held in good-humoured contempt by the legal stars--who +employed them! Actual dishonesty was diluted through a number of men. +Packing a jury was a fine art. Initially was needed connivance at the +sheriff's office. Hence lawyers, as a class, were in politics. Neither the +stellar lawyer nor the sheriff knew any of the details of the transaction. +A sum of money went to the former's "counsel" as expenses, and emerged, +considerably diminished, in the sheriff's office as "perquisites." It had +gone from the counsel to somebody like Mex Ryan, from him to various plug- +uglies, ward heelers, shoulder strikers, from them to one or another of the +professional jurymen, and then on the upward curve through the sheriff's +underlings who made out the jury lists to Webb himself. The thing was done. + +In this tortuous way many influences were needed. The most honest lawyer's +limit as to the queer things he would do depended on his individual +conscience. It is extraordinary what long training and the moral support of +a whole profession will do toward educating a conscience. Do not despise +unduly the lawyers of that day. We have all of us good friends in the legal +profession who will defend in court a criminal they know to be guilty as +charged. They will urge that no man should go undefended; and will argue +themselves into a belief that in such a case "defence" means not merely +fair play, but a desperate effort to get him off anyhow--trained +conscience. If such sophistries are sincerely believed by honest men +nowadays, it cannot be wondered at that queerer sophistries passed current +in a community not five years old. It was difficult to draw the line +between the men who mistakenly believed themselves honest and those who +knew themselves dishonest. + +But once in politics there could be no end. In this field the law rubbed +shoulders with big contracts, big operations. A city was being built, in a +few years, out of nothing, by a busy, careless, and shifting population. +The opportunities for making money on public works--either honestly or by +jobbery--were almost unlimited. The mood of the times was extravagant. From +the still unexhausted placers poured a flood of gold, hard money, tangible +wealth; and a large percentage of it paused in San Francisco, changed hands +before continuing its journey. Immigrants brought with them a lesser but +still significant sum. Money was easy. People could and would pay high +taxes without a thought, for they would rather pay well to be let alone +than bother with public affairs. The city treasury should have been full to +bursting. In addition, the municipality was rich in its real estate. The +value of all land had gone up immensely; any time more cash was needed it +could quickly be raised by the sale of public lots. The supply seemed +inexhaustible. + +Like hyenas to a kill the public contractors gathered. Immense public works +were undertaken at enormous prices. Paving, sewers, grading, filling, +lighting, wharves, buildings Were all voted; and the work completed in the +quickest, flimsiest, most slipshod fashion; and at terrible prices. The +Graham House, a pretentious frail structure that had failed as a hotel +because a swamp lay between it and the city, was bought at a huge price to +serve as city hall. It was a veritable white elephant, and even the busy +populace spared time to grumble at the flagrant steal. Nobody knew what it +would cost to make the thing habitable even. Soon, to every one's relief, +it burned down. The property was then swindled over to Peter Smith. The +Jenny Lind Theatre, an impossible, ramshackle structure, was purchased over +the vigorous protest of every decent citizen, for the enormous sum of +$300,000. Another $100,000 was alleged to have been spent in remodelling +and furnishing it. Then it was solemnly declared "unsuited to the purpose." +It also burned down in one of the numerous fires. But the money was safe! + +To get such deals as these through "legally" it was of course necessary +that officials, councilmen, engineers, etc., should be sympathetic. +Naturally the big operators, as well as the big lawyers, had to go into +politics. Elections came soon to be so many farces. In some wards no decent +citizen dared show his face. "Shoulder strikers" were openly hired for +purposes of intimidation. Bribery was scarcely concealed. And if things +looked doubtful, there were always the election inspectors and judges in +reserve who could be relied upon to make things come out right in the final +count. The proper men were always returned as elected. If violence or fraud +were alleged, lawyers always got the accused off in a strictly legal +manner. + +In these matters, it must be repeated, no opprobrium ever rested on either +the big lawyers or the big operators. "Expenses" went to the underlings, +and after some mysterious subterranean manipulation, of which the big +fellows remained blandly unconscious, results came back. + +In the world of public works Keith rapidly made himself a position. He was +leading counsel for Dick Blatchford and one or two others. His job was to +know all the rules of the game so well that there were no comebacks; to set +the machinery in motion by which the contracts were procured; and to +straighten out any irregularities that might arise afterward. His position +was almost academic. The matters he fought and decided were so detached +from actuality, as far as he was concerned, that they might have been +hypothetical cases. When Dick wanted anything specific, Keith instructed +Patsy Corrigan to see that the proper officials awarded the contract. If +the matter ever came to the courts, Keith furnished the brains and Patsy +somehow "saw" the sheriff and whoever was necessary from the mysterious +underworld. Everybody was doing the same thing. In the minds of men profits +of any sort were legitimate provided they were "legal," but especially +against so vague an entity as a community. Civic consciousness had not been +born in them, for the simple reason that the city was constituted perfectly +to suit them. Only when men are dissatisfied with their government do they +seek to become responsible for it. There was no active public opinion +against them. Men were too busy to bother with such things. Occasionally a +fairly vigorous protest against some peculiarly outrageous steal made +itself heard, but the men who made it were either cranks or it was +suspected they had been pinched in some way. They merely represented the +opposition any active man expects. + +And every last one of these merry, jovial pirates was inordinately proud of +the ship he was helping to scuttle! That one fact, attentively considered, +explains much. + +The city was growing, it was taking on a permanent character. In spite of +waste, shoddy work, and frequent fires, its vitality was triumphant. The +sand hills had all been graded flat, and the material from them had filled +in the water lots of the bay; miles of fireproof brick structures had been +built on four or five streets; there were now a half score of long wharves +instead of one; omnibuses ran everywhere; fine steamers plied to +fashionable watering places about the bay; the planks in the streets were +being replaced by cobblestones; telegraph service had been inaugurated to +San Jose and Sacramento; several new theatres had been built; gas lamps +were being placed about the streets; huge wooden palaces with much +scrollwork ornamentation were being built on Stockton Street and the Rincon +Hill. All these things, as well as the climate, the mines, the agricultural +resources, the commerce, the scenery, were fully appreciated and +enthusiastically made the most of by every mother's son. Any man among them +was ready at a moment's notice to wax enthusiastic about the resources and +the future of the place. They were "boosters" in the modern acceptation of +the term. + + + + +XXIX + + +In this eager, fast-living, nervous, high-strung man's world Keith took to +himself a prominent part. He was so fully-occupied in other directions that +his practice did not lead him into criminal law, so he missed an influence +that must have either ended by blunting or repelling him. He corresponded +to what nowadays would be called a corporation lawyer. His clients were +few, but wealthy, powerful, and remunerative; his cases were subtle and +hard fought, He enjoyed the intricate game for its own sake, and he enjoyed +his success in it. In the inevitable give and take of a complicated world +he knew, of course, of shady doings beneath; but he was not personally +involved; he accepted them as part of the make-up of society, human nature, +the medium--of work. + +But Nan was necessarily left more and more to her own devices. And, +further, she was left alone without even the preoccupation furnished her +domestic side by such an affair as that with Mrs. Morrell. She knew that +Keith was wholly absorbed in his business. She was loyal to his unexpressed +idea that in these propitious beginnings he must devote all his energies to +his career. She was loyal to his preoccupation. It was the only way in +which she could help. And yet, without being given cause for grievance, she +was temporarily thrust outside his life, put in cold storage, as it were, +until she should be wanted. He bolted immediately after breakfast; often he +did not come home to lunch; was quite likely to go out again in the +evening. + +It followed that Nan had to make her own life out of the materials at hand. +This was at first difficult, for all the materials were novel to her. +Gradually, however, she fitted herself into the social transformation that +was taking place. + +Heretofore, society had not existed. Now, vaguely, it was beginning to take +coherence and form. A transition period was on. The "nobs" were evolving +from chaos. People of the fast Morrell type were losing their influence and +ascendency, were being pushed aside to the fringes by the more "solid" +elements. Wealth and arrogant dignity were coming into their innings. +Formal functions, often on an elaborate scale, were taking the place of the +harum-scarum informal parties. There came up some questions of social +leadership. In short, social life was developing into the usual game. +Lacking other interests, Nan found it amused her to play at it, to contend +with the leaders, to form alliances, to declare war, to assume by right and +talent her place among the best. + +This pleased Keith. Social standing helped him in business; and he enjoyed +the sight of his beautiful young wife queening it serenely over the city's +best. He was always eager to advance money for new gowns or expensive +parties. At first he went out with her, but soon found that three o'clock +in the morning meant a next day's brain dulled of its keenest edge. But he +would not hear of her staying at home on his account. + +"I'm tired, and I'm going to bed right away," he told her. "You go and +uphold the splendour of the family. Get Ben to take you." + +Ben Sansome was to Keith a tremendous convenience. He was the only idle man +in town, always on tap, ready to stay out any and every night until the +cocks crowed. Why shouldn't he? He had nothing to do all next day, except, +perhaps, to decide which stick he should carry! With a busy man's good- +humoured contempt for the mere idler, Keith looked upon Sansome as a +harmless household-pet sort of person; good natured, accommodating, +pleasant to talk to, good looking, foppish in dress, but beneath any +serious human being's notice. Sansome was on easy terms of intimacy with +the Keiths. It was mighty good of him to look out for Nan. If he did not, +Keith would have to. + +In this formative period Ben Sansome was, however, a very important figure +in the woman's world. Social construction was a ticklish matter. There were +so many things to be decided; small items of etiquette, the "proper thing" +--procedure, decorations, good form, larger matters as to whether so-and-so +should be received, and if so, how extensively. Ben Sansome was past master +of such things. He was the only man in town who knew--or cared--how to +"draw lines." He became truly a modern _arbiter elegantiarum_. For San +Francisco had begun in real earnest to "draw lines." + +They were rather strange lines at times. Of course such people as the +Brannans, Montgomerys, Terrys, Bushs, Bakers, Caldwells, and other "old +families" (three or four years old), went without saying. Also were +included the greater merchants and their feminine representatives, such as +Palmer, Cook, Adams, Wilkins, and the like. Also there seemed to be a solid +foundation of those respectable and powerful with plenty of wealth--"but +hopeless, my dear, absolutely hopeless!" groaned some of the livelier +members. + +Lightning struck capriciously at those on whom this new society might +frown, on those who as lately as last year had ridden the crest of the +wave. For example, it spared Sally Warner, with her spotted veils drawn +close around her face, her red belts, and her red tufts on her small +toques, but it blasted the Morrells. Mrs. Morrell clung tenaciously to the +outskirts, but she knew only too well that she did not "belong." In her +heart she ascribed this fact to Mrs. Keith. This was unjust, but it added +to her bitterness against her neighbours. + +Perhaps her suspicions were not unnatural, for Nan won easily in this game. +She was undoubtedly the social leader. It seemed eminently fitting that, +lacking her husband, she should go out much with Ben Sansome. Most women +thought her lucky to have acquired so valuable a social acquisition. Some +people, like fat, coarse, sensible Mrs. Dick Blatchford, were a little +doubtful. + +"Shucks!" snorted Sally Warner, slapping her little riding boot dashingly +with her latest novelty, an English hunting crop, "Nan Keith impresses me +as one who knows her way about. And, anyway, as long as Mr. Keith is +satisfied, I'm sure we should be!" + + + + +XXX + + +To his surprise Ben Sansome found himself warming to what he considered a +real passion. At least it was as real a passion as he was capable of +feeling. Sansome had always been spoiled. Accustomed as he was to easy +conquests, especially of late among the faster San Francisco women of the +early days, Nan Keith's very aloofness attracted him. She dwelt in a serene +atmosphere of unsuspicion, going about freely with him, taking their right +relations for granted, and not thinking about them. Contemplating this, +Sansome was clever enough to see that, a false move at the wrong time would +do for him. Therefore, he occupied himself at first merely in making +himself useful. He accepted Keith's role for him, becoming the friend of +the family, dropping in often and informally, happening on the spot at just +the right time to relieve Keith of the necessity of escorting Nan to this +or that tea or ball. So well did he play his part that at last there came a +time when Keith said: + +"I'm dead tired to-night, Nan. Seems as if I couldn't stand chatter. Can't +you send a note around to Ben and see if he can't get you there and back?" + +This came to be a regular thing. If Sansome did not happen to be there, he +was sent for. And his engagements were never such that he failed to accept. + +He and Keith called each other by their given names; but even after a close +intimacy had been established, he never addressed Nan by hers. + +"You sound very formal," she hinted to him at last. + +"To me the privilege of calling you by your 'little name' is so great an +evidence of friendship, that it actually seems like flaunting that +friendship to call you so before others" he replied. + +Always after that he called her "Nan" when they were alone together, but +"Mrs. Keith" when a third, even Keith himself, was present. In that way +their tete-a-tetes were marked off a little. When alone with her he +maintained the pose of one struggling manfully against tremendous +temptations held back only by her sweet influence. But he never overdid it. +As they came to know each other better, he talked ever the more freely of +men's mysterious temptations. Nan could not define to herself exactly what +they might be. + +"Yesterday I couldn't see you," he told her. "I struggled with myself all +day. Good God, what does a woman like you know of a man's weaknesses and +temptations--But I conquered." + +Nan was uneasy. She did not know quite what it was all about, but her +instincts warned her. + +"I am glad," she replied; and went on hastily, "but you must tell me what +you think about having the tea served in the arbour on the seventh, I've +been dying to ask you." + +With an obvious effort to be cheerful about this fresh subject, he wrenched +himself into a new mood. They consulted on the party for the seventh. He +broke off abruptly to say: "Do you know you're an extraordinary person--but +you are!" he overrode her protests. "Don't I know the ordinary kind? Women +have a deep strength of their own that men cannot understand." + +He stayed only a few minutes after that. On parting he for the first time +permitted himself a lingering gaze into her eyes as he reluctantly +relinquished her hand. She turned away, distinctly uneasy. Yet so skilfully +had he woven, his illusion of dependence on her that she shook it off with +a tender and maternal smile. + +"Poor boy," she murmured. "He is so unhappy and alone!" + +Sansome was an accomplished equestrian. Finding that Nan knew nothing +whatever about riding, he procured her a gentle horse, and took the +greatest trouble and pleasure in teaching her. She proved apt, for she had +good natural control of her body. After the first uncertainty and the first +stiffness had worn off, she delighted in long rides toward different parts +of the peninsula. Gringo, now a full-grown dog inclining toward the +shepherd more than anything else, delighted in them, too. He ranged far and +wide in front of the horses, exploring every ditch and thicket, wallowing +happily in every mudhole, returning occasionally to roll his comical eyes +at them as though to say, "Aren't we having a good time?" for Gringo was a +dog with a sense of humour. On these excursions she renewed acquaintance +with the sand dunes, and the little canons with birds, and the broad beach +at low tide on which it was glorious to gallop. Once or twice they even +stopped at the little rancho where the Keiths had lunched. There Nan, +through Sansome, who talked Spanish, was able to communicate with her +kindly hosts; and Gringo met his honoured but rather snappy mother. The +mother disowned him utterly. As the days grew shorter they often rode on +the Presidio hills, watching the sun set beyond the Golden Gate. + +One such evening they had reined up their horses atop one of the hills next +the Gate. The sun had set somewhere beyond the headlands. Tamalpais was +deep pink with the glow; the water in the Gate was pale lilac; the sky +close to the horizon burned orange, but above turned to a pale green that +made with its lucent colour alone infinite depths and spaces. Below, the +darker waters twisted and turned with the tide. The western headlands were +black silhouettes. + +"Oh, but it is beautiful!" she said at last. + +"Yes, it is beautiful," he agreed somberly; "but when one is lonely, +somehow it hurts." + +There ensued a short, tense silence, broken only by the soft rolling of the +bit wheels in the horses' mouths. + +"Yes," she agreed softly, after a moment, "I feel that, too. Yet sometimes +I wonder if one doesn't see and feel more keenly when one is not too +happy--" She hesitated. + +"Yes, yes! Go on!" he urged in a low voice. His tone, his attitude, +suddenly seemed to envelop her with understanding. He appeared to offer her +aid, chivalrous aid, although no word was spoken. She had not quite meant +it that way; in fact, her thought was to offer _him_ sympathy. But somehow +it was grateful. It would do no harm to enjoy it, secretly, for a moment. +His unexpressed sympathy--for what she would have been unable to say--was +attractive to her isolation. + +Often on returning from these rides she asked him in for a cup of tea. +Occasionally, when she was overheated, or damp from the fog, she would +excuse herself and slip into a soft negligee. With lamp and fire lit they +made a very cozy tete-a-tete. He smoked contemplatively; she stitched at +the inevitable embroidery of the period. Occasionally they talked +animatedly; quite as frequently they sat in sociable silence. Gringo slept +by the fire dreaming of rabbits and things, his hind legs twitching as he +triumphantly ran them down. One evening she caught sight of a rip in the +sewing of his tobacco pouch. In spite of his protests, she insisted on +sewing it up for him. She was conscious of his eyes on her while she plied +the needle, and felt somehow very feminine and sure of her power. + +"There!" she cried, when she had finished. "You certainly do need somebody +to take care of you!" + +He took it without spoken thanks, and put it slowly away in his pocket--as +though, he would have kissed it. A pregnant silence followed, he sitting +staring at her, she jabbing the needle idly into the arm of her chair. +Suddenly, as though taking a tremendous resolution, he spoke: + +"Nan, I am going to ask you a question. You must not be offended. Do you +really love your husband?" At her hasty movement he hurried on: "I imagine +I feel something unsatisfied about you--besides, lots of women don't." + +As he probably expected, her indignation was thoroughly aroused. He took +his castigation and dismissal meekly, and found some interest in the +ensuing negotiations toward reconciliation. No one knew better than he how +to sue for forgiveness. But he was quite satisfied to have implanted the +idea, for Ben Sansome was content with slow coral-insect progress. A busy +man, engaged in men's occupations, would never have had the patience for +this leisurely establishment of atmosphere and influence; his impatience or +passion would have betrayed him to an early outbreak. But with Sansome it +was the practice of a fine art. He knew just how far to go. No one could +more skilfully ingratiate himself in small ways. He always knew what gown +she should wear or had worn, and always commented appreciatively on what +she had on. Keith merely knew vaguely whether she looked well or ill. +Sansome noticed and praised little things--her well-shod feet, the red +lights in her hair, an unusual flower in her belt. He knew every hat she +owned, and he had his well-marked preferences. He never made direct love, +nor attempted to touch her. She felt the growing attraction, enjoyed it, +but did not analyze it. She merely considered Ben Sansome as "nice," as +needing guidance, as romantic---- + +Occasionally, after seeing more than usual of him, some feeling of reaction +or some faint stirring of conscience would impel her--perhaps to convince +herself of the harmlessness of it all--to make an especial effort to draw +her husband out of his preoccupation into more human relations. She dressed +with great care, earlier than usual; she gathered flowers for the vases, +she fussed about lighting lamps, placing ash trays and chairs, generally +arranging the setting for his welcome home. The preparations kindled her +own enthusiasm. She became herself quite worked up in anticipation. When +she heard his step, she ran to meet him in the hall. Keith happened to be +tired to the point of exhaustion. + +"Good heavens!" was his comment; "are we having company to-night? Why all +the clothes and illumination?" + +His relaxed, dispirited manner of removing and hanging up his coat reacted +upon her instantly. Her high spirits sank to the depths. They ate their +meal in almost complete silence. Nan could not help visualizing Sansome's +appreciation of such an occasion. + + + + +XXXI + + +The new coherence in society began to manifest itself in one important way: +public gambling declined. In the "old days" it was said that everybody but +clergymen frequented the big gambling halls. They were a sort of club. But +now the most influential citizens began to stay away. Probably they gambled +as much as ever, but they took such pleasures in private. Two or three only +of the larger places remained in business. Save for them, open gambling was +confined to the low dives near the water front. There was no definite +movement against the practice. It merely fell off gradually. + +During these busy years the Sherwoods had quite methodically continued to +lead their customary lives. He read his morning paper on the veranda of the +Bella Union, talked his leisurely politics, drove his horses, and in the +evening attended to his business. She drove abroad, received her men +friends, gave them impartial advice and help in their difficulties, dressed +well, and carried on a life of many small activities. The Sherwoods were +always an attractive looking and imposing couple, whenever they appeared. +About three or four times a year they drove into the residential part of +town and made a half-dozen formal calls--on the Keiths among others. +Probably their lives were more nearly ordered on a routine than those of +any other people in the new city. + +One afternoon Sherwood came in at the usual hour, deposited his high hat +carefully on the table, flicked the dust off his boots, and remarked +casually: + +"Patsy, I've sold the business." + +Mrs. Sherwood was pinning on her hat. She stopped short, her hand halfway +to her head, as though turned to marble. After a moment she asked in a +quick, stifled voice: + +"What do you mean?" + +"Well," replied Sherwood, continuing methodically to readjust his dress, +"I've been thinking for some time that times were changing. The gambling +business is losing tone. I don't see the same class of people I used to +see. Public sentiment--of the very best people, I mean--is drifting away +from it. In the future, in my judgment, it's not going to pay as it ought. +I've been thinking these things for some time. So when a bona fide +purchaser came along----" + +But he got no further. With a smothered cry she let her arms drop. Her +customary poise had vanished. She flung herself on him, laughing, crying, +gasping. + +"Why, Patsy! Patsy!" he cried, patting her small, sleek head as it pressed +against his shoulder. "What is it, dearie? Tell me? What's wrong?" + +He was vastly perturbed and anxious, for she was not at all the type that +loses control readily. + +"Nothing! nothing!" she gasped. "I'll be all right in a minute. Don't mind +me. Just let me alone. Only you told me so suddenly----" + +"Don't you want me to sell?" he asked, utterly bewildered. + +Gradually he gathered from her disjointed exclamations that this was just +the one thing she had wanted, secretly, for years; the thing she had +schooled herself not to hope for; the last thing in the world she had +expected. And to his astonishment he gathered further that now she was free +she could take her place with the other women---- + +"But I hadn't the slightest idea you wanted to!" he interrupted at this +point. "You've never showed any signs of paying the slightest attention to +them before!" + +She was drying her eyes, and looking a little happily foolish. + +"I knew better than to give them a chance to snub me," she told him. "Now +I'm respectable." + +But at this Sherwood reared his crest. + +"Respectable!" he snorted, "What do you mean? Haven't you always been +respectable? I'd like to see anybody who would hint--" + +"You're a dear, but you're a man," she broke in more calmly. "Don't you +know that a gambler's wife isn't respectable--in their sense of the word?" + +"But every mother's son of them gambles!" cried Sherwood. "It's a perfectly +legal and legitimate occupation!" + +"The men do; we'd always get along if it was only a question of the men. +But the women make distinctions--" + +"Look here!" he broke out wrathfully. "There's Dick Blatchford mixed up in +dirty work for dirty money I wouldn't lay my fingers on; and Terry, or +Brannan, or McGowan, or all the rest of the boodling, land-grabbing, +pettifogging crew! Why, if I made my living or spare cash the way that gang +of pirates and cutthroats do I'd carry a pair of handcuffs for myself. +Honest! Respectable! I've got no kick on their methods; it's, none of my +business. But their wives are all right. I don't see it!" + +"It's all names, I acknowledge," she soothed, "just names, I attach no more +weight to them than you do. Don't you suppose I'd have said something if I +had thought you were doing anything wrong? But that's the way they play the +game, and it is their game. If we play it we've got to accept their rules. +Don't you see?" + +"Well, it's a mighty poor game," grumbled Sherwood, "and they strike me as +an exceptionally stupid lot of women. They'd drive me to drink. I don't see +what you want to bother with them for." + +"They are," she agreed. "They won't amuse me much--you couldn't understand +--it's just the _idea_ of it--But I won't be looked down on, even by my +inferiors! Tell me, Jack, when we sell the business are we going to be +wealthy, will we have plenty of money?" + +A hurt look came into his fine, straightforward eyes. + +"Haven't you always had all you wanted, Patsy?" he inquired. + +"Of course I have, you old goose! But I want to know what our resources are +before I plan my campaign." + +"Going in up to your neck, are you?" he commented ruefully. + +She nodded. Her eyes were bright, and a spot of colour glowed in either +cheek. + +"Course I am. What can I spend?" + +"You can have whatever you want." + +"That's too vague, too indefinite. How rich--or poor--are we going to be?" + +"We'll be rich enough." + +"Very?" + +"Well--yes, very. The business has paid, investments have panned out. I got +a good cash purchase price." + +"How much can I spend a year?" she persisted. "It doesn't matter whether +it's much or little, but I want to know." + +"What a mercenary little creature!" he cried facetiously, then sobered as +he saw by the expression of her face that this, apparently trivial thing +meant a great deal to her. "Oh, fifty thousand or so won't cripple us." + +"A year?" she breathed, awed. + +He nodded. + +"Oh!" she cried rapidly. "Then we'll have a house--a house built for our +very own selves, our very own plans!" + +"Why, I thought we were very comfortable here!" he protested, a little +dismayed. "Haven't we room enough? I'll make Rebinot cut a door----" + +"No! no! no! a house of my own!" She was on fire with excitement, walking +restlessly up and down. He watched her a moment or so. His slower +imagination was kindling. He was beginning to grasp the symbolism of it, +what it meant to her, the release of long-pent secret desires. As she +passed him, he seized her and drew her gently to his knee. + +"Patsy!" he cried contritely, "I didn't realize! I didn't guess you weren't +perfectly contented here!" + +She brushed his cheek with hers. + +"Of course you didn't," she reassured him. + +"If you'd the slightest----" + +She threw her head back proudly, her breast swelled. + +"I married you to lead your life. Jack, whatever it was," she told him, "to +be your _help_mate." + +"You're the game little sportsman in this town!" he cried. "And if you want +to make those flub-dubs crawl, by God you sail in! I'll back you!" + +Ten minutes later she asked him: + +"What are you going to do, yourself, Jack? Somehow, I can't imagine you +idle." + +"Well," said Sherwood, "the boys are organizing a stock exchange, and it +struck me that it might be a good idea if I went into that." + +She began to laugh softly, in affectionate amusement. + +"Stop it!" he commanded indignantly. "I know that laugh, What have I done +now?" + +"I was just thinking what a nice, _respectable_ gambler you are going to be +now," she said, "It's in your blood, Jack, and I love it--but it's funny!" + + + + +XXXII + + +But now, at the very sources, the full flood of the somewhat turbid tide of +prosperity was beginning to fail. The ebb had not yet reached the civic +consciousness. It would have required a philosopher, and a detached +philosopher at that, to have connected cause and effect, to have forecast +the inevitable trend of events. If there were any philosophers they were +not detached! Nobody had discovered the simple truth that extravagance, +graft, waste, cost money; and that the money must come from somewhere. +Realization on its property and taxes were the twin sources of the city's +revenues. The property was now about all sold or swindled away. Remained +the taxes. And it is a self-evident truth that people will pay high taxes +cheerfully only so long as they themselves are making plenty of money +easily. + +Up to this period such had been the case. Prices had been high, wages had +been high, opportunities had been many. Enormous profits had been the rule. +Everybody had invariably made money. These conditions upset the mental +balance of the shipping merchants back East. A madness seemed to obsess +them for sending goods to California. The mere rumour of a want or a lack +was answered by immense shipments of that particular commodity. The first +cargo to arrive supplied the want; all the rest simply broke the market. It +was a gamble as to who should get there first. The immediate and +picturesque consequence was a fleet of beautiful clipper ships, built like +racing yachts, with long clean lines and snowy sails. They made +extraordinarily fast voyages, and they promptly condemned to death the old- +fashioned, slow freight carriers. Indeed, four-hundred odd of these +actually rotted at anchor in the bay; it had not paid to move them! Some of +these clippers gained vast reputations: the _Flying Cloud_, the _White +Squall_, the _Typhoon_, the _Trade Wind_. The markets were continually in a +state of glut with goods sold at auction. This condition tightened the +money market, which in turn reacted on other branches of industry. Again, +the great fires of '49-'53 resulted in the erection of too many fireproof +buildings. Storage was needed, and rentals were high, so everybody plunged +on storehouses. By '54 many hundreds of them stood vacant, representing +loss. At that period the first abundance of the placers began to fall off. + +Agriculture was beginning to be undertaken seriously; and while this would +be an ultimate source of wealth, its immediate effect was to diminish the +demand for imported foodstuffs--another blow to a purely mercantile city. + +All this made for excitement, some immediate gain, but a sure ultimate +loss. Markets fluctuated wildly. A ship in sight threw operators into a +fever. No one knew what she might be carrying, or how she would, affect +prices. It was, therefore, positively unsafe to keep-many goods is stock. +Quick, immediate sales were the rule. And failures were many. + +Now in these middle fifties the pinch was beginning at last to itself felt. +Everybody was a little vague about it all, and nobody had gone so far as to +formulate his dissatisfactions or his remedies. The tangible result was the +formation of two as yet inchoate elements, representing the extremes of +ideas and of interests. + +The first of these elements--that can with equal justice be called the +parasitic or the middleman class--consisted in itself of several sorts of +people. The nucleus was a small, intellectually honest set of men who +believed, in the law _per se_, in the sacredness of formal institutions in +the constitution, and in the subservience of the individual to the +institution. This was temperamental. Behind them were many much larger +groups of those needed either the interpretation or the protection of the +law for their private interests. These were of all sorts from honest +literal-minded dealers, through shady contractors and operators, down to +grafters and the very lowest type of strong-arm bullies. The tone and +respectability came from the first, the practical results from the second. +The first class had a genuine intellectual contempt for men whose minds +could not see--or at least would not accept--the same subtleties that it +did. Its members were fond of such phrases as the "lawless mob," or the +"subversion of time-honoured institutions." This small, subjectively +honest, conservative, specially trained element must not be forgotten in +the final estimate of what later came to be known as the "Law and Order" +party. + +On the other hand was first of all an equally small nucleus of thinking men +whose respect for the law, merely as law, was not so profound; men who +were, reluctantly, willing to admit that when law completely broke down in +encompassing justice, individualism was justified in stepping in. Behind +them was a vast body of more or less unthinking men who recognized the +indubitable facts that the law had become a farce, that justice had +degenerated to tricks, and who were, therefore, instinctively against law, +lawyers, and everybody who had anything to do with them. + +Strangely enough this made for lawlessness on both sides. Those who +believed in "law and order" committed crime or misdemeanour or mere +injustice, sure of escape through some technicality. Those who distrusted +courts administered justice illegally with their own hands! Nor was this +merely in theory. San Francisco at that time was undoubtedly the most +corrupt and lawless city in the world. Street shootings, duels, robberies, +ballot-box stuffing, bribery, all the crimes traceable to a supine police +and venal or technical courts were actually so commonplace as to command +but two or three lines in the daily papers. Justice was completely +smothered under technicalities and delays. + +The situation would have been intolerable to any people less busy than the +people of that time. For political corruption in a vigorous body politic is +not, as pessimists would have us believer an indication of incipient decay, +but only an indication that a busy people are willing to pay that price to +be left alone, to be relieved of the administration of their public +affairs, When they get less busy, or the price in corruption becomes too +high, then they refuse to pay. The price Francisco was paying becoming very +high, not only in money, but in other and spiritual things. She could still +afford to pay it; but at the least pressure she would no longer afford it. +Then she would act. + + + + +XXXIII + + +In the second year of his residence Keith had a minor adventure that +shifted a portion of his activities to other fields. He was in attendance +at a council meeting, following the interests of certain clients. The +evening was warm, the proceedings dull. Opened windows let in the sounds +from the Plaza and a night air that occasionally flared the smoky lamps. +The clerk's voice was droning away at some routine when the outer door +opened and a most extraordinary quartette entered the chamber. Three of +these were the ordinary, ragged, discouraged, emaciated, diseased "bums," +only too common in that city. In early California a man either succeeded or +he failed into a dark abyss of complete discouragement; the new +civilization had little use for weaklings. The fourth man can be no better +described than in the words of a chronicler of the period. Says the worthy +diarist: + +"He was a man of medium stature, slender but very graceful, with almost +effeminate hands and feet--the former scrupulously kept, the latter neatly +shod--and with a certain air of fragility; very soft blue eyes with sleepy +lids; a classically correct nose; short upper lip; rosy, moist lips. His +clothes: a claret-coloured coat, neither dress nor frock, but mixed of both +fashions, with a velvet collar and brass buttons; a black vest, double +breasted; iron-gray pantaloons; fresh, well-starched, and very fine linen; +plain black cravat, negligently tied; a cambric handkerchief; and dark kid +gloves. He wore gold spectacles, and carried a malacca cane." + +Instead of slipping into the seats provided for spectators, this striking +individual marched boldly to the open space before the mayor's chair, +followed, shamefaced and shambling, by the three bums. + +"Your honours and gentlemen," he cried in a clear, ringing voice, to the +scandal of the interrupted legislators, "we are very sick and hungry and +helpless and wretched. If somebody does not do something for us, we shall +die; and that would be bad, considering how far we have come, and how hard +it was to get here, and how short a time we have been here, and that we +have not had a fair chance. All we ask is a fair chance, and we say again, +upon our honour, gentlemen, if somebody does not do something for us, we +shall die, or we shall be setting fire to the town first and cutting all +our throats." + +He stood leaning lightly against his malacca cane, surveying them through +his sleepy blue eyes. The first astonishment over, they took up a +collection, after the customary careless, generous fashion. The young man +saluted with his cane, and herded his three exhibits out. + +Keith, much struck, followed them, overtaking the quartette on the street. + +"My name is Keith," he said, "I should like to make your acquaintance." + +"Mine is Krafft," replied the unknown, "and I am delighted to accept your +proffer." + +He said nothing more until he had marshalled his charges, into a cheap +eating-house, ordered and paid for a supper, and divided the remainder of +the amount collected. Then he dusted his fingers daintily with a fine +handkerchief, and sauntered out into the street, swinging his malacca cane. + +"Incidents of that sort restore one's faith in the generosity of our +people," Keith remarked, in order to say something. + +"Nobody has been generous," denied Krafft categorically, "and no particular +good has been accomplished. Filled their bellies for this evening; given +them a place to sleep for this night; that's all." + +"That's something," ventured Keith. "It helps." + +"The only way to help we have not undertaken. We have done nothing toward +finding out why there are such creatures--in a place like this. That's the +only way to help them: find out why they are, and then remove the why." + +This commonplace of modern charity was then a brand-new thought. Keith had +never heard it expressed, and he was much interested. + +"I suppose there are always the weak and the useless," he said vaguely. + +"If those men were wholly weak and useless, how did they get out here?" +countered Krafft. "To compass such a journey takes a certain energy, a +certain sum of money, a certain fund of hope. The money goes, the energy +drains, the hope fades. Why?" + +They stopped at a corner. + +"I live just near here," said Krafft. "If you will honour me." + +He led the way down a narrow dark alley, along which they had fairly to +grope their way. It debouched, however, into the forgotten centre of the +square. All the edges had been built close with brick stores, warehouses, +and office buildings. But in the very middle had been left a waste piece of +ground, occupied only by a garden and a low one-room abode, with a veranda +and a red-tiled roof. Under the moonlight and the black shadows from the +modern buildings it slept amid its bright flowers with the ancient air of +another world. Krafft turned a key and lighted a lamp. Keith found himself +in a small, neat room, with heavy beams, fireplace, and deep embrasured +windows. An iron bed, two chairs, a table, a screen, a shelf of books, and +a wardrobe were its sole furnishings. In the fireplace had been laid, but +not lighted, a fire of sagebrush roots. + +Krafft touched a match to the roots, which instantly leaped into eager and +aromatic flames. From a shelf he took a new clay pipe which he handed to +Keith. + +"Tobacco is in that jar," he said. + +He himself filled and lighted a big porcelain pipe with wexelwood stem. + +"What would you do about it?" asked Keith, continuing the discussion. + +"What would you most want, if you were those poor men?" retorted Krafft, +blowing a huge cloud. + +Keith laughed. + +"Drink, food, clothes, bed," he stated succinctly. + +"And work wherewith to get them," supplemented Krafft. + +Keith laughed again. + +"Not if I know their sort! Work is the one thing they _don't_ want." + +Krafft leaned forward, and tapped the table with one of his long +forefingers, + +"The lazy part of them, the earthen part of them, the dross of them--yes, +perhaps. But let us concede to them a spark that smoulders, way down deep +within them--a spark of which they think they are ashamed, which they do +not themselves realize the existence of except occasionally. What is the +deep need of them? It is to feel that they are still of use, that they +amount to something, that they are men. That more than mere food and +warmth. Is it not so?" + +"I believe you're right," said Keith, impressed. + +"Then," said Krafft triumphantly, "it _is_ work they want, work that is +useful and worth paying for." + +"But there's plenty of work to be had," objected Keith, after a moment. "In +fact, there's more work in this town than there are men to do it." + +"True, But it is the hard work these men have failed at. It is too hard. +They try; they are discouraged; they fall again, and perhaps they never get +up. Such men must be led, must be watched, must be stopped within their +strength." + +"Who's there to do that sort of dry nursing of bums?" demanded Keith with a +half laugh. + +"He who would help," said Krafft quietly. + +They smoked for some time in silence; then Keith arose to go. + +"It is a big idea; it requires thought," said he ruminativeiy. "You are a +recent arrival, Mr. Krafft? What is your line of activity?" + +The slight, elegant little man smiled. + +"I am one of the--what is it you called, them--bums of whom we talk. I try +to do what is within my power, within my strength-lest I, too, become +discouraged, lest I, too, fall again--and not get up." + +"I have not seen you about anywhere," said Keith, puzzled by this speech. + +"I do not go anywhere; I should be eaten. You do not understand me, and I +am a poor host to talk in riddles. I am a philosopher, not a man of action; +egotist, not an egoist; one who cannot swim in your strong waters. As I +said, one of that same class whom your bounty helped this evening." + +"Good Lord, man!" cried Keith, looking about the little room. "You're not +in want?" + +Krafft laughed gently. + +"In your sense, no. I have my meals. Enough of me. Go, and think of what I +say." + +Keith did so, and the result was the first organized charity in San +Francisco. Since 1849 men had always been exceptionally generous in +responding to appeals for money. Huge sums could easily be raised at any +time. Hospitals and almshouses dated from the first. But having given, +these pioneers invariably forgot. The erection of the buildings cost more +than they should, and management being venal, conditions soon became +disgraceful. Alms reached the professional pauper. The miner or immigrant, +diseased, discouraged, out of luck, more often died--either actually or +morally. + +So much had this first interview caught his interest that Keith dropped in +on his new acquaintance quite often. It soon became evident that Krafft +lived in what might be called decent poverty. The one fine rig-out in which +he made his public appearances was most carefully preserved. Indoors he +always promptly assumed a dressing-gown, a skull cap with a gold tassel, +and his great porcelain pipe. His meals he cooked for himself. Never did he +leave his house until about three o'clock. Then, spick and span, +exquisitely appointed, he sauntered forth swinging his malacca cane. After +a promenade of several hours he returned again to his dressing-gown, his +porcelain pipe, and his books. Keith enjoyed hugely his detached, +reflective, philosophical, spectator-of-life conversation. They talked on +many subjects besides sociology. At his fourth visit Krafft made a +suggestion. + +"You shall come with me and see," said he. + +He led the way to the water front under Telegraph Hill, the newest and the +most squalid part of town. The shallow water was in slow process of being +filled in by sand from the grading uptown and with all sorts of +miscellaneous debris, Pending solidity, this sketchy real estate swarmed +with squatters. There were lots sunken below the street level, filled with +stagnant water, discarded garments, old boxes, ashes, and rubbish; houses +huddled closely together with stale water beneath; there were muddy alleys; +murderous cheap saloons; cheaper gambling joints; rickety, sagging +tenements. The people corresponded to their habitations. All the low +elements lurked here, the thugs, strong-arm men, the hold-ups, the heelers, +the weaklings, the bums, the diseased. In ordinary times they here dwelt in +a twilight existence; but at periods of excitement--as when the city +burned--they swarmed out like rats for plunder. + +Krafft held his way steadily to the wharves. There he left the causeway and +descended to the level of the beach. Beneath the pilings, and above the +high-water mark, was a little hut. It was not over six feet square, +constructed of all sorts of old pieces of boxes, scraps of tin, or remnants +of canvas. Overhead rumbled continuously the heavy drays, shaking down, +through the cracks the dust of the roadway. Against one outside wall of +this crazy structure an old man sat, chair tilted in the sun. Even the +chair was a curiosity, miraculously held together by wires. The man was +very old, and very feeble, his knotted hands clasping a short, black clay +pipe. Inside the hut Keith, saw a rough bunk on which lay jumbled a quilt +and a piece of canvas. + +"Well, John," greeted Krafft cheerfully, "I've brought a friend to see +you." + +The old man turned on Keith a twinkling blue eye. + +"Glad to see you," he said briefly. + +"Getting on?" pursued Krafft. + +"Fine." + +"Here's a new kind of tobacco I want you to try. I should value your +opinion." + +Keith's hand wandered toward his pocket, but stopped at a sharp look from +Krafft. After a moment's chat they withdrew. + +"What a pathetic old figure! What utter misery!" cried Keith. + +"No!" said Krafft positively. "There you are wrong. Old John is in no need +of us. He has his house and his bed, and he gets his food. How, I do not +know, but he gets it. The spark is burning clear and steady. He has not +lost his grip. He gets his living with confidence. Let him alone." + +"But he must be very miserable--especially when it rains," persisted Keith. + +Krafft shrugged his shoulders. + +"As to that, I know not," he returned indifferently. "That does not matter +to the soul. I will now show you another man." + +They retraced their steps. On a corner of Montgomery Street Krafft stopped +before a one-armed beggar, the stump exposed, a placard around his neck. + +"Now here's another John," said Krafft. "What he wants is work, and +somebody to see that he does it." + +The one-armed beggar, who was fat, with a good-natured countenance, +evidently considered this a joke. He grinned cheerfully. + +"Don't have to, guvenor," said he. + +"How much did you take in yesterday, John?" asked Krafft; then, catching +the beggar's look of suspicion, he added, "This is a friend of mine; he's +all right." + +"Twenty-two dollars," replied the beggar proudly. "Pretty good day's +wages!" + +"I'm afraid the spark is about out with you, John," said Krafft +thoughtfully. He walked on a few steps, then turned back. "John," he asked, +"what is your contribution to society?" + +The beggar stared, uncertain of this new chaff. + +"The true theory of business, John, is that traffic which does not result +In reciprocal advantages to buyer and seller is illegitimate, or at least +abnormal." + +They walked on, Keith laughing at the expression on the beggar's face. + +"That was considerably over his head," he observed. + +Nothing more was said for half a block. + +"I wonder if it was over yours," then said Krafft, unexpectedly. + +"Eh?" ejaculated Keith, bewildered. + +These walks with Krafft finally resulted in the institution of a fund which +Keith raised and put into Krafft's hands for intelligent use. The effects +were so interesting that Keith, thoroughly fascinated, began to pester his +friends for positions for some of his proteges. As he was well-liked and in +earnest, these efforts were taken good-humourediy. + +"Here comes Milt Keith," said John Webb to Bert Taylor. "Bet you a beaver +hat he's got a highly educated college professor that he wants a job for." + +"'A light job, not beyond his powers,'" quoted Taylor. + +"Like cleaning genteel spittoons," supplemented Webb. + +"The engine house is full of 'em polishing brass," complained Taylor. + +"Well, he's a young felly, and I like him," concluded Webb heartily. + +Of course many of the experiments failed, but fewer than might have been +anticipated. Part of Krafft's task was to keep in touch with the men. His +detached, philosophical method of encouragement and analysis of the +situation seemed just the thing they needed. + + + + +XXXIV + + +These activities gave Keith just the required door out into a world other +than his own. Were it not for something of the sort he might, like many +modern corporation lawyers, have confined himself entirely to his own +class. And this, of course, would eventually have meant narrowness. + +But through Krafft, and especially through his desire to help Krafft's +work, he came in contact with all sorts of people; and, what was more +important, he found that he liked a great many of them. So it happened that +when it seemed expedient to the ruling caste to put him in as Assistant +District Attorney, his inevitable election met with wider approval than +such elections usually enjoy. + +For it must be understood that in the fifties any candidate selected by the +ruling caste was absolutely sure of election. The machinery was thoroughly +in their hands. Diplomacy in party caucuses, delicate manipulation at +primaries, were backed by cruder methods if need be. Associations were +semi-publically formed for the sale of votes; gangs of men were driven from +one precinct to another, voting in all; intimidation, and, indeed, open +violence, was freely used. Only the most adventurous or the most determined +thought it worth while even to try to vote in the rough precincts. And if +the first and second lines of defence failed, there was still the third to +fall back on when the booths were dosed and the ballots counted: the boxes +could still be "stuffed," the count could still be scientifically juggled +to bring about any desired result. + +This particular election was one of the worst in the history of the place. +All day fighting was kept up, and the rowdies swaggered everywhere. Whiskey +was to be had for the asking; and the roughs who surrounded the polls fired +shots, and in some places started what might fairly be called riots. Yankee +Sullivan returned James Casey as elected supervisor, which was probably a +mistake, for Casey was not a candidate, his name was on none of the +official ballots, and nobody could be found who had voted for him. +Everybody was surprised, Casey most of all! The sixth ward count was +delayed unconscionably, its returns being withheld until nearly morning. It +was more than hinted that this delay was prolonged until the returns had +been received from all other precincts, so that any deficiencies might be +made up by the sixth. The "slate" went through unbroken. + +Of all the candidates, Keith received the most votes, for the simple reason +that his total included both the honest and dishonest ballots. Blanchford, +Neil, Palmer, Adams, all the political overlords of the city were +satisfied, as well they might be, for they had issued the fiat that he be +chosen. + +"He's one of us," said they. + +But what was more unusual, the rank and file of decent, busy, hard-working +citizens approved, too. + +"Keith is not stuck up," they told each other. "He is the _commonest_ man +in that bunch. And he's square." + +The position carried some social as well as political significance. Society +made another effort to take him up. His rare appearances were rather in the +nature of concessions. They served to make him more regretted, for he had +an easy, jolly way of moving from one group or one woman to another, of +paying flattering, monopolizing, brief attention to each in turn, and then +disappearing, very early! His bold rather florid countenance radiated +energy and quizzical good humour; his tight, closely curled hair crisped +with virile alertness; he carried himself taut and eager--altogether a +figure to engage the curiosities of women or the interest of men. + +Mrs. Sherwood alone was shrewd enough to penetrate to his true feelings. +She had experienced no difficulty in pushing to a social leadership shared +--indolently and indifferently--with Nan Keith. Already her past was +growing dim in a tradition kept alive only by a few whisperers. Her wealth, +her natural tact and poise, her calm assumption of the right to rule, her +great personal charm, beauty, and taste were more than sufficient to get +her what she wanted. The game was almost too easy, when one held the cards. + +"Yes, he's very charming," she told her husband, "but that manner of his +does not impress me. As a matter of fact, he doesn't care a snap of his +finger about any of them. He does it too well. It's a stencil. Only the +outside of him does it. He's just as bad as you are; only _he_ doesn't hold +up a corner of the doorway all the evening, and beam vaguely in general, +like a good-natured, dear old owl." + + + + +XXXV + + +A few clear-headed men--not the "chivalry," as the fire-eating professional +politicians and lawyers from the South were almost uniformly designated-- +were able to see exactly the problem that must eventually demand Keith's +solution. Some of them talked it over while lounging and smoking in the +Fire Queen reading-room. There were present Talbot Ward and his huge +satellite, Munro; Coleman, quiet, grim, complacent, but looking, with his +sweeping, inky moustache and his florid, complexion, like a flashy "sport"; +Hossfros, soon to become an historic character; and the banker, James King +of William. + +The latter had recently come in for considerable public discussion. He had +for some time conducted a banking business, but becoming involved in +difficulties, he had turned over all his assets, all his personal fortune, +even his dwelling-house, to another bank as trustee to take care of his +debts. Almost immediately after, that bank had failed. Opinion in the +community divided according to the interests involved. The majority +considered that King had been almost quixotically conscientious in +stripping himself; but there did not lack those who accused him of sharp +practice. In the course of ensuing discussions and recriminations King was +challenged to a duel. He declined to fight, basing his refusal on +principle. As may be imagined, such an action at such a time was even more +widely commented upon than even his refusal to take advantage of the +bankruptcy laws. It was, as far as known, the first time any one had had +the moral courage to refuse a duel. King had gone quietly about his +business, taking an ordinary clerkship with Palmer, Cook & Co. In the eyes +of the discriminating few he had gained prestige, but most people thought +him down and out. + +"What do you think of our new Assistant District Attorney?" Ward had begun +the conversation. + +"He's a lawyer," growled Hossfros. + +"A pretty fairly honest one, I think," ventured King. "His training may be +wrong, but his instincts are right." + +"Fat chance anything's got when it mixes up with legalities," supplemented +Frank Munro. + +"Nevertheless," remarked Coleman seriously, "I believe plain justice has +more of a chance with him in charge than with another." + +"What sort of justice?" queried King. "Commercial?" He laughed in answer to +his own question. "Criminal? I'd like to think it, gentlemen, but I cannot. +You know as well as I do that any of us could this evening go into the +streets, select our victim, and shoot him down secure in the knowledge that +inconvenience is all the punishment we need expect--if we have money or +friends. Am I not right, Coleman?" + +Coleman smiled sardonically, lifting his blue-black moustache. + +"Were Herod for the slaughter of the Innocents brought before a jury of +this town, he would be acquitted," he said half-seriously. "Judas Iscariot +would pass unscathed so long as any portion of his thirty pieces of silver +remained with him." + +They laughed at this remarkable pronouncement, but with an undernote of +seriousness. + +"No man, even exceptionally equipped as this young man seems to be," went +on Coleman after a moment, "can accomplish _that_"--he snapped his fingers +--"against organized forces such as those of 'Law and Order.'" + +"We can't stand this sort of thing forever!" cried Hossfros hotly. "It's +getting worse and worse!" + +"We probably shall not stand it forever," agreed Coleman equably, "but we +are powerless--at present." + +They looked toward him for explanation of this last. + +"When the people at large find that _they_ cannot stand it either, then we +shall be no longer powerless. A single man can do something then--a single +child!" + +"What will happen then?" asked Munro. "Vigilantes? '51 again?" + +Coleman, the leader of the Vigilantes of '51, turned on him a grave eye. + +"God forbid! We were then a frontier community. We are now an organized, +civilized city. We have rights and powers through the regular channels--at +the ballot box for example." + +Hossfros laughed skeptically. + +"It must wait," continued Coleman; "it must wait on public opinion." + +"Well," spoke up King, "it's all very well to wait, but public opinion left +to itself is a mighty slow growth. It should be fostered. The newspapers--" + +"Don't let's lose our sense of humour," cut in Talbot Ward. "Can you see +Charley Nugent or Mike Rowlee crusading for the right?" + +"But my point is good," insisted King. "An honest, fearless editor, not +afraid to call a spade a spade--" + +"Would be shot," said Coleman briefly. + +"The chances of war," replied King. + +"They don't grow that kind around here," grinned Ward. + +"Well," concluded Coleman, "this young Keith probably won't help any, but +he's going to be interesting to watch, just the same, to see what he'll do +the first time they crack the whip over him. That's the vital point as far +as he is concerned." + + + + +XXXVI + + +Keith's activities did not immediately confront him with anything in the +nature of a test, however. His superiors confined him to the drawing of +briefs and the carrying through of carefully selected cases. It was +considered well to "work him in" a little before putting responsibility on +him. + +He enjoyed it, for now he had at his call all the civil and police +resources of the city. This gave him a pleasant feeling of power. He was at +the centre of things. And through his office he came into contact with +ever-widening circles of people, all of whom were disposed, even anxious, +to treat him well, to get in his good graces. Possibly most of these were +what we would call the worst elements; and by that we would mean not only +the roughnecks of the police or sheriff's offices, but also the +punctilious, smooth-mannered Southerners who practically monopolized the +political offices. These men would have been little considered in the +South; in fact, in many cases, they had left their native states under a +cloud or even with prison records; but their natural charm, their audacity, +and their great punctilio as to "honour" deeply impressed the ordinary +citizen. As one chronicler of the times puts it, they had "fluency in +harangue, vigour in invective, ostentatious courage, absolute confidence +about all matters of morals, politics, and propriety"--which is an +excellent thumbnail sketch. Many of these ex-jailbirds rose to wealth and +influence, so that to this day the sound of their names means aristocracy +and birth to those ignorant of local history. Their descendants may be seen +to-day ruffling it proudly on the strength of their "birth!" + +They, and the classes they directly and indirectly encouraged, had at last +brought the city fairly on the financial rocks. There was no more revenue. +Everything taxable had been taxed. The poll tax was out of all reason; +property paid 4 per cent. on an actual valuation; theatres, bankers, +brokers, freight, miners, merchants, hotel, keepers, incorporations, every +form of industry was levied upon heavily. Still that was not enough. Even +labour was paid now in scrip so depreciated that the cost of the simplest +public works was terrible. + +And to heap up the measure, the year of 1855 was one of financial +stringency. The season of '54-'55 had been one of drought. For lack of +water most of the mining had ceased. The miners wanted to be trusted for +their daily needs; the country stores had to have credit because the miners +could not pay; and so on up to the wholesalers in the city. Goods were +therefore sold cheap at auction, and the gold went East to pay at the +source. Money, actual physical money, became scarce. The gold was gone, and +there existed no institution legally entitled to issue the paper money that +might have taken its place. All the banking was done by private firms. +These took deposits, made loans, issued exchange, but could not issue +banknotes. + +Still, things had looked a bit squally many times before, but nothing had +happened. Men had the habit of optimism. No one stopped to analyze the +situation, to realize that the very good reason nothing had happened was +that the city had always had behind it the strength of the mines, and that +now the mines had withdrawn. + +Out of a clear sky came the announcement that Adams & Co. had failed! + +At first nobody believed it. Adams & Co. had occupied in men's minds from +the start much the same position as the Bank of England. The confirmation +of the news caused the wildest panic and excitement. If Adams & Co. were +vulnerable, nobody was secure. Small merchants began to call in their +credits. The city caught up eagerly every item of news. All the assets of +the bankrupt firm were turned over to Alfred Cohen as receiver. Some +interested people did not trust Cohen. They made enough of a fuss to get H. +M. Naglee appointed in Cohen's place. Naglee, demanding the assets, was +told they had been deposited with Palmer, Cook & Co. The latter refused to +give them up, denying Naglee's jurisdiction in the matter. The case was +brought into court. Then suddenly it was found that Palmer, Cook & Co. had +mysteriously lost their paramount interest in the courts. They had counted +on the case being brought before their own judges; but it was cited before +Judges Hazen and Park, both of whom, while ultra-technical, were honest. +The truth of the matter was that the rats suspected Palmer, Cook & Co. of +sinking, too, and had deserted. Judges Hazen and Park called upon the firm +to turn over to Naglee the assets of Adams & Co. They still refused. One of +the partners, named Jones, and Cohen were imprisoned. Some where $269,000 +was missing. Nobody knew anything about it. The books having to do with the +transaction had mysteriously disappeared. Two days later an Irishman found +them floating in the bay, and brought them to the court. But the crucial +pages were missing. And then suddenly, while both Judge Hazen and Judge +Park were out of town, application was made to the Supreme Court--of which +Judge Terry was head--for the release of Jones and Cohen. The application +was granted. + +So an immense sum of money disappeared; nobody was punished; it was all +strictly legal; and yet the dullest labourer could see that the whole +transaction amounted to robbery under arms. Failures resulted right and +left. Wells Fargo & Co. closed their doors, but resumed within a few days. +A great many pocketbooks were hit. There was much talk and excitement. + + + + +XXXVII + + +On an evening in October, returning home at an early hour, Keith found Nan +indignant and excited. She held in her hand a tiny newspaper, not half the +usual size, consisting only of a single sheet folded. + +"Have you seen this?" she burst out as Keith entered. "Isn't it +outrageous!" + +Keith was tired, and sank into an easy chair with a sigh of relaxation. + +"No, what is it?" he asked, reaching his hand for the paper. "Oh, the new +paper. I saw them selling it on the street yesterday." + +It was the _Bulletin_, Vol. 1, No. 2. Like all papers of that day, and like +some of the English papers now, its first page was completely covered with +small advertisements. A thin driblet of short local items occupied a column +on the third and fourth pages, a single column of editorial on the second. + +"Seems a piffling little sheet," he observed, "to be read in about eight +seconds by any one not interested in advertisements. What is it that +agitates you, Nan?" + +"Read that." She pointed to the editorial. + +The article in question proved to be an attack on Palmer, Cook & Co. It +said nothing whatever about the Cohen-Naglee robbery. Its subject was the +excessive rentals charged the public by Palmer, Cook & Co. for postal +boxes. But it mentioned names, recorded specific instances, avoided +generalities, and stated plainly that this was merely beginning at the +beginning in an expose of the methods of these "Uriah Heeps." + +"Why do they permit such things?" cried Nan, scarcely waiting for Keith to +finish his reading, "What is Mr. Palmer going to do about it?" + +"Survive, I guess," replied Keith, with a grin. "I take back my opinion of +the paper. It certainly has life." He turned to the head of the page. +"Hullo!" he cried in surprise. "James King of William running this, eh?" He +whistled, then laughed. "That promises to be interesting, sure. He was in +business with that crowd for some time. He ought to have information from +the inside!" + +"Mrs. Palmer is simply furious," said Nan. + +"I'll bet she is. Are we invited out this evening?" + +"The Thurstons' musicale. I thought you'd be interested in that." + +"Let me off, Nan, that's a good fellow," pleaded Keith, whose weariness had +vanished. "I'd be delighted to go at any other time. But this is too rich. +I must see what the gang has to say." + +"I suppose I could drop Ben Sansome a note," assented Nan doubtfully. + +"Do! Send the Chink around with it," urged Keith, rising. "I'll get a bite +downtown and not bother you." + +The gang--as indeed the whole city--took it as a great joke. Of those Keith +met, only Jones, the junior partner, failed to see the humour, and he +passed the affair off in cavalier fashion. That did not save him from the +obligation of setting up the drinks. + +"I'm going to fix this thing up in the morning," he stated confidently. +"Between you and me, there's evidently been a slip somewhere. Of course it +ought never to have been allowed to go so far. I'll see this man King first +thing in the morning, and buy him off. Undoubtedly that's about the only +reason his paper exists. Wonder where he got the money to start it? He's +busted. It can't last long." + +"If it keeps up the present gait, it'll last," said Judge Caldwell +shrewdly. "Me--I'm going to send in a subscription tomorrow. Wouldn't miss +it for anything." + +"It'll last as long as he does," growled Terry, "and that'll be about as +long as a snowball in hell. What you ought to do, Jones, is what any man of +spirit ought to do--call him out!" + +"He announces definitely that he won't fight duels," said Calhoun Bennett. + +"Then treat him like the cowardly hound he is," flared the uncompromising +Terry. "Take the whip to him; and if that isn't effective, shoot him down +as you would any other mad dog!" + +"Surely, that's a little extreme, Judge," expostulated Caldwell. "He hasn't +done anything worse than stir up Jonesy a little." + +"But he will, sir," insisted Terry, "you mark my words. If you give him +line, he'll not only hang himself, but he'll rope in a lot of bystanders as +well." + +"I'll bet he sells a lot of papers to-morrow, anyhow," predicted Keith. + +"I hope so," bragged Jones. "There'll be the more to read his apology." + +Evidently Jones fulfilled his promise, and quite as evidently Keith's +prediction was verified. Every man on the street had a copy of the next +day's _Bulletin_ within twenty minutes of issue. + +A roar of delight went up. Jones's visit was reported simply as an item of +news, faithfully, sarcastically, and pompously. There was no comment. Even +the most faithful partisans of Palmer, Cook & Co. had to grin at the +effectiveness of this new way of meeting the impact of such a visit, + +"It's clever journalism," Terry admitted, "but it's blackguardly; and I +blame Jones for passing it over." + +The fourth number--eagerly purchased--proved more interesting because of +its hints of future disclosures rather than for its actual information. +Broderick was mentioned by name. The attention of the city marshal was +succinctly called to the disorderly houses and the statutes concerning +them; and it was added, "for his information," that at a certain address a +structure was actually building at a cost of $30,000 for improper purposes. +Then followed a list of personal bonds and sureties for which Palmer, Cook +& Co. were standing voucher, amounting to over two millions. + +The expectations of disclosures, thus aroused, were not immediately +gratified, except in the case of Broderick. His swindles in the matters of +the Jenny Lind Theatre and the City Hall were traced out in detail. Every +one knew these things were done, but nobody knew just how; so these +disclosures made interesting reading if only as food for natural curiosity. +However, the tension somewhat relaxed. It was generally considered that the +coarse fibre of the ex-stone-cutter, the old Tammany heeler, and the thick +skins of his political adherents could stand this sort of thing. Nobody +with a sensitive honour to protect was assailed. + +The position of the new paper was by now firmly established. It had a large +subscription list; it was eagerly bought on the streets; and its +advertising was increasing. King again turned his attention to Palmer, Cook +& Co. Each day he treated succinctly, clearly, without rhetoric, some +branch of their business. By the time he had finished with them he had not +only exposed their iniquities, he had educated the public to an +understanding of the financial methods of the times. His tilting at this +banking firm had inevitably led him to criticism of certain of their +subterfuges to avoid or take advantage of the law; and that as inevitably +brought him to analysis and condemnation of the firm's legal advisers, +James, Doyle, Barber & Boyd, a firm which had heretofore enjoyed a good +reputation. Incidentally he called attention to duelling, venal newspapers, +city sales, gambling, Billy Mulligan, Wooley Kearney, Casey, Cora, Yankee +Sullivan, Martin Gallagher, Tom Cunningham, Ned McGowan, Charles Duane, and +many other worthies, both of high and low degree. Never did he fear to name +names and cite specific instances plainly. James King of William dealt in +no innuendoes. He had found in himself the editor he had wished for, the +man who would call a spade a spade. + +The _Bulletin_ twice enlarged its form. It sold by the thousand. Its weapon +of defence was the same as its weapon of offence--pitiless and complete +publicity. Measures of reprisal, either direct or underhand, undertaken +against him, King published often without comment. + +At the first some of the cooler heads thought it might be well to reason +with him. + +"The man has run a muck," said old Judge Girvin, "and while I am far from +denying that In many--perhaps in most--cases his facts are correct, still +his methods make for lawlessness among the masses. It might be well to meet +him reasonably, and to expostulate." + +"I'd expostulate--with a blacksnake," growled the fiery Terry. + +A number waited on King. Keith was among them. They found his office in a +small ramshackle frame building, situated in the middle instead of +alongside one of the back streets. It had probably been one of the early +small dwelling-houses, marooned by a resurvey of the streets, and never +since moved. King sat in his shirtsleeves before a small flat table. He +looked up at them uncompromisingly from his wide-apart steady eyes. + +"Gentlemen," he greeted them tentatively. + +Judge Girvin seated himself impressively, his fat legs well apart, his +beaver hat and cane poised in his left hand; the others, grouped themselves +back of him. The judge stated the moderate case well. "We do not deny any +man the right to his opinion," he concluded, "but have you reflected on the +effect such an expression often has on the minds of those not trained to +control?" + +King listened to him in silence. + +"It seems to me, sir," he answered, when Judge Girvin had quite finished, +"that if abuses exist they should be exposed until they are remedied; and +that the remedy should come from the law." + +"What is your impelling motive?" asked the judge. "Why have you so suddenly +taken up this form of activity? Do you feel aggrieved in any way-- +personally?" + +"My motive in starting a newspaper, if that is what you mean, is the plain +one of making an honest if modest living. And, incidentally, while doing +so, I have some small idea of being of public use. I have no personal +grievance; but I am aggrieved, as every decent man must be, at the way the +lawyers, the big financial operators, and the other blackguards have robbed +the city," stated King plainly. + +Judge Girvin, flushing, arose with dignity, + +"I wish you good-day, sir," he said coldly, and at once withdrew. + +Keith had been watching King with the keenly critical, detached, analytical +speculation of the lawyer. He carried away with him the impression of a man +inspired. + +At the engine house, to which the discomfited delegation withdrew, there +was more discussion. + +"The man is within his legal rights so far," stated Judge Girvin. "If any +of his statements are libellous, it is the duty of the man so libelled to +institute action in the courts." + +"He's too smooth for that," growled Jones. + +"He'll bite off more than he can chew, if he keeps on," said Dick +Blatchford comfortably. "He's stirring up hornets' nests when he monkeys +with men like Yankee Sullivan. He's about due for an awful scare, one of +these days, and then he'll be good." + +"Do you know, I don't believe he'll scare," said Keith suddenly, with +conviction. + + + + +XXXVIII + + +As Keith surmised, intimidation had no effect. In such a city of fire- +eaters it was promptly tried. A dozen publically announced that they +thirsted for his blood, and intended to have it; and the records of the +dozen were of determination and courage in such matters. In the gambling +resorts and on the streets bets were made and pools formed on the probable +duration of King's life. He took prompt notice of this fact. Said the +_Bulletin's_ editorial column: + + Bets are now being offered, we are told, that the editor of the + _Bulletin_ will not be in existence twenty days longer, and the case + of Doctor Hogan, of the Vicksburg paper, who was murdered by gamblers + of that place, is cited as a warning. Pah! War, then, is the cry, is + it? War between the prostitutes and gamblers on one side, and the + virtuous and respectable on the other! Be it so, then! Gamblers of San + Francisco, you have made your election, and we are ready on our side + for the issue! + +Keith read this over John Sherwood's shoulder at the +Monumental. The ex-gambler, his famous benign spectacles atop his nose, +chuckled over it. + +"He doesn't scare for a cent, does he?" was his comment. "Strikes me I got +out of the ranks of the ungodly just in time. If I were still gambling, I +believe I'd take some of those bets he speaks of. He won't last--in this +town. But I like his pluck--kind of. Only he's damn bad for business!" + +Saying which, John Sherwood, late gambler but now sincerely believing +himself a sound and conservative business man, passed the sheet over to +Keith. + +From vague threats the situation developed rapidly to the definite and +personal. One Selover sent a challenge to King, which was refused. Selover +then announced his intention of killing King on sight. The _Bulletin_ +published this: + + Mr. Selover, it is said, carries a knife. We carry a pistol. We hope + neither will be required, but if this encounter cannot be avoided, why + will Mr. Selover insist on imperilling the lives of others? We pass + every afternoon, about half-past four to five o'clock, along Market + Street from Fourth to Fifth streets. The road is wide, and not so much + frequented as those streets farther in town. If we are to be shot or + cut to pieces, for heaven's sake let it be done there. Others will not + be injured, and in case we fall, our house is but a few hundred yards + beyond, and the cemetery not much farther. + +These detailed attacks and bold defiances had the effect of greatly +angering those who were the specific objects of attention; of making very +uneasy the class to which these victims belonged; of focussing on public +matters a public sentiment that was just becoming conscious of itself +because of the pinch of hard times; and of rendering contemptuously +indignant all of "higher" society. + +To this latter category Keith would undoubtedly have belonged--as did his +wife and practically all his friends--had it not been for his association +with Krafft. Through him the young lawyer came into intimate personal touch +with a large class of people who would otherwise have been remote from him. +He heard of their difficulties and problems at first hand, saw the actual +effect of abuses that, looked at from above, were abstract or academic. +Police brutality as a phrase carried little significance; police brutality +as a clubbing of Malachi Hogan, who was brought in with his skull crushed, +and whose blood stained Keith's new coat, meant something. Waste of public +funds, translated before his eyes into eviction for nonpayment of taxes, +took on a new significance. Keith saw plainly that a reform was needed. He +was not, on that account, in the least sympathetic with King's methods. +Like Judge Girvin, he felt them revolutionary and subversive. But he could +not share the contempt of his class; rather he respected the editor as a +sincere but mistaken man. When his name came up for discussion or bitter +vituperation, Keith was silent. He read the _Bulletin_ editorials; and +while he in no way endorsed their conclusions or recommendations, he could +not but acknowledge their general accuracy. Without his knowing it, he was +being educated. He came to realize the need for better administration by +the city's officers and a better enforcement of the laws. Very quietly, +deep down within himself, he made up his mind that in the Assistant +District Attorney's office, at least, the old order of things should cease. + + + + +XXXIX + + +One afternoon Keith walked down Kearney Street deep in discussion of an +important Federal case with his friend, Billy Richardson, the United States +Marshal. Although both just and an official, Richardson was popular with +all classes save those with whom his duty brought him into conflict. They +found their way deliberately blocked, and came out of the absorption of +their discussion to recognize before them Charles Cora, an Italian gambler +of considerable prominence and wealth. Cora was a small, dark man, +nervously built, dressed neatly and carefully in the height of gambler +fashion. He seemed to be terribly excited, and at once launched a stream of +oaths at Richardson. + +"What's the matter with you, Charley?" asked the latter, as soon as he had +recovered from his surprise. + +Cora, evidently too incoherent to speak, leaped at the marshal, his fist +drawn back. Keith seized him around the body, holding his arms to his +sides. + +"Hold on; take it easy!" he panted. "What's up, anyway?" + +Cora, struggling violently, gritted out: + +"He knows damn well what's up." + +"I'll swear I don't!" denied Richardson. + +"Then what do you mean telling every one that my Belle insulted your wife +last night at the opera house?" demanded Cora, ceasing to struggle. + +"Belle?" repeated Richardson equably. "I don't know what you're talking +about. Be reasonable. Explain yourself." + +"Yes, I got it straight," insisted the Italian. "Your wife says it insults +her to sit next to my Belle, and you go everywhere telling it. What right +you got to do that? Answer me that!" + +"Now look here," said Richardson. "I was with Jim Scott all last evening. +My wife wasn't with me. If you don't believe me, go ask Scotty." + +Cora had apparently cooled off, so Keith released him. He shook his head, +grumbling, only half convinced. After a moment he moved away. The two men +watched him go, half vexed, half amused. + +"He's crazy as a pup about that woman," observed Richardson. + +"Who is she?" inquired Keith. + +"Why, Belle--you know Belle, the one who keeps that, crib up your way." + +"That woman!" marvelled Keith. + +He spent the afternoon in court and in his office. About half-past six, on +his way home, he saw Cora and Richardson come out of the Blue Wing saloon +together. They were talking earnestly, and stopped in the square of light +from the window. Richardson was explaining, and Cora was listening +sullenly. As Keith passed them he heard, the marshal say, "Well, is it all +right?" and Cora reply, "Yes." Something caused him to look back after he +had gone a dozen yards. He saw Cora suddenly seize Richardson's collar with +his left hand, at the same time drawing a derringer with his right. + +"What are you going to do?" cried Richardson loudly and steadily, without +straggling, "Don't shoot; I am unarmed!" + +Without reply Cora fired into his breast. The marshal wilted, but with iron +strength Cora continued for several moments to hold up his victim by the +collar. Then he let the body drop, and moved away at a fast walk, the +derringer still in his right hand. + +Keith ran to his friend, and with others carried him into a nearby drug +store. The sound of the shot almost immediately brought out a crowd. Keith, +bending over the body of the murdered man, could see them pressing about +the windows outside, their faces showing white from the lamps in the drug- +store window or fading into the darkness beyond. They crowded through the +doorway until driven out again by some of the cooler heads. Conjectures and +inquiries flew thick. All sorts of reports were current of the details, but +the crowd had the main facts--Cora had shot Richardson, Richardson was +dead, Cora had been taken to jail. + +"Then he's safe!" they sneered savagely. + +Men had been shot on the streets before, many men, some of them as well +known and liked as Richardson; but not after public sentiment had been +aroused as the _Bulletin_ had aroused it. The crowds continued to gather. +Several men made violent street-corner speeches. There was some talk of +lynching. A storm of yes and no burst forth when the question was put. +Bells rang. A great mob surged to the jail, were firmly met by a strong +armed guard, and fell back muttering. + +"Who will be the next victim?" men asked. "What a farce!" cried some, in +deep disgust. "Why, the jailer is Cora's especial crony!" stated others, +who seemed to know. "If the jury is packed, hang the jury!" advised certain +far-seeing ones. A grim, quiet, black-bearded man expressed the +undercurrent of opinion: "Mark my words," said he, "if Charles Cora is left +for trial, he will be let loose on the community to assassinate his third +victim!" It seemed that Cora had been involved in a previous shooting +scrape. But to swing a mob to action there must be determined men at its +head, and this mob had no leaders. Sam Brannan started to say something in +his coarse, roaring voice, and was promptly arrested for inciting a riot. +Nobody cared enough seriously for the redoubtable Sam to object to this. +The situation was ticklish, but the police handled it tactfully for once, +opposing only a passive opposition, leaving the crowd to fritter its +energies in purposeless cursing, surging to and fro, and in harmless +threats. + +Keith did not join the throngs on the streets. Having determined that +Richardson was dead, he accompanied the body home. He was deeply stirred, +not only by the circumstances of the murder, but also by the scene at which +he had to assist when the news must be broken to Mrs. Richardson. From the +house he went directly to King's residence, where he was told that the +editor had gone downtown. After considerable search and inquiry he at last +got sight of his man standing atop a wooden awning overlooking the Plaza in +front of the jail. King nodded to him as he climbed out of the second-story +window to take his position at the newspaper man's side. + +The square was a wild sight, filled, packed with men, a crowd of men tossed +in constant motion. A mumbling growl came from them continuously, and +occasionally a shout. Many hands were upraised, and in some of them were +weapons. Opposite, the blank front of the jail. + +King's eyes were shining with interest and a certain quiet exultation, but +he seemed not at all excited. + +"Will they storm the jail?" asked Keith. + +King shook his head. + +"No, these people will do nothing. But they show the spirit of the time. +All it needs now is organization, cool, deliberate organization--to- +morrow." + +"That's just what I've hunted you out to talk about," said Keith earnestly. +"There is much talk of a Vigilance Committee. As you say, all it needs is +the call. That means lawlessness, bloodshed." + +"Conditions at present are intolerable," said King briefly. + +"I agree with you," replied Keith. King stared. "But in this case I assure +you the law will do its duty. It is an absolutely open and shut case. +Acquittal is impossible. Why, I myself was witness of the affair." + +King looked skeptical. + +"Hundreds of such cases have been acquitted, or the indictment quashed." + +"But this is entirely different. In the first place, the case will come +before Judge Norton and Judge Hazen, both of whom you will acknowledge are +honest. In the second place, this case will be in my hands as Assistant +District Attorney. I myself shall do the prosecuting, and I promise you on +my honour that every effort will be made for a deserved and speedy +conviction. I acknowledge justice has sometimes gone wrong in the past; but +that has not been the fault of the law, but of the administration of the +law. If you have the least confidence in Judge Norton and Judge Hazen, and +if you can be brought to believe me, you will see that this one case of all +cases should not be taken from the constituted authorities or made the +basis for a movement outside the law." + +"Well?" said King, half convinced. + +"The _Bulletin_ has the greatest influence with these people. Use it. Give +the law, the honest law, a chance. Do not get back of any Vigilante +movement. In that way, I am convinced, you will be of the greatest public +service." + +Next day the _Bulletin_ came out vigorously counselling dependence on the +law, expressing confidence in the integrity of Hazen and Norton, and +enunciating a personal belief that the day had passed when it would be +necessary to resort to arbitrary measures. The mob's anger had possessed +vitality enough to keep it up all night; but the attitude of the +_Bulletin_, backed by responsible men like Ward, Coleman, Hossiros, +Bluxome, and others, averted a crisis. Nevertheless, King added a paragraph +of warning: + +Hang Billy Mulligan! That's the word! If Mr. Sheriff Scannell does not +remove Billy Mulligan from his present post as keeper of the county jail, +and Mulligan lets Cora escape, hang Billy Mulligan, and if necessary to get +rid of the sheriff, hang him--hang the sheriff! + + + + +XL + + +The popular excitement gradually died. It had no leaders. Coleman and men +of his stamp, who had taken command of similar crises in former times, +counselled moderation. They were influenced, partly by the fact that +Richardson had been a public official and a popular one. Conviction seemed +certain. + +Keith applied himself heart and soul to the case. Its preparation seemed to +him, at first an easy matter. It was open and shut. Although at the moment +of the murder the street had not been crowded, a half-dozen eye-witnesses +of the actual shooting were easily found, willing to testify to the +essential facts. No defence seemed possible, but Cora remained undisturbed. +He had retained one of the most brilliant lawyers of the time, James +McDougall. This fact in itself might have warned Keith, for McDougall had +the reputation of avoiding lost causes and empty purses. The lawyer +promptly took as counsel the most brilliant of the younger men, Jimmy Ware, +Allyn Lane, and Keith's friend, Calhoun Bennett. This meant money, and +plenty of it, for all of these were expensive men. The exact source of the +money was uncertain; but it was known that Belle was advancing liberally +for her lover, and that James Casey, bound by some mysterious obligation, +was active in taking up collections. Cora lived in great luxury at the +jail. He had long been a personal friend of Sheriff Webb and his first +deputy, Billy Mulligan. + +Several months passed before the case could be forced to trial. All sorts +of legal and technical expedients were used to defer action. McDougall and +his legal assistants were skilful players at the game, and the points they +advanced had to be fought out according to the rules, each a separate +little case with plenty of its own technicalities. Some of Keith's +witnesses were difficult to hold; they had business elsewhere, and +naturally resented being compelled, through no fault of their own, to +remain. Keith had always looked on this play of legal rapiers as a part--an +interesting part--of the game; but heretofore he had always been on the +obstructing side. He worried a great deal. At length, by superhuman +efforts, he broke through the thicket of technicalities and brought the +matter to an issue. The day was set. He returned home so relieved in spirit +that Nan could not but remark on his buoyancy. + +"Yes," he responded, "I've managed to drive that old rascal, McDougall, +into the open at last." + +Nan caught at the epithet. + +"But you don't mean that--quite--do you?" she asked. "The McDougalls are +such delightful people." + +"No, of course not. Just law talk," said Keith, quite sincerely. "He's +handled his case well up to now. I'm just exasperated on that account, +that's all." + +But setting the day irrevocably was only a beginning. The jury had to be +selected. Sheriff Webb had in his hands the calling of the venire. While it +was true that the old-time, "professional jurymen"--men who hung around the +courthouse for no other purpose--were no longer in existence, it can be +readily seen that Webb was able, if it were worth while, to exercise a +judicious eye in the selection of "amenables." The early exhaustion of +Keith's quota of peremptory challenges was significant, for McDougall +rarely found it desirable to challenge at all! Keith displayed tremendous +resource in last-moment detective work concerning the records of the panel. +In this way he was enabled to challenge several for cause, after all his +peremptory challenges had been used. At first he had great difficulty in +getting results, for the police detectives proved supine. It was only after +he had hired private agents, paying for them from his own pocket, that he +obtained information on which he could act. The final result was a jury +better than he had dared hope for, but worse than he desired. He had gone +through a tremendous labour, and realized fully the difference between +being for or against the powers. + +The case came to trial, Keith presented six witnesses--respectable, one of +them well-known. These testified to the same simple facts, and their +testimony remained unshaken under cross-examination. McDougall offered the +plea of self-defence. He brought a cloud of witnesses to swear that Cora +had drawn his weapon only after Richardson had produced and cocked a +pistol. By skilful technical delays Keith gained time for his detectives, +and succeeded in showing that two of these witnesses had been elsewhere at +the time of the killing, and therefore had perjured themselves. He recalled +his own witnesses, and found two willing to swear that Richardson's hands +had been empty and hanging at his sides, The defence did not trouble to +cross-examine this statement. + +At last, with a perfunctory judicial charge, the case went to the jury. +Keith, weary to the bone, sat back in grateful relaxation. He had worked +hard, against odds, and had done a good job. He was willing now to spare a +little professional admiration for McDougall's skilful legal manoeuvring. +There could be no earthly doubt of the result. He idly watched the big +bland-faced clock, with its long second hand moving forward by spaced +jerks. The jury was out a very long time for so simple a verdict, but that +was a habit of California juries. It did not worry Keith. He was glad to +rest. The judge stared at the ceiling, his hands clasped over his stomach. +Cora's lawyers talked together in a low voice. Flies buzzed against dusty +window-panes. The spectators watched apathetically. Belle, in a ravishing +toilet, was there. + +The opening of the door broke the spell almost rudely. Keith sat up, +listening to the formal questions and answers. They had disagreed! + +For a moment the import of this did not penetrate to Keith's understanding. +Then he half rose, shouted "What!" and sank back stunned. His brain was in +confusion. Only dimly did he hear the judge dismissing the jury, remanding +Cora for retrial, adjourning court. Instantly Cora was surrounded by a +congratulatory crowd. Keith sat alone. McDougall, gathering up his papers +from the table assigned to counsel, made some facetious remark. Keith did +not reply. McDougall looked at him sharply, and as he went out he remarked +to Casey: + +"Keith takes this hard." + +"He does!" cried Casey, genuinely astonished. "They were trying to tell me +he was altogether too active in this matter; but I told them he was young +and had his way to make, and was playing to the gallery." + +He sauntered across the room. + +"Well, Milt," he cried in a jovial voice, but watching the young lawyer +narrowly, "the Lord's on the side of true virtue, as usual." + +Keith came to himself, scowled, started to say something, but refrained +with an obvious effort. + +Casey wandered back to McDougall. + +"You're right, Mac," he said. "I guess he's got the swell head. We'll have +to call him off gently, or he'll make a nuisance of himself at the next +trial. He makes altogether too much trouble." + +But McDougall was tolerant. + +"Oh, let him alone, Jim. He's got his way to make. Let him alone. We can +handle the situation." + + + + +XLI + + +Keith left the courtroom in a daze of incredulity. This was his first +serious defeat; and he could not understand it. The case was absolutely +open and shut, a mere question of fact to which there were sufficient and +competent witnesses. For the moment he was completely routed. + +As he emerged to the busy crowds on Kearney Street a sudden repugnance to +meeting acquaintances overcame him. He turned off toward the bay, making +his way by the back streets, alleys, and slums of that unsavoury quarter. +But even here he was not to escape. He had not gone two blocks before he +descried Krafft's slight and elegant figure sauntering toward him. Keith +braced himself for the inevitable question. + +"Well," it came, "how goes the trial?" + +The words released Keith's pent flood of bitterness. Here was an outlet; +Krafft was "safe." He poured out his disappointment, his suspicion, his +indignation. The little man listened to him in silence, a slight smile, +sketching his full, red lips. When Keith had somewhat run down, Krafft, +without a word, took him by the arm and led him by devious ways down to the +water-front portion of the city. There he planted him near the entrance of +a dark alley. + +"Now you wait here," Keith was told. + +Keith obeyed. The interval was long, but he had much to occupy his mind. +After a time Krafft returned in company with a slouching, drink-sodden +bummer of powerful build and lowering mien, the remains of a forceful +personality. This individual shambled along in the wake of the dapper +little Krafft quite meekly and submissively. + +"Here you are," said the latter briskly, and with a sort of nonchalant +authority. "Come, now, Mex, tell Mr, Keith what you know about the Cora +trial. Go on!" he urged, as the man hesitated. "He's not going to 'use' +you--he doesn't even know who you are or where you're to be found, and I'm +not going to tell him. Speak up, Mex! I tell you I want him to know how +things stand." + +Keith by now was acquainted with many of Krafft's proteges, but he had +never met the delectable Mex. Evidently the latter had long known Krafft, +however, for he acknowledged his authority unquestioningly. + +"It's like this, boss," he began in a hoarse voice. "You don't know me, +like Mr. Krafft says, but there's plenty that do. I got a lot of infloonce +down here, and when anybody wants anything they know where to come to get +it, which is right to headquarters--here," he slapped his great chest. + +"Get on," interrupted Krafft impatiently. "We'll take it for granted that +you are a great man." + +Mex looked at him reproachfully, but went on: + +"About this Cora trial: they come to me for good, reliable witnesses, and I +got 'em, and drilled 'em. There ain't nobody in it with me for making any +witness watertight." + +"How many witnesses?" prompted Krafft. + +"Eight," replied Mex promptly. + +"How much?" + +"Well, they give me five thousand fer to git the job done," admitted Mex, +with some reluctance. + +"Hope they got some of it," commented Krafft. + +"Who gave you the money?" demanded Keith. + +But Krafft interposed. + +"Hold on, my son, that isn't ethics at all! You mustn't ask questions like +that, must he, Mex? Very bad form!" He turned to Keith with a crisp air of +decision. "That's what was the matter with your trial; I just thought I'd +show you. Go on, Mex, get out," he commanded that individual, good- +humouredly. "I'm not particularly proud of you, but I suppose I've got to +stand you. Only remember this: Mr. Keith is my friend. Swear him out of the +high seats of heaven--if you can--because that's the nature of you; but let +him walk safely. In other words, no strong-arm work; do you understand?" + +The man mumbled and growled something. + +"Nonsense, Mex," interrupted Krafft sharply. "Do as I say. + +"It's a matter of a tidy sum," blurted out Mex at last. + +Krafft laughed. + +"You see, you were already marked for the slaughter," he told Keith; then +to Mex: + +"Well, you let him alone; he's my friend." + +"All right, if you say so," growled the man. + +"You're safe--as far as Mex and all his people are concerned," said Krafft +to Keith. "Our word is always good, when given to a friend; isn't it, Mex?" + +The man nodded, awkwardly and slouched away. + +Keith's depression had given place to anger. He had been beaten by unfair +means; his opponent had cheated at the game, and his opponent enjoyed the +respect of the community as a high-minded, able, dignified member of the +bar. It was unthinkable! A man caught cheating at cards would most +certainly be expelled from any decent club. + +"I'll disbar that man if it's the last act of my life!" He cried, "He's not +fit to practise among decent men!" + +He left Krafft standing on the corner and smiling quietly, and hurried back +to his office. + + + + +XLII + + +It was unfortunate for everybody that Morrell should have chosen that +particular afternoon to pay one of his periodical calls. Morrell had been +tactful and judicious in his demands. Keith was not particularly afraid of +his story or the effect of it if told, but he disliked intensely the fuss +and bother of explanations and readjustments. It had seemed easier to let +things drift along. The transactions were skilfully veiled, notes were +always given, Morrell was shrewd enough to take care that it did not cost +too much. There existed not the slightest cordiality between the men, but a +tacit assumption of civil relations. + +But this afternoon the sight of Morrell, seated with what seemed to Keith a +smug, superior, supercilious confidence in the best of the office chairs, +was more than Keith could stand. He was bursting with anger at the world in +general. + +"You here?" he barked at Morrell, without waiting for a greeting. "Well, +I'm sick of you! Get out!" + +Morrell stared at him dumbfounded. + +"I don't believe I understand," he objected. + +"Get out! Get out! Get out! Is that plain enough?" shouted Keith. + +Morrell arose with cold dignity. + +"I cannot permit--" he began. + +Keith turned on him abruptly. + +"Look here, don't try to come that rot. I said, get out--and I mean it!" + +So menacing was his aspect that Morrell drew back toward the door. + +"I suppose you know what this means?" he threatened, an ugly note in his +quiet voice. + +"I don't give a damn what it means," rejoined Keith with deadly +earnestness, "and if you don't get out of here I'll throw you out!" + +Morrell went hastily. + +Keith slammed his papers into a drawer, locked it and his office door, and +went directly to the office of the _Bulletin_. There, seated in all the +chairs, perched on the tables and window ledges, he found a representative +group. He recognized most of them, including James King of William, +Coleman, Hossfros, Isaac Bluxome, Talbot Ward, and others. A dead silence +greeted his appearance. He stopped by the door. + +"You have, of course, heard the news," he said. "I have come here to state +unequivocally, and for publication, that the Cora trial will be pushed as +rapidly and as strongly as is in the power of the District Attorney's +office. And if legal evidence of corruption can be obtained, proceedings +will at once be inaugurated to indict the bribe givers." + +A short silence followed this speech. Several men looked toward one +another. The tension appeared to relax a trifle. + +"I am glad to hear this, sir, from your own lips," at last said Coleman +formally, "and I wish you every success." + +Another short and rather embarrassed silence fell. + +"I should like to state privately to you gentlemen, and not for +publication"--Keith, paused and glanced toward King, who nodded +reassuringly--"that I have evidence, but unfortunately not legal, that +James McDougall has been guilty, either personally or through agents, of +bribery and corruption; and it is my intention to undertake his disbarment +if I can possibly get proper evidence." + +"Whether he bribed or didn't bribe, he knew perfectly well that Cora was +guilty," stated King positively. "And he had no right to take the case." + +But at that period this was an extreme view, as it still is in the legal +mind. + +"I suppose every man has a moral right to a defence," said Coleman +doubtfully. "If every lawyer should refuse to take Cora's case, as you say +McDougall should have refused, why the man would have gone undefended!" + +"That's all right," returned King, undaunted, "He ought to have a lawyer-- +appointed by the court--to see merely that he gets a fair trial; not a +lawyer--hired, prostituted, at a great price--to try by every technical +means to get him off." + +"A lawyer must, by the ethics of his profession, take every case brought +him, I suppose," some one enunciated the ancient doctrine. + +"Well, if that is the case," rejoined King hotly, "the law warps the +thinking and the morals of any man who professes it. And if I had a son to +place in life, I most certainly should not put him in a calling that +deliberately trains his mind to see things that way!" + +"I am sorry you have so low an opinion," spoke up Keith from the doorway. +"I am afraid I must hold the contrary as to the nobility of my chosen +profession. It can be disgraced, I admit. That it has been disgraced, I +agree. That it can be redeemed, I am going to prove." + +He bowed and left the office. + + + + +XLIII + + +Morrell went directly from Keith's office to Keith's house. He was not +particularly angry; for some time he had expected just this result, but +since he had threatened, he intended to accomplish. Finding Nan Keith at +home, he plunged directly at the subject in his most direct and English +fashion. She listened to him steadily until he had finished. + +"Is that all?" she then asked him quietly, + +"That's all," he acknowledged. + +She arose. + +"Then I will say, Mr. Morrell, that I do not believe you. I know my husband +thoroughly, and I am beginning to know you. I believe that is my only +comment. Good afternoon." + +He made a half attempt to point to her the way to corroborative evidence, +but she swept this superbly aside, Finally he took his correct leave, half +angry, half amused, wholly cynical, for to his mind the reason for her +indifference to the news he brought lay in what he supposed to be her +relations with Ben Sansome. + +"Bally ass!" he apostrophized himself. "Might have known how she'd take +it." + +His reading of Nan's motives was, of course, incorrect. Her first feeling +was merely a white heat of anger against Morrell, whom she had never liked. +Perhaps after a little this emotion might have carried over into, not +distrust, but an uneasiness as to the main issue; but before she had +arrived at this point Keith came in to deliver an ill-timed warning. As ill +luck would have it, and as such coincidences often come about in the most +perverse fashion, Keith had, down the street, met some malicious fool who +had dropped a laughing remark about Sansome. It was nothing in itself. +Ordinarily, Keith would have paid no attention to it. To-day it clashed +with his mood. Even now his jealousy was not stirred in the least, but his +sense of appearances was irritated. By the time he had reached home he had +worked up a proper indignation. + +"Look here, Nan," he blurted out as soon as he had closed the door behind +him, "you're seeing too much of Sansome. Everybody's talking." + +"Who is everybody?" she asked very quietly. + +"Of course I know it's all right," he blundered ahead tactlessly--the gleam +in her eye should have warned him that he might have omitted that +reassurance--"but just the looks of the thing. And he's such a weak and +wishy-washy little nonentity!" + +Her sense of justice aroused by this, she sprang to the defence of Sansome. + +"You are quite mistaken there," she said with dignity. "Men of that type +are never understood by men of yours. He is my friend--and yours. And he +has been very kind to both of us." + +"Well, just the same, you ought not to get yourself talked about," repeated +Keith stubbornly. + +"Do you distrust me?" she demanded. + +"Heavens, no! But you don't realize how it looks to others. He's coming +here morning, noon, and night." + +"It seems to me I may be the best judge of my own conduct." + +"Well," said Keith deliberately, "I don't know that you are. You must +remember that you are my wife, and that you bear my name. I have something +to say about it. I'm telling you; but if you cannot manage the matter +properly, I'll just have to drop a hint to Sansome." + +At that she blazed out. + +"Do that and you will regret it to the last day of your life!" she flared. +"If you'd be as careful with the name of Keith as I am, it would not +suffer!" + +"What do you mean by that?" he asked? after a blank pause. + +She had not intended to use that weapon, but now she persisted placidly. + +"I mean that if our name has been talked about, it has not been because of +any action of mine." + +His heart was beating wildly. In the multiplicity of fighting interests he +had actually forgotten (for the moment) all about his office visitor. But +he, too, had pluck. + +"I see you have had a call from our friend Morrell," he ventured. + +"Well!" she challenged. + +Her head was back, and her breath was short. This crisis had come upon them +swiftly, unexpectedly, unwanted by either. Now it loomed over them in a +terrible, because unknown, portent. Each realized that a misstep might mean +irreparable consequences, but each felt constrained to go on. The situation +must now be developed. Keith, faced with this new problem, lost his heat, +and became cool, careful, wary, as when in court his faculties marshalled +themselves. Nan, on the other hand, while well in control of her mind, +poised on a brink. + +"I don't know what he told you," said Keith, the blood suffusing his face +and spreading over his ears and neck, "but I'm going to tell you everything +he would be justified in telling you. One evening a number of years ago, in +company with a crowd, I went inside the doors of a disreputable place, and +immediately came out again. It was part of a spree, and harmless. That was +all there was to it. You believe me?" In spite of his iron control, a deep +note of anxiety vibrated in his voice as he proffered the question. + +Her heart gave a leap for pride as he made this confession, his face very +red, but his head back, She knew he spoke the truth, the whole truth. + +"Of course I believe you," she said, trying to speak naturally, but with a +mad impulse to laugh or cry. She swallowed, gripped her nerves, and went +on. "But, naturally," she told him, + +"I consider myself as good a custodian of the family reputation as +yourself." + +There the matter rested. By mutual but tacit consent they withdrew +cautiously from the debated ground, each curiously haunted by a feeling +that catastrophe had been fortunately and narrowly averted. + + + + +XLIV + + +Keith immediately moved for a retrial, and began anew his heartbreaking +labours in forcing a way to definite action through the thorn thicket of +technicalities. At the same time, on his own account, and very secretly, he +commenced a search for evidence against the attorneys for the defence. By +now he possessed certain private agents of his own whom he considered +trustworthy. + +Early in his investigations he abandoned hope of getting direct evidence +against McDougall himself. That astute lawyer had been careful to have +nothing whatever to do with actual bribery or corruption, and he was crafty +enough to disassociate himself from direct dealing with agents. Indeed, +Keith himself was in some slight doubt as to whether McDougall had any +actual detailed knowledge of the underground workings at all. But +McDougall's. associates were a different matter. Here, little by little, +real evidence began to accumulate, until Keith felt that he could, with +reasonable excuse, move for an official investigation. To his genuine grief +Calhoun Bennett seemed to be heavily involved. He could not forget that the +young Southerner had been one of his earliest friends in the city, nor had +he ever tried to forget the real liking he had felt for him. It was not +difficult to recognize that according to his code Cal Bennett had merely +played the game as the game was played, carrying out zealously the +intentions of his superiors, availing himself of time-honoured methods, +wholeheartedly fighting for his own side. Yet there could be no doubt that +he had made himself criminally liable. Keith brooded much over the +situation, but got nowhere, and so resolutely pushed it into the back of +his mind in favour of the need of the moment. + +But quietly as he conducted his investigations, some rumour of them +escaped. One afternoon he received a call from Bennett. The young man was +evidently a little embarrassed, but intent on getting at the matter. + +"Look heah, Keith," he began, dropping into a chair, and leaning both arms +on the table opposite Keith, "I don't want to say anything offensive, or +make any disagreeable implications, or insult you by false suspicions, but +there are various persistent rumours about, and I thought I'd better come +to you direct." + +"Fire away, Cal," said Keith. + +"Well, it's just this: they do say yo're tryin' to fasten a criminal charge +of bribery on me. You and I have been friends--and still are, I hope--but +if yo're goin' gunnin' foh me, I want to know it." + +His face was slightly flushed, but his fine dark eyes looked hopefully to +his friend for denial. Keith was genuinely distressed. He moved an inkwell +to and fro, and did not look up; but his voice was steady and determined as +he replied: + +"I'm not gunning for you, Cal, and I wish to heaven you weren't mixed up in +this mess." He looked up. "But I _am_ gunning for crooked work in this Cora +case!" + +Bennett took his arms from the table, and sat erect. + +"Do you mean to imply, suh, that I am guilty of crooked work?" he inquired, +a new edge of formality in his voice. + +"No, no, of course not!" hastened Keith. "I hadn't thought of you in that +connection! I am just looking the whole matter up----" + +"Well, suh, I strongly advise you to drop it," interrupted Bennett curtly. + +"But why?" + +"It isn't ethical. You will find great resentment among yo' colleagues of +the bar at the implication conveyed by yo' so-called investigation, suh." + +Calhoun Bennett had become stiff and formal. Keith still tried desperately +to be reasonable and conciliatory. + +"But if there proves to be nothing out of the way," he urged, "surely no +one could have anything to fear or object to." + +"Nobody has anything to fear in any case," said Bennett, "but any +gentleman--and I, most decidedly--would object to the implication." + +At this Keith, stiffened a little in his turn. + +"I am sorry we differ on that point, I have good reason to believe there +has been crooked work somewhere in this Cora trial. I do not know who has +done it; I accuse nobody; but in the public office I hold it seems my plain +duty to investigate." + +"Yo' public duty is to prosecute, that is all," argued Bennett. "It is the +duty of the grand jury to investigate or to order investigations." + +Here spoke the spirit of the law, for technically Bennett was correct. + +"Whatever the rigid interpretation"--Keith found himself uttering heresy-- +"I still feel it my duty to deal personally with whatever seems to me +unjustly to interfere with, proper convictions." Then he stopped, aghast at +the tremendous step he had taken. For to a man trained as was Keith, in a +time when all men were created for the law, and not the law for men, in a +society where the lawyer was considered the greatest citizen, and subtle +technicality paramount to justice or commonsense, this was a tremendous +step. At that moment, and by that spontaneous and unconsidered statement, +Keith, unknown to himself, passed from one side to the other in the great +social struggle that was impending. + +"I wa'n you, suh," Bennett was repeating, "yo' course will not meet with +the approval of the members of the bar." + +"I am sorry, Cal," said Keith sadly. + +Bennett rose, bowed stiffly, and turned to the door. But suddenly he +whirled back, his face alight with feeling, + +"Oh, see heah, Milt, be sensible!" he cried. "I know just how yo're feelin' +now. Yo're sore, and I don't blame you. You put ap a hard fight, and though +you got licked, I don't mind tellin' you that the whole bar appreciates +yo're brilliant work. You must remember you had to play a lone hand against +pretty big men--the biggest we've got! We all appreciate the odds. Cora has +lots of friends. You'll never convict him, Milt; but go in again for +another trial, if it will do yo're feelin's any good, with our best wishes. +Only don't let gettin' licked make you so sore! Don't go buttin' yo're haid +at yo're friends! Be a spo't!" + +A half hour ago this appeal might have gained a response if not a practical +effect, but the spiritual transformation in Keith was complete. + +"I'm sorry," he replied simply, "but I must go ahead in my own way." + +Calhoun Bennett's face lost its glow, and his tall figure stiffened. + +"I must wa'n you not to bring my name into this," said he. "I do not intend +to have my reputation sacrificed to yo' strait-laced Yankee conscience. If +my name is ever mentioned, I shall hold you responsible, _personally_ +responsible. You understand, suh?" + +He stood stiff and straight, staring at Keith. Keith did not stir. After a +moment Calhoun Bennett went out. + + + + +XLV + + +After this interview Keith experienced a marked and formal coldness from +nearly all of his old associates, Those with whom he came into direct +personal contact showed him scrupulous politeness, but confined their +conversation to the briefest necessary words, and quit him as soon as +possible. He found himself very much alone, for at this period he had lost +the confidence of one faction and had not yet gained that of the other. + +His investigations encountered always increasing difficulties. In his own +department he could obtain little assistance. A dead inertia opposed all +his efforts. Nevertheless, he went ahead doggedly, using Krafft and some of +Krafft's proteges to considerable effect. + +But soon pressure was brought on him from a new direction: his opponents +struck at him through his home. + +For some days Nan had been aware of a changed atmosphere in the society she +frequented and had heretofore led. The change was subtle, defied analysis, +but was to the woman's sensitive instincts indubitable. At first she had +been inclined to consider it subjective, to imagine that something wrong +with herself must be projecting itself through her imagination; but finally +she realized that the impression was well based. In people's attitude there +was nothing overt; it was rather a withdrawl of intimacy, a puzzling touch +of formality. She seemed overnight to have lost in popularity. + +Truth to tell, she paid little attention to this. By now she was +experienced enough in human nature to understand and to be able to gauge +the slight fluctuations, the ebbs and flows of esteem, the kaleidoscopic +shiftings and realignments of the elements of frivolous and formal society. +Mrs. Brown had hired away Mrs. Smith's best servant; for an hour they +looked askance on Mrs. Brown; then, the episode forgotten, Mrs. Brown's +cork bobbed to the surface company of all the other corks. It was very +trivial. Besides, just at this moment, Nan was wholly occupied with +preparations for her first "afternoon" of the year. She intended as usual +to give three of these formal affairs, and from them the season took its +tone. The list was necessarily far from exclusive, but Nan made up for that +by the care she gave her most original arrangements. She prided herself on +doing things simply, but with a difference, calling heavily on her +resources of correspondence, her memory, and her very good imagination for +some novelty of food or entertainment. At the first of these receptions, +too, she wore always for the first time some new and marvellous toilet +straight from Paris, the style of which had not been shown to even her most +intimate friends. This year, for example, she had done the most obvious +and, therefore, the most unlikely thing: she had turned to the +contemporaneous Spanish for her theme. Nobody had thought of that. The +Colonial, the Moorish, the German, the Russian, the Hungarian--all the rest +of the individual or "picturesque"--but nobody had thought to look next +door. Nan had decorated the rooms with yellow and red, hung the walls with +riatas, strings of red peppers and the like, obtained Spanish guitar +players, and added enough fiery Mexican dishes to the more digestible +refreshments to emphasize the Spanish flavour. She wore a dress of golden +satin, a wreath of coral flowers about her hair, and morocco slippers +matched in hue. + +The afternoon was fine. People were slow in coming. A few of the +nondescripts that must be invited on such occasions put in an appearance, +responded hastily to their hostess's greeting, and wandered about furtively +but interminably. Patricia Sherwood, who had come early, circulated nobly, +trying to break up the frozen little groups, but in vain. The time passed. +More non-descripts--and not a soul else! As five o'clock neared, a cold +fear clutched at Nan's heart. No one was coming! + +She worked hard to cover with light graciousness the cold-hearted dismay +that filled her breast as the party dragged its weary length away. All her +elaborate preparations and decorations seemed to mock her. The Spanish +orchestra tinkled away gayly until she felt she could throw something at +them; the caterer's servants served solemnly the awed nondescripts. Nan's +cheeks burned and her throat choked with unshed tears. She could not bear +to look at Patsy Sherwood, who remained tactfully distant. + +About five-thirty the door opened to admit a little group, at the sight of +whom Nan uttered a short, hysterical chuckle. Then she glided to meet them, +both hands outstretched in welcome, Mrs. Sherwood watched her with +admiration. Nan was game. + +There were three in the party: Mrs. Morrell, Sally Warner, and Mrs. +Scattergood. Sally Warner was of the gushing type of tall, rather +desiccated femininity who always knows you so much better than you know +her, who cultivates you every moment for a week and forgets you for months +on end, who is hard up and worldly and therefore calculating, whose job is +to amuse people and who will therefore sacrifice her best, perhaps not most +useful, friend to an epigram, whose wit is barbed, who has a fine nose for +trouble, and who is always in at the death. Mrs. Scattergood was a small +blond woman, high voiced, precise in manner, very positive in her +statements which she delivered in a drawling tone, humourless, inquisitive +about petty affairs, the sort of "good woman" with whom no fault can be +found, but who drives men to crime. Mrs. Morrell we know. + +These three, after greeting their hostess gushingly, circulated compactly, +talking to each other in low voices. Nan knew they were watching her, and +that they had come for the sole purpose of getting first-hand details of +her fiasco for later recounting in drawing-rooms where, undoubtedly, even +now awaited eager auditors. She came to a decision. The matter could not be +worse. When, the three came to make their farewells, she detained them. + +"No, I'm not going to let you go yet," she told them, perhaps a little +imperiously. "I haven't had half a visit with you. Wait until this rabble +clears out." + +She hesitated a moment over Mrs. Sherwood, but finally let her go without +protest. When the last guest had departed she sank into a chair. As she was +already on the verge of hysterics, she easily kept up an air of gayety. + +"Girls, what an awful party!" she cried. "I could tear my hair! It was a +perfect nightmare." Struggling to control her voice and keep back her +tears, she added abruptly: "Now tell me what it is all about." + +Mrs. Morrell and Sally Warner were plainly uneasy and at a loss how to meet +this situation, but Mrs. Scattergood remained quite composed in her small, +compact way. + +"What's what all about, Nan, dear?" asked Sally Warner in her most +vivacious manner. She keenly felt the dramatic situation and was already +visualizing herself in the role of raconteuse. + +"You know perfectly well. Why this funeral? Where are they all? Why did +they stay away? I have a right to know." + +"I'm sure there's nothing _I_ can think of!" replied Sally artificially. +"The idea!" + +But Mrs. Scattergood, with all the relish of performing a noble and +disagreeable duty, broke in: + +"You know, dear," she said in her didactic, slow voice, "as well as we do, +what the world is. Of course _we_ understand, but people will talk!" + +"In heaven's name what are you driving at? What are they talking about?" +demanded Nan, as Mrs. Scattergood apparently came to a full stop. + +A pause ensued while Sally and Mrs, Scattergood exchanged glances with Mrs. +Morrell. + +"Well," at last said Sally, judicially, buttoning her glove, her head on +one side, "if I had a nice husband like yours, I wouldn't let him run +around getting himself disliked for nothing." + +"You ought to use your influence with him before it is too late," added +Mrs. Morrell. + +Nan looked helplessly from one to the other, too uncertain of her ground +now to risk another step, + +"So that's it," she ventured at last. "Some one has been telling lies about +us!" + +"Oh, dear no!" disclaimed Mrs. Scattergood, "It is only that your friends +cannot understand your taking sides against them. Naturally they feel hurt. +Forgive me, dear--you know I say it with all affection--but don't you think +it a mistake?" + +Nan was thoroughly dazed and mystified, but afraid to press the matter +further. She had a suspicion Mrs. Morrell was again responsible for her +difficulties, but was too uncertain to urge them to stay for further +elucidation. They arose. These were the days of hoop skirts, and the set of +the outer skirt had to be carefully adjusted before going out. As they +posed in turn before the hall pier glass they chattered. "How lovely the +house looks." "You certainly have worked hard, and must be tired, poor +dear!" "Well, we'll see you to-morrow at Mrs. Terry's. You're _not asked_? +Surely there is some mistake! Well, those things always happen in a big +affair, don't they?" "See you soon." "Good-bye." "Good-bye." + +Outside the house they paused at the head of the steps. + +"Well, what do you think of that?" said Sally. "I really believe the poor +thing doesn't know, I believe I'll just drop in for a minute at Mrs. +Caldwell's. Sorry you're not going my way." + +After a fashion Nan felt relieved by this interview, for she thought she +discerned only Mrs. Morrell's influence, and this, she knew, she could +easily overcome. While she waited for Keith's return from whatever +inaccessible fastnesses he always occupied during these big afternoon +receptions, she reviewed the situation, her indignation mounting. +Downstairs, Wing Sam and his temporary assistants were clearing things +away. Usually Nan superintended this, but to-day she did not care. When +Keith finally entered the room, she burst out on him with a rapid and angry +account of the whole situation as she saw it; but to her surprise he did +not rise to it. His weary, spiritless, uninterested: acceptance of it +astonished her to the last degree. To him her entanglement with the Cora +affair--for at once he saw the trend of it all--seemed the last straw. Not +even his own home was sacred. His spirit was so bruised and wearied that he +actually could not rise to an explanation. He seemed to realize an utter +hopelessness of making her see his point of view. This was not so strange +when it is considered that this point of view, however firmly settled, was +still a new and unexplained fact with himself. He contented himself with +saying: "The Morrells had nothing whatever to do with it." It was the only +thing that occurred to him as worth saying; but it was unfortunate, for it +left Nan's irritation without logical support. Naturally that irritation +was promptly transferred to him. + +"Then what, in heaven's name, is it?" she demanded. "My friends are all +treating me as if I had the smallpox." + +"Cheerful lot of friends we've made in this town!" he said bitterly. + +"What is the matter with them?" she persisted. + +"The matter is they've taken me for a fool they could order around to suit +themselves. They found they couldn't. Now they're through with me, even Cal +Bennett," he added in a lower tone that revealed his hurt. + +She paused, biting her underlip. + +"Is the trouble anything to do with this Cora case?" she asked, suddenly +enlightened by some vague, stray recollection. + +"Of course!" he replied crossly, exasperated at the nagging necessity of +arousing himself to explanations. "There's no use arguing about it. I'm +going to see it through in spite of that hound McDougall and his whole pack +of curs!" + +"But why have you turned so against your friends?" she asked more gently, +struck by his careworn look as he sprawled in the easy chair under the +lamp. "I don't see! You'll get yourself disliked!" + +She did not press the matter further for the moment, but three days later +she brought up the topic again. In the interim she had heard considerable +direct and indirect opinion. She selected after dinner as the most +propitious time for discussion. As a matter of fact, earlier in the day +would have been better, before Keith's soul had been rubbed raw by downtown +attrition. + +"I don't believe you quite realize how strongly people feel about the Cora +case," she began. "Isn't it possible to drop it or compromise it or +something, Milton?" + +In the reaction from argument and--coldness downtown he felt he could stand +no more of it at home. + +"I wish you'd let that matter drop!" he said decidedly. "You couldn't +understand it." + +She hesitated. A red spot appeared in either cheek. + +"I must say I _don't_ understand!" she countered. "It is inconceivable to +me that a man like you should turn so easily against his class!" + +"My class?" he echoed wearily. + +"What do such creatures as Cora and Yankee Sullivan amount to?" she cried +hotly, "I suppose you'll say _they_ are in your class next! How you can +consider them of sufficient importance to go dead against your best friends +on their account!" + +"It is because I am right and they are wrong." + +She was a little carried beyond herself. + +"Well, they all think the same way," she pointed out. "Aren't you a little +--a little--" + +"Pig-headed," supplied Keith bitterly. + +"--to put your opinion against theirs?" she finished. + +Keith did not reply. + +This was Nan's last attempt. She did not bring up the subject again. But +she withdrew proudly and completely from all participation in society. She +refused herself to callers. Once the situation was thoroughly defined, she +accepted it. If her husband decided to play the game in this way, she, too, +would follow, whether she approved or not. Nan was loyal and a +thoroughbred. And she was either too proud or too indifferent to fight it +out with the other women, in the rough and tumble of social ambition. + + + + +XLVI + + +In this voluntary seclusion Nan saw laterally only two persons. One of +these was Mrs. Sherwood. The ex-gambler's wife called frequently; and, for +some reason, Nan never refused to see her, although she did not make her +visitor particularly welcome. Often an almost overmastering impulse seized +her to open her soul to this charming, sympathetic, tactful woman, but +something always restrained her. Her heart was too sore. And since an +inhibited impulse usually expresses itself by contraries, her attitude was +of studied and aloof politeness. Mrs. Sherwood never seemed to notice this. +She sat in the high-ceilinged "parlour," with its strange fresco of painted +fish-nets, and chatted on in a cheerful monologue, detailing small gossipy +items of news. She always said goodbye cordially, and went out with a +wonderful assumption of ignorance that anything was wrong. Her visits did +Nan good, although never could the latter break through the ice wall of +reserve. Nan's conscience often hurt her that she could answer this genuine +friendship with so little cordiality. She wondered dully how Mrs. Sherwood +could bring herself to be so good to so cross-grained a creature as +herself. As a matter of fact, the women were marking time in their +relations--Mrs. Sherwood consciously, Nan unconsciously--until better days. + +The other regular caller was Ben Sansome. His attitude was in some sense +detached. He was quietly, deeply sympathetic in his manner, never +obtrusive, never even hinting in words at his knowledge of the state of +affairs, but managing in some subtle manner to convey the impression that +he alone fully understood. Nan found that, without her realization, almost +in spite of herself, Sansome had managed to isolate her with himself on a +little island of mutual understanding, apart from all the rest of the +world. + +Her life was now becoming circumscribed. Household, books, some small +individual charities, and long afternoon walks filled her days. At first +Sansome had accompanied her on these tramps, but the unfailing, almost +uncanny insight of the man told him that at such times her spirit really +craved solitude, so he soon tactfully ceased all attempts to join her. Her +usual walk was over the cliffs toward the bay, where, from some of the +elevations near Russian Hill, she could look out to the Golden Gate, or +across to Tamalpais or the Contra Costa shores. The crawl of the distant +blue water, the flash of wing or sail, the taste of salt rime, the canon +shadows of the hills, the flying murk, or the last majestic and magnificent +blotting out of the world as the legions of sea fog overtoiled it, all +answered or soothed moods in her spirit. Sometimes she forgot herself and +overstayed the daylight. At such times she scuttled home half fearfully for +the great city, like a jungle beast, was most dangerous at night. + +One evening, returning thus in haste, she was lured aside by the clang of +bells and the glare of a fire. No child ever resisted that combination, and +Nan was still a good deal of a child. Almost before she knew, it she was +wedged fast in a crowd. The pressure was suffocating; and, to her alarm, +she found herself surrounded by a rough-looking set of men. They were +probably harmless workingmen, but Nan did not know that. She became +frightened, and tried to escape, but her strength was not equal to it. +Near the verge of panic, she was fairly on the point of struggling, when +she felt an arm thrown around her shoulder. She looked up with a cry, to +meet Ben Sansome's brown eyes. + +"Don't be afraid; I'm here," he said soothingly. + +In the revulsion Nan fairly thrilled under the touch of his manly, +protection. This impulse was followed instantly, by an instinct of +withdrawal from the embrace about her shoulder, which was in turn succeeded +by a fierce scorn of being prudish in such circumstances. Sansome +masterfully worked her out through the press. At the last tactful moment he +withdrew his arm. She thanked him, still a little frightened. + +"It was certainly lucky you happened to be here!" she ended. + +"Lucky!" he laughed briefly. "I knew that sooner or later you'd need me." + +He stopped at that, but allowed her questions to elicit the fact that every +afternoon he had followed her at a discreet distance, scrupulously +respecting her privacy, but ready for the need that sooner or later must +surely arrive. Nan was touched. + +"You have no right to endanger yourself this way!" he cried, as though +carried away. "It is not just to those who care for you!" and by the tone +of his voice, the look of his eye, the slight emphasizing pressure of his +hand he managed to convey to her, but in a manner to which she could not +possibly object, his belief that his last phrase referred more to himself +than to any one else in the world. + +It was about this period that John Sherwood, dressing for dinner, remarked +to his wife: + +"Patsy, the more I see of you the more I admire you. Do you remember that +Firemen's Ball when you started in to break up that Keith-Morrell affair? +He dropped her so far that I haven't heard her _plunk_ yet! I don't know +what made me think of it--it was a long time ago." + +"Yes, that was all right," she replied thoughtfully, "but I'm not as +pleased as I might be with the Keith situation." + +Sherwood stopped tying his cravat and turned to face her. + +"He's perfectly straight, I assure you," he said earnestly. "I don't +believe he knows that any other woman but his wife exists. I _know_ that. +But I wish he'd go a little easier with the men." + +"Oh, I wasn't thinking of him. She's the culprit now." + +"What!" cried Sherwood, astonished, "that little innocent baby!" + +"That 'little innocent baby' is seeing altogether too much of Ben Sansome." + +Sherwood uttered a snort of masculine scorn. + +"Ho! Ben Sansome?" + +"Yes, Ben Sansome." + +"Why, he's a notorious butterfly." + +"Well, it looks now as though he intended to alight." + +"Seriously?" + +She nodded. Sherwood slowly went on with his dressing. + +"I like that little creature," he said at last. "She's the sort that +strikes me as born to be treated well and to be happy. Some people are that +way, you know; just as others are born painters or plumbers." She nodded in +appreciation. "And if you give the word, Patsy, I'll go around and have a +word with Keith--or spoil Sansome--whichever you say----" + +She laughed. + +"You're a dear, Jack, but if you love me, keep your hands off here." + +"Are you bossing this job?" he asked gravely. + +"I'm bossing this job," she repeated, with equal gravity. + +He said nothing more for a time, but his eyes twinkled. + + + + +XLVII + + +Keith's investigations proceeded until at last he felt justified in +preferring before the Bar Association charges of irregular practice against +James Ware, Bernard Black, and--to his great regret--Calhoun Bennett. He +conceived he had enough evidence to convict these men legally, but he as +yet shrank from asking for an indictment against them, preferring at first +to try for their discipline before their fellow lawyers. If the Bar +Association failed, however, he had every intention of pressing the matter +in the courts. + +Almost immediately after the filing of the complaint he was waited on in +his office by a man only slightly known to him, Major Marmaduke Miles. The +major's occupation in life was obscure. He was a red-faced, tightly +buttoned, full-jowled, choleric Southerner of the ultra-punctilious brand, +always well dressed in quaint and rather old-fashioned garments, with +charming manners, and the reminiscence of good looks lost in a florid and +apoplectic habit. This person entered Keith's office, greeted him formally, +declined a chair. Standing very erect before Keith's desk, his beaver hat +poised on his left forearm, he said: + +"I am requested, suh, to enquiah of yo' the name of a friend with whom I +can confer." + +"If that means a challenge, Major, I must first ask the name of your +principal," returned Keith. + +"I am actin' fo' Mr. Calhoun Bennett, suh," stated the major. + +"Tell Cal Bennett I will not fight him," said Keith quietly. + +The major was plainly flabbergasted, and for a moment puffed his red cheeks +in and out rapidly. + +"You mean to tell me, suh, that yo' refuse the satisfaction due a gentleman +after affrontin' him?" + +"I won't fight Cal Bennett," repeated Keith patiently. + +The major turned even redder, and swelled so visibly that Keith, in spite +of his sad realization of the gravity of the affair, caught himself +guiltily in a boyish anticipation that some of the major's strained buttons +would pop. + +"I shall so repo't to my principal, suh. But I may add, suh, that in my +opinion, suh, yo' are conductin' yo'self in a manner unbecomin' to a +gentleman; and othuh gentlemen will say so, suh! They may go even farthah +and stigmatize yo' conduct as cowardly, suh! And it might even be that I, +suh, would agree with that expression, suh!" + +The major glowered. Keith smiled wearily. It did not to him at the moment +that this would be so great a calamity. + +"I am sorry to have forfeited your good opinion, Major," he contented +himself with saying. + +The major marched straight back to the Monumental, where Bennett and a +number of friends were awaiting the result of his mission. The major's +angry passions had been rising, every foot of the way. + +"He won't fight, suh!" he bellowed, slamming his cane across the table. "He +won't fight! And I stigmatized him to his face as a white-livered hound!" + +Calhoun Bennett sank back pale, and speechless. His companions deluged him +with advice. + +"Horsewhip the craven publicly." "Warn him to go heeled, and then force the +issue!" "Shoot him down like the dog he is!" + +But the major's mighty bellow dominated everything. + +"I claim the privilege!" he roared. "Egad, I _demand_ the privilege! It is +my right! I am insulted by such a rebuff! Now that I have acquitted myself +of Cal's errand, I will call him out myself. Ain't that right, Cal? I'll +make the hound fight!" + +The old major looked redder and fiercer than ever. There could be no doubt +that he would make any one fight, once he started out to do so, and that he +would carry the matter through. He was brave enough. + +But little Jimmy Ware, who had been doing some thinking, here spoke up. It +seemed to him a good chance to get a reputation without any risk. Since +James King of William had uncompromisingly refused to fight duels, his +example had been followed. A strong party of those having conscientious +scruples against the practice had come into being. Keith's refusal to fight +Bennett, to Ware's mind, indicated that he belonged to this class. It +looked safe. + +"Pardon me, Major," he broke in suavely; "but each in turn. I claim the +right. Cal had first chance because he had personally warned the man of the +consequences. But I am equally accused. You must admit my prior claim." + +The major came off the boil. Puffing his red cheeks in and out he +considered. + +"Yo're right, suh," he conceded reluctantly. + +After considerable persuasion, and some flattery as to his familiarity with +the niceties of the Code, the major consented to bear Jimmy's defiance. He +entered Keith's office again, stiffer than a ramrod. Keith smiled at him. + +"There's no use, Major, I won't fight Cal Bennett," he greeted his visitor. + +"I am the bearer of a challenge from Mistah James Ware," he announced. + +"What!" yelled Keith, so suddenly and violently that Major Miles recoiled a +step. + +"From Mistah James Ware," he repeated. + +Keith laughed savagely. + +"Oh, I'll fight him," he growled; "gladly; any time he wants it." + +The major's face lit up. + +"If you'll name yo' friend, suh," he suggested. + +"Friend? Friend? What for? I'm capable of arranging this. I haven't time to +hunt up a friend." + +"It's customary," objected the major. + +"Look here," Keith swept on, "I'm the challenged party and I have the say- +so, haven't I?" + +"Yo' can name the weapons," conceded Major Marmaduke Miles. + +"All right, we'll call this revolvers, navy revolvers--biggest there are, +whatever that is. And close up. None of your half-mile shooting." + +"Ten yards," suggested Major Miles with unholy joy. + +"And right away--this afternoon," went on Keith. "If that little runt wants +trouble, egad he's going to have all his little skin will hold." + +But the major would not have this. It was not done. He waived conducting +his negotiations through a second, but that was as far as his conventional +soul would go. He held out for three o'clock the following afternoon. + +"And I wish to apologize, Mistah Keith," he said, on parting, "fo' my ill- +considered words of a short time ago. I misunderstood yo' reasons fo' +refusin' to fight Mistah Bennett." + +He bowed his rotund, tightly buttoned little figure and departed, to strike +Jimmy Ware with complete consternation. + +Duels in the fifties were almost an acknowledged public institution. +Although technically illegal, no one was ever convicted of any of the +consequences of such encounters. They were conducted quite openly. Indeed, +some of the more famous were actively advertised by steamboat men, who +carried excursions to the field. Keith's acceptance of Ware's challenge +aroused the keenest interest. Outside the prominence of the men involved, a +vague feeling was current that in their persons were symbolized opposing +forces in the city's growth. As yet these forces had not segregated to that +point where champions were demanded, or indeed would be recognized as such, +but vague feelings of antagonism, of alignments, were abroad. Those who +later would constitute the Law and Order class generally sympathized with +Ware; those whom history was to know as the Vigilantes felt stirrings of +partisanship for Keith. Therefore, the following afternoon a small flotilla +set sail for the Contra Costa shore, and a crowd of several hundred +spectators disembarked at the chosen duelling ground. + +Nan knew nothing of all this. Keith was now in such depths of low spirits +that his wearied soul did not much care what became of him. He put his +affairs in shape, shrugged his shoulders, and went to the encounter with +absolute indifference. + +The preliminaries were soon over. Keith found himself facing Jimmy Ware at +the distance he had himself chosen. A double line of spectators stood at a +respectful space on either side. Major Miles and an acquaintance of Keith's +who had volunteered to act for him were posted nearer at hand. Keith had +listened attentively to the instructions. The word was to be given--_one, +two, three. Fire!_ Between the first and last words the duellists were to +discharge the first shot from their weapons. After that they were to fire +at will. One shot would have sufficed Jimmy Ware; but Keith, without +emotion, filed with a dead indifference to any possible danger and a savage +contempt for the whole proceedings, had insisted on the full measure. He +was totally unaccustomed to weapons. At the word of command he raised the +revolver and fired, carelessly but coolly, and without result. One after +the other he discharged the six chambers of his weapon, aiming as well as +he knew how. It did not occur to him that Ware was firing at him. After the +sixth miss he threw the revolver away in cold disgust. + +"This is a farce," said he, "and I'm not going to be fool enough to take +part in it any longer." + +Jimmy Ware, delighted at finding himself unharmed, and confident now that +bluff would go, started to say something lofty and disdainful. Keith +whirled back on him. + +"If you want 'satisfaction,' as you call it, you'll get it, and you'll get +it plenty! I'm sick of being made a fool of. Just open your ugly head to me +again, and I'll knock it off your shoulders!" His eye smouldered +dangerously, and Jimmy Ware, very uncertain in his mind, took refuge in a +haughty look. Keith glared at him moment, then turned to the crowd: "I'll +give all of you fair warning," said he. "I'm going to do my legal duty in +all things; and I'm not going to fight duels. Anybody who interferes with +me is going to get into trouble!" + +An uproar ensued. All this was most irregular, unprecedented, a disgrace to +a gentlemen's meeting. The major roared like a bull. If a man would not +fight, would not defend his actions, how could a gentleman get at him +except by street brawling or assassination, and both of these were +repugnant to finer feelings. A dozen fire-eaters felt themselves personally +insulted. The crowd surrounded Keith, shouting at him, jostling him, +threatening. A cool, somewhat amused voice broke in. + +"Gentlemen," said Talbot Ward, in so decided a tone that they turned to +hear. "I am a neutral non-partisan in this little war, I am for neither +party, for neither opinion, in the matter. I, like Mr, Keith, never fight +duels. But may I suggest--merely in the interest of fair play--that for the +moment you are forgetting yourselves? My opinion coincides with Mr. Keith's +that duelling is a foolish sort of game, but it is a game, and recognized; +and if you are going to play it, why not stick to its rules? Mr. Keith, and +Mr. Ware have exchanged shots. Mr. Ware has therefore had 'satisfaction.' +Now Mr. Keith and I going to walk--quietly--to the boat. We do not expect +to be molested." + +"By God, Tal!" cried Major Miles in astonishment, "ye' don't mean to tell +me yo're linin' yourself up on the side of that blackleg!" + +"Well," put in a new voice, a very cheerful voice, "I don't pretend to be +neutral, and I'd just as lief fight duels as not, and I'm willing to state +to you all that though I don't know a damn thing about this case nor its +merits, I like this man's style. And I'm ready to state that I'll take his +place and fight any--or all of you--right here and now. You, Major?" + +All eyes turned to him. He was a dark, eager youth, standing with his +slouch hat in his hand, his head thrown back, his mop of shiny black hair +tossed from his forehead, his eyes glowing. The major hummed and fussed. + +"I have absolutely no quarrel with you, suh!" he said. + +"Nor with my friend yonder?" insisted the newcomer. + +"I should esteem it beneath my dignity to fight with a craven and a coward, +suh!" the major saved his face. + +The stranger glanced at Keith, an amused light in his eyes. + +"We'll let it go at that," he conceded. "Anybody else?" he challenged, +eying them. + +Every one seemed busy getting ready to go home, and appeared not to hear +him. After a moment he put on his felt hat and joined Keith and Ward, who +were walking slowly toward the landing. + +"Well," remarked a rough-looking Yankee--our old friend Graves of the +Eurekas to his friend Carter--"I didn't know anything would cool off the +major like that!" + +"I reckon the major knew who he was talking to," replied Carter. + +"Who is the cuss? I never saw him before." + +"Don't you know him? I reckon you must have heard of him, anyway. He's just +down from the Sierra. That's the express rider, Johnny Fairfax--Diamond +Jack, they call him." + +Graves whistled an enlightened whistle. + + + + +XLVIII + + +Johnny Fairfax accompanied Keith all the way back to his office, although +Talbot Ward said good-bye at the wharves. He bubbled over with conversation +and enthusiasm, and seemed to have taken a great fancy to the lawyer. The +theme of his glancing talk was the duel, over which he was immensely +amused; but from it he diverged on the slightest occasion to comment on +whatever for the moment struck his notice. + +"That was certainly the rottenest shooting I ever saw!" he exclaimed over +and over, and then would go off into peals of laughter. "I don't see how +twelve shots at that distance could miss! After the second exchange I +concluded even the side line wasn't safe, and I got behind a tree. Pays to +be prompt In your decision; there were a hundred applicants for that tree a +moment later, The bloodless duel as a parlour amusement! You ought to have +charged that large and respectable audience an admission fee! That's a good +idea; I'll present it to you! If you ever have another due, you must have a +good manager! There's money in it!" + +Keith laughed a trifle ruefully, + +"I suppose it was funny," he acknowledged. + +"Now don't get huffy," begged Johnny Fairfax. "What you ought to do is to +learn to shoot. You'll probably need to know how if you keep on living +around here," His eye fell on a shooting gallery. "Come in here," he urged +impulsively. + +The proprietor was instructed to load his pistols and for a dozen shots +Keith was coached vehemently in the elementals of shooting--taught at least +the theory of pulling steadily, of coordinating various muscles and +psychological processes that were not at all used to cooerdination. He +learned that mere steady aiming was a small part of it. + +"Anybody can do wonderful shooting with an empty pistol," said Johnny +contemptuously. "And anybody can hold as steady as a rock--until he pulls +the trigger." + +"It's interesting," conceded Keith; "mighty interesting. I didn't know +there was so much to it." + +"Of course it's interesting," said Johnny. "And you're only at the +rudiments. Look here!" + +And, to the astonishment of Keith, the worshipful adoration of the +shooting-gallery proprietor, and the awe of the usual audience that +gathered at the sound of the reports, he proceeded to give an exhibition of +the skill that had made him famous. The shooting galleries of those days +used no puny twenty-twos. Derringers, pocket revolvers, and the huge +"navies" were at hand--with reduced loads, naturally--for those who in +habitual life affected these weapons. Johnny shot with all of them, +displaying the tricks of the gunman with all the naive enthusiasm of youth. +His manner throughout was that engaging mixture of modesty afraid of being +thought conceited and eager pride in showing his skill so attractive to +everybody. At first he shot deliberately, splitting cards, hitting marbles, +and devastating whole rows of clay pipes. Then he took to secreting the +weapons in various pockets from which he produced and discharged them in +lightning time. His hand darted with the speed and precision of a snake's +head. + +"I've just been fooling with shooting things tossed in the air," he said, +exuberant with enthusiasm. "But I'm afraid we can't try that here." + +"I'm afraid not," agreed the proprietor regretfully. + +"It really isn't very hard, once you get the knack." + +"Oh, no," said the proprietor with elaborate sarcasm. "Say," he went on +earnestly, "I suppose it ain't no use trying to hire you--" + +Johnny shook his head, smiling. + +"I was afraid not," observed the proprietor disappointedly. "You'd be the +making of this place. Drop in any time you want practice. Won't cost you a +cent. Would you mind telling me your name?" + +"Fairfax," replied Johnny, gruffly embarrassed. + +"Not Diamond Jack?" hesitated the proprietor. + +"I'm sometimes called that," conceded Johnny, still more gruffly. "How much +is it?" + +"Not one gosh-danged continental red cent," cried the man, "and I'm pleased +to meet you." + +Johnny shook his extended hand, mumbled something, and bolted for the +street. Keith followed, laughing. + +"It seems you're quite a celebrity," he observed. + +But Johnny refused to pursue that subject. + +"You come with me and buy you a pistol," he growled. "You ought not to be +allowed loose. You're as helpless as a baby." + +Johnny picked out a small .31 calibre revolver and a supply of ammunition. + +"Now you practise!" was his final warning and advice. + +Keith went home with a new glow at his heart. He was ripe for a friend. + +Johnny seemed to have little to do for the moment. He never volunteered +information as to his business or his plans, and Keith never inquired. But +the young express rider fell into the habit of dropping in at Keith's +office. He was always very apologetic and solicitous as to whether or no he +was interrupting, saying that he had stopped for only ten seconds; but he +invariably ended in the swivel chair with a good cigar. Keith was at this +time busy; but he was never too busy for Johnny Fairfax. The latter was a +luxury to which he treated himself. Johnny was not only welcome because he +was practically Keith's only friend, but also his frank and engaging +comments on men and things were gradually giving the harassed lawyer a new +point of view on the society in which he found himself. Keith, as a +newcomer in a community already established, had naturally accepted the +prominent figures in that community as he would have accepted prominent +figures anywhere: that is, as respectable, formidable, admirable, solid, +unquestioned pillars of society. He was of a modest disposition and +disinclined to question. He respected them as any modest young man respects +those older and more successful than himself. For the same reason he +accepted their views and their authority; or, if he questioned them, he did +so sadly, almost guiltily, with many heart-searchings. + +But Johnny Fairfax held no such attitude. Not he! The city's great names +had scant respect from him! Not for an instant did he hesitate to criticise +or analyze the most renowned. It was not long before he learned all about +the Cora trial and Keith's subsequent efforts to discipline McDougall and +his associates. + +"I hope you get 'em!" said he; "the whole lot! I don't know much about this +McDougall; but I do know his friends, and most of 'em aren't worth thinkin' +about. They're big people here, but back where I came from, in old +Virginia, the best of 'em wouldn't be overseers on a plantation. That's why +they like it so much out here. Look at that gang! Casey has been in the +penitentiary, Rowlee ran some little blackleg sheet down South until they +run him out---I tell you, sir, as a Southerner I'm not proud of the +Southerners out here. They're a cheap lot, most of 'em. They were a cheap +lot home. The only difference is that back there everybody knew it, and out +here everybody thinks they're great people because they get up on their +hind legs and say so out loud. That old bluff, Major Miles, he was put out +of a Richmond club, sir, for cheatin' at cards--I know that for a fact!" + +Somehow, this frank criticism was like a breeze of fresh air to Keith: it +put new courage into him. Johnny Fairfax had no interests in the city; he +had no fear; his viewpoint was free from all sham; he was newly in from the +outside. Through his eyes things fell into perspective. Suddenly San +Francisco upper society became to Keith what it really was: a welter of +cheap, bragging, venal, self-seeking men, with here and there an honest +fine character standing high above. And he began, but dimly, to see that +the real men of the place were not--as yet--well known. Probably one of the +most impressive and typical figures of the time was Justice of the Supreme +Court Terry. In the eyes of those too close to events to have a clear sense +of proportion, he was one of the great men of his period. Courtly, +handsome, with haughty manners, of aristocratic bearing, fiercely proud, +touchily quarrelsome on "points of honour," generous but a bitter hater, he +and his equally handsome, proud, and fiery wife were considered by many +people of the time as embodying the ideal of Southern chivalry. But Johnny +Fairfax would have none of it. + +"He a typical Southern gentleman!" he laughed, "As being born in the South +myself, I repudiate that! I know too much about Terry. Why, look here: he's +a good sport, and he's got ability, and he makes friends, and he isn't +afraid of anything, But then you stop. He's not a gentleman! It shows most +particularly when he gets mad. Then he'll throw over anything--anything--to +have his own way. He's a big man now, but he won't be knee-high to a June +bug before he gets done." + +Johnny's prediction was long in fulfilment, but a score of years later it +came to pass, and Judge Terry's reputation has sunk almost to the level of +that of his brother on the bench--Judge "Ned" McGowan. + +"They're all a bad lot," Johnny finished, "and I hope you lick them! You +don't know all the good folks in this town yet!" + + + + +XLIX + + +Calhoun Bennett dropped the matter, and contented himself with cutting +Keith dead whenever they happened to meet. Jimmy Ware and Black were men of +a different sort; indeed McDougall had made them his associates mainly +because of their knowledge of the city's darker phases and their +unscrupulousness. In the admirable organization thus sketched Calhoun +Bennett had acted as a sort of go-between. + +After the duel these two precious citizens held many anxious consultations. +They could not tell just how much evidence Keith had succeeded in +gathering, but they knew that plenty of it existed. If the matter came to +an issue, they suspected the consequences might be serious. Either Keith or +his evidence must in some way be got rid of. Black, who was inclined by +instinct and training to be direct, was in favour of the simple expedient +of hiring assassins. + +"Won't do," negatived the more astute Ware. "The thing will be traced back +to us--not legally, of course, but to a moral certainty, and while they +won't be able to prove anything on us, the state of the public mind is such +that hell would pop." + +"He says he won't fight another duel," said Black doubtfully. + +"No." + +"We've got to kill him in a street quarrel, then." + +"He's got to be killed in a street quarrel," amended Ware, "that's certain; +but nobody even remotely connected with this Cora trial must seem to have +anything to do with it. It must have the appearance of a private quarrel +from away outside. Otherwise----" + +"Got anybody in mind?" asked the practical Black. + +"Yes, and he ought to be here at any moment." + +As though Jimmy Ware's words had been the cue for which he waited, Morrell +here entered the room. + + + + +L + + + +At three o'clock in the afternoon of May 14, 1856, the current issue of the +_Bulletin_ was placed on sale. A very few minutes later a copy found its +way into the hands of James Casey. Casey at that time, in addition to his +political cares, was editor of a small sheet he called the _Sunday Times_. +With this he had strenuously supported the extreme wing of the Law party, +which, as has been explained, comprised also the gambling and lawless +element. It was suspected by some that his paper was more or less +subsidized for the purpose, though the probability is that Casey found his +reward merely in political support. This Casey it was who, to his own vast +surprise, had at a previous election been returned as elected supervisor; +although he was not a candidate, his name was not on the ticket, and no man +could be found who had voted for him. Indeed, he was not even a resident of +the district. However, Yankee Sullivan, who ran the election, said +officially the votes had been cast for him; so elected he was proclaimed. +Undoubtedly he proved useful; he had always proved useful at elections +elsewhere, seldom appearing in person, but adept at selecting suitable +agents. His methods were devious, dishonest, and rough. He was head of the +Crescent Fire Engine Company, and was personally popular. In appearance he +was a short, slight man, with a bright, keen face, a good forehead, a thin +but florid countenance, dark curly hair, and light blue eyes, a type of +unscrupulous Irish adventurer with a dash of romantic ideals. Like all the +gentlemen rovers of his time, he was exceedingly touchy on the subject of +"honour." + +In the _Bulletin_ of the date mentioned James Casey read these words, +apropos of the threat of one Bagby to shoot Casey on sight: + + It does not matter how bad a man Casey had been, or how much benefit + it might be to the public to have him out of the way, we cannot accord + to any one citizen the right to kill him, or even beat him, without + justifiable provocation. The fact that Casey has been an inmate of + Sing Sing prison in New York is no offence against the laws of this + State; nor is the fact of his having stuffed himself through the + ballot box, as elected to the Board of Supervisors from a district + where it is said he was not even a candidate, any justification for + Mr. Bagby to shoot Casey, however richly the latter may deserve to + have his neck stretched for such fraud on the public. + +Casey read this in the full knowledge that thousands of his fellow-citizens +would also read it. His thin face turned white with anger. He crumpled the +paper into a ball and hurled it violently into the gutter, settled his hat +more firmly on his head, and proceeded at once to the _Bulletin_ office +with the full intention of shooting King on sight. Probably he would have +done so, save for the accidental circumstance that King happened to be busy +at a table, his back squarely to the door. Casey could not shoot a man in +the back without a word. He was breathless and stuttering with excitement. +King was alone, but an open door into an adjoining office permitted two +witnesses to see and hear. + +"What do you mean by that article?" cried Casey in a strangled voice. + +King turned slowly, and examined his visitor for a moment. + +"What article?" he inquired at last. + +"That which says I was formerly an inmate of Sing Sing!" + +King gazed at him with a depth of detached, patient sadness in his dark +eyes. + +"Is it not true?" he asked finally. + +"That is not the question," retorted Casey, trying again to work himself up +to the rage in which he had entered. "I do not wish my past acts rated up: +on that point I am sensitive." + +A faint smile came and went on King's lips. + +"Are you done?" he asked still quietly; then, receiving no reply, he +turned in his chair and leaned forward with a sudden intensity. His next +words hit with the impact of bullets: "There's the door! Go! Never show +your face here again!" he commanded. + +Casey found himself moving toward the open door. He did not want to do +this, he wanted to shoot King, or at least to provoke a quarrel, but he was +for the moment overcome by a stronger personality. At the door he gathered +himself together a little. + +"I'll say in my paper what I please!" he asserted, with a show of bravado. + +King was leaning back, watching him steadily. + +"You have a perfect right to do so," he rejoined. "I shall never notice +your paper." + +Casey struck himself on the breast. + +"And if necessary I shall defend myself!" he cried. + +King's passivity broke. He bounded from his seat bristling with anger. + +"Go!" he commanded sharply, and Casey went. + + +LI + + + +People had already read King's article in the _Bulletin_. People had seen +Casey heading for the _Bulletin_ office with blood in his eye. The news had +spread. When the Irishman emerged he found waiting for him a curious crowd. +His friends crowded around asking eager questions. Casey answered with +vague but bloodthirsty generalities: he wasn't a man to be trifled with, +and egad some people had to find that out! blackmailing was not a healthy +occupation when it was aimed at a gentleman! He left the impression that +King had recanted, had apologized, had even begged--there would be no more +trouble. Uttering brags of this sort, Casey led the way to the Bank +Exchange, a fashionable bar near at hand. Here he set up the drinks, and +was treated in turn. His bragging became more boastful. He made a fine +impression, but within his breast the taste of his interview with King +curdled into dangerous bitterness. Casey could never stand much alcohol. +The well-meant admiration and sympathy of his friends served only to +increase his hidden, smouldering rage. His eyes became bloodshot, and he +talked even more at random. + +In the group that surrounded him was our old acquaintance, Judge Edward +McGowan--Ned McGowan--jolly, hard drinking, oily, but not as noisy as +usual. He was watching Casey closely. The Honourable Ned was himself a +fugitive from Pennsylvania justice. By dint of a gay life, a happy +combination of bullying and intrigue, he had made himself a place in the +new city, and at last had "risen" to the bench. He was apparently all on +the surface, but his schemes ran deep. Some historians claim that he had +furnished King the documents proving Casey an ex-convict! Now, when he +considered the moment opportune, he drew Casey from the noisy group at the +bar. + +"All this talk is very well," he said contemptuously to the Irishman, "but +I see through it. What are you going to do about it?" + +"I'll get even with the----, don't you worry about that!" promised Casey, +still blustering. + +This McGowan brushed aside as irrelevant. "Are you armed?" he asked. "No, +that little weapon is too uncertain. Take this." He glanced about him, and +hastily passed to Casey a big "navy" revolver. "You can hide it under your +cloak--so!" He fixed Casey's eyes with his own, and brought to bear on the +little man all the force of his very vital personality, "Listen: King comes +by here every evening. Everybody knows that, and everybody knows what has +happened." + +He stared at Casey significantly for a moment, then turned abruptly away. +Casey, become suddenly quiet, his blustering mood fallen from him, his face +thoughtful and white, his eyes dilated, said nothing. He returned to the +bar, took a solitary drink, and walked out the door, his right hand +concealed beneath his long cloak. McGowan watched him intently, following +to the door, and looking after the other's retreating form. Casey walked +across the street, but stopped behind a wagon, where he stood, apparently +waiting. McGowan, with a grunt of satisfaction, sauntered deliberately to +the corner of the Bank Exchange. There he leaned against the wall, also +waiting. + +For nearly an hoar the two thus remained: Casey shrouded in his cloak, +apparently oblivious to everything except the corner of Merchant and +Montgomery streets, on which he kept his eyes fixed; McGowan lounging +easily, occasionally speaking a low word to a passerby. Invariably the +person so addressed came to a stop. Soon a little group had formed, idling +with Judge McGowan. A small boy happening by was commandeered with a +message for Pete Wrightman, the deputy sheriff, and shortly Pete arrived +out of breath to join the group. + +At just five o'clock the idlers stiffened to attention. King's figure was +seen to turn the corner of Merchant Street into Montgomery. Head bent, he +walked toward the corner of the Bankers' Exchange, the men on the corner +watching him. When nearly at that point he turned to cross the street +diagonally. + +At the same instant Casey stepped forward from behind the wagon, throwing +back his cloak. + + +LII + +The same afternoon Johnny Fairfax and Keith were sitting together in the +Monumental's reading-room. They happened to be the only members in the +building with the exception of Bert Taylor, who was never anywhere else. Of +late Keith had acquired the habit of visiting the reading-room at this +empty hour. He was beginning to shrink from meeting his fellowmen. Johnny +Fairfax was a great comfort to him, for the express rider was never out of +spirits, had a sane outlook, and entertained a genuine friendship for the +young lawyer. Although yet under thirty years of age, he was already an +"old-timer," for he had come out in '49, and knew the city's early history +at first hand. + +"This old bell of yours is historical," he told Keith. "Its tolling called +together the Vigilantes of '51." + +They sat gossiping for an hour, half sleepy with reaction from the fatigues +of the day, smoking slowly, enjoying themselves. Everything was very +peaceful--the long slant of a sunbeam through dust motes, the buzz of an +early bluebottle, the half-heard activities of some of the servants in the +pantry beyond, preparing for the rush of the cocktail hour. Suddenly Johnny +raised his head and pricked up his ears. + +"What the deuce is that!" he exclaimed. + +They listened, then descended to the big open engine-room doors and +listened again. From the direction of Market Street came the dull sounds of +turmoil, shouting, the growl and roar of many people excited by something. +Across the Plaza a man appeared, running. As he came nearer, both could see +that his face had a very grim expression. + + +"Here!" called Johnny, as the man neared them. "Stop a minute! Tell us +what's the matter!" + +The man ceased running, but did not stop. He was panting but evidently very +angry. His words came from between gritted teeth. + +"Fight," he said briefly. "Casey and James King of William. King's shot." + +At the words something seemed to be stilled in Keith's mind. Johnny seized +the man by the sleeve. + +"Hold on," he begged. "I know that kind of a fight. Tell us." + +"Casey went up close to King, said 'come on,' and instantly shot him before +King knew what he was saying." + +"Killed?" + +"Fatally wounded." + +"Where's Casey?" + +"In jail--of course--where he's safe--with his friends." + +"Where you headed for?" + +"I'm going to get my gun!" said the man grimly, and began again to run. + +They watched his receding figure until it swung around the corner and +disappeared. Without warning a white-hot wave of anger swept over Keith. +All the little baffling, annoying delays, enmities, technicalities, +chicaneries, personal antagonisms, evasions that had made up the Cora trial +were in it. He seemed to see clearly the inevitable outcome of this trial +also. It would be another Cora-Richardson case over again. A brave spirit +had been brutally blotted out by an outlaw who relied confidently on the +usual exoneration. With an exclamation Keith darted into the engine house +to where hung the rope ready for an alarm. An instant later the heavy +booming of the Monumental's bell smote the air. + + +LIII + + + +Having given this alarm. Keith, Johnny at his elbow, started toward the +centre of disturbance, From it arose a dull, menacing roar, like the sound +of breakers on a rocky coast. Many people, with much excitement, shouting, +and vituperation, were converging toward the common centre. As this was +approached, it became more difficult, at last impossible, to proceed. The +streets were packed, jammed. All sorts of rumours were abroad--King, was +dead--King was only slightly hurt--Casey was not in jail at all--Casey had +escaped down the Peninsula--the United States warships had anchored off the +foot of Market Street and were preparing to bombard the city. There was +much rushing to and fro without cause. And over all the roar could be +distinguished occasionally single cries, as one may catch fragments of +conversation in a crowded room, and all of these were sinister: "Hang him!" +"Where is he?" "Run him up on a lamp post!" "Bring him out!" "He'll get +away if left to the officers!" And over all the cries, the shouts, the +curses, the noise of shuffling feet, the very sound of heavy breathing-- +that--the numbers of the mob magnified to a muffled, formidable undernote, +pealed louder and louder the Monumental bell, which now Bert Taylor--or +some one else--was ringing like mad. + +Keith's eyes had become grim and inscrutable, and his mouth had settled +into a hard, straight line. Johnny's interest had at first centred in the +mob, but after a few curious glances at his companion he transferred it +entirely to him, Johnny Fairfax was a judge of men and of crises; and now +he was invaded with a great curiosity to see how the one and the other were +here to work out. With a determination that would not be gainsaid, Keith +thrust himself through the crowd until he had gained an elevated coping. +Here he stood watching. Johnny, after a glance at his face, joined him. + +Suddenly in the entrance of Dunbar Alley, next the city jail, a compact +group of men with drawn pistols appeared. They made their way rapidly to a +carriage standing near, jumped in, and the driver whipped up his horses. +With a yell of rage the crowd charged down, but recoiled instinctively +before the presented pistols. The horses reared and plunged, and before +anybody had gathered his wits sufficiently to seize the bridles, the whole +equipage had disappeared around the corner of Kearney Street. + +"I must say that was well done," said Johnny. + +"North and Charles Duane, with Casey, inside," commented Keith, as +dispassionately as though reading from a catalogue. "Billy Mulligan and his +deputies outside. That is to be remembered." + +A great mob had surged after the disappearing vehicle, but at least fifty +yards in the rear. The remainder were following at a more leisurely pace. +Almost immediately the street was empty. Keith climbed slowly down from his +coping. + +"What do you intend doing?" asked Johnny curiously. + +"Nothing yet." + +"But they're getting him away!" + +"No," said Keith, out of his local knowledge. "They're merely taking him to +the county jail; it's stronger." + +They followed the crowd to the wide open space below the county jail. The +latter was at that period a solidly built one-story building situated atop +a low bluff. Below it the marshal had drawn up his officers. They stood +coolly at ease. The mob, very excited, vociferated, surged back and forth. +North and his men, busily and coolly, but emphatically, were warning them, +over and over again, not to approach nearer. A single, concerted rush would +have overwhelmed the few defenders; but the rush was not made. +Nevertheless, it could not be doubted that this time the temper of the +people was very determined. The excitement was growing with every minute. +Cries again took coherence. + +"Hang him!" "Arrest the officers!" "Good, that's it!" "Let's take the +jail!" + +A man burst through the front ranks, clambered up the low bluff on which +stood the jail, turned, and attempted to harangue the crowd. He was +instantly torn down by the officers. He fought like a wild cat, and the +crowd, on the hair trigger as it was, howled and broke forward. But Marshal +North, who really handled the situation intelligently, sharply commanded +his men to desist, and instantly to release the orator. He knew better than +to allow the matter to come to an issue of strength. Intensely excited, the +man shouldered his way through the crowd, and, assisted by many hands, +mounted the balcony of a two-story house. Thence he began to harangue, but +so great was the confusion that he could not be heard. + +"Who is he?" "Who is that man?" voices cried from a dozen points. + +George Frank, a hotel keeper, possessed of a great voice, shouted back: + +"That is Thomas King--" + +An officer seized Frank hastily by the collar. "Stop or I'll arrest you!" +he threatened. + +"--brother of James King of William!" bellowed Frank, undaunted. + +"Bully for you!" muttered Johnny Fairfax, whose eyes were shining. + +Keith was watching the whole scene from beneath the brim of his hat, his +eyes sombre and expressionless. Johnny glanced at him from time to time, +but said nothing. + +From the balcony Thomas King continued to harangue the crowd. Little of +what he said could be heard, but he was at a white heat of excitement, and +those nearest him were greatly aroused. An officer made a movement to +arrest him, but a hasty message from the sapient North restrained that. + +At that moment a great cheer burst out from the lower end of the street. +Over the heads of the crowd could be distinguished the glint of file after +file of bayonets. + +"That's the ticket!" cried an enthusiast near Keith and Johnny. "Here come +the militia boys! Now we'll soon have the jail!" + +The bayonets bobbed steadily through the crowd, deployed in front of the +jail, and turned to face the mob. A great groan went up. + +"Sold!" cried the enthusiast. + +These were volunteers from the Law and Order party, hastily armed from the +militia armouries, and thrown in front of the jail for its protection. + +Immediately they had taken position the jail door opened, and there +appeared a rather short, carefully dressed man, with side whiskers, +carrying his hat in his hand. He stood for a moment, appealing for +attention, one arm upraised. Little by little the noise died down. + +"Who is that?" inquired Johnny. + +He received no reply from Keith, but the enthusiast informed him: + +"That's our beloved mayor--Van Ness," said he. + +When quiet had at length been restored, Van Ness addressed them: + +"You are here creating an excitement," he said, "which may lead to +occurrences this night which will require years to wipe out. You are now +labouring under great excitement, and I advise you quietly to disperse. I +assure you the prisoner is safe. Let the law have its course and justice +will be done." + +Up to this point Van Ness had been listened to with respect, but at the +last word he received such a chorus of jeers and cat calls that he retired +hastily. + +"How about Richardson?" they demanded of him. "Where's the law in Cora's +case?" "To hell with such justice!" + +"Not the popular orator," observed Johnny Fairfax. + +More soldiers came, and then more, at short intervals, until the square was +filled with shining bayonets. Johnny was frankly disgusted. As a man of +action he too well understood that this particular crisis was practically +over. From this mob the jail was safe. + +"They lost their chance talking," he said. "They ought to have rushed the +jail first pop. Now the whole thing will fizzle out slowly. Let's go get +supper." + +Without reply Keith descended from his perch. They hunted some time for a +restaurant. All were closed for the sufficient reason that their staffs +were on the streets. Finally they discovered a Chinese chop house prepared +to serve them, and here they ate. Johnny was voluble in his scorn for the +manner in which a golden opportunity had been allowed to slip by. Keith was +very taciturn. + +"Let's get out of here," he said abruptly at last. "Let's get some news." + +They learned that King was still alive, though badly wounded in the left +breast; that he could not be moved; that he was attended by Dr. Beverly +Cole and a half score of the best surgeons of the city; that a mass meeting +had been called at the Plaza. Indeed, there could be no doubt that the +centre of excitement had been shifted to the Plaza. Men by thousands, all +armed, were marching in that direction. Johnny and Keith found the square +jammed, but the latter led the way by devious alleys to the rear of the +Monumental headquarters, and so out to a little second-story balcony. + +Below them the faces of the packed mass of humanity showed white in the dim +light from the street lamps and the buildings. Arms gleamed. Every roof +top, every window, every balcony was crowded. From the latter vehement +orators held forth. All wanted to talk at once. Some of these people were, +as our chronicler of the time quaintly expresses it, "considerably tight." +Keith looked them all over with an appraising eye, listening at the same +time to incendiary speeches advising the battering down of the jail and the +hanging of all its inmates. Occasionally one of the cooler headed would get +in a few words, but invariably was interrupted by some well-meaning hot +head. + +There seemed to be a great diversity of opinion both among the people on +the balcony and those below. Keith listened attentively for a time, then, +with the abruptness that had characterized his movements and decisions +since the moment he had heard the news of King's assassination, he turned +away. + +"Let's go," he said briefly. + +"Oh, hold on!" cried Johnny, aghast. "It's just the shank of the evening! +We'll miss all the fun." + +"There'll be nothing done," said Keith with decision. + +"I'm more in hopes," persisted Johnny. "I'll bet there are ten thousand men +here, armed and angry, and getting angrier every minute. They could fairly +eat up that lot at the jail." + +"They won't," said Keith. + +"I'll bet one good man could turn them loose in a minute." + +Suddenly Keith's dour taciturnity broke. "You're perfectly right," he +conceded; "but the point is that good men won't lead a rabble. If we're to +have good leaders we must have something for them to lead. If we're to cure +these conditions, we must do things in due order. This cannot be remedied +by mere excitement nor by deeds done under excitement. I have not yet seen +anything that promises either satisfaction or reform." + +"What do you propose doing, then?" asked Johnny, his intuitions again +satisfying him that here was the man to tie to. + +"Walk about," replied Keith. + +They walked about. In the course of the evening they looked in on a dozen +meetings of which they had news--in the Pioneer Club, in rooms over the old +Bella Union, in a saloon off Montgomery Street, at the offices of various +merchants. Keith looked carefully over the personnel of each of these +various meetings, listened a minute or so, and went out. By some of the men +so gathered Johnny was quite impressed, but Keith shook his head. + +"These meetings are being held by clubs or cliques," he explained his +disbelief in them. "They influence a certain following, but not a general +following. This must be a general movement or none at all. The right people +haven't taken hold." + +About midnight he unexpectedly announced that he was going home and to +bed. Johnny was frankly scandalized, + +"I think nothing will happen in this matter," said Keith, + +"The time for mob violence has passed. If an attack were now to be made, I +should consider it unfortunate, and should not want to be mixed up in it, +anyway. A mob attack is nothing but a manifestation of sheer lawlessness." + +"And you're keen for the dear law, of course," said Johnny with sarcasm. + +"There is a difference between mere laws and the law. There is a time-- +either here or coming soon--when laws may be broken that justice may be +done. But no popular movement will succeed unless it has behind it the +solemn, essential human law. Good-night." + +LIV + + + +On this same afternoon of King's assassination Nan Keith, was expecting +Sansome in for tea. Afternoon tea was then an exotic institution, +practically unknown in California society. Ben Sansome was about the only +man of Nan's acquaintance who took it as a matter of course, without either +awkwardness, embarrassment, or ill-timed jest. The day had been fine, and +several times she had regretted her promise as she cast an eye at the glow +over the gilt-edged tops of the western hills. The sunset through the +Golden Gate must to-day be very fine. + +And Ben Sansome had failed her! She had made certain little especial +preparations--picked flowers, herself cut the sandwiches thin, put on her +most becoming tea gown. As time passed she became more and more annoyed. +She was disappointed not so much at the absence of Ben Sansome as a person +as at the waste of her efforts. + +But at six o'clock, when she had given him up, and was about to change from +her tea gown, he came in, full of apologies, very flustered, and bursting +with news. + +"King was shot on the street by Casey," he told her, trying not +unsuccessfully for his habitual detached manner. "I stopped to get the news +for you. King is not dead, but probably fatally wounded. Casey is in jail. +There is a great public excitement--a mob is forming. I've been expecting +something of the sort. King has been pretty free with his comments." + +At seven o'clock Nan jumped to her feet in a sudden panic. + +"Why, I wonder where Milton is!" she cried. "He's never been so late as +this before!" + +"He's probably stayed downtown to follow the course of the excitement. +Naturally he would. He may not get home to supper at all." + +Wing Sam announced supper. He was unheeded. Even Gringo, his ears cocked, +watched the door, getting up uneasily, whining, sniffing inquiringly, and +lying down again. At half-past seven Sansome firmly intervened. + +"You're going to make yourself ill," he insisted, "if you don't eat +something. I am hungry, anyway, and I'm not going to leave you until he +comes back." + +"Oh, you must be starved! How thoughtless I am!" she cried. + +Sansome, who, it must be confessed, had been somewhat chagrined at the +apparent intensity of her anxiety, was, within the next two hours, +considerably reassured. Nan never did things halfway. For the moment she +had forgotten her guest. He was certainly very kind, very thoughtful--as +always--to stay here with her. She must not oppress his spirits. But the +inner tension was terrible. She felt that shortly something must snap. And +after supper, when they had returned to the drawing-room, a queer, low, +growling, distant roar, borne on a chance shift of wind, broke one of her +sentences in the middle. + +"What's that?" she cried, but before Sansome had replied, she knew what It +was, the roar of the mob! And Milton was somewhere there! + +Suddenly a wave of reaction swept her, of anger. Why was he there? Why +wasn't he at home? Why had he made no attempt to relieve her cruel anxiety? +A messenger--it would have been very simple! And Ben Sansome was so kind-- +as always. She turned to him with a new decision. + +"I know you are dying to go see what is going on," she said. "You simply +must not stay here any longer on my account. I insist! Indeed, I think I'll +go to bed." But Ben Sansome, his manner becoming almost caressingly +protective, would not listen. + +"It isn't safe to leave you alone," he told her. "All the worst elements of +the city will be out. No woman should be left alone in times of such +danger. I should feel most uneasy at leaving you before your husband comes +in." + +His words were correct enough, but he managed to convey his opinion that he +was only fulfilling what should have been Keith's first and manifest duty. +She made no reply. The conversation languished and died. They sat in the +lamplight opposite each other, occasionally exchanging a word or so. +Sansome was content and enjoying himself. He conceived that the stars were +fighting for him, and he was enjoying the hour. Nan, a prey alternately to +almost uncontrollable fits of anxiety and flaming resentment, could hardly +sit still. + +About midnight Gringo pricked up his ears and barked sharply. A moment +later Keith came in. + +He was evidently dead tired and wholly preoccupied. He hung up his hat +absently. Nan had sprung to her feet. + +"Oh, how could you!" she cried, the pent exasperation in her voice. "I've +been so anxious! I didn't know what might have happened!" + +"I'm all right," replied Keith briefly. "Sorry you were worried. No chance +to send you word." + +His apparent indifference added fuel to Nan's irritation. + +"If it hadn't been for Ben, I should have been stark, staring crazy, here +all alone!". + +Keith for the first time appeared to notice Sansome's presence. He nodded +at him wearily. + +"Mighty good of you," said he. "I appreciate it." + +"I thought _some_ man ought to be in the house at a time of such public +excitement," rejoined Sansome significantly. + +Keith failed to catch, or elected not to notice, the implication. Nan's +cheeks turned red. + +Without further remark Keith walked across to lock the window; returning, +he extinguished a small lamp on the side table. He was tired out, knew he +must be up early, and wanted above everything to get to bed. The hint was +sufficiently obvious. Sansome rose. Nan's flush deepened with +mortification. + +"Well, I'll just run along," said Sansome cheerfully. He did not ask for +news of the evening, nor did Keith volunteer it. Keith nodded at him +briefly and indifferently. He did not mean to be rude, but his wearied mind +was filled to the exclusion of everything else with the significance of +this day. + +Nan, feeling that she must make amends, followed Sansome into the hall. Her +anxiety for Keith's safety relieved, her whole reaction was indignantly +toward Sansome. + +"I'm sorry to have you go," she said, with a feeling that other +circumstances could not have called out, "I don't know what I'd have done +without you!" + +Sansome's sensitive intuitions thrilled to the feeling. + +"Your husband is here to take care of you--now," he murmured. "I must be +off." He took her hand, and bent over her, gazing into her eyes with the +concentration of a professional hypnotist, "Good-night," he said, with a +world of unexpressed meaning. "Try to get some sleep--Nan," He said her +name in a lower tone, almost lingeringly, then turned abruptly and went +out. + +Nan stood looking for a moment at the closed door. The effect of his +personality was on her spirit, the mantle of his care for her, his +consideration for her every mood, wrapped her about gratefully. + +She found the lights all out, and Keith already half undressed. + +"I must say, Milton," she said, "you might have been a little less rude to +Mr. Sansome. It would have only been decent after he had sat up here until +all hours." + +Keith, whose wide eyes would have showed him to be wholly preoccupied with +some inner vision or problem, answered impatiently from the surface of his +mind: + +"What in the world did I do to Sansome?" + +"You didn't do anything, that's the trouble. Do you realize he waited here +over six hours for you to come in?" + +"Oh, I guess he'll pull through," said Keith a little contemptuously. + +Nan became indignant. + +"At least," she retorted, "you ought to be grateful that he stayed to +protect the place!" + +"The place was in no danger," said Keith, yawning. + +She checked herself, and made a fresh start. + +"What's it all about? What's happened? Where have you been?" she asked. + +Keith roused himself with an effort. + +"I've been a little of everywhere. Lord, I'm tired! There's a mob about +trying to get up nerve to hang Casey. I suppose you've heard that Casey +shot King this afternoon?" + +"Yes, I heard that." + +"Well, when I saw nothing was going to happen, I came home, though I'm not +sure the trouble is over." + +Having said this, Keith fell gratefully to his pillow. Nan was nervous, +wide-awake, curious. She asked a number of questions. Keith answered with +extreme brevity. He was temporarily exhausted. Shortly he fell asleep +between two sentences. + + + +LV + + + +The following morning Keith woke early, slipped to the kitchen where he was +fed by Wing Sam, and was downtown before Nan, who had not so promptly +fallen asleep, had yet stirred. Even at that hour the streets were crowded. +Many--and the majority of these were "considerably tight," or otherwise +looking the worse for wear--had been up all night, unable to tear +themselves away from the fascinating centres of excitement. The majority, +however, had, like Keith, snatched some repose, and now were out eager to +discover what a new day might bring forth. + +The morning newspapers had been issued. Each man held a copy of one of them +open at the editorial column, and others tucked away under his arm. Never +had there been such a circulation; and in the case of the _Herald_ never +would so many be sold again. For that ill-starred sheet, mistaking utterly +the times, held boldly along the way of its sympathies. It spoke of the +assassination as an "affray"; held forth violently against the mob spirit +of the evening before; and stated vehemently its opinion that, now that +"Justice is regularly administered" there was no excuse for even the threat +of public violence. If there had been any doubt as to the depth to which +public opinion was at last stirred, the reception of the _Herald's_ +editorial would have settled it. Actually, for the moment, indignation +seemed to run more strongly against that sheet than against Casey himself. + +Keith glanced over this editorial with a half smile, tossed the paper in +the gutter, and opened the _Alta_ for news. King, still living, had been +removed from the office of the Express Company to a room in the Montgomery +Block. There, attended by his wife, Dr. Beverly Cole, and a whole corps of +volunteer physicians, he was making a fight for life. The bullet had +penetrated his left breast. That was all that was to be reported at +present. Keith glanced at the third page. His eye was caught by this +notice: + +THE VIGILANCE COMMITTEE + +The members of the Vigilance Committee in good standing will please meet at +No. 105-1/2 Sacramento Street, this day, Thursday, 15th instant, at nine +o'clock A.M. + +By order of the + +COMMITTEE OF THIRTEEN. + +While he was still gazing thoughtfully at this Johnny Fairfax, fresh as the +morning, appeared at his elbow. + +"Hello, wise man," he greeted him cheerily. "You were a good prophet--and +you got some sleep. I hung around all night, but nothing new was done." + +"Look here," said Keith, placing his finger on the notice, "do you suppose +this genuine?" + +Johnny read the notice. + +"Couldn't say." + +"Because if this is actually the old Committee of '51, it means business." + +"There's one way to find out." + +"How's that?" + +"Go and see," advised Johnny. + +Number 105-1/2 Sacramento Street proved to be a big three-storied barnlike +structure that had been built by a short-lived political party called the +Know Nothings. Already the hall was packed to its full capacity, the +entrance ways jammed, and a big crowd had gathered in the streets. + +"Fine chance we have here!" observed Johnny ruefully. + +They stood well free of the press for a few moments, watching. More men +were coming from all directions. But Johnny was resourceful, and likewise +restless. + +"Let's prowl around a little," he suggested to his companion. + +They prowled to such good purpose that they discovered, at the rear of the +building, opening into a blind alley, a narrow wooden stairway. It was +unguarded and untenanted. + +"Here we are," pronounced Johnny. + +They ascended it, and immediately found themselves In a small room back of +the stage or speaker's platform, It contained about a score of men. Their +aspect was earnest, serious, grave. Although there was a sufficiency of +chairs, they were all afoot, gathered in a loose group, in whose centre +stood William Coleman, his massive shoulders squared, his large bony, hands +clenched at his side, his florid complexion even more flushed than usual, +his steady eye travelling slowly from one face to another, Again the +strange contradictions in, his appearance struck Keith with the impact of a +distinct shock--the low smoothed hair, the sweeping blue-black moustache, +the vivid colour, and high cheek bones of the typical gambler--the clear +eye, firm mouth, incisive, deliberate speech, the emanation of personality +that inspired confidence. Next him, talking earnestly, stood Clancey +Dempster, a small man, mild of manner, blue eyed, with light, smooth hair, +the last man in the room one would have picked for great firmness and +courage, yet destined to play one of the leading roles in this crisis. The +gigantic merchant, Truett, towered above him, he who had calmly held two +fighting teamsters apart by their collars; and homely, stubborn, honest +Farwell, direct, uncompromising, inspired with tremendous single-minded +earnestness, but tender as a girl to any under dog; and James Dows, rough +and ready, humorous, blasphemous, absolutely direct, endowed with "horse +sense," eccentric, but of fundamentally good judgment: Hossfros of '51; Dr. +Beverly Cole, high spirited, distinguished looking, courtly; the excitable, +active, nervous, talkative, but staunch Tom Smiley, Isaac Blucome whose +signature as "33, Secretary" was to become terrible; fiery little George +Ward, willing--but unable--to whip his weight in wild cats. As Keith +recognized these men, and others of their stamp, he nodded his head +contentedly. + +Johnny Fairfax must have caught the same impression, for he leaned across +to whisper to Keith, his eyes shining: + +"We've hit it!" + +Their entrance had passed unnoticed in the absorption of discussion. +Coleman was speaking, evidently in final decision. + +"It is a serious business," said he. "It is no child's play. It may prove +very serious. We may get through quickly, so safely, or we may so involve +ourselves as never to get through." + +"The issue is not of choice, but of expediency," urged Dempster. "Shall we +have vigilance with order or a mob with anarchy?" + +Coleman pondered a moment, then threw up his head. + +"On two conditions I will accept the responsibility--absolute obedience, +absolute secrecy." + +Without waiting for a reply to this he threw open a door, and followed by +the others, stepped out on the platform. A roar greeted their appearance. +Johnny and Keith, remaining modestly in the background, lingered near the +open door. + +The hall was filled to its utmost capacity. Every inch of floor space was +occupied, and men perched on sills, clung to beams. Coleman raised his hand +and obtained an immediate dead silence. + +"In view of the miscarriage of justice in the courts," he announced +briefly, "it has been thought expedient to revive the Vigilance Committee. +An Executive Council was chosen by a representative of the whole body. I +have been asked to take charge. I will do so, but must stipulate that I am +to be free to choose the first council myself. Is that agreed?" + +A roar of assent answered him. + +"Very well, gentlemen. I shall request you to vacate the hall. In a short +time the books will be open for enrollment." + +He turned and reentered the anteroom followed by the others. In so doing he +came face to face with the intruders. + +"This is not your place, gentlemen," he told them courteously. + +They retired down the narrow back stairs and joined the huge throng that +filled the streets, waiting patiently and quietly, its eyes fixed on the +closed doors of the hall. In a remarkably short time these doors were +thrown open. Those nearest surged forward. Inside the passage were twelve +men, later to be known as the Executive Committee. These held back the +rush, admitting but one man at a time. The crowd immediately caught the +idea. There was absolutely no excitement. Every man was grimly in earnest. +Cries of "Order! Order! Line up!" came from different parts of the throng. +A rough quadruple queue was formed extending down the street. There was no +talk nor smiles, none of the usual rough joking. Each waited his turn +without impatience. + +Johnny Fairfax and Keith, owing to the chance that they had, entered the +crowd from the nearby alley and found themselves close to the head of the +line. As they neared the entrance, and so could hear what was there going +on, they found that each applicant was being closely scrutinized and +interrogated. The great majority passed this ordeal, but several men were +peremtorily turned back with a warning not to try again. + +Keith's turn came. He was conscious of the scrutiny of many eyes; he heard +the word "pass" pronounced by some one in the background, and climbed the +stairs. At the top he was directed to an anteroom at the left. Here behind +a table sat Coleman, Dempster, and a third man unknown to him. To them he +repeated the words of an oath of secrecy, and then was passed into another +room where Isaac Bluxome sat behind a ledger. In this he wrote his name. + +"Your number is 178," said Bluxome to him, "By that number, and not by your +name, you are henceforth to be known here. Never use names, always their +numbers, in referring to other members." + +Thence Keith was directed to the main hall where were those already +admitted. These were gathered in groups discussing the situation. In a +moment Johnny Fairfax joined him. + +"179, I am," said Johnny. His eyes swept the hall. "Not much mob spirit +about this; it looks like business." + +They hung around for an hour. The hall slowly filled. Finally, learning +that nothing further was to be done until the enrollment had finished, they +wandered out again into the street. The unbroken lines of applicants +extended as far down the street as the eye could see. + +All that day the applicants, orderly and grim with purpose, were passed +through in line. By mid-day it was seen that the Know-Nothing Hall was +going to be too small for the meeting that would later take place. +Therefore, a move was made to the Turnverein Hall. After enrolling, no man +departed from the vicinity for long. Short absences for hastily snatched +meals were followed by hurried returns lest something be missed. From time +to time reports were circulated as to the activities of the Executive +Committee, which had been in continuous session since its appointment. Thus +it was said that an Examining Committee had been appointed to scrutinize +the applicants; that the members of the Executive Committee had been raised +to twenty-six, that Oscar Smith had been appointed chief of police. The +latter rumour was immediately verified by the energetic activities of that +able citizen. He, or his messengers, darted here and there searching for +individuals wanted as doorkeepers, guards, or police officers. His +regulations also began to be felt. By evening only registered members of +the committee were allowed on the floor of the hall, even the expostulating +reporters being gently but firmly ejected. + +Nobody manifested the least excitement or impatience. At eight o'clock +Coleman came out of one of the side rooms, and, mounting a table, called +for order. + +"A military organization is deemed necessary," he said crisply. "Numbers +one to one hundred will please assemble in the southwest corner of the +room; numbers one hundred and one to two hundred will take the first +window; numbers two hundred and one to three hundred the second window, and +so on." He hesitated and looked over the assembly. "_Que les Francais, se +mettent au centre_," he ended. + +This command in a foreign language was made necessary by the extraordinary +number of Frenchmen who had first answered the call of gold in the El +Dorado of '49; and then with equal enthusiasm responded to this demand for +essential justice. + +Coleman waited while the multitude shifted here and there. When the +component parts had again come to rest he made his next announcement: + +"Now each company will elect its own officers, but those officers are +subject to the orders of the Executive Committee." + +Numbers one hundred and one to two hundred inclusive, the company in which +Keith and Johnny Fairfax found themselves, were for the most part strangers +to one another, They exchanged glances, hesitating as to how to begin. Then +a small, spectacled, man spoke up. + +"Gentlemen," said he, "we must get organized as rapidly as possible, Mr, +Coleman is waiting. We need for a leader a man who is experienced in active +life. I nominate John Fairfax as captain of this company." + +Johnny gasped and turned red. + +"Who's your little friend?" Keith whispered. + +"Never saw him before in my life," replied Johnny. + +The announcement was received with indecision. Nobody immediately replied +or commented aloud on the nomination, but men were asking each other in +undertones. The little spectacled man saw this, and spoke up again: + +"Perhaps I should say that Mr. Fairfax is better known as Diamond Jack." + +Faces cleared, heads nodded. A murmur of recognition replaced the puzzled +frowning, "Good man," "The express rider," "Danny Randall's man," they told +each other. + +"I do not know Mr. Fairfax," the spectacled man was saying, "but I saw his +name just before mine on the register." + +"This is Fairfax," said Keith, thrusting the reluctant Johnny forward. + +He was elected to the post by acclamation. + +"Nominations for a lieutenant?" suggested the spectacled man, but Keith +interrupted. + +"If you all have as much confidence in Mr. Fairfax as I have," said he, +"perhaps you'll give him free hand and let him pick his own officers." + +This seemed a good idea, and was instantly adopted. + +"Well, I thank you, gentlemen," said Johnny, "and we'll do our best to +become efficient. Report your names and addresses to this gentleman here--" + +"Willey," supplied the little man. + +"We shall drill to-morrow at eight sharp. Bring whatever weapons----" + +But Coleman was again speaking and on this very subject: + +"The committee have arranged with George Law," he was saying, "to supply or +hire muskets to the number of several thousands. These weapons will be at +this hall to-morrow morning early. Company captains can then make their +requisitions." + +A murmur of inquiry swept the hall. "George Law? Where did _he_ get several +thousand muskets?" And the counter current of information making its way +slowly--they were only flintlocks, perfectly efficient though, had +bayonets--superseded government arms--brought out some time ago by Law to +arm some mysterious filibustering expedition that had fizzled. + +In this manner, without confusion, an organization of two thousand men was +formed, sixteen military companies officered and armed. + +Shortly after Coleman dismissed the meeting. Its members dispersed to their +homes. Absolute quiet descended on the city, which slept under the moon. + + + + + +LVI + +To the thoughtful bystander all this preparation had its significance and +its portent, which became the stronger when he contemplated the +dispositions of the Law and Order party. The latter had been not less +vigorous, and its strength could not be doubted. The same day that marked +the organization of the Vigilantes saw the regular police force largely +increased. In addition, the sheriff issued thousands of summonses to +citizens, calling on them for service on a _posse_. These were in due form +of the law. To refuse them meant to put one's self outside the law. A great +many of them were responded to, for this reason only, by men not wholly in +sympathy with either side. Once the oath was administered, these new +deputies were confronted by the choice between perjury and service. To be +sure the issuance of these summonses forced many of the neutral minded into +the ranks of the Vigilantes. The refusal to act placed them on the wrong +side of the law; and they felt that joining a party pledged to what +practically amounted to civil war was only a short step farther. The +various military companies were mustered, reminded of their oaths, called +upon solemnly to fulfil their sworn duty, and marched to various strategic +points about the jail and elsewhere. Parenthetically, their every +appearance on the streets was well hissed by the populace. The governor was +informally notified of a state of insurrection, and requested to send in +the State militia. By evening all the forces of organized society were +under arms. The leaders of the Law and Order party were jubilant. Their +position appeared to be impregnable. They felt that back of them was all +the weight of constituted authority, reaching, if need be, to the Federal +Government at Washington. Opposed to them was lawlessness. Lawlessness had +occasionally become dignified revolution, to be sure, but only when a race +took its stand on a great issue; never when a handful espoused a local +quarrel. Civil war it might be; but civil war, the wise politicians argued, +must spread to become effective; and how could a civil war based on the +shooting of an obscure editor in a three-year-old frontier town spread +anywhere? Especially such an editor as James King of William. + +For King had made many bitter enemies. In attacking individual members of a +class he had often unreasonably antagonized the whole class. Thus he had +justly castigated the _Times_ and other venal newspapers; but in so doing +had by his too general statements drawn the fire of every other journal in +town. He had with entire reason attacked a certain scalawag of a Roman +Catholic priest--a man the church itself must soon have taken in hand--but +had somehow managed to offend all Roman Catholics in doing so; likewise, +there could be no question that his bitter scorn for "the chivalry" was +well justified, but the manner of its expression offended also the decent +Southerners. And all these people saw the Vigilantes, not as a protest +against a condition that had become intolerable, but as the personal +champions of King. The enemies of King, many of them worthy citizens, quite +out of sympathy with the present methods of administering the law, became +the enemies of the Vigilantes. + +No wonder the Law and Order party felt no uneasiness. They did not +underestimate the determination of their opponents. It was felt that +fighting, severe fighting, was perhaps inevitable. The Law and Order party +loved fighting. They had chosen as their commander William Tecumseh +Sherman, later to gain his fame as a great soldier. His greatness in a +military capacity seems to have been exceeded only by his inability to +remember facts proved elsewhere by original historical documents. This is +the only possible explanation for the hash of misstatements comprising +those chapters in his "Memoirs" dealing with this time. In writing them the +worthy general evidently forgot that original documents existed, or that +statements concerning historical events can often be checked. + +And as a final source of satisfaction, the Vigilantes had placed themselves +on record. Every man could be apprehended and made to feel the weight of +the law. A mob is irresponsible and anonymous. These fools had written down +their names in books! + + + + +LVII + +Now a new element was injected into the situation in the person of the +governor of the State, one J. Neely Johnson, a politician who would long +since have been utterly forgotten had not his unlucky star risen just at +this unlucky time. A more unfortunate man for a crisis it would have been +difficult to find. His whole life had been one of trimming; he had made his +way by trimming; he had gained the governor's chair by yielding to the +opinions of others. This training combined perfectly with the natural +disposition of a chameleon. He was, or became, a sincere trimmer, taking +his colour and his temporary beliefs from those with whom he happened to +be. His judgment often stuck at trifles, and his opinions were quickly +heated but as quickly cooled. His private morals were none of the best, +which gave certain men an added hold. + +On receipt of the message sent by the Law and Order party--but not, be it +noted, by the proper authorities--requesting the State militia, Governor +Johnson came down post-haste from Sacramento. Immediately on arriving in +the city he sent word to Coleman requesting an interview. Coleman at once +followed the messenger to the Continental Hotel. He was shown to a private +room where he found Johnson pacing up and down alone. Coleman bowed gravely +in response to the governor's airy greeting. Johnson sat down, offered +cigars, made every effort to appear amiable and conciliatory. + +"This is bad; this is bad, Coleman," he began the interview. "What is it +you want?" + +"Peace," replied Coleman, "and if possible without a struggle." + +"That's all very well," said Johnson pettishly, "to talk about peace with +an army of insurrection newly raised. But what is it you actually wish to +accomplish?" + +Coleman looked at him steadily, then leaned forward. + +"The law is crippled," he told the governor in measured tones. "We want +merely to accomplish what the crippled law should do but cannot. This done, +we will gladly retire. Now, Governor, you have been asked by the mayor, and +certain others, to bring out the militia and crush this movement. I assure +you, it cannot be done; and if you attempt it, it will cause you and us +great trouble. Do as Governor McDougall did in '51. See in this movement +what he saw in that: a local movement for a local reform, in which the +State is not concerned. We are not a mob; we demand no overthrow of +institutions. We ask not a single court to adjourn; we ask not a single +officer to vacate his position; we demand only the enforcement of the law-- +which, after all, we have made!" He extended his strong fist and laid it on +the table. "If you deem it the conscientious duty of your office to +discountenance these proceedings--as perhaps you well may--then let your +opposition be in appearance only. In your heart you must know the necessity +of this measure; you know the standing of the men managing it, You know +that this is no mob, no distempered faction. It is San Francisco herself +who speaks! Let California stand aside; let her leave us to our shame and +sorrow; for, as God lives, we will cleanse this city of her corruption or +perish with her! So we have sworn!" + +This long speech, delivered with the solemnity of absolute conviction, +profoundly impressed Johnson's volatile nature. + +"But," he objected uncertainly, "Coleman, you must understand! This is +against the law--and I have sworn to uphold the law!" + +"That is a matter for your own conscience," rejoined Coleman a little +impatiently. "Issue your proclamation, if you feel that the dignity of the +law may be best maintained by frowning on justice--but confine yourself to +that! Leave us alone in our righteous purposes!" + +Johnson, his chameleon soul aglow with enthusiasm, leaped to his feet and +seized Coleman's two hands. In his eye stood a tear. + +"Sir," he cried, "go on with your work! Let it be done as speedily as +possible! You have my best wishes!" + +Coleman did not relax his formal gravity. + +"I am glad you feel that way, and that we understand each other," he +contented himself with saying. + +The heroic moment past, Johnson's restless mind began to glance among +anxieties. + +"But hasten the undertaking as much as you can," he begged. "The opposition +is stronger than you suppose. The pressure on me is going to be terrible. +What about the prisoners in the jail?" asked Johnson anxiously. "What is +your immediate plan?" + +"That is in the hands of the committee," evaded Coleman. + +He left the governor, again pacing up and down. + + + + +LVIII + + +Coleman returned at once to the hall to resume his interrupted labours with +the committee. The results of his conference with the governor seemed very +satisfactory, + +"We can now go ahead with free minds," said Clancey Dempster. + +The business was astonishingly varied in scope. Charles Doane--not to be +confused with Duane, the ex-fire chief--was appointed military commander- +in-chief; Colonel Johns, captain of artillery; Olney was given the task of +guarding the jail from the outside "with a force numerous enough to prevent +escape." After considerable discussion Aaron Burns was made head of a +civilian committee to take charge of all prisoners. It was moved and +carried that no city or county official should be admitted to membership, a +striking commentary on the disesteem in which such men were held. Permanent +headquarters were arranged for; committees appointed for the solicitation +of funds. A dozen other matters of similar detail were taken up, +intelligently discussed, and provided for with the celerity of men trained +in crises of business or life. At length it was moved the "committee, as a +body, shall visit the county jail at such time as the Executive Committee +might direct; and take thence James P. Casey and Charles Cora, give them a +fair trial, and administer such punishment as justice shall demand." + +This was the real business, for the transaction of which all these lesser +businesses had been prepared. A slight pause followed its introduction, as +though each member present were savouring the significance of the moment. + +"Are you ready for the question?" asked Coleman in grave tones. "Those in +favour----" + +"Aye," came the instant response from every man present. + +A messenger opened the door to announce that Governor Johnson was in the +anteroom requesting speech with Coleman. The latter, handing his gavel to +Dempster, immediately answered the summons. + +He found Johnson, accompanied by Sherman, Garrison, and two strangers, +lounging in the anteroom. The governor sprawled in a chair, his hat pulled +over his eyes, a cigar in the corner of his mouth. His companions arose and +bowed gravely as Coleman entered the room, but he remained seated, nodding +at Coleman with an air of cavalier bravado that was plainly intended to +conceal his nervousness. Without waiting for the exchange of spoken +greetings, he burst out: + +"We have come to ask what you intend to do," he demanded truculently of +Coleman, as though he had never seen or talked to him before. + +Coleman stared at him for an instant, completely surprised; read him; set +his mouth grimly. + +"Outrages are of constant occurrence," he recited briefly; "our suffrages +are profaned, our fellow-citizens shot down in the street, our courts +afford us no redress, we will endure it no longer." + +"I agree with you as to the grievances," rejoined the governor, almost as +though reciting a learned lesson; "but I think the courts are the proper +remedy. The judges are good men, and there is no necessity for the people +to turn themselves into a mob and obstruct the execution of the laws." + +A flush mounted Coleman's cheek. + +"Sir!" he cried indignantly, "this is no mob! You know this is no mob!" + +Johnson looked at him from between half-closed lids, as though from a great +distance. + +"The opposition is stronger than you imagine," he said. "There is danger to +the city--great danger of bloodshed--which should be prevented if +possible." He paused, focussed his whole attention on Coleman, and went on +with deliberate significance: _"It may be necessary to bring out all the +force at my command._ I strongly advise you to leave the case of Casey to +the courts; and I pledge myself to his fair and speedy trial." + +Although realizing fully what a formidable element this change of front +threw into the situation, Coleman's expression did not change: Sherman, +watching him closely, could not see that his eyes even flickered, + +"That will not satisfy the people," he told the governor, coldly and +formally. "However they might consider your intention, they will doubt your +ability to keep such a promise," He was going to say more, but checked, +himself abruptly. The silent but intent attitude of the governor's four +companions had struck his attention. "They are present as witnesses!" he +told himself. Aloud he said, "Sir, I will report your remarks to my +associates," Coleman wanted witnesses, too. + +He returned to the committee, interrupting the proceedings, + +"The governor has flopped over the fence." he informed them. "He is out +there with Sherman and some others threatening to bring in the State troops +unless we turn Casey over to the courts and disband. He personally +guarantees a fair and speedy trial." + +"What did you tell him?" demanded Hossfros. + +"I haven't told him anything. It suddenly occurred to me that I ought to +have witnesses for my side of the conversation, What do you think?" + +"Same as I've always thought," replied Ward. + +A murmur of assent greeted this. + +After a remarkably brief discussion, considering the delicacy of the +crisis, Coleman with others returned to the anteroom. + +"Sorry to have kept you waiting," he said blandly, "but some consideration +of the question was necessary. Let us understand each other clearly. As I +understand your proposal, it is that, if we make no move, you guarantee no +escape, immediate trial, and instant execution?" + +"That is it," agreed Johnson, after a moment's focussing of his mind. For +the first time it became evident to Coleman that the man had a trifle too +much aboard. + +"We doubt your ability to do this," went on Coleman, "but we are ready to +meet you halfway. This is what we will promise: we will take no steps +without first giving you notice. But in return we insist that ten men of +our own selection shall be added to the sheriff's force within the jail." + +"And," added Isaac Bluxome, "that they be fed and kept and treated well. +That's part of the bargain." + +"Why, that sounds fair and reasonable, gentlemen!" the governor cried +heartily. "I see no objection to that! I was sure we could come to an +agreement!" + +He was suddenly all cordiality, all smiles, shaking each man's hand in +turn. His companions retained their manner of glacial formality, however. +He shortly withdrew, full of spirits, very much relieved at the lifting of +what seemed to him a cloud of unjust oppression for a poor official who +merely wanted peace. The real situation, evident enough to the keener +brains on either side, was veiled to him. For poor Johnson had thus far +stepped from one blunder into another. If Coleman were completely outside +the law, then he, as an executive of the law, had no business treating or +making agreements with him at all. Furthermore, as executive of the State, +he had no legal right to interfere with city affairs unless formally +summoned by the authorities--a procedure that had not been adopted. And to +cap it all, he had for the second time treated with "rebels" and to their +advantage. For, as the astute Coleman well knew, the final agreement was +all to the benefit of the committee. They gained the right to place a +personal guard over the prisoners; they gave, practically, only a promise +to withdraw that guard before attacking the jail--a procedure eminently +sensible if they cared anything for the guard. + +This little weakness was immediately and vigorously pointed out to Johnson +when he returned triumphantly to his hotel. Keen minds were plenty in the +Law and Order party. Johnson was crestfallen. Like all men of little +calibre elevated by expediency to high office, he wanted above everything +to have peace, to leave things as they were, to avoid friction. + +"Upon my word, gentlemen!" cried the governor, dismayed, "I did it for the +best; and I assure you I am still convinced that this agreement--entered +into in all faith, and sincerity----" + +"Bosh!" boomed Judge Caldwell. + +"I beg your pardon!" said Johnson, flushing. + +"I said 'bosh,'" repeated the judge, bringing the point of his cane against +the floor. "You've muddied it, as every sensible man can see. Best thing is +to put a bold face on it. Take it for granted that the committee has +promised to surrender all right of action, and that they have promised +definitely to leave the case to the courts." + +"I hardly think they intended that," murmured Johnson. + +"Meant!" snorted the judge. "The words will bear that interpretation, won't +they? Who cares what they meant!" + +The following morning this version was industriously passed about. When +Coleman heard of it he pulled his long moustache, + +"The time has come," he said with decision. "After that, it is either +ourselves or a mob." + +He went immediately to the hall. + +"Call Olney," he told a messenger. The head of the guard was soon before +him. + +"Olney," said his chief, "will you accept the command of a picked company +in an important but somewhat perilous movement?" + +Olney's tall form stiffened with pleasure. + +"I will--with thanks!" + +"Well, then, pick out from all the forces, of whatever companies, sixty +men. Accept none but men--of the very highest bravery. Let them know that +they are chosen for the post of danger, which is the post of honour, and +permit none to serve who does not so esteem it." + +Olney saluted, and went at once to the main floor, which, for drilling +purposes, was shared by four companies. He stood still until his eye fell +on Johnny Fairfax--him he called aside. + +"You can get the whole sixty right here if you want to," Johnny told him. +"But if you want to distribute things----" + +"I do," said Olney. + +"Then I'd take Keith, Carter, that teamster McGlynn, and Salisbury." + +Together they went the rounds of the impromptu armouries, going carefully +over the rolls, picking a man here and there. By eight o'clock the sixty, +informed, equipped, and ready, were gathered at the hall. Olney dismissed +all others, and set himself to drilling his picked body. + +"I don't care whether you can do 'shoulder arms' or not," he said, "but +you've got to learn simple evolutions so I can handle you. And you must +learn one another's faces. Now, come on!" + +At two o'clock in the morning he expressed himself as satisfied. From the +stock of blankets with which the headquarters were already provided they +selected, bedding, and turned in on the floor. At six o'clock Olney began +to send out detachments for breakfast. + +"Feed up," he advised them. "I don't know what this is all about, but it +pays to eat well." + +By eight o'clock every man was in his place, lined up to rigid attention as +Coleman entered the building. + +"There they are!" said Olney proudly. "Every man of them of good, tough +courage, and you can handle them as well as any old soldiers!" + +Other men came into the hall, some of them in ranks, as they had fallen in +at their own company headquarters outside, others singly or in groups. +Doorkeepers prevented all exit; once a man was in, he was not permitted to +go out. Some of the leaders and captains, among whom were Doane, Olney, and +Talbot Ward, were summoned to Coleman's room. Shortly they emerged, and +circulated through the hall giving to each captain of a company detailed +and explicit directions. Each was instructed as to what hour he and his +command were to start; from what given point; along exactly what route; and +at exactly what time he was to arrive at another given point--not a moment +sooner or later. Each was ignorant as to the instructions given the others. +Never was a plan better laid out for concerted action, and probably never +before had such a plan been so well carried out. Each captain listened +attentively, returned to head his company, thoughtful with responsibility. + +Olney gave the orders to his picked, company in person. They were told to +leave their muskets. Armed only with pistols, they were to make their way +by different routes to the jail. + +Keith, and Johnny Fairfax started out together, "This is a mistake, as far +as I am concerned," observed Keith to his companion. "I can't shoot a +pistol. I ought to be in the rank and file, not with this picked lot. They +chose me merely because I was your friend." + +"You can make a noise, anyway," replied Johnny, whose eyes were alight with +excitement. "I wonder what's up? This looks like business! I wouldn't miss +it for a million dollars!" + +Apparently the general populace had no inkling that anything was forward. +The streets were much as usual except that an inordinate amount of street- +corner discussion seemed to be going on; but that in view of the +circumstances was normal. A broad-beamed Irish woman, under full sail alone +accosted them. Her face Keith vaguely recognized, but he could not have +told where he had seen it. + +"I hear Mr. King, God rest him, is better," she said. "And what are the men +going to do with that villain, Casey? If the men don't hang him, the women +will!". + +A little farther Keith stopped short at sight of two men hurrying by. + +"Hold on, Watkins!" he called. + +The four of them drew aside a little, out of the way. + +"Weren't you in the jail guard?" asked Keith. + +Watkins nodded. + +"How does it happen you're outside?" + +"The committee sent notice that the truce was over." + +Johnny uttered an exultant yell, which he cut short shamefacedly when a +dozen passersby looked around. + + + + +LIX + + +It happened on this day that Nan Keith had refused an invitation to ride +with Ben Sansome, but had agreed as a compromise to give him a cup of tea +late in the afternoon. Nan's mood was latterly becoming more and more +restless. It was an unconscious reflection of the times, unconscious +because she had no real conception of what was going on. In obedience to +Keith's positively expressed request she had kept away from the downtown +districts, leaving the necessary marketing to Wing Sam. For the moment, as +has been explained, her points of touch with society were limited. It +happened that before the trouble began the Keiths had been subscribers to +the Bulletin and the Herald, and these two journals continued to be +delivered. Neither of them gave her much idea of what was really going on. +For a moment her imagination was touched by the blank space of white paper +the Bulletin left where King's editorials had usually been printed, but +Thomas King's subsequent violence had repelled her. The Herald, after +rashly treating the "affray" as a street brawl, lost hundreds of +subscribers and most of its advertising. It shrunk to a sheet a quarter of +its usual size. Naturally, its editor, John Nugent, was the more solidly +and bitterly aligned with the Law and Order party. The true importance of +the revolt, either as an ethical movement or merely as regards its +physical size, did not get to Nan at all. She knew the time was one of +turmoils and excitements. She believed the city in danger of mobs. Her +attitude might be described as a mixture of fastidious disapproval and a +sympathetic restlessness. + +About the middle of the afternoon Mrs. Sherwood came up the front walk and +rang the bell. Nan, sitting behind lace curtains, was impressed by her air +of controlled excitement. Mrs. Sherwood hurried. She hurried gracefully, +to be sure, and with a reminiscence of her usual feline indolence; but she +hurried, nevertheless. Therefore, Nan herself answered the bell, instead +of awaiting the deliberate Wing Sam. + +"My dear," cried Mrs. Sherwood, "get your mantle, and come with me. +There's something going to happen-something big!" + +She refused to answer Nan's questions. + +"You'll see," was all the reply she vouchsafed. "Hurry!" + +They crossed by the new graded streets where the sand hills had been, and +soon found themselves on the low elevations above the county jail. Mrs. +Sherwood led the way to the porch of a onestory wooden house that appeared +to be unoccupied. + +"This is fine!" she said with satisfaction. + +The jail was just below them, and they looked directly across the open +square in front of it and the convergence of two streets. The jail was +buzzing like a hive: men were coming and going busily, running away as +though on errands, or darting in through the open door. Armed men were +taking their places on the flat roof. + +In contrast to this one little spot of excited activity, the rest of the +scene was almost superlatively peaceful. People were drifting in from all +the side streets, but they were sauntering slowly, as though without +particular interest; they might have been going to or coming from church. +A warm, basking, Sunday feel was in the sunshine. There was not the +faintest breeze. Distant sounds carried clearly, as the barking of a dog-- +it might have been Gringo shut up at home--or the crowing of a distant +cock. From the square below arose the murmur of a multitude talking. The +groups of people increased in frequency, in numbers. Black forms began to +appear on roof tops all about; white faces at windows. It would have been +impossible to say when the scattered groups became a crowd; when the side +of the square filled; when the converging streets became black with +closely packed people; when the windows and doors and balconies, the +copings and railings, the slopes of the hills were all occupied, but so it +was. Before she fairly realized that many were gathering, Nan looked down +on twenty thousand people. They took their positions quietly, and waited. +There was no shouting, no demonstration, so little talking that the low +murmur never rendered inaudible the barking of the dog or the crowing of +the distant cock. The doors of the jail had closed. Men ceased going in +and out. The armed forces on the roof were increased. + +Nan had left off asking questions of Mrs. Sherwood, who answered none. The +feeling of tense expectation filled her also. What was forward? Was this a +mob? Why were these people gathered? Somehow they gave her the impression +that they, too, like Mrs. Sherwood and herself, were waiting to see. + +After a long time she saw the closely packed crowd down the vista of one +of the converging streets move in the agitation of some disturbance. A +moment later the sun caught files of bayonets. At the same instant the +same thing happened at the end of the other converging street. The armed +columns came steadily forward, the people giving way. Their men were +dressed in sober citizens' clothes. The shining steel of the bayonets +furnished the only touch of uniform. Quietly and steadily they came +forward, the snake of steel undulating and twisting like a living thing. +The two columns reached the convergence of the street together. As they +entered the square before the jail, a third and fourth column debouched +from side streets, and others deployed into view on the hills behind. The +timing was perfect. One minute the prospect was empty of all but +spectators, the next it was filled with grim and silent armed men. + +Near the two women and among chance spectators on the piazza of the +deserted house a well-known character of the times leaned against one of +the pillars. This was Colonel Gift. Our chronicler, who has an eye for the +telling phrase, describes him as "a tall, lank, empty-bowelled, tobacco- +spurting Southerner, with eyes like burning black balls, who could talk a +company of listeners into an insane asylum quicker than any man in +California, and whose blasphemy could not be equalled, either in quantity +or quality, by the most profane of any age or nation." In this crisis +Colonel Gift's sympathies may be guessed. He watched the scene below him +with a sardonic eye. As the armed columns wheeled into place and stood at +attention, he turned to a man standing near. + +"I tell you, stranger," said he, "when you see those damned psalm-singing +Yankees turn out of their churches, shoulder their guns, and march away of +a Sunday, you may know that hell is going to crack shortly!" + +Mrs. Sherwood turned an amused eye in his direction. The colonel, for the +first time becoming aware of her presence, swept off his black slouch hat +and apologized profusely for the "damn." + +The armed men stood rigid, four deep all around the square. Behind them +the masses of the people watched. Even the murmur died. Again everybody +waited. + +Now, at a command, the ranks fell apart and from the side street marched +the sixty men chosen by Olney dragging a field gun at the end of a rope. +Their preliminary task of watching the jail for a possible escape +finished, they had been again gathered. With beautiful military precision +they wheeled and came to rest facing the frowning walls of the jail, the +cannon pointed at the door. + +Nan gasped sharply, and seized Mrs. Sherwood's arm with both hands. She +had recognized Keith standing by the right wheel of the cannon. He was +looking straight ahead, and the expression on his face was one she had +never seen there before. Suddenly something swelled up within her breast +and choked her. The tears rushed to her eyes. + +Quite deliberately, each motion in plain sight, the cannon was loaded with +powder and ball. A man lit a slow match, blew it painstakingly to a glow, +then took his position at the breech. The slight innumerable sounds of +these activities died. The bustle of men moving imperceptibly fell. Not +even the coughing and sneezing usual to a gathering of people paying +attention was heard, for the intense interest inhibited these nervous +symptoms. Probably never have twenty thousand people, gathered in one +place, made their presence so little evident. A deep, solemn stillness +brooded over them. The spring sun lay warm and grateful on men's +shoulders; the doves and birds, the distant dogs and roosters, cooed and +twittered, barked and crowed. + +Nothing happened for full ten minutes. The picked men stood rigid by the +gun in the middle of the square; the slow match burned sleepily, a tiny +thread of smoke rising in the still air; the sunlight gleamed from the +ranks of bayonets; the vast multitude held its breath, the walls of the +jail remained blank and inscrutable. + +Then a man on horseback was seen pushing his way through the crowd. He rode +directly up to the jail door, on which he rapped thrice with the handle of +his riding whip. Against the silence these taps, but gently delivered, +sounded sharp and staccato. After a moment the wicket opened. The rider, +without dismounting, handed through it a note; then, with a superb display +of the old-fashioned horsemanship, backed his horse half the length of the +square where he, too, came to rest. + +"Who is he?" whispered Nan. Why she whispered she could not have told. + +"Charles Doane," answered Mrs. Sherwood, in the same voice. + +Another commotion down the street. Again the ranks parted and closed again, +this time to admit three carriages driven rapidly. As they came to a stop +the muskets all around the square leaped to the "present." So disconcerting +was this sudden slap and rattle of arms after the tenseness of the last +half hour, that men dodged back as though from a blow. With admirable +precision, Olney's men, obeying a series of commands, moved forward from +the gun to form a hollow square around the carriages. Only the man with the +burning slow match was left standing by the breech. + +From the carriages then descended Coleman, Truett, Talbot Ward, Smiley, and +two other men whom neither Nan nor Mrs. Sherwood recognized. Amid the dead +silence they walked directly to the jail door, Olney's Sixty breaking the +square and deploying close at their heels. A low colloquy through the +wicket now took place. At length the door swung slowly open. The committee +entered. The door swung shut after them. Again the people waited, but now +once more arose the murmur of low-toned conversation. + + + + +LX + + +Up to this day Casey had been very content with his situation. His quarters +were the best the place afforded, and they had been made more comfortable. +Scores of friends had visited him, hailing him as their champion. He had +been made to feel quite a hero. To be sure it was a nuisance to be so +confined; but when he shot King, he had anticipated undergoing some +inconvenience. It was a price to pay. He understood that there was some +public excitement, and that it was well to lie low for a little until that +had died down. The momentary annoyance would be more than offset by later +prestige. Casey did not in the least fear the courts. He had before his +eyes too many reassuring examples. His friends were rallying nobly to his +defence. Over the wines and cigars, with which he was liberally supplied, +they boasted of their strength and their dispositions--the whole police +force of the city, the militia companies sworn, to act in just such +emergencies, hundreds of volunteers, if necessary the whole power of the +State of California called to put down this affronting of duly constituted +law! + +But this Sunday morning Casey was uneasy. There seemed to be much +whispering in corners, much bustling to and fro. He paced back and forth, +fretting, interrogating those about him. But they could or would tell him +little--there was trouble;--and they fussed away, leaving Casey alone. As a +matter of fact, the withdrawal of the committee's guard of ten, and the +formal notice that the truce was thus promptly ended, had caught the Law +and Order party unprepared. With five hours' notice--or indeed by next day, +even were no notice given--the jail would have been impregnably defended. +The sudden move of the committee won; as prompt, decisive moves will. + +The bustling of the people in the jail suddenly died. Casey heard no +shuffle of feet, no whisper of conversation. The building might have been +empty save for himself. But he did hear outside the steady rhythmic tramp +of feet. + +Sheriff Scannell stood before him, the Vigilantes' written communication in +his hand. Casey, looking up from the bed on which he had fallen in sudden +shrinking, saw on his face an expression that made him cower. For the +first time realization came to him of the straits he was in. His vivid +Irish imagination leaped instantaneously from the complacence of absolute +safety to the depths of terror. He sprang to his feet. + +"You aren't going to betray me! You aren't going to give me up!" he cried, +wringing his hands. + +"James," replied' Scannell solemnly, "there are three thousand armed men +coming for you, and I have not now thirty supporters around the jail." + +"Not thirty!" cried. Casey, astonished. For a moment he appeared crushed; +then leaped to his feet flourishing a long knife he had drawn from his +boot. "I'll, not be taken from this place alive!" he shrieked, beside +himself with hysteria. "Where are all you brave fellows who were going to +see me through this?" + +Scannell looked at him sadly. In the pause came a sharp knocking at the +door of the jail. The sheriff turned away. A moment later Casey, listening +intently, heard the door open and close, heard the sound of talking. He +fairly darted to his table, scrawled a paper, and called to attract +attention. Marshal North, answered the summons. + +"Give this to them--to the Vigilantes," urged Casey, thrusting the paper +into his hands. North glanced through the note. + +TO THE VIGILANT COMMITTEE. Gentlemen: I am willing to go before you if you +will let me speak but ten minutes. I do not wish the blood of any man upon +my head. + +JAS. CASEY + +But after North had gone to deliver this, Casey again sprang to his feet, +again flourished his bowie knife, again ramped up and down, again swore he +would never be taken alive. A deputy passed the door. Casey's demeanour +collapsed again. + +"Tell them," he begged this man earnestly; "tell them if two respectable +citizens will promise me gentlemanly treatment, I'll go peaceably! I will +not be dragged through the streets like a dog! If they will give me a fair +trial and allow me to summon my witnesses, I'll yield!" + +And the deputy left him pacing up and down, waving his knife, muttering +wildly to, himself. + +On entering the jail door Coleman and his companions bowed formally to the +sheriff. + +"We have come for the prisoner, Casey," said Coleman. "We ask that he be +peaceably delivered us handcuffed, at the door, immediately." + +"Under existing circumstances," replied Scannell, "I shall make no +resistance. The prison and its contents are yours." + +But Truett interrupted pointedly: + +"We want only the man Casey, at present," he said. "For the rest we hold +you strictly accountable." + +Scannell bowed without reply. North and the deputy came in succession to +deliver Casey's messages, and to report his apparent determination. The +committee offered no comment. They penetrated to the ulterior of the jail. +Many men, apparently unarmed, idling about as though merely spectators, +looked at them curiously as they passed. Casey heard them, coming and +sprang back from the door, holding his long knife dramatically poised. +Coleman walked directly to the door, where he stopped, looking Casey coldly +in the eye. The seconds, passed. Neither man stirred. At the end of a full +minute Coleman said sharply: + +"Lay down that knife!" + +As though his incisive tones had broken the spell, Casey moved. He looked +wildly to right and to left; then flung the knife from him and buried his +face in his hands. + +"Your requests are granted," said Coleman shortly; then to Marshal North: +"Open the door and bring him out." + + + + +LXI + + +On the veranda of the unoccupied house above the jail Nan Keith stood +rigid, her hand upon her heart. During the period of the committee's +absence inside the jail she did not alter her position by a hair's breadth. +She was in the hypnosis of a portentous waiting. Time fell into the abyss +of eternity: whether it were ten minutes or ten hours did not matter in the +least. + +For this was to Nan in the nature of a revelation so sudden and so complete +that it filled her whole soul. Had she known what Mrs. Sherwood was taking +her to see, she would have pre-visualized a drunken, disorderly, howling, +bloodthirsty mob; a huge composite of brawling antagonisms, of blind fury, +of vulgar irrationalisms. Here were men filled with purpose; This was what +caught at her breath--the grim silent purpose of it! The orderly +progression of events, moving with the certainty of a fate, was like the +steady crescendo of solemn music. And this crescendo rose in her as a tide +of emotion that overflowed and drowned her. The right and wrong--as she had +examined them intellectually or through, the darkened glasses of her caste +prejudices--were quite lost. This was merely something primitive, +wonderful, beautiful. The spectacle was at the moment of suspense, yet she +felt so impatience--the wheel must turn in its own majestic circle--but +only an intense expectation. And in this she felt, subconsciously, that she +was one with the multitude. + +The jail door swung open. The committee came out. In the middle of their +compact group walked a stranger. + +"Casey!" breathed a vast voice from the crowd. + +An indescribable burst of grateful relief fluttered across the upturned +faces as a breeze across water. It was almost timid at first, but gathered +strength as it spread. It rolled up the hillside. A great, deep breath +seemed to fill the lungs of the throng. The murmur swelled suddenly, was on +the point of bursting into the frantic cheering of twenty thousand men. + +But Coleman, his hat removed, raised his hand. In obedience to the simple +gesture the cheer was stifled. In an instant all was still. The little +group entered the carriages, which immediately wheeled and drove away. + +Nan, standing bolt upright, her attitude still unchanged, caught her breath +at the inhibition of the cheer. She did not even try to wink away the tears +that rolled down her cheeks. Through them she saw the troops wheel with the +precision of veterans, and march away after the carriages. The crowd melted +slowly. Soon were left only the inscrutable jail, the gun still pointed at +its door, the rigid ranks of Olney's Sixty, who had evidently been left on +guard, and a few stragglers. + +Suddenly she turned and walked away. Mrs. Sherwood followed her as rapidly +as she could, but did not succeed in catching up with her. At the corner +below the Keiths' house she stopped, watched until Nan had gained her own +dooryard, then turned toward home, a smile sketching her lips, a light in +her eyes. + +Nan flung open her door and went directly to the parlour. She stood in the +doorway contemplating the scene. It was very cozy. The afternoon sun +slanted through the high-narrow windows of the period, gilding the dust +motes floating lazily to and fro. The tea table, set with a snowy doth, +glittered invitingly, its silver and porcelain, its plates of dainty +sandwiches and thin waferlike cookies--Wing Sam's specialty--enticingly +displayed. Two easy chairs had been drawn close, and, before the unoccupied +one a low footstool had been placed. Ben Sansome sat in the other. He was, +as usual, exquisitely dressed. All his little appointments were not only +correct but worn easily. The varicoloured waistcoat, the sparkling studs +and cravat pins, the bright, soft silk tie, were all subdued from their +ordinary too-vivid effect by the grace with which they were carried. Nan +saw all this, and appreciated it dispassionately, appraising him anew +through clarified vision. Especially she noticed the waxed ends of his +small moustache. He had, at the sound of her entrance, lighted the tea +kettle; and as she came in he smiled up at her brightly. + +"You see," he cried gayly, "I am doing your task for you! I have the lamp +all lit!" + +She paid no attention to this, but advanced two steps into the room. + +"Which side are you on, anyway?" she asked abruptly and a little harshly. + +Sansome raised his eyebrows in faint and fastidious surprise. + +"Dear lady, what do you mean?" + +"The only thing I can mean in these times: are you with the Law and Order, +or with the Committee of Vigilance?" + +Sansome shrugged his shoulders whimsically and sank back into his chair. + +"How can you ask that, dear lady?" he begged pathetically. "You would not +class me with the rabble, I hope." + +But Nan did not in the slightest degree respond to the lightness of his +tone. Her own was cold and detached. + +"I do not know how to class you," she said. "But I asked you a question." + +Sansome arose to his feet again. His manner now became sympathetic, but +into it had crept the least hint of resentment, + +"I don't understand your mood" he told her. "You are overwrought." + +Nan's self-control slipped by ever so little. She did not actually stamp +her foot, but her delivery of her next speech achieved that for her. + +"Will you answer me?" she demanded. "Which side, are you on?" + +"I am on the side every gentleman is on," replied Sansome, a trifle stung. +"The side of the law." + +"Then," she cried, with a sudden intensity, "why weren't you there--on your +side--defending the jail?' Why are you here?" + +Ben Sansome's knowledge of women was wide, and he therefore imagined it +profound. Here he recognized the symptoms of hysteria; cause unknown. He +adopted the lightly soothing. + +"I thought I was asked here!" he cried with quizzical mock pathos. + +She stared at him a contemplative instant so steadily that he coloured. She +was not seeing him, however; she was seeing Keith, standing with his +fellows in the open, under the walls of the jail and its hidden guns. With +a short laugh she turned away. + +"You were," said she. "Help yourself to tea. As you say, I am overwrought. +I am going to lie down." + +Her one compelling instinct now was to get away from him before something +in her brain snapped. He became soothing. + +"Won't you have a cup of tea first?" he urged. "It will do you good." + +"A cup of tea!" she repeated with deadly calm. It seemed such an ending to +such a day! She tried to laugh, but strangled in her throat; and she bolted +wildly from the room, leaving Ben Sansome staring. + + + + +LXII + + +Nan's high exaltation of spirit, which still soared at the altitude to +which the events of the afternoon had lifted it, next expressed itself in a +characteristically feminine manner: she picked flowers in the garden, +arranged them, placed them effectively, set the table herself, lighted the +lamps, touched a match to the wood fire always comfortable in San Francisco +evenings, slightly altered the position of the chairs, visited Wing Sam +with fresh instructions. Gringo, who looked on all this as for his especial +benefit, took his place luxuriously before the grate. It was a cozy, +homelike scene. Then she dressed slowly and carefully in her most becoming +gown--the only gown Keith had ever definitely singled out for individual +praise--took especial pains with her hair, and finally descended to join +Gringo. The latter, as a greeting intended to show his entire confidence, +promptly rolled over to expose his vitals to her should it be her pleasure +to hurt a poor defenceless dog. He was a ridiculous sight, upside down, his +tongue lolling out, his eye rolled up at her adoringly. She laughed at him +a little, then leaned swiftly over to confide something in his ear. + +But that evening Keith was late. The clock on the mantel chimed clearly the +hour, then the quarter and the half. Wing Sam came to protest aggreivedly +that "him glub catchum cold--you no wait!" Nan was severe with Wing Sam and +his suggestion--so unwontedly severe that Wing Sam returned to the kitchen +muttering darkly. He had caught the atmosphere of celebration, somehow, and +on his own-initiative had frosted with wonderful white a cake not yet cut, +and on the cake had carefully traced pink legends in Chinese and English +characters. The former was one of those conventional mottoes seen on every +laundry, club, and temple which would have translated "Health, long life, +and happiness"; the other Wing Sam had copied from a lithograph he much +admired. It read "Use Rising Sun Stove Polish." Glowering with resentment, +Wing Sam scraped the frosting from the cake. + +At eight o'clock a small boy delivered a note at the door and scuttled back +to the centre of excitement. It was a scrawl from Keith, saying that he was +detained, would not be home to dinner, might not be in at all. Nan sat down +to a cold, belated meal served by a loftily disapproving Chinaman. She +tried to think of her pride in Keith, and the work he, in company with his +fellows, was doing for the city; to recall some of her exaltation of the +afternoon; but it was very difficult. Her little preparations were so much +nearer. The table, the flowers, the shaded lamps, the fire on the hearth, +her gown, the twist of her hair, all mocked her anticipations. In spite of +herself her spirits went down to zero. She could not eat, she could not +even sit at the table through the service of the various courses. Midway in +the meal she threw aside her napkin and returned abruptly to the drawing- +room. The fire was snapping merrily on the hearth. Gringo opened his eyes +at her entrance, recognized his beloved mistress, and rolled over as usual, +all four legs in the air, his tender stomach confidingly exposed, for Who +could be so brutal as to hurt a poor, defenceless dog? Nan kicked him +pettishly in the ribs. Gringo stopped panting, and drew in his tongue, but +otherwise did not shift his posture. This was, of course, a mistake. Nan +kicked him again. Gringo rose deliberately and retired with dignity to the +coldest, darkest, most cheerless corner he could find, where he sat and +looked dejected. + +"You look such a silly fool!" Nan told him relentlessly. + +Thus passed the moment of exaltation and expansion. If Keith had come home +to dine, it is probable that the barrier between them--of which he was only +dimly conscious--would have been broken. But by midnight Nan had, as she +imagined, "thought out" the situation. She was able to see him now through +eyes purged of self-pity or self-thought. She came to full realization, +which she formulated to herself, that she was not now the central point of +his interest--that she was "no longer" the central point, as she expressed +it. She was right also in her conclusion that all day long he hardly gave +her more than a perfunctory thought. So far, her facts were absolutely +correct. But Nan was, in spite of her natural good mind and married +experience, too ignorant of man psychology to draw the true conclusion. +Indeed, very few women ever realize man's possibilities of single-minded +purpose and concentration to the temporary exclusion of other things. +Keith's whole being was carried by this moral movement in which he was +involved. He simply took Nan for granted; and that is something a woman +never gets used to, and always misinterprets. + +"He no longer loves me!" she said to herself, in this hour of plain +thinking. She faced it squarely; and her heart sank to the depths; for she +still loved him, and the sight of him that afternoon amid the guns had told +her how much. + +But her next thought was not of herself, but of him, and the situation in +which, he was working out his destiny. "How can I best help?" she asked +herself, which showed that the spirit aroused in her that afternoon had not +in reality died. And her intellect relentlessly pointed out to her that her +only aid would come from her self-effacement, her standing one side. When +the great work was done, then, perhaps-- + +So affairs in the Keith household went on exactly as before. Nobody but +Gringo knew that anything had happened; and he only realized that the +universe had suffered an upheaval, so that now mistresses might kick their +poor defenceless dogs in the stomach. + + + + +LXIII + + +Casey was safely in custody. Cora also had been taken on a second trip to +the jail. They had been escorted into the headquarters, the doors of which +had closed behind them and behind the armed men who guarded them. The +streets were filled with an orderly crowd. They waited with that same +absence of excitement, impatience, or tumult so characteristic of all the +popular gatherings of that earnest time, save when the upholders of the law +were gathered. After a long interval one of the committeemen, Dows by name, +appeared at an upper window. He did not have to appeal for attention, and +had barely to raise his voice. + +"It is not the intention of the committee to be hasty," he announced. +"Nothing more will be done to-day." + +Silence greeted this statement. At last some one spoke up: + +"Where are Casey and Cora?" he asked. + +"The committee holds possession of the jail; all are safe," replied Dows. + +With this assurance the crowd was completely satisfied, as it proved by +dispersing quietly and at once. + +Of the three thousand enrolled men, three hundred were retained under arms +at headquarters; a hundred surrounded and watched the jail; the rest were +dismissed. About midnight a dense fog descended on the city. The streets +were deserted. But on the roofs of the jail and the adjacent buildings +indistinct figures stalked to and fro in the misty moonlight. + +All next day, which was Monday, headquarters remained inscrutable. Small +activities went forward. Guards and patrols were changed. The cannon was +brought from before the jail. Early in the day a huge crowd gathered, +packing the adjacent streets, watching patiently far into the night to see +what would happen. Nothing happened. + +But about the city at large patrols of armed men moved on mysterious +business. Gun shops were picketed, and their owners forbidden to sell +weapons. Evidently the committee was carrying out a considered plan. + +Toward evening the weather thickened and a rain came on. It turned colder. +Still the crowd did not disperse. It stood in its sodden shoes, hugging its +sodden cloaks to its shoulders, humped over, waiting. About eight o'clock +several companies in rigid marching formation appeared. A stir of interest, +shivered through the crowd, but died as it became evident that this was +only a general relief for those on duty during the day. At midnight, or +thereabouts, the crowd went home; but again by first daylight the streets +for blocks were jammed full. Still it rained with a sullen, persistence. +Still nothing happened. + +And all over the city business was practically at a stand. Knots of men +stood conferring on every corner. Conversation in mixed company was very +wary indeed. No man dared express himself too openly. The courts were +empty. Some actually closed, on one excuse or another, but most went +through a form of business. Some judges took the occasion to go to White +Sulphur Springs on vacations, long contemplated, they said. These things +occasioned lively comment. It was generally known that the Sacramento +steamer of the evening before had carried several hundred passengers, all +with pressing business at the capitol, or somewhere else. As our chronicler +tells it: "A good many who had things on their minds left for the country." +Still it rained; still the crowd waited; still the headquarters of the +Committee of Vigilance remained closed and inscrutable. + + + + +LXIV + + +During all this time the Executive Committee sat in continuous session, for +it had been agreed that no recess of more than thirty minutes should be +taken until a decision had been reached. The room in which they sat was a +large one, lighted by windows on one side only. Coleman sat behind a raised +desk at one end. Below it stood a small table accommodating two. On either +side six small tables completed three sides of a hollow square. No +ornament, no especial comforts--the desk, the thirteen pine tables, the +twenty-eight pine chairs, the wooden walls, the oil lamps, the four long +windows--that was all. + +The prisoners, who, when they had seen the thousands before the jail, had +expected nothing less than instant execution by lynch law, began to take +heart. After a man has faced what he thinks is the prospect of immediate +and unavoidable death, such treatment as this arouses real hope. The +prisoners were strictly guarded and closely confined, it is true, but they +understood they were to have a fair trial "according to law." That last +phrase cheered them immensely. They knew the law. Nor were they entirely +cut off from the outside. Casey was allowed to see several men in regard to +certain pressing business matters, and was permitted to talk to them +freely, although always in the presence of a member of the committee. Cora +received visits from Belle. She had spent thousands in his legal defence; +now she came to see him faithfully, and tried to cheer him, but was plainly +cowed. Her self-control had vanished. She clung to him passionately, +weeping. He was forced to what should have been her role; and in cheering +her he managed to gain a modicum of self-confidence for himself. She left +him at midnight, much reassured. + +But on Monday morning Cora's cell door was thrown open, and he was motioned +forth by a grave man, who conducted him through echoing gloomy corridors to +the committee room, where he was left facing the tables and the men who sat +behind them. Cora's natural buoyancy vanished. The men before him met his +gaze with rigid, unbending solemnity. The rain beat mournfully against the +windows, blurring the glass, casting the high apartment in a half gloom. +Nobody moved or spoke. All looked at him. The echo of his footsteps died, +and the room was cast in stillness except for the soft dashing of the +storm. + +"Charles Cora," at last pronounced Coleman in measured tones, "you are here +on trial for your life, accused with the murder of United States Marshal +Richardson." + +Cora, who was a plucky man, had recovered his wits. He must have realized +that he was in a tight place, but he kept his head admirably. His demeanour +took on alertness, his manner throughout was respectful, and his voice low. + +"Do I get no counsel?" he inquired. + +"Counsel will be given you." + +He put in an earnest plea for counsel outside the tribunal--impartial +counsel. + +"Our members are impartial," Coleman told him. + +Cora hesitated; locking about him. + +"If Mr. Truett will act for me," he suggested; "and I beg you earnestly, +gentlemen, that the excitement of the time may not be prejudicial to my +interests, that I may have a chance for my life!" + +"Your trial will be fair," he was assured. + +"I shall undertake the defence," Truett agreed briefly; "and petition that +Mr. Smiley be appointed as my assistant." + +This being granted, the three men drew one side for a consultation. In a +short time Truett handed to the sergeant-at-arms--the same man who had +conducted Cora to the tribunal--a list of the witnesses Cora wished to +summon. These were at once sought by a subcommittee outside. In the +meantime, witnesses for the prosecution were one by one admitted, sworn, +and examined. All ordinary forms of law were closely followed. All +essential facts were separately brought out. It was the historic Cora trial +over again, with one difference--gone were the technical delays. By dusk +Keith, who had been called at three, had all but completed the long tale of +his testimony, had finished recounting, not only what he had seen of the +quarrel and the subsequent shooting, but also a detailed account of the +trial, the adverse influences brought to bear on the prosecution, and his +investigations into the question of "undue influence." No attempt was made +to confine the investigation to the technical trial. + +Keith was the last witness for the prosecution. And the witnesses for the +defence, where were they? Of the list submitted by Cora not one could be +found! In hiding, afraid, the perjurers would not appear! + +The dusk was falling in earnest now. The corners of the room were in +darkness. Beneath Coleman's desk Bluxome, the secretary, had lighted an oil +lamp the better to see his notes. In the interest of Keith's testimony the +general illumination had not been ordered. Outside the tiny patch of yellow +light the men of Vigilance sat motionless, listening, their shadows dim and +huge against the wall. + +The door opened, and Charles Doane, the Grand Marshal of the Vigilantes, +advanced three steps into the room. + +"Mr. President," he said clearly, his voice cutting the stillness, "I am +instructed to announce that James King of William is dead." + + + + +LXV + + +Thursday noon was set for the funeral of the man who had given his life +that a city might live. In the room where he had made his brave fight +against death he now lay in state. On Wednesday ten thousand people visited +him there. Early Thursday morning his remains were transferred to the +Unitarian Church where, early as it was, a great multitude had gathered to +do him honour. Now through the long morning hours it sat with him silently. +The church was soon filled to over-flowing; the streets in all directions +became crowded with sober-faced men and women. They knew they would be +unable to get into the church, to attend nearer his last communion with his +fellowmen, but they stayed, feeling vaguely that their mere presence +helped--as, indeed, perhaps it did. Marching bodies from every guild or +society in the city stood in rank after rank, extending down the street as +far as the eye could reach. Hundreds of horsemen, carriages, foot marchers, +quietly, orderly, were already getting into line. They, too, were excluded +from the funeral ceremonies by lack of room; they, too, waited to do honour +to the cortege. This procession was over two miles in length. Each man wore +a band of crepe around his left arm. The time set for the funeral ceremony +was yet hours distant. + +It seemed that all the city must be there. But those who, hurrying to the +scene, had occasion to pass near the Vigilante headquarters found the +vacant square guarded on all sides by a triple line of armed men. The side +streets, also, were filled with them. They stood in exact alignment, rigid, +bayonets fixed, their eyes straight ahead. Three thousand of them were +there. Hour after hour they stood, untiring, staring at the building, which +gave no sign; just as the other multitude, only a few squares away, stood +hour after hour, patiently waiting in the bright sun. + +At quarter before one the upper windows of the headquarters building were +thrown open, and small platforms, extending about three feet, were thrust +from two of them. An instant later two heavy beams were shoved out from the +flat roof directly over the platforms. From the ends of the beams dangled +nooses of rope. A dead wait ensued. Across the silence could be heard +faintly from the open windows of the distant church the chords of an organ, +the rise and fall of a hymn, then the measured cadence of oration. The +funeral services had begun. + +As though this were a signal, the blinds that had partly closed the window +openings were swung back, and Charles Cora was conducted to the end of one +of the little platforms. His face was covered with a white handkerchief, +and his arms and legs were bound with cords. The attendant adjusted the +noose, then left him. An instant later Casey appeared. He had petitioned +not to be blindfolded, so his face was bare. Cora stood bolt upright, +motionless as a stone. Casey's nerve had left him; his face was pale and +his eyes bloodshot. As the attendant placed the noose, the murderer's eyes +darted here and there over the square. Did he still expect that the +boastful promises of his friends would be fulfilled, did he still hope for +rescue? If so, that hope must have died as he looked down on those set, +grim faces staring straight ahead, on that sinister ring of steel. He began +to babble. + +"Gentlemen!" he cried at them, "I am not a murderer! I do not feel afraid +to meet my God on a charge of murder! I have done nothing but what I +thought was right! To-morrow let no editor dare call me a murderer! +Whenever I was injured I have resented it. It has been part of my education +during twenty-nine years! Gentlemen, I forgive you this persecution! O God! +My poor mother! O God!" + +Not one word of contrition; not one word for the man who lay yonder in the +church; not one syllable for the heartbroken wife kneeling at the coffin! +He ceased. And his words went out into the void and found no echo against +that wall of steel. + +They waited. For what? Across the intervening housetops the sound of +speaking ceased to carry. The last orator had given place. At the door of +the sanctuary was visible a slight, commotion: the coffin was being carried +out. It was placed in the hearse. Every head was bared. There ensued a +slight pause; then from overhead the great bell boomed once. Another bell +in the next block answered. A third, more distant, chimed in. From all +parts of the city tolled the solemn requiem. + +At the first stroke the long cortege moved forward toward Lone Mountain; at +the first stroke the Vigilantes, as one man, presented arms; at the first +stroke the platforms dropped and Casey and Cora fell into the abyss of +eternity. + + + + +LXVI + + +This execution occasioned a great storm of indignation among the adherents +of law and order. Serious-minded men, like Judge Shattuck, admitted the +essential justice rendered, but condemned strongly the method. + +"Of course they were murderers," cried the judge, "and of course they +should have been hung, and of course the city is better off without either +of them. I'm not afraid of their friends, and I don't care who knows what I +think! And some very worthy citizens, wrongly, are involved in this, some +citizens whom otherwise I greatly respect. It is better that a hundred +criminals should escape than that the whole law of California should be +outraged by an act that denies at once the value and the authority of our +government. The energy, the talent for organization, that this committee +has displayed in the exercise of usurped authority, might have been +directed in aid of the courts, consistently with the constitution and the +laws, with, equal if not greater efficiency." + +But very few were able to see it in this calm spirit. The ruling class, the +"chivalry," the best element of the city had been slapped in the face. And +by whom? By a lot of "Yankee shopkeepers," assisted by renegades like +Keith, Talbot Ward, and others. The committee was a lot of stranglers; they +ought to be punished as murderers; they ought to be shot down, egad, as +revolutionaries! It was realized that street shooting had temporarily +become unsafe; otherwise, there is no doubt that the hotheads would have +gone forth deliberately abrawling. There were many threats made against +individuals, many condign--and lawless--punishments promised them. + +As an undercurrent, nowhere expressed or even acknowledged, was a strong +feeling of relief. Any Law and Order would have fought at the mere +suggestion; but every one of them felt it. After all, the law had been +surprised and overpowered. It had yielded only to overwhelming odds. With +the execution of Cora and Casey accomplished, the committee might be +expected to disband. And, of course, when it did disband, then the law +would have its innings. Its forces would be better organized and +consolidated, its power assured. It could then apprehend and bring to +justice the ringleaders of this unwarranted undertaking. Like dogs at the +heels of a retreating foe, the hotheads became bolder as this secret +conviction gained strength. They were in favour of using an armed force to +take Coleman and his fellow-conspirators into the custody of the law. +Calmer spirits held this scheme in check. + +"Let them have rope," advised Blatchford. "I know mobs. Now that they've +hung somebody, their spirit will die down. Give them a few days." + +But to the surprise, and indignation of these people, the Vigilantes showed +no of an intention to disband. On the contrary, their activities extended +and their organization tightened. The various companies drilled daily until +they went through evolutions and the manual of arms with all the perfection +of regular troops. The committee's books remained open; by the last of the +week over seven thousand men had signed the rolls. Vanloads of furniture +and various supplies were backed up before the doors of headquarters, and +were carried within by members of the organization--no non-member ever saw +the inside of the building while it was occupied by the Vigilantes. The +character of these furnishings and supplies would seem to argue an +intention of permanence. Stoves, cooking utensils, cot beds, provisions, +blankets, bulletin boards, arms, chairs, tables, field guns, ammunition, +were only some items. Doorkeepers were always in attendance. Sentinels +patrolled the streets and the roof. The great warehouse took on an +exceedingly animated appearance. + +The Executive Committee was in session all of each day. It became known +that a "black list" of some sort was in preparation. On the heels of this +orders came for the Vigilante police, instructing them to arrest certain +men and to warn certain others to leave town immediately. It was evident +that a clean sweep was contemplated. + +Among the first of those arrested was the notorious Yankee Sullivan, an ex- +prize fighter, ward heeler, ballot-box staffer, and shoulder striker. He +had always been a pillar of strength to those engaged in corrupt practices. +This man went to pieces completely. He confessed the details of many of his +own crimes but, what was more important, implicated many others as well. +His testimony was invaluable, not necessarily as final proof against those +whom he accused, but as indications for thorough investigations. Finally, +unexpectedly, he committed suicide in his cell. It seems he had been +accustomed to from sixty to eighty drinks of whiskey a day, and the sudden, +complete deprivation had destroyed him. Warned by this, the committee +henceforward issued regular rations of whiskey to its prisoners! + +Trials in due order, with counsel for defence and ample opportunity to call +witnesses, went on briskly. Those who anticipated more hangings were +disappointed. It became known that the committee had set for itself the +rule that capital punishment would be inflicted only for crimes so +punishable by the regular law. But each outgoing ship carried crowds of +those on whom had been passed the sentence of banishment. The majority of +these were, of course, low thugs, "Sydney ducks," hangers on; but a very +large proportion were taken from what had been known as the city's best. In +the law courts these men would in many cases have been declared as white as +the driven snow. But they were undesirable citizens; the committee so +decided them; and bade them begone. Charles Duane, Wooley Kearney, William +Carr, Edward Bulger, Philander Brace, William McLean, J.D. Musgrave, and +Peter Wightman were well-known and influential names found on the "black +list," Peter Wightman, James White, and our old friend, Ned McGowan, ran +away. Hundreds of others left the city. A terror spread among the ignorant +and vicious of the underworld. Some of the minor offenders brought in by +the Vigilante police were by the Executive Committee turned over to the +regular law courts. _Every one of such cases was promptly convicted by +those courts_! + +This did not look much like disbanding, nor did any opportunity for +wholesale arrest of the anarchists seem imminent. The leaders of the Law +and Order faction were at last aroused. + +"This is more than anarchy; it is revolution," said Judge Caldwell. "It is +a successful revolution because it is organized. The people of this city +are scattered and powerless. They in turn should be organized to combat the +forces of disorder." + +In pursuance of this belief--that the public at large needed only to be +called together in order to defend its institutions--handbills were printed +and newspaper notices published calling a meeting for June and in +Portsmouth Square. Elaborate secret preparations, involving certain +distributions of armed men were made to prevent what was considered +certain interference. This was useless. Immediately after the appearance of +the notice the Committee of Vigilance issued orders that the meeting was in +no manner to be disturbed, and hung out placards reading: + +"Members of the Vigilance Committee: Order must be maintained." + +"Friends of the Vigilance Committee: Keep out of the Square," etc. + +The meeting was well attended. Enormous crowds gathered, not only in and +around the square itself, but in balconies and windows and on housetops. It +was a ribald, disrespectful crowd, evidently out for a good time, calling +back and forth, shouting question or comment at the men gathered about the +speaker's platform. + +"What kind of a circus do you call this show, anyway?" roared a huge, bare- +armed miner in red shirt. + +"This is the Law and Murder meeting," instantly answered some one from a +balcony. + +This phrase tickled the crowd hugely. The words were passed from man to +man. Eventually they became the stereotyped retort. "Stranglers!" sneered +one faction. "Law and Murder!" flung back the other. + +On the platform stood or sat the owners of many of the city's proud names-- +judges, jurists, merchants, holders of high political office, men whose +influence a month ago had been paramount and irresistible. Among them were +famed orators, men who had never failed to hold and influence a crowd. But +two hundred feet away little could be heard. It early became evident that, +though there would be no interference, the sentiment of the crowd was +against them. And, what was particularly maddening, the sentiment was good- +humoured. Even the compliment of being taken seriously was denied them! + +Colonel Ed Baker came forward to speak. The colonel's gift of eloquence was +such that, in spite of his known principles, his lack of scruple, his +insincerity, he won his way to a picturesque popularity and fame. Later he +delivered a funeral oration over the remains of David Broderick that has +gone far to invest the memory of that hard-headed, venal, unscrupulous +politician with an aura of romance. But the crowd would have little of him +this day. An almost continuous uproar drowned his efforts. Catch words such +as liberty, constitution, _ habeas corpus_, trial by jury, freedom, etc., +occasionally became audible. The people were not interested. + +"See Cora's defender!" cried someone, voicing the general suspicion that +Baker had been one of the little gambler's hidden counsel. "Cora!" "Ed +Baker!" "Ten thousand dollars!" "Out of that, you old reprobate!" jeered +the audience. He spoke ten minutes against the storm, then yielded, red +faced and angry. Others tried in vain. A Southerner named Benham, while +deploring passionately the condition of the city which had been seized by a +mob, robbed of its sacred rights, etc., happened inadvertently to throw +back his coat, thus revealing the butt of a Colt's revolver. The bystanders +caught the point at once. + +"There's a pretty Law and Order man!" they shrieked. "Hey, Benham! Don't +you know it's against the law to go armed?" + +"I carry this weapon," shrieked Benham, passionately shaking his fist, "not +as an instrument to overthrow the law, but to uphold it!" + +A clear, steady voice from a nearby balcony made itself distinctly heard: + +"In other words, sir, you break the law in order to uphold the law," it +said. "What more are the Vigilantes doing?" + +The crowd went wild over this repartee. The confusion became worse. Old +Judge Campbell was thrust forward, in the hope that his age and his senior +judgeship would command respect. He was unable to utter consecutive +sentences. + +"I once thought," he interrupted himself piteously, "that I was the free +citizen of a free country, but recent occurrences have convinced me that I +am a slave; a slave, gentlemen, more a slave than any on a Southern +plantation for they know their masters, but I know not mine!" + +But his auditors refused to be affected. + +"Oh, yes, you do!" they informed him. "You know your masters as well as +anybody--two of them were hung the other day!" + +After this the meeting broke up. The most ardent Law and Order man could +not deny that as a popular demonstration it had been a fizzle. + +But if this attempt at home to gain coherence failed, up river the +partisans had better luck. A hasty messenger with tidings for the ear of +the Executive Committee only was followed by rapidly spreading rumours. +Five hundred men with two pieces of artillery were coming down from +Sacramento to liberate the prisoners, especially Billy Mulligan, or die in +the attempt. They were reported to be men from the southeast: Texans, +Carolinians, crackers from Pike County, all fire-eaters, reckless, sure to +make trouble. Their numbers were not in themselves formidable, but every +man knew the city still to be full of scattered warriors needing only +leaders and a rallying point. The materials for a very pretty civil war +were laid for the match. An uneasiness pervaded headquarters, not for the +outcome, but for the unavoidable fighting and bloodshed. + +Therefore, when Olney hastily entered the main hall early in the evening, +and in a loud voice called for "two hundred men with side arms for especial +duty," there was a veritable scramble to enlist. Olney picked out the +required number, selecting, it was afterward noticed, only the big men +physically. They fell in, and were marched quickly out Market Street. It +was dark. Expectations were high. Just beyond Second Street, dimly visible +against the sky or in the faint starlight, they saw a mysterious force +opposing them, men on foot, horses, the wheels of guns. Each man gripped +his revolver and set his teeth. Here, evidently, from this ordinarily +deserted and distant part of town, a flanking attack was to have been +delivered. As they drew nearer they made out wagons; and nearer still-bale +upon bale of gunny sacks, and shovels! + +The truth dawned on them, and a great laugh went up. "Sold! Sold! Sold!" +they cried. + +But they set to work with a will, filled the gunny sacks with sand, piled +them on the wagons; and so by morning Fort Gunnybags, as headquarters was +thenceforth called, came into existence. Cannon were mounted, breastworks +piled, embrasures planned. + +The five hundred fire-eaters were no myth. They disembarked, greeted the +horde of friends who had come to meet them, marched to Fort Gunnybags, +looked it over, thrust their hands in their pockets, and walked peacefully +away to the nearest barrooms! + +Wise men. By now the Vigilante dispositions were so complete that in the +mere interest of examining so sudden yet so thorough an organization, a +paragraph or so may profitably be spent on it. Behind headquarters was a +long shed stable in which were to be found at all hours saddle horses and +artillery horses, all saddled and bridled, ready for instant use. Twenty- +six pieces of artillery, mostly sent in by captains of merchant vessels in +the harbour, were here parked. Other cannon were mounted for the defence of +Fort Gunnybags. Muskets, rifles, and sabres enough to arm 6,000 men had +been accumulated--and there were 6,000 men to use them! A French portable +barricade had been constructed in the event of possible street fighting, a +sort of wheeled framework that could be transformed into litters or scaling +ladders. Sutlers' offices and kitchens could feed a small army. Flags and +painted signs carrying the emblematic open eye of vigilance decorated the +rooms, A huge alarm bell had been mounted on the roof. The mattresses, +beds, cots, blankets, and other furniture necessary to sleep four companies +on the premises had been provided. A completely equipped armourer's shop +and a hospital with all supplies occupied the third story. The forces were +divided into four companies of artillery, one squadron and two troops of +cavalry, four regiments, and thirty-two companies of infantry; besides the +small but efficient police organization. A tap on the bell gathered these +men in an incredibly short space of time. "As a rule," says Bancroft, +"within fifteen minutes from the time the bell was tapped, on any occasion, +seven-tenths of the entire Vigilante forces would be in their places armed +ready for battle." + +Another corps, not as heroic, but quite as necessary, it was found +advisable to appoint. The sacking of which Fort Gunnybags was made was of +very coarse texture. When dry, the sand filling tended to run out! +Therefore, those bags had to be kept constantly wet, and somebody had to do +it. Enemies sneeringly remarked that Fort Gunnybags consumed much more +water without than within; but this joke lost its point when it became +known that the committee, decades in advance of its period, had prohibited +alcohol absolutely! + +Realizing from the two lamentable fiascos just recounted that little could +be accomplished by private initiative, the upholders of the law turned +their attention to Sacramento. Here they had every reason to hope for +success. No matter how well organized the Vigilantes might be, or how +thoroughly they carried the sympathies of the local public, there could be +no doubt that they were acting in defiance of the law, were, in fact, no +better than rebels. It was not only within the power, it was the duty of +the governor of the State to declare the city in a condition of +insurrection. + +This being accomplished, it followed logically that the State troops must +put down the insurrection; and if they failed, there was still the immense +power of the republic to call upon. After all, when you look at it that +way, this handful of disturbers amounted to very little. + +The first step was to win over the governor. Without him the next step +could not be taken. Accordingly all the big guns of San Francisco took the +_Senator_ for Sacramento. There they met Terry, Volney Howard, and others +of the same ilk. No governor of Johnson's sort could long withstand such +pressure. He promised to issue the proclamation of insurrection as soon as +it was "legally proved" that the committee had acted outside the law. The +mere fact that it had already hanged two men and deported a great number of +others meant nothing. That, apparently, was not legal proof. + +In order that all things should be legal, then, Terry issued a writ of +_habeas corpus_ for the body of one William Mulligan, and gave it into the +hands of Deputy-sheriff Harrison for service on the committee. Nobody +expected the latter to deliver over Mulligan. + +"But they'll deny the writ," said Terry, "and that will constitute a legal +defiance of the State. The governor will then be legally justified in +issuing his proclamation, and ordering out the State troops to enforce the +writ." + +If the State troops proved inadequate, the plan was then to call on the +United States--as locally represented by General Wool and Captain David +Farragut--for assistance. With this armed backing three times the Vigilante +force could be quickly subdued. As it was all legal, it could not fail. + +Harrison took the writ of _habeas corpus_ and proceeded to San Francisco. +He presented himself at headquarters, produced his writ, and had himself +announced to the Executive Committee then in session. + +"Tell him to go to hell!" growled someone. + +But a half-dozen members saw through the ruse, and interposed vigorous +objections. + +"I move," said Dempster solemnly, "that our police be permitted to remove +all prisoners for a few hours." + +This was carried, and put into immediate effect. Deputy Harrison was then +politely received, his writ fully acknowledged, and he was allowed to +search the premises. Of course he found nothing, and departed much +crestfallen. The scheme had failed. The committee had in no way denied his +authority or his writ. Harrison was no fool. He saw clearly what he had +been expected to do. On his way back to Sacramento he did some thinking. To +Terry he unblushingly returned the writ endorsed: "Prevented from service +by armed men." For the sake of the cause Harrison had lied! + +Johnson immediately issued his proclamation. The leaders turned with +confidence to the Federal authorities for assistance. To their blank dismay +General Wool refused to furnish arms. His position was that he had no +authority to do so without orders from Washington. The sympathies of this +doughty old soldier were not with this attempt. Colonel Baker and Volney +Howard waited on him, and after considerable conversation made the mistake +of threatening to report him to Washington for refusing to uphold the law. + +"I think, gentlemen," flashed back the veteran, "I know my duty, and in its +performance dread no responsibility." + +So saying he bowed them from the room. Farragut equally could not clearly +see why he should train the guns of his ship on the city. With this fiasco +the opposition for the moment died. The Executive Committee went on +patiently working down through its black list. It announced that after June +24th no new cases would be taken, A few days later it proclaimed an +"adjournment parade" on July 5th. It considered its work done. The city had +become safe. + + + + +LXVII + + +But this peaceful outcome did not suit the aristocratic wing of the Law and +Order party in the least. The haughty, supremely individualistic, bold, +forceful, often charming coterie of fire-eaters had, in their opinion, been +insulted, and they wanted reprisal, punishment, blood. Terry, Baker, +Bennett, Miles, Webb, Nugent, Blatchford, Rowlee, Caldwell, Broderick, +Ware, Volney Howard, Black--to mention only a few--chafed intolerably. Such +men were accustomed to have their own way, to cherish an ultra-sensitive +"honour," to be looked up to; had come to consider themselves as especially +privileged, to look upon themselves as direct representatives of the only +proper government and administration of law. This revolt of the "lower +classes," the "smug, psalm-singing Yankees," the "shopkeepers," was +intolerable impudence. Because of a series of accidents, proper resentment +of such impudence, due punishment of such denial of the law had been +postponed. It was not, therefore, abrogated. + +When, therefore, the committee announced July 5th as a definite date for +disbanding, the lawful authorities and their upholders, blinded by their +passions, were distinctly disappointed. Where the common citizen perceived +only the welcome end of a necessary job well done, they saw slipping away +the last chance for a clash of arms that should teach these rebels their +place. It was all very well to talk of arresting the ringleaders and +bringing them to justice. In the present lamentable demoralization of the +courts it might not work; and even if it did work, the punishment of +ringleaders was small satisfaction as compared to triumphant vindication in +pitched battle. + +Sherman had resigned command of the military in disgust when he found that +General Wool and Captain Farragut had no intention of supplying him Federal +arms, thus closing--save for later inaccurate writing in his "Memoirs"--an +unfortunate phase of his career. In his stead had been chosen General +Volney Howard. Howard was a rather fat, very pompous, wholly conceited +bombastes furioso with apparently remarkable lack of judgment or grasp of a +situation. In the committee's action looking toward adjournment he actually +thought he saw a sign of weakening! + +"Now is the moment for us to show our power!" he said. + +In this he gained the zealous support of Judge Terry and Major Marmaduke +Miles, two others with more zeal than discretion. These three managed to +persuade Governor Johnson to order a parade of State troops in the streets +of San Francisco. Their argument was that such a parade--of legally +organized forces--would overawe the citizens; their secret hope, however, +was that such a show would provoke the desired conflict. This hope they +shared with Howard, after the governor's order had been obtained. Howard's +vanity and inclinations jumped together. He consented. Altogether, it was a +very pretty little plot. + +By now the Law and Order forces had become numerically formidable. The +bobtail and rag-tag, ejected either by force or by fright, flocked to the +colours. A certain proportion of the militia remained in the ranks, though +a majority had resigned. A large contingent of reckless, wild young men, +without a care or a tie in the world, with no interest in the rights of the +case, or, indeed, in themselves, avid only for adventure, offered +themselves as soon as the prospects for a real fight became good. And there +were always the five hundred discomfited Texans. + +Nor were arms now lacking. Contrary to all expectation, the committee had +scrupulously refrained from meddling with the State armouries. All militia +muskets were available. In addition the State had now the right to a +certain quota of Federal arms, stored in the arsenal at Benicia. These +could be requisitioned. + + +At this point in the planning weasly little Jimmy Ware had a bright idea. + +"Look here!" he cried, "how many of those Benicia muskets are there?" + +"About a hundred and fifty stand, sir," Howard told him. + +"Now they can't help us a whole lot," propounded Ware. "They are too few. +But why can't we use them for bait, to get those people on the wrong side +of the fence?" + +"What do you mean?" asked Terry, who knew Ware intimately. + +"Suppose they are shipped from Benicia to the armouries in the city; they +are legally Federal property until they are delivered, aren't they?" + +"Certainly." + +"Well, if the Stranglers should happen to seize them while they're still +Federal property, they've committed a definite offence against the United +States, haven't they?" + +"What do we care about that now?" asked Major Marmaduke Miles, to whom this +seemed irrelevant. + +But Judge Terry's legal mind was struck with the beauty and simplicity of +this ruse. + +"Hold on!" he cried. "If we ship them in a boat, the seizure will be +piracy. If they intercept those arms, they're pirates, and we can legally +call on the Federal forces--_and they'll be compelled to respond, egad!_" + +"They're pretty smart; suppose they smell a rat?" asked Miles doubtfully. + +"Then we'll have the muskets where we want them, anyway. It's worth +trying," replied Ware. + +"I know just the man," put in Terry. "I'll send for him." + +Shortly appeared a saturnine, lank, bibulous individual known as Rube +Maloney. To him Terry explained. He was to charter a sloop, take the +muskets aboard--and get caught. + +"No resistance, mind you!" warned Terry. + +"Trust me for that," grinned Rube. "I ain't anxious for no punctured skin, +nor yit a stretched neck." + +"Pick your men carefully." + +"I'll take Jack Phillips and Jim McNab," said Rube, after a moment's +thought, "and possibly a few refreshments?" he suggested. + +Terry reached into his pocket. + +"Certainly, certainly," said he. "Treat yourself well." + +There remained only to see that the accurate details should get to the +Committee of Vigilance, but in such a manner as to avoid suspicion that the +information had been "planted." + +"Is there anybody we can trust on their rolls?" asked Terry. + +But it was reluctantly conceded that the Vigilantes had pretty well cleaned +out the doubtful ones. Here again, the resourceful Jimmy Ware came to the +rescue. + +"I know your man--Morrell. He'll get it to them. As far as anybody knows, +he hasn't taken sides at all." + +"Will you see him?" asked Terry. + +"I'll see him," promised Jimmy Ware. + + + + +LXVIII + + +By this time the Vigilante organization had pretty well succeeded in +eliminating the few Law and Order sympathizers who had been bold enough to +attempt to play the part of spy by signing the rolls. These had not been +many, and their warning had been sufficient. But Morrell had, in a measure, +escaped distrust even if he had not gained confidence. He had had the sense +not to join the organization; and his attitude of the slightly +supercilious, veiledly contemptuous Britisher, scorning all things about +him, was sufficient guarantee of his neutrality. This breed was then very +common. He left his conference with Jimmy Ware thoroughly instructed, quite +acquiescent, but revolving matters in his own mind to see if somehow he +could not turn them to his advantage. For Morrell was, as always, in need +of money. In addition, he had a personal score to settle with Keith for, +although he had apparently forgotten their last interview regarding +"loans," the memory rankled. And Morrell had not forgotten that before all +this Vigilante business broke he had been made a good offer by Cora's +counsel to get Keith out of the way. Cora was now very dead, to be sure; +but on sounding Jimmy Ware, Morrell learned that Keith's removal would +still be pleasant to the powers that pay. + +If he could work these things all in together--Cogitating absorbedly, he +glanced up to see Ben Sansome sauntering down the street, his malacca cane +at the proper angle, his cylindrical hat resting lightly on his sleek +locks, his whole person spick with the indescribably complete appointment +of the dandy. Sansome was mixed up with the Keiths--perhaps he could be +used--On impulse Morrell hailed him genially, and invited him to take a +drink. The exquisite brightened, and perceptibly hastened his step. +Morrell's rather ultra-Anglicism always fascinated him. They turned in at +the El Dorado, and there seated themselves at the most remote of the small +tables. + +"Well," said Morrell cheerfully, after preliminary small talk had been +disposed of, "how goes the fair Nancy?" + +Sansome's effeminately handsome face darkened. Things had in reality gone +very badly with the fair Nancy. Her revulsion against Sansome at the time +of the capture of the jail had been complete; and as is the case with real +revulsions, she had not attempted to conceal it. Sansome's careful +structure, which had gained so lofty an elevation, had collapsed like the +proverbial house of cards. His vanity had been cruelly rasped. And what had +been more or less merely a dilettante's attraction had been thereby changed +into a thwarted passion. + +"Damn the fair Nancy!" he cried, in answer to Morrell's question. + +Morrell's eyes narrowed, and he motioned quietly to the waiting black to +replenish the glasses. + +"With all my heart, damn her!" said he. "I agree with you; she's a snippy, +cold little piece. Not my style at all. Not worth the serious attention of +a man like yourself. Who is it now, you sly dog?" + +Sansome sipped at his drink; sighed sentimentally. + +"Cold--yes--but if the right man could awaken her--" he murmured. + +"Look here, Sansome, do you want that woman?" + +Sansome looked at his companion haughtily; his eye fell; he drew circles +with the bottom of his glass. + +"By gad!" he cried with a sudden queer burst of fire; "I've got to have +her!" + +And then he turned slowly red, actually started to wriggle, concealed his +embarrassment under cover of his cigar. + +"H'm," observed Morrell speculatively, without looking across at Sansome. +"Tell me, Ben, does she still care for her husband?" + +"No; that I'll swear!" replied Sansome eagerly. + +"If you're sure of that one essential little fact, and you really want her, +why don't you take her?" + +"Damn it, ain't I telling you? She won't see me." + +"Tell me about it," urged Morrell, settling back, and again motioning for +fresh drinks. + +Sansome, whose soul was ripe for sympathy, needed little more urging. He +poured out his tale, sometimes rushingly and passionately, again, as his +submerged but still conventional self-consciousness straggled to the +surface, with shamefaced bravado. "By Gad!" he finished. "You know, I feel +like a raw schoolboy, talkin' like this!" + +Morrell leaned forward, his reserve of manner laid aside, his whole being +radiating sympathetic charm. + +"My dear chap, don't," he begged, laying his hand on Sansome's forearm. "A +genuine passion is the most glorious thing on earth even in callow youth! +But when we old men of the world--" The pause was eloquent. "She's a +headstrong filly," he went on in a more matter-of-fact tone, after a +moment, "takes a bit of handling. You'll pardon me, old chap, if I suggest +that you've gone about things a bit wrong." + +"How is that?" asked Sansome. Under the influence of drinks, confession, +and sympathy, he was in a glow of fellow-feeling. + +"Believe me, I know women and horses! You've ridden this one too much on +the snaffle. Try the curb. That high-spirited sort takes a bit of handling. +They like to feel themselves dominated. You've been too gentle, too +refined. She's gentle and refined for two. What she wants is the brute-- +'Rape of the Sabines' principle. Savage her a bit, and she'll come to heel +like a dog. Not at once, perhaps. Give her a week." + +"That's all very well," objected Sansome, whose eyes were shining, "but how +about that week? She'll run to that beast of a husband with her story--" + +"And be sorry for it afterward--" + +"Too late." + +Morrell appeared to think. + +"There's something in that. But suppose we arranged to get the husband out +of the way, where she couldn't run to him at once--" he suggested. + +They had more drinks. At first Morrell was only sardonically amused; but as +his imagination got to working and the creative power awoke, his interest +became more genuine. It was all too wildly improbable for words--and yet, +was anything improbable in this impossible place? At least it was amusing, +the whole thing was amusing--this super-refined exquisite awakened, to an +emotion so genuine that what judgment he had was now obscured by the +eagerness of his passion; the situation apparently so easily malleable; the +beautiful safety of it all for himself. And it did not really matter if the +whole fantastic plot failed! + +"I tell you, no," he broke his thoughts to reply to some ill-considered +suggestion, "The good old simple methods are the best--they're all laid out +for us by the Drury Lane melodramas. You leave it to me to get rid of him. +Then we'll send the usual message to her that he is lying wounded +somewhere--say at Jake's road house--" + +"Won't that get her to thinking too much of him?" interrupted Sansome +anxiously. + +Morrell, momentarily taken aback, gained time for a reply by pouring +Sansome another drink, "He's more sense left than I thought," he said to +himself; and aloud: "All you want is to get her out to Jake's. She'll go +simply as a matter of wifely duty, and all that. Don't worry. Once she's +there, it's your affair; and unless I mistake my man, I believe you'll know +how to manage the situation"--he winked slyly--"she's really mad about you, +but, like most women, she's hemmed in by convention. Boldly break through +the convention, and she'll come around." + +Sansome was plainly fascinated by the idea, but in a trepidation of doubt, +nevertheless. + +"But suppose she doesn't come around?" he objected vaguely. + +Morrell threw aside his cigarette and arose with an air of decision. + +"I thought you were so crazy mad about her?" he said in tones that cut. +"What are you wasting my time for?" + +"No, no! Hold on!" cried Sansome, at once all fire again. "I'll do it--hold +on!" + +"As a matter of fact," observed Morrell, reseating himself, and speaking as +though there had been no interruption, "I imagine you have little to fear +from that." + +He went into the street a little later, his vision somewhat blurred, but +his mind clear. Sansome, by now very pot-valiant, swaggered alongside. + +"By the way, Ben," said Morrell suddenly, "I hope you go armed--these are +bad times." + +"I have always carried a derringer--and I can use it, too!" boasted +Sansome, swinging his cane. + +Morrell, left alone, stood on the corner for some time diligently engaged +in getting control of himself. He laughed a little. + +"Regular bally melodrama, conspiracy and all, right off the blood-and- +thunder stage," said he. "Wonder if it works in real life? We'll see." + +After his head had cleared, he set to work methodically to find Keith, but +when he finally met that individual it was most casually. Morrell was +apparently in a hurry, but as he saw Keith he appeared to hesitate, then, +making up his mind, he approached the young lawyer. + +"Look here, Keith, a word with you," he said. "I have stumbled on some +information which may be important. I was on my way to the committee with +it, but I'm in a hurry. The governor is shipping arms into the city to- +morrow night from Benicia, by a small sloop." + +"Are you sure of this?" asked Keith. + +"Certain." + +"Where did you get the information?" + +"That I cannot tell you." + +Keith still hesitated; Morrell turned on his heel. + +"Well, I've told you. You can do as you please, but you'd better let the +committee decide whether to take the tip or not." He walked away without +once looking back, certain that Keith would end by reporting the +information, + +"Chances are he'll go with the capturing party," ran the trend of his +thoughts, "and so he'll be out of reach of this little abduction. But I +don't care much. If he follows them out to Jake's by any chance, Sansome +will shoot him--or he'll shoot Sansome. Doesn't matter which. Shootin's +none too healthy these days _for either side!_ Oh, Lord, most amusin'!" + +He thought a while, then turned up the hill toward his own house. A new +refinement of the plot had occurred to the artist's soul too much drink had +released in him. + +Mrs. Morrell was vastly surprised to see him. She was clad in a formless +pink silk wrapper, was reclining on a sofa, and was settling down to +relaxation of mind and body by means of French novels and cigarettes, + +"Well, what are you doing here at this time of day?" was her greeting. + +"Came to bask in the light of your smiles, my dear," he replied with +elephantine irony. + +"Nonsense!" she rejoined sharply, "You've been drinking again!" + +"To be sure; but not enough to hurt." His manner suddenly became +businesslike, "Look here," he asked her, "are you game to make a tidy bit +of money?" + +"Always!" she replied promptly, also becoming businesslike. + +He explained in detail. She listened in silence at first with a slight +smile of contempt on her lips. As he progressed, however, the smile faded. + +"Where do I come in?" she asked finally. + +"You must be there when the message comes to her. She might not go out to +Jake's alone--probably wouldn't. I don't know her well enough to judge. +Hurry her into it." + +"I see." She laughed suddenly. "Lord, she'll be surprised when I call on +her! Take some doing, that!" She thought a few moments. "My appearance will +connect us with it. Won't do." + +"If the thing goes through we won't be here," he pointed out. "If it +doesn't go through all right, we'll arrange a little comedy. Have you bound +and gagged--before her eyes--or something like that." + +"Thanks," she replied to this. + +Morrell was not entirely open. He did not tell her that money or no money, +plot or no plot, he had resolved to flee the city, at least for a time. +Investigations were getting too close to some of his past activities. He +did not offer in words what he nevertheless knew to be the most potent of +his arguments--namely, the implacable hate Mrs. Morrell bore Keith. +Morrell's knowledge of this hate was accurate, though his analysis of its +cause was faulty. He thought his wife to be Keith's discarded mistress, and +did not greatly care. Nor did he mention the possibility which, however, +Mrs. Morrell now voiced. + +"Suppose Keith follows them out to Jake's?" she suggested. + +"One of them will kill, and the Stranglers will hang the other," he said +briefly. + +She looked up. + +"I don't care for that!" + +"In that event, you will not be present. Your job will be to duck out." He +paused, then went on slowly: "Would you grieve at the demise of either--or +all three?" + +Her face hardened. + +"But," he went on slowly, "the chances of it are very remote. If there is +any killing, it will come later. Keith will be kept out of the way." + +"And after?" + +"You hint of an assignation. I will arrange for witnesses." + +"Where does the money come in?" she demanded. Morrell floundered for a +moment. He had lost sight of the money. + +"It comes from certain parties who want Keith put out of the way," he said. + +"And suppose Keith is not put out of the way?" she began, her facile mind +pouncing on the weakness of this statement. "Never mind," she interrupted +herself. "I'll do it!" Her face had hardened again, "Can you depend on +Sansome to go through with it?" + +"Only if he's fairly drunk." + +"Yes?" + +"I'll attend to that. That is my job. You may not see me to-morrow; but go +in the evening to call on her." + +"It looks absolutely preposterous," she said at last, "but it may work. +And, if any part of it works, that'll be enough." + +"Yes," said he. + +They had both forgotten the money. + + + + +LXIX + + +As Morrell had surmised, Keith decided to pass on the news for what it was +worth. The committee believed it, and was filled with consternation at the +incredible folly of the projected show of armed force. + +"This is not peace, but war," said Coleman, "which we are trying to avert!" + +The Executive Committee went into immediate session. It was now evident +that the disbanding would have to be indefinitely postponed. An +extraordinary program to meet the emergency was discussed piecemeal. One of +its details had to do with the shipment of arms from Benicia. The committee +here fell neatly into the trap prepared for it. In all probability no one +clearly realized the legal status of the muskets, but all supposed them +already to belong to the State that was threatening to use them. Charles +Doane, instructed to take the steps necessary to their capture, called to +him the chief of the harbour police. + +"Have you a small vessel ready for immediate service?" he asked this man. + +"Yes, a sloop, at the foot of this street." + +"Be ready to sail in half an hour." + +Doane then turned the job over to a trustworthy, quick-witted man named +John Durkee. The latter selected twelve to assist him, among whom was +Keith, at the latter's especial request. Morrell, loitering near, saw this +band depart for the water front, and followed them far enough to watch them +embark, to witness the hoisting of the sloop's sails, and to see the craft +heel to the evening breeze and slip away around the point. All things were +going well. The committee suspected nothing of the plot to fasten the crime +of piracy on it; Keith was out of the way. Morrell turned on his heel and +walked rapidly to his rendezvous with Sansome. + +Durkee and his sloop beat for some hours against wind and tide; but +finally, so strong were both, he was forced to anchor in San Pablo Bay +until conditions had somewhat modified. Finally, he was able to get under +way again, A number of craft were sailing about, and one by one these were +overhauled, commanded to lay to, and boarded in true piratical style. It +was fun for everybody. The breeze blew in strongly from the Golden Gate, +the waves chopped and danced merrily, the little sloop dipped her rail and +flew along at a speed that justified her reputation as a racer, gulls +followed curiously. But there were no practical results. Every sailing +craft they overhauled proved innocent, and either indignant or sarcastic. +The sun dipped, and the short twilight of this latitude was almost +immediately succeeded by a brilliant night. Slowly the breeze died, until +the little sloop could just crawl along. It grew chilly, and there was no +food aboard. A less persistent man than John Durkee would have felt +justified in giving it up and heading for home; but John had been +instructed to cruise until he captured the arms; and he profanely announced +his intention of so doing. + +In this he was more faithful to his superiors than the notorious Rube +Maloney to his employers. It was to the interest of the Law and Order party +that Rube and his precious crew should be promptly and easily captured. +They had been instructed to carry boldly and flagrantly, in full daylight, +down the middle of the bay. But Terry's permission, to lay in +"refreshments" at cost of the conspirators had been liberally interpreted. +By six o'clock Rube had just sense enough left to drop anchor off Pueblo +Point. There the three jolly mariners proceeded to celebrate; and there +they would probably have lain undiscovered had less of a bulldog than +Durkee been sent after them. + +As it was, midnight had passed before Durkee's keen eyes caught the loom of +some object in the black mist close under the point. Quietly he eased off +the sheet and bore down on it. As soon as he ascertained definitely that +the object was indeed a boat, he ran alongside. The twelve men boarded with +a rush: they found themselves in possession of an empty deck. From the +hatch came the reek of alcohol and the sound of hearty snoring. The capture +was made. + +In a half hour the transfer of the muskets and the three prisoners was +accomplished. The latter offered no resistance, but seemed cross at being +awakened. Leaving the vessel anchored off the point, the little sloop stood +away again for San Francisco, reaching the California Street wharf shortly +after daylight. Here she was moored, and one of the crew was dispatched to +the committee for further instructions and grub. He returned after an hour, +but was preceded somewhat by the grub. + +"They say to deliver the muskets at headquarters," he reported, "but to +turn the prisoners loose." + +"Turn them loose!" cried Durkee, astonished. + +"That's what they said," repeated the messenger. "And here's written +orders," and he displayed a paper signed by the well-known "33, Secretary," +and bearing the Vigilante seal of the open eye. + +"All right," acquiesced Durkee. "Now, you mangy hounds, you've got just +about twenty-eight seconds to make yourselves as scarce as your virtues. +Scat!" + +Rube and his two companions had several of the twenty-eight seconds to +spare; but once they had lost sight of their captors, they moderated their +pace. They had been much depressed, but now they cheered up and swaggered. +A few drinks restored them to normal, and they were able to put a good face +on the report they now made to their employers, all of whom, including +Terry, had gathered thus early to receive them. After all, things had gone +well: they had been actually captured, which was the essential thing, and +it did not seem necessary to go into extraneous details. + +"Good!" cried Terry, who had come down from Sacramento personally to +superintend the working out of this latest ruse. + + +He was illegally absent from his court, meddling illegally with matters not +in his jurisdiction. "Now we must get a warrant for piracy into the hands +of the United States Marshal. Send him alone, with no deputies. When he +makes his deposition of resistance, then we shall see!" + +The marshal found Durkee still at the wharf, seated on an upturned cask. + +"I have this warrant for your arrest!" he proclaimed in a voice purposely +loud. + +"Yes? Let's see it," rejoined Durkee, lazily reaching out his hand. + +He read the document through leisurely. His features betrayed no hint of +his thoughts, but nevertheless his brain was very active. He read that he +was accused of piracy against the might and majesty of the United States +Government; and as his eyes slowly followed the involved and redundant +legal phraseology, he reviewed the situation. The nature, of the trap +became to him, partly evident. There was no doubt that technically he was a +pirate, if these arms--as it seemed--belonged to the Government and not to +the State. The punishment of piracy was death. Without appreciation of the +fact, the committee had made him liable to the death penalty. And he had no +doubt that the Federal Courts of California, as then constituted, would +visit that penalty on him. He raised his head and looked about him. Within +call were lounging a dozen resolute men belonging to the Committee of +Vigilance. He had but to raise his voice to bring them to his assistance. +Once inside Fort Gunnybags he knew that the committee would stand behind +him to the last man. + +But John Durkee had imagination as well as bulldog persistency. His mind +flashed ahead into the future, envisaging the remoter consequences. He saw +the majesty of the law's forces invoked to back this warrant which the +tremendous power of the disciplined Vigilantes would repulse; he saw +reinforcements, summoned. What reinforcements? A smile flitted across his +lips, and he glanced up at the warship _John Adams_ riding at anchor +outside, her guns, their tampons in place, staring blackly at the city. He +saw the whole plot. + +"That's all right," he told the waiting marshal, folding the warrant and +returning it to him. "Put your paper in your pocket. I'll go with you." + +By this quietly courageous and intelligent deed John Durkee completely +frustrated the fourth and most dangerous effort of the Law and Order party. +There was no legal excuse for calling on Federal forces to take one man-- +who peaceably surrendered! + +Undoubtedly, had not matters taken the decided and critical turn soon to be +detailed, Durkee would have been immediately brought to trial, and perhaps +executed. As it was, even the most rabid of the Law and Order party agreed +it was inexpedient to press matters. The case was postponed again and +again, and did not come to trial until several months, by which time the +Vigilantes had practically finished their work. The law finally saved its +face by charging the jury that "if they believed the prisoners took the +arms with the intention of appropriating them to their own use and +permanently depriving the owner of them, then they were guilty. But if they +took them only for the purpose of preventing their being used against +themselves and their associates, then they were not guilty." Under which +hair-splitting and convenient interpretation the "pirates" went free, and +everybody was satisfied! + + + + +LXX + + +After leaving the office where they had made their report to their +employers, Rube Maloney and his two friends visited all the saloons. There +they found sympathetic and admiring audiences. They reviled the committee +collectively and singly; bragged that they would shoot Coleman, Truett, +Durkee, and some others at sight; flourished weapons, and otherwise became +so publicly and noisily obstreperous that the committee decided they needed +a lesson. Accordingly they instructed Sterling Hopkins, with four others, +to rearrest the lot and bring them in. Hopkins was a bulldog, pertinacious, +rough, a faithful creature. + +News of these orders ran ahead of their performance. Rube and his +satellites dropped everything and fled to their masters like threatened +dogs. Their masters, who included Terry, Bowie, Major Marmaduke Miles, and +a few others, happened to be discussing the situation in the office of +Richard Ashe, a Texan, and an active member of "the chivalry." The three +redoubtables burst in on this gathering, wild-eyed, scared, with, the +statement that a thousand stranglers were at their heels. + +"Better hide 'em," suggested Bowie. + +But hot-headed Terry, seconded by equally hot-headed Ashe, would have none +of this. + +"By gad, let them try it!" cried the judge. "I've been aching for this +chance!" + +Therefore when Hopkins, having left his small _posse_ at the foot of the +stairs, knocked and entered, he was faced by the muzzles of half a dozen +pistols, and profanely told to get out of there. He was no fool, so he +obeyed. If Terry had possessed the sense of a rooster, or a single quality +of leadership, he would have seen that this was not the moment to +precipitate a crisis. The forces of his own party were neither armed nor +ready. But here, as in all other important actions of his career, he was +governed by the haughty and headstrong passions of the moment--as when +later he justified himself in attempting to shoot down an old and unarmed +man. Hopkins left his men at the foot of the stairs, borrowed a horse from +Dr. Beverly Cole, who was passing, and galloped to headquarters. There he +was instructed to return, to keep watch, that reinforcements would follow. +He arrived at the building in which Ashe's office was located, in time to +see Maloney, Terry, Ashe, McNabb, Bowie, and Rowe all armed with shotguns, +just turning the far corner. He dismounted and called on his men to follow. +The little _posse_ dogged the judge's party for some distance. For a time +no attention was paid to them, but as they pressed closer Terry, Ashe, and +Maloney whirled and presented their shotguns. The movement was probably +intended only as a threat; but Hopkins, always bold to the point of +rashness, made a sudden rush at Maloney. Judge Terry thrust his gun at the +Vigilante officer who seized it by the barrel. At the same instant Ashe +pressed the muzzle of his weapon against one Bovee's breast, but hesitated +to pull the trigger. It was getting to be unhealthy to shoot men in the +open street. + +"Are you a friend?" he faltered. + +"Yes," replied Bovee, and by a rapid motion struck the barrel aside. + +Another of the Vigilantes named Barry covered Rowe with a pistol. Rowe's +"chivalry" oozed. He dropped his gun and fled toward the armoury. The +others struggled for possession of weapons, but nobody fired. Suddenly +Terry whipped out a knife and plunged it into Hopkins's neck. Hopkins +relaxed his hold on Terry's shotgun and staggered back. + +"I am stabbed! Take them, Vigilantes!" he cried. + +He sank to the pavement. Terry and his friends dropped everything and ran +toward the armoury. Of the Vigilante _posse_ only Bovee and Barry remained, +but these two pursued the fleeing Law and Order men to the very portals of +the armoury itself. When the door was slammed in their faces, they took up +their stand outside, they two holding within several hundred men! At the +end of ten minutes a pompous, portly individual came up under full sail, +cast a detached and haughty glance at the two quiet men lounging +unwarrantedly in his path, and attempted to pass inside. + +"You cannot enter here," said Bovee grimly, as they barred his way. + +The pompous man turned purple. + +"Do you know who I am?" he demanded. + +"I don't give a damn who you are," replied Bovee, still quietly. + +"I am Major-General Volney E. Howard!" + +"You cannot enter here," repeated Bovee, and this time he said it in a tone +of voice that sent the major-general scurrying away. + +After a short interval another man dashed up very much in a hurry. +Mistaking Bovee and Barry for sentinels, he cried as he ran up: + +"I am a lieutenant in Calhoun Bennett's company, and I have been sent here +to--" + +"I am a member of the Committee of Vigilance," interrupted Barry, "and you +cannot enter." + +"What!" cried the officer, in astonishment. "Have the Vigilance Committee +possession of this building?" + +"They have," was the reply of the dauntless two. + +The lieutenant rolled up his eyes and darted away faster than he had come. +A few moments later, doubtless to the vast relief of the "outside garrison" +of the armoury within which five or six hundred men were held close by this +magnificent bluff, the great Vigilante bell boomed out: _one, two, three_, +rest; then _one, two, three_, rest; and repeat. + +Immediately the streets were alive with men. Merchants left their +customers, clerks their books, mechanics their tools. Dray-men stripped +their horses of harness, abandoned their wagons where they stood, and rode +away to their cavalry. Clancey Dempster's office was only four blocks from +headquarters. At the first stroke of the bell he leaped from his desk, ran +down the stairs, and jumped into his buggy. Yet he could drive only three +of the four blocks, so dense already was the crowd. He abandoned his rig in +the middle of the street and forced his way through afoot. Two days later +he recovered his rig. In the building he found the companies, silently, +without confusion, falling into line. + +"All right!" he called encouragingly. "Keep cool! Take your time about it!" + +"Ah, Mr. Dempster," they replied, "we've waited long! This is the clean +sweep!" + +James Olney was lying in bed with a badly sprained ankle when the alarm +bell began to toll. He commandeered one boot from a fellow-boarder with +extremely large feet, and hobbled to the street. There he seized by force +of arms the passing delivery wagon of a kerosene dealer, climbed to the +seat, and lashed the astonished horse to a run. San Francisco streets ran +to chuck holes and ruts in those days, and the vehicle lurched and banged +with a grand rattle and scatteration of tins and measures. The terrified +driver at last mustered courage to protest. + +"You are spilling my kerosene!" he wailed. + +"Damn your kerosene, sir!" bellowed the general; then relenting: "I will +pay you for your kerosene!" + +Up to headquarters he sailed full tilt, and how he got through the crowd +without committing manslaughter no one tells. There he was greeted by wild +cheering, and was at once lifted bodily to the back of a white horse, the +conspicuous colour of which made it an excellent rallying point. + +Within an incredibly brief space of time they were off for the armoury; the +military companies marching like veterans; the artillery rumbling over the +rude pavements; the cavalry jogging along to cover the rear. A huge roaring +mob accompanied them, followed them, raced up the parallel streets to +arrive before the armoury at the same moment as the first files. + +The armoury square was found to be deserted except for the intrepid Barry +and Bovee, who still marched back and forth before the closed door. No one +had entered or left the building. + +Inside the armoury the first spirit of bravado and fight-to-the-last-ditch +had died to a sullen stubbornness. Nobody had much, to say. Terry was very +contrite as well he might be. A judge of the Supreme Court, who had no +business being in San Francisco at all, sworn to uphold the law, had +stepped out from his jurisdiction to commit as lawless and idiotic a deed +of passion as could have been imagined! Whatever chances the Law and Order +party might have had, could they have mobilized their forces, were +dissipated. Their troops were scattered in small units; their rank and file +were heaven knew where; their enemies, fully organized, had been mustered +by the alarm bell to full alertness and compactness. And Terry's was the +hand that had struck that bell! For the only time in his recorded history +David Terry's ungoverned spirit was humbled. Until he found that nothing +immediate was going to happen to him, and while under the silent but +scathing disapprobation of his companions, he actually talked of resigning! +Parenthetically, the fit did not last long, and he soon reared, his haughty +crest as high as ever. But now, listening to the roar of the mob outside, +peeping at the grim thousands of armed men deploying before the armoury, he +regretted his deed. + +"This is very unfortunate; very unfortunate!" he said, "But you shall not +imperil your lives for me. It is I they want. I will surrender to them." + +Instead of the prompt expostulation he expected, a dead silence greeted +these words. + +"There is nothing else to do," agreed Ashe at last. + +An officer was sent to negotiate. + +"We will deliver up the armoury if you will agree not to give us over to +the mob," he told the committee. + +"We hold, and intend to hold, the mob under absolute control. We have +nothing in common with mobs," was Coleman's reply. + +The doors were then thrown open, and a company of the Vigilante troops +marched in. Within ten minutes, the streets were cleared. The six hundred +prisoners, surrounded by a solid body of infantry with cavalry on the +flanks, were marched to headquarters. The city was jubilant. This, at last, +was the clean sweep! Men went about with shining faces, slapping each other +on the back. And Coleman, the wise general, realizing that compromises were +useless, peace impossible, came to a decision. Shortly from headquarters +the entire Vigilante forces moved in four divisions toward the cardinal +points of the compass. From them small squads were from time to time +detached and sent out to right or left. The main divisions surrounded the +remaining four big armouries; the smaller squads combed the city house by +house for arms. In the early morning the armouries capitulated. By sun-up +every weapon in the city had been taken to Fort Gunnybags. + + + + +LXXI + + +Up to this time Nan Keith had undergone the experience of nine out of ten +married women in early California: that is, she had been neglected. Neglect +in some form or other was the common lot of the legally attached feminine. +How could it logically be otherwise? In the turbulent, varied, restless, +intensely interesting, deeply exciting life of the pioneer city only a +poor-spirited, bloodless, nerveless man would have thought to settle down +to domesticity. A quiet evening at home stands small chance, even in an +old-established community, against a dog fight on the corner or a fire in +the next block; and here were men fights instead, and a great, splendid, +conflagration of desires, appetites, and passions, a grand clash of +interests and wills that burned out men's lives in the space of a few +years. It was a restless time, full of neglected women. This neglect varied +in degree to be sure. Nan was lucky there. No other woman had thrust her +way in, no other attraction lured Keith from her, as had happened to so +many others. She possessed all his interest. But at present that interest +seemed so attenuated, so remote! + +After her revulsion of feeing the afternoon the Vigilantes first rose in +their might, she withdrew within her pride. Nan was no meek and humble +spirit. But the scales had dropped from her eyes as to affairs about her. +San Francisco suddenly became something besides a crude collection of +buildings. For the first time she saw it as a living entity, strong in the +throes of growth. She devoured eagerly all the newspapers, collected avidly +all the rumours. Whenever possible, she discussed the state of affairs; but +this was difficult, for nearly every one was strongly partisan for one side +or another, and incapable of anything but excitement and vituperation. The +Sherwoods were a great comfort to her here. While approving of the new +movement, they nevertheless refused to become heated, and retained a spirit +of humour. Sherwood was not a member of the Committee of Vigilance, but he +had subscribed heavily--and openly--to its funds; he had assisted it with +his counsels; and it was hinted that, sub-rosa, he had taken part in some +of the more obscure but dangerous operations. + +"I am an elderly, peace-loving, respectable citizen," he told Nan, "and I +stand unequivocably for law and order and for justice, for the orderly +doing of things; and against violence, mob spirit, and high-handedness." + +"Why, John Sherwood!" cried Nan, up in arms at once. "I'd never have +believed you could be on the side of Judge Terry and that stripe." + +"Oho!" cried Sherwood, delighted to have drawn her. "Now we have it! But +what made you think I was on that side?" + +"Why--didn't you just say--" + +"Oh," said Sherwood comfortably, "I was using real meanings, not just word +tags. In my opinion real law and order, orderly doing of things, _et +cetera_, are all on the other side." + +"And the men--" cried Nan, aglow. + +"The men are of course all noble, self-sacrificing, patriotic, immaculate +demigods who--" He broke off, chuckling at Nan's expression. "No, +seriously, I think they are doing a fine work, and that they'll go down in +history." + +"You're an old dear!" cried Nan, impulsively kissing his cheek. + +"Take care," he warned, "you're endangering my glasses and making my wife +jealous." + +Nan drew back, a little ashamed at having shown her feelings; and rather +astonished herself at their intensity. + +In the course of these conversations the pendulum with her began again to +quiver at the descent. Through the calmly philosophical eye of the ex- +gambler, John Sherwood, she partly envisaged the significance of what was +happening--the struggling forth of real government from the sham. Her own +troubles grew small by comparison. She began to feel nearer Keith in spirit +than for some time past, to understand him better, even--though this was +difficult--to get occasionally a glimpse of his relations toward herself. +It was all very inchoate, instinctive, unformed; rather an instinct than a +clear view. She became restless; for she had no outlet either for her own +excitement or the communicated excitement of the times. It was difficult to +wait, and yet wait she must. For what? She did not know! + +On the crucial June evening she sat by the lamp trying in vain to +concentrate her attention on a book. The sound of the door bell made her +jump. She heard Wing Sam's shuffle, and his cheerful greeting which all her +training had been unable to eliminate. Wing Sam always met every caller +with a smiling "Hello!" A moment later she arose in some surprise as Mrs. +Morrell entered the room. + +Relations between the women had never been broken off, though the pretence +of ordinary cordiality had long since been dropped. When Mrs. Morrell found +it expedient to make this call, she spent several hours trying to invent a +plausible excuse. She was unable to do so. Finally she gave it up in angry +despair. + +"As long as it is not too bald, what difference does it make?" she said to +herself cynically. + +And out of this desperation, and by no means from cleverness, she hit on +the cleverest thing possible. Instead of coming to make a friendly call, +she pretended to be on an errand of protest. + +"It's about your dog," she told Nan, "he's a dear good dog, and a great +friend of ours. But cannot you shut him up nights? He's inclined to prowl +around under my windows, and just the sound of him there keeps me awake. I +know it's foolish; but I am so nervous these days--" + +"Why, of course," said Nan with real contrition. "I'd no idea--" + +Gringo was at the moment ingratiating himself with Wing Sam _in re_ one +soup bone of no use to anybody but dogs. If he could have heard Mrs. +Morrell's indictment, he would have been both grieved and surprised: Gringo +never prowled anywhere. Like most rather meaty individuals, he was a very +sound sleeper; and in the morning he often felt a little uneasy in his +conscience as to the matter of stray trespassing cats or such small fry. He +had every confidence that his instincts would warn him of really important +things, like burglars. Still, the important things are not all of life, nor +burglars all the duty of a dog. + +Having slandered the innocent Gringo, Mrs. Morrell stayed for a chat. +Apparently she was always just on the point of departure, but never went. +Nan, being, as she thought, in the wrong as to the worthy Gringo, tried her +best to be polite, but was miserably conscious of being snippy. + +At the end of an hour the door bell rang again. If Nan had been watching, +she might have seen Mrs. Morrell's body relax as though from a tension. +After a moment Wing Sam shuffled into the room carrying a soiled folded +paper. + +"Man he tell you lead this chop-chop," said he. + +Murmuring an apology, Nan opened the paper. With a cry she sprang to her +feet. Her face had gone white. + +"What is it?" cried Mrs. Morrell in apparent anxiety. + +Without a word Nan extended the paper. Written in pencil were these words: + + MADAM: Your husband has been injured in an attempt at arrest. He wants + me to tell you he is at Jake's Place hurt bad. With respects. JOHN Q. + ALDER. + +For an instant Mrs. Morrell did not dare look up. She was thoroughly angry +at what she thought to be her husband's stupidity. + +"Why, that wouldn't deceive a child!" she thought contemptuously. + +"How dreadful! Who is Alder?" she said, merely to say something. + +Nan shook her head. + +"I don't know," she replied rather wildly. "One of the Vigilantes, I +suppose. I must go out there. At once!" + +She ran to the hall where she began to rummage for cloaks. Mrs. Morrell +followed her in wonderment. She was going to take this crude bait after +all! Mrs. Morrell had not the slightest idea Nan still loved her husband. + +"You can't go alone!" she cried in apparent sympathy. "You poor child! +Jake's Place--at this time of night!" + +"I'd go to hell if he needed me there!" cried Nan. + +Mrs. Morrell became suddenly capable and commanding. + +"Then I shall go with you," she announced firmly. + +"Oh, you're good to me!" cried Nan, full of contrition, and feeling, +beneath her anxiety, that she had misjudged her neighbour's heart. + +Mrs. Morrell took charge. She lit the lantern, led the way to the stable, +did the most toward harnessing the horse. They made rather a mess of it, +but the horse was gentle and reliable. When they had backed the buggy out +of the barn, she insisted on driving. + +"You're in no fit condition," she told Nan, and Nan obediently climbed in +beside her. + +The drive was made in silence, except that occasionally Nan urged hurry. +She sat bolt upright, her hands clasped in her lap, her figure rigid, +trying to keep hold of herself. At Jake's Place a surly hostler appeared +and led away their horse. Jake's Place was in darkness save for one lighted +room on the ground floor and a dimly illuminated bar at the other end. + +It is but just to a celebrated resort that had seen and was still to see +much of life to say that it knew nothing of the plot. Sansome had engaged +the ground-floor parlour, and ordered a fire and drinks. Morrell had +commanded a little supper for later. Now two ladies appeared. This was all +normal. Without drinks, little suppers, and the subsequent appearance of +ladies, Jake's Place would soon have languished. + +Nan leaped over the wheel to the ground as soon as the buggy had stopped, +and before the dilatory hostler had cramped aside the wheel. + +"Where is he?" she demanded breathlessly. The hostler jerked a thumb at the +lighted windows. Without a word Nan ran up the steps and to the door. The +hostler looked after her flying figure, then grinned up at Mrs. Morrell. + +"Yum! yum!" said he, "but she's the eager little piece!" + +Mrs. Morrell gave him a coin, and as he moved away with the horse, she, +too, ran up the steps. Nan had entered the parlour door, leaving it open +behind her. Mrs. Morrell closed it again, and locked it. Then, with a +certainty that proved her familiarity with the place, she walked down the +length of the veranda to a hall, which she entered. + +Nan had burst into a parlour with an open fire. Before it stood a small +table crowded with bottles and glasses. Sansome rose, rather unsteadily, +from one of the easy chairs. Nan uttered an exclamation of relief as she +recognized him. + +"Oh, I'm glad you're here!" she cried. "This is kind! How is he? Where is +he?" + + + + +LXXII + + +Morrell had no easy day with Ben Sansome. He had been forced to spend the +whole of it with his protege, save for the hour he had devoted to seeing +Keith off on the piratical expedition. It was a terrible bore. In turn he +had played on the youth's pique, the supposed insult to his manhood, his +desire for the woman. Sansome was not naturally a valiant adventurer; but +he had an exceedingly touchy vanity, which, with a little coddling, +answered nearly as well. Morrell took the confident attitude that, of +course, Sansome was not afraid; therefore Sansome was ashamed to be afraid. + +"For the moment," said the Englishman, "she's carried away by the glamour +of this Vigilante movement. They seem to her strong men. She contrasts them +with us men of the world, and as she cannot see that a polished exterior is +not incompatible with strength, she has a faint growing contempt for us. +Women like strength, masterfulness. It is the chance of your life to show +her that a man _comme il faut_ is the equal of these squalid brutes in that +respect. She is in love with you already, but she doesn't know it. All that +is necessary is a show of masterfulness to make her realize it." He stifled +a yawn. "Lord, what dreary piffle!" he confided to himself. He painted +Keith as a contemptible renegade from his own class, currying favour with +those below him, a cheap demagogue, a turncoat avid for popular power. + +"At heart he's a coward--all such men are. And he's so wrapped up in his +ambition that his wife is a small matter to him. There's no danger from +him, for he's away; and after the first flare-up we'll be able to handle +him among us, never fear!" But after impressing this point, Morrell always +was most careful to interpose the warning: "If it should come to trouble, +don't let him get near you! He's absolutely rotten with a gun--you saw him +in that farce of a duel--but he's a strong beggar. Don't let him get his +hands on you!" + +"I won't," promised Sansome, a trifle shakily. + +Then Morrell, lighting a fresh cigar and fortifying his bored soul with +another drink, skilfully outlined a portrait of Sansome himself as a hero, +a dashing man of the world, a real devil among the ladies, the haughty and +proud exponent of aristocratic high-handedness. He laid this on pretty +thick, but Sansome had by now consumed a vast number of drinks, and was +ready to swallow almost anything in addition. Morrell's customary demeanour +was rather stolid, silent, and stupid; but when he was really interested +and cared to exert himself, he became unexpectedly voluble and plausible. +Mid-evening he drove this creature of his own fashioning out to Jake's +Place, and deposited him in the parlour with the open fire, the table of +drinks, and the easy chairs. + +His plans from this point on were based on the fact that he had started +Keith out on an expedition that should last all night. Had there been the +slightest chance that the injured husband could appear, you may be sure +Morrell would not have been present. Of course witnesses were necessary to +the meeting at the road house. With Keith imminent, hirelings would have +been arranged for. With Keith safety away, Morrell saw no reason why he +should not enjoy the situation himself. Therefore he had arranged a little +supper party. Teeny McFarlane and Jimmy Ware were his first thought. Then +he added Pop McFarlane. If he wanted Teeny as a witness, the party must be +respectable! + +At the sound of wheels outside Morrell arose and slipped out the back door +of the parlour. + +"Now, remember!" he told Sansome from the doorway. "Now's the chance of +your life! You've got her love, and you must keep her. She'll cut up rough +at first. That's when you must show what's in you. Go right after her!" + +As Nan burst into the room by one door he softly closed--and locked--the +other behind him. + + + + +LXXIII + + +But Sansome, although he had put up a brave front to the last moment, was +not in reality feeling near the hero of romance he looked. In spite of +Morrell's cleverness, the Englishman had failed to observe that Sansome had +touched the fringe of that second stage of semi-drunkenness when the +"drinks were dying on him." While outwardly fairly sober, inwardly he was +verging toward the incoherent. First one phase or mood would come to the +top, then another, without order; sequence, or logical reason. He was +momentarily dangerous or harmless. Nan's abrupt entrance scattered his last +coherences. For the moment he fell back on habit, and habit was with him +conventional He smiled his best smile. + +"Do sit down," he urged in his most society manner. + +This immediately convinced Nan that Keith must be badly hurt. + +"Tell me at once!" she demanded "Where is Milton? Is he--is--" + +"As far as I know," replied Sansome, still in his courtly manner, "Mr. +Keith is in perfect health. As to where he is"--he waved an airy hand--"I +do not know. It does not matter, does it? The point is we are cozy here +together. Do sit down." + +"I don't understand," said she, advancing a step nearer, her brows knit, +"Don't put me off. I got a note saying--" + +"I know; I wrote it," boasted Sansome fatuously. + +The blood mounted her face, her fists clenched, she advanced several steps +fearlessly. + +"I don't, quite understand," she repeated, in hard, crisp tones. "You wrote +it?' Isn't it true? What did you do such a thing for?" + +"To get you here, my dear, of course," rejoined Sansome gallantly. "I knew +your puritanical scruples--I love them every one--but--" + +"Do you mean to say you dared decoy me here!" challenged Nan, all aflame. +Her whole emotion was one of rage. It did not occur to her to be afraid of +Ben Sansome, the conventional, the dilettante exquisite, without the +gumption to say boo to a goose! + +This Sansome answered her, the habit of society strong within him. He +became deprecatory, pleading, almost apologetic. His manners were on top +and his rather weak nature quailed before the blaze of her anger. + +"I know it was inexcusable," he babbled, "but what could I do? I am mad +about you! Do forgive me! Just sit down for a few moments. I don't blame +you for being angry--any one is angry at being deceived--but do forgive me. +If you'll only consider why I did it, you won't be angry. That's right," he +ended soothingly, seeing that she neither spoke nor moved, "Just sit right +down here and be comfortable. It must be cold driving. Let me give you a +glass of sherry." He fussed about, shoving forward an armchair, arranging +pillows, unstopping the decanter. + +"You fool!" she ejaculated in a low voice. She looked him all up and down, +and turned to go. + +The door was locked! For the first time she noticed that Mrs. Morrell had +not followed her in. Her heart fluttered in sudden panic, which she +subdued. She moved toward the other door. + +The words, and especially the frustration of her intention, brought another +mood to the surface of Sansome's intoxication. The polished society man +with the habit of external unselfishness disappeared. Another Sansome, whom +Nan did not recognize, sprang to take his place. + +"No, you don't!" he snarled. "That door's locked, too. You don't get out of +here until I choose to let you out!" + +"You'll let me out; and you'll let me out right now, or I'll call for +help," said Nan determinedly. + +Sansome deliberately seated himself, stretching his legs out straight +before him, his hands in his pockets. This was the masterful role he had +seen himself playing, and he instinctively took the attitude approved by +the best melodramatic masters. + +"Call all you please," he sneered. "Nobody's going to pay any attention to +your calls at Jake's Place!" + +Nan's heart went cold as she realized the complete truth of this. She was +beginning to know fear. This was a new sort of creature before her, one +with which she was acquainted only by instinct. She did not know what to do +next, except that she saw surely that open opposition would only aggravate +the situation. + +"I must gain time!" she told herself, though to what end she could not have +said. + +Her pulses beat wildly, but she forced herself to a specious calmness. + +"But Ben," she said as naturally as she could, "why did you do so foolish a +thing as this? It might make all kinds of trouble. You can always see me at +the house; you know that. Why did you get me out on this mad expedition? If +we were to be seen here by anybody we would be deeply compromised." + +The words reminded her of Mrs. Morrell; but out of sheer terror she +resolutely thrust that idea from her mind. At this appeal Sansome suddenly +became maudlin. + +"You've treated me like a dog lately--a yellow dog!" he mourned. "What good +did it do to go to your house and be treated like a yellow dog?" + +Nan's faculties were beginning to rally after the first panic. Her heart +was still thumping violently, but her eyes were bright, and her fighting +courage was flowing back. For the first time his obvious condition +registered on her brain. + +"He's drunk!" she thought. + +This discovery at first induced in her another, small panic. Then her +courage boldly took it as a point of attack. The man was drunk and +dangerous; very well, let us make him more drunk and less dangerous. That +was a desperate enough expedient, but at least it was definite. She crossed +deliberately to the other easy chair, and sat down. + +"Well, let's sit down," she agreed. "No!" more decidedly, "you sit there, +on the other side. It's more cozy," she continued, at just the right moment +to get her effect on his instinct of good manners. "Now, I will have that +sherry. No, don't bother; it is next my hand. You must drink with me. Let +me pour it for you--with my own hands--aren't you flattered?" + +She smiled across at him. This sudden reversion to an easy every-day plane +had brought Sansome's first mood again to the surface. In this atmosphere +of orderly tete-a-tete he was again the society man. Nan breathed freer. He +murmured something inane and conventional about Hebe. + +"Meaning you're a little tin god?" she chaffed. + +He said something still more involved, to the effect that her presence +would make a god out of the most unworthy mortal. It was all vapid, unreal, +elaborate, artificial. + +"If I can only keep him at this!" thought she desperately. + +She had drunk her glass of sherry because she felt she needed it. Now she +poured another, and without comment, refilled Sansome's whiskey glass. + +"Here's to us!" she cried, lifting her glass. + +Nan's plan of getting him so drunk that he would not interfere with her +escape had the merit of simplicity, and also of endorsement by such +excellent authority as melodrama and the novel. It had the defect of being +entirely theoretical. Nan's innocence of the matter in hand had not taken +into account the intermediate stages of drunkenness, nor did she realize +the strength inherent in the association of ideas. As she leaned forward to +fill the glasses, Sansome's eyes brightened. He had seen women pouring wine +many times before. The picture before him reminded him of a dozen similar +pictures taken from the gallery of his rather disreputable past. His +elaborate complimentary mood vanished. He pledged her ardently, and deep in +his eyes began to burn a secret covetous flame. Nan poured her, sherry +under the table. + +"This really is a cozy party!" she cried. "Will you have another with me?" + +The third glass of neat whiskey whirled in Sansome's head. He was verging +toward complete drunkenness, but in the meantime became amorous. His eyes +burned, his lips fell apart. Nan tried in desperation to keep on a plane of +light persiflage, to hold him to his chair and to the impersonal. Deep fear +entered her. She urged more drink on him, hoping that he would be +overpowered. It was like a desperate race between this man's passions and +the deep oblivion that reached for them. Her mouth was dry, and her brain +whirled. Only by the greatest effort could she prevent herself from flying +to pieces. Sansome hardly appeared to hear her. He wagged his head at her, +looking upon her with swimming, benevolent eyes. Suddenly, without warning, +he sprang up, overturning with a crash the small table and the bottles and +glasses. + +"By God, you're the most beautiful woman I ever saw!" he cried. "Come +here!" + +He advanced on her, his eyes alight. She saw that the crisis had come, and +threw aside all pretence. + +"Keep away! Keep away!" she warned him through, gritted teeth; then, as he +continued to stumble toward her, she struck at him viciously again and +again with one of the small light chairs. + +For a moment or so she actually managed to beat him off; but he lunged +through the blows and seized her around the shoulders. + +"Reg'lar little tiger cat!" he murmured with fond admiration. + +His reeking breath was on her neck as he sought her mouth. She threw her +head back and to one side, fighting desperately and silently, tearing at +him with her hands, writhing her body, lowering her head as he forced her +around, kicking at his shin. The man's strength was as horrible as it was +unexpected. The efforts to which she was giving her every ounce did not +appear to have the slightest effect on him, His handsome weak face +continued to smile foolishly and fondly down on her. + +"Reg'lar little tiger cat!" he repeated over and over. + +The terrible realization dawned on her that he was too much for her. Her +body suddenly went lax. She threw back her and screamed. + + + + +LXXIV + + +The plot which Morrell had first suggested idly and as sort of a joke, but +which later he had entered into with growing belief, was quite perfect in +all details but one: he assumed that Keith had accompanied Durkee's +expedition, and was sure that he had seen the young lawyer off. As a matter +of fact, Keith had been recalled. A messenger had at the very last moment +handed him an order sealed with the well-known open eye, and signed "33 +Secretary." It commanded him to proceed with certain designated men to the +arrest of certain others inscribed on the black list. This was a direct +order, whereas the present expedition was wholly a voluntary affair. Keith +had no alternative but to obey, though he did so reluctantly, for this +search for arms had promised sport. Therefore, he stepped ashore at the +last instant; a proceeding unobserved by Morrell, who was surveying the +scene from a distance, and who turned away once the sails were hoisted. + +The duty to which Keith had been assigned took some time. The men had to be +searched out one by one, escorted to headquarters, and the usual +formalities there accomplished. It was late in the evening before he was +free to go home. He let himself in with his latchkey, and had just turned +up the low-burning gas in the hall when the sound of hurrying feet brought +him back to the door. He flung it open to confront Mrs. Sherwood and +Krafft. They were both panting as though they had run some distance and +Krafft's usually precise attire was dishevelled and awry, as though it had +been hastily put on. + +"Nan!" gasped Mrs. Sherwood. "Is she here?" + +Keith, with instant decision, asking no questions, threw open the parlour +door, glanced within, ran upstairs three steps at a time, but almost +immediately returned after a hasty inspection of the upper story. His face +had gone very pale, but he had himself in perfect control. + +"Well?" he demanded crisply, looking from one to the other. + +But Mrs. Sherwood did not stop to answer. With a stifled exclamation she +darted from the house. Krafft looked after her, bewildered. Keith shook him +savagely by the shoulder. + +"Speak up, man! Quick! What is it?" demanded Keith. His voice was vibrant +with suppressed excitement, but he held himself outwardly calm, and waited +immobile until the end of Krafft's story. It was characteristic of him as +of all strong men in a crisis that he made no move whatever until he was +sure he had grasped the whole situation. + +Krafft was just going to bed--he always retired early--when he was called +to the door by Mex Ryan. Mex had never come to his house before. He was a +shoulder striker and a thug; but he had one sure streak of loyalty in that +nothing could ever induce him to go back on a pal. For various reasons he +considered Krafft a pal. He was very much troubled. + +"Look here, boss," he said to Krafft, "It just come to my mind a while ago: +what was the name of that bloke you told me to keep off'n? The Cora trial +man, I mean." + +Krafft recalled the circumstance, and named Keith. + +Mex slapped his head. + +"That's right! It come to me afterward. Well, there's dirty work with his +wife. That's where I see the name, on the outside of the note. I just give +her a fake letter that says her husband is shot, and she's to go to him." + +"How did he know what the letter said?" interjected Keith at this point. + +"He'd read anything given him, of course. Mex knew the letter was false. I +came up to find your house. I didn't know where you lived, so I stopped at +John Sherwood's to inquire. Mrs. Sherwood was home alone. She came with +me." + +"Where did this letter say I was supposed to be?" asked Keith, + +"Jake's Place." + +"My God!" cried Keith, and leaped for the door. At the same instant Mrs. +Sherwood's voice was heard from the darkness. + +"Come here," she cried, "I have a rig." + +They found her seated in a buggy. Both climbed in beside her. Keith took +the reins, and lashed the horse with the light whip. The astonished animal +leaped; the buggy jerked forward. + +Then began a wild, careering, bumpy ride into the night. The road was +fearful and all but invisible. The carriage swayed and swung dangerously. +Keith drove, every faculty concentrated. No one spoke. The dim and ghostly +half-guessed forms of things at night streamed past. + +"Who sent that letter?" demanded Keith finally. + +"Mex wouldn't tell me," replied Krafft. + +"How long ago did he deliver it?" + +"About an hour." + +The horse plunged frantically under the lash as this reply reached Keith. +The buggy was all but overturned. He pulled the frantic animal down to a +slower pace, and with an obvious effort regained control of himself. + +"Can't afford an accident!" he warned himself. + +"Are you armed?" Mrs. Sherwood asked him suddenly. + +"Yes--no, I left my gun at headquarters--that doesn't matter." + +Mrs. Sherwood made no comment. The wind caught her hair and whipped it +about. In the distance now twinkled the lights of Jake's Place. Keith took +a firmer grip on the reins, and again applied the whip. They swept into the +gravelled driveway on two wheels, righted themselves, and rounded to the +veranda. Keith pulled up and leaped to the ground. Nobody was visible. From +the veranda he turned on them. + +"Here, you!" he commanded Mrs. Sherwood sharply, "I can't have you in this +row! Stay here, outside. You take care of her," he told Krafft. "No, I mean +it!" + +On his words a scream burst from the lighted room. Keith sprang to the +door, found it locked, and drew back. With a low mighty rush he thrust his +shoulder against the panel near the lock. The wood splintered. He sprang +forward into the room. + + + + +LXXV + + +After turning the key in the lock outside the parlour door Mrs. Morrell +slipped along the dark veranda, passed through a narrow hall, and entered a +small back sitting-room. Jake's Place especially abounded in sitting-rooms. +This particular one was next the parlour, so that one listening intently +could be more or less aware of what was going on in the larger room. Here +Morrell was already seated, a bottle of beer next his hand. He raised his +eyebrows on her entrance, and she nodded back reassuringly. She, too, sat +down and helped herself to beer. Both smoked. For a long time neither said +anything. + +"Don't hear much in there," observed Mrs. Morrell finally, in a low guarded +tone. + +"Not a sound," agreed Morrell. "You don't suppose she--" + +"No, I don't think so." + +"Then I don't see what ails that fool, Sansome! It'd be just like him to +jib." + +"What does it matter?" observed Mrs. Morrell philosophically, "We don't +care what is happening inside as long as those two doors stay locked until +Teeny and Jimmy Ware get here." + +As has been mentioned, Pop McFarlane was also of the party; but, +characteristically, neither would have thought that fact worth mentioning. + +"Just the same, as a matter of academic interest, I'd have expected her to +make more of a row," said Morrell. "I'll wager for all her airs she runs +the same gait as all the rest of you." + +"Do you mean me?" demanded Mrs. Morrell, her eyes flashing dangerously. + +"Moderate your voice, my dear," advised he. "My remark was wholly general +of your charming sex." + +From the parlour now they heard faintly the first sounds of struggle. + +"That's more like," he said with satisfaction. "I hate to have my ideals +shattered." + +Wheels became audible. + +"There's Teeny, now," he observed, arising. He sauntered down the hall and +looked out. "Keith!" he whispered back over his shoulder. "Where in hell +did he come from?" He continued to peer into the darkness. "There's two +others. Well, at any rate, we have plenty of witnesses!" He turned to Mrs. +Morrell. "You'd better make yourself scarce. You locked that door, you +know!" + +"Scarce!" she repeated, staring at him. "Where? How?" + +He looked at her through narrowed lids. + +"Get a horse of Jake," he said at last. "I'll meet you--oh, at the house. +We'll arrange later." + +He watched her rather opulent figure steal down the dim hallway. A cynical +smile flashed under his moustache. He turned back to the drama before him. +The buggy had disappeared; the veranda was apparently empty. + +"Now I wonder who will shoot who?" speculated Morrell. + +He stole to the first of the windows. The lower blinds were drawn, but the +upper half of the window was clear. Morrell cautiously placed a stool +nearby, and mounted it so he could see into the room. For several minutes +he watched. Then his hand stole to his pocket. He produced a revolver. + + + + +LXXVI + + +Blinded by the light, Keith stood for a barely appreciable moment in the +wrecked doorway. Sansome, startled by the crash, relaxed his efforts. Nan +thrust him from her so strongly that he staggered back. Keith's vision +cleared. He appreciated the meaning of the tableau, uttered a choked growl, +and advanced. + +Immediately Sansome drew and presented his weapon. He was shocked far +toward sobriety, but the residue of the whiskey fumes in combination with a +sudden sick and guilty panic imbued him with a sort of desperation. Sansome +was a bold and dashing villain only as long as things came his way. His +amours had always been of the safe rather than the wildly adventurous sort. +Sansome had no morals; but being found out produced effects so closely +resembling those of conscience that they could not be distinguished. In the +chaotic collapse of this heroic episode he managed to cling to but one +thing. That was Morrell's often reiterated warning: "Don't let Keith get +his hands on you!" + +At the sight of his levelled weapon, Nan, who was nearest, uttered a +stifled cry and made as though to throw herself on him. + +"Stop!" commanded Keith, without looking toward her. But so quietly +authoritative was his voice and manner that in spite of herself her impulse +was checked. She remained rigid. + +Keith advanced steadily on Sansome, his hands clenched at his side, his +eye's fixed frowningly and contemptuously on those of the other man. The +pistol barrel was held on his breast. Sansome fully intended to shoot, but +found himself unable to pull the trigger. This is a condition every +rifleman knows well by experience; he calls it being "frozen on the bull's +eye," when, the alignment perfect, his rifle steady as a rock, he +nevertheless cannot transmit just the little nerve power necessary to crook +the forefinger. Three times Sansome sent the message to his trigger finger; +three times the impulse died before it had compassed the distance between +his brain and his hand. This was partly because his correlations had been +weakened by the drink; partly because his fuddled mind was divided between +fear, guilt, despair, and a rage at himself for having got into such a +mess; but principally because he was hypnotically dominated by the other +man's stronger personality. + +So evident was this that a sudden feeling of confidence replaced in Nan the +sick terror at the sight of the weapon. She seemed to know positively that +here was no real peril. A wave of contempt for Sansome, even as a dangerous +creature, mingled with a passionate admiration for the man who thus +dominated him unarmed. + +Sansome's nerve broke. He dropped his hand, looked to right and left +frantically like a rat in a corner, uttered a very ratty squeak. Suddenly +he hurled the loaded pistol blindly at Keith, and plunged bodily, with an +immense crash of breaking glass, through the closed window. Keith, with a +snarl of baffled rage, dashed forward. + +The sight seemed to touch Nan's sense of humour. She laughed at the +picture, caught her breath, gasped. Keith whirled and snatched her fiercely +in his arms. + +"Nan!" he cried in an agony, "are you all right? What did that beast--" + +She clung to him, still choking, on the edge of hysterics. In a moment of +illumination she realized that the intangible barrier these past years had +so slowly built between them had gone crashing down before the assault of +the old love triumphant. + +"I'm all right, dear," she gasped; "really all right. And I never was so +happy in my life!" + +They clung together frantically, he patting her shoulder, her cheek against +his own, murmuring broken, soothing little phrases. The time and the place +did not exist for them. + +A scuffle outside, which they had only vaguely sensed, and which had not at +all penetrated to their understandings, came to an end. Mrs. Sherwood +appeared in the doorway. Her dress was torn and dishevelled, a strand of +her smooth hair had fallen across her forehead, an angry red mark showed on +one cheek. But she was in high spirits. Her customary quiet poise had given +place to a vibrant, birdlike, vital, quivering eagerness. To the two in the +centre of the room, still clasped in each other's arms, came the same +thought: that never, in spite of her ruffled plumes, in spite of the cheek +already beginning to swell, had this extraordinary woman looked so +beautiful! Then Keith realized that she was panting heavily, and was +clinging to the doorway. He sprang to her assistance. + +"What is it? Where is Krafft?" he asked. + +She laughed a little, and permitted him to help her to an armchair into +which she sank. She waved aside Keith's attempts to find a whole glass in +the wreckage of the table. + +"I'm all right," she said, "and isn't this a nice little party?" + +"What has happened? Where is Krafft?" repeated Keith. + +"I sent him to the stable for help. There didn't seem to be anybody about +the place." + +"But what happened to you? Did that brute Sansome--" + +"Sansome? was that Sansome? the one who came through the window?" She +dabbed at her cheek. "You might wet me a handkerchief or a towel or +something," she suggested. "No, he didn't stop!" she laughed again. "Are +you all right?" she asked anxiously of Nan. + +"Yes. But tell us--" + +"Well, children, I was waiting on the veranda, obeying orders like a good +girl, when, in the dim light I saw a man mount a stool and look into the +room. He was very much interested. I crept up quite close to him without +his knowing it. I heard him mutter to himself something about a 'weak kneed +fool.' Then he drew a revolver. He looked quite determined and heroic"--she +giggled reminiscently--"so I kicked the stool out from under him! About +that time there was a most terrific crash, and somebody came out through +the window." + +"But your cheek, your hair--" + +"I tried to hold him, but he was too strong for me. He hit me in the face, +wrenched himself free, and ran. That was all; except that he dropped the +pistol, and I'm going to keep it as a trophy." + +Keith was looking at her, deep in thought. + +"I don't understand," he said slowly. "Who could it have been?" + +Mrs. Sherwood shook her head. + +"Somebody about to shoot a pistol; that's all I know. I couldn't see his +face." + +"Whoever it was, you saved one or both of us," said Keith, "there's no +doubt in my mind of that. Let's see the pistol." + +It proved to be one of the smaller Colt's models, about 31 calibre, cap and +ball, silver plated, with polished rosewood handles, and heavily engraved +with scrollwork. Turning it over, Keith finally discovered on the bottom of +the butt frame two letters scratched rudely, apparently with the point of a +knife. He took it closer to the light. + +"I have it," said he. "Here are the letters C.M." + +"Charles Morrell!" cried both women in a breath. + +At this moment appeared Krafft, somewhat out of wind, followed by the surly +and reluctant proprietor from whom the place took its name. Jake had been +liberally paid to keep himself and his staff out of the way. Now finding +that he was not wanted, he promptly disappeared. + +"Let's get to the bottom of this thing," said Keith decisively. "If those +are really meant for Morrell's initials, what was he doing here?" + +"Mrs. Morrell came out with me," put in Nan. + +"Jake told me there was to be a supper party later," said Krafft. + +"It's clear enough," contributed Mrs. Sherwood. "The whole thing is a plot +to murder or do worse. I've been through '50 and '51, and I know." + +"I can't believe yet that Sansome--" said Keith doubtfully. + +"Oh, Sansome is merely a tool, I don't doubt," replied Mrs. Sherwood. + +"I can find out to-morrow from Mex Ryan who sent the note," said Krafft. + +"Let's get out of this horrible place!" cried Nan with a convulsive shiver. + +Again they had great difficulty in finding any one to get their rigs, but +finally repeated calls brought the hostler and Jake himself. The latter +made some growl about payment for the entertainment, but at this Keith +turned on him with such concentrated fury that he muttered something and +slouched away. It was agreed that Krafft should conduct Mrs. Sherwood. They +clambered into the two buggies and drove away. + + + + +LXXVII + + +The horse plodded slowly down the gravelled drive of the road house and +turned into the main highway. It was very dark on earth, and very bright in +the heavens. The afternoon fog had cleared away, dissipated in the warm air +from the sand hills, for the day had been hot. Overhead flared thousands of +stars, throwing the world small. Nan, shivering in reaction, nestled +against her husband. He drew her close. She rested her cheek against his +shoulder and sighed happily. Neither spoke. + +At first Keith's whole being was filled with rage. His mind whirled with +plans for revenge. On the morrow he would hunt down Morrell and Sansome. At +the thought of what he would do to them, his teeth clamped and his muscles +stiffened. Then he became wholly preoccupied with Nan's narrow escape. His +quick mind visualized a hundred possibilities--suppose he had gone on +Durkee's expedition? Suppose Mex Ryan had not happened to remember his +name? Suppose Mrs. Sherwood and Krafft had not found him? Suppose they had +been an hour later? Suppose--He leaned over tenderly to draw the lap robe +closer about her. She had stopped shivering and was nestling contentedly +against him. + +But gradually the storm in Keith's soul fell. The great and solemn night +stood over against his vision, and at last he could not but look. The +splendour of the magnificent skies, the dreamy peace of the velvet-black +earth lying supine like a weary creature at rest--these two simple +infinities of space and of promise took him to themselves. An eager glad +chorus of frogs came from some invisible pool. The slithering sound of the +sand dividing before the buggy wheels whispered. Every once in a while the +plodding horse sighed deeply. + +With the warm cozy feel of the woman, his woman, in the hollow of his arm, +his spirit stilled and uplifted by the simple yet august and eternal things +before him, Keith fell into inchoate rumination. The fever of activity in +the city, the clash of men's interests, greeds, and passions, the tumult +and striving, the sweat and dust of the arena fell to nothing about his +feet. He cleared his vision of the small necessary unessentials, and stared +forth wide-eyed at the big simplicities of life--truth as one sees it, +loyalty to one's ideal, charity toward one's beaten enemy, a steadfast +front toward one's unbeaten enemy, scorn of pettiness, to be unafraid. +Unless the struggle is for and by these things, it is useless, meaningless. +And one's possessions--Keith's left arm tightened convulsively. He had come +near to losing the only possession worth while. At the pressure Nan stirred +sleepily. + +"Are we there, dear?" she inquired, raising her head. + +Keith had reined in the horse, and was peering into the surrounding +darkness. He laughed. + +"No, we seem to be here," he replied, "And I'm blest if I know where 'here' +is! I've been day-dreaming!" + +"I believe I've been asleep," confessed Nan. + +They both stared about them, but could discern nothing familiar in the dim +outlines of the hills. Not a light flickered. + +"Perhaps if you'd give the horse his head, he'd take us home. I've heard, +they would," suggested Nan. + +"He's had his head completely for the last two hours. That theory is +exploded. We must have turned wrong after leaving Jake's Place." + +"Well, we're on a road. It must go somewhere." + +Keith, with some difficulty, managed to awaken the horse. It sighed and +resumed its plodding. + +"I'm afraid we're lost," confessed Keith. + +"I don't much care," confessed Nan. + +"He seems to be a perfectly safe horse," said he. + +By way of answer to this she passed her arms gently about his neck and bent +his lips to hers. The horse immediately stopped. + +"Seems a fairly intelligent brute, too," observed Keith, after a few +moments. + +"Did you ever see so many stars?" said she. + +The buggy moved slowly, on through the night. They did not talk. +Explanations and narrative could wait until the morrow--a distant morrow +only dimly foreseen, across this vast ocean of night. All sense of tune or +direction left them; they were wandering irresponsibly, without thought of +why, as children wander and get lost. After a long time they saw a silver +gleam far ahead and below them. + +"That must be the bay," said Keith. "If we turn to the right we ought to +get back to town." + +"I suppose so," said Nan. + +A very long time later the horse stopped short with an air of finality, and +refused absolutely to proceed. Keith descended to see what was the matter. + +"The road seems to end here," he told her. "There's a steep descent just +ahead." + +"What now?" + +"Nothing," he replied, climbing back into the buggy. + +The horse slumbered profoundly. They wrapped the lap robe around +themselves. For a tune they whispered little half-forgotten things to each +other. The pauses grew longer and longer. With an effort she roused herself +to press her lips again to his. They, too, slept. And as dawn slowly +lighted the world, they must have presented a strange and bizarre +silhouette atop the hill against the paling sky--the old sagging buggy, the +horse with head down and ears adroop, the lovers clasped in each other's +arms. + +Silently all about them the new day was preparing its great spectacle. The +stars were growing dim; the masses of eastern hills were becoming visible. +A full rich life was swelling through the world, quietly, stealthily, as +though under cover of darkness multitudes were stealing to their posts. +Shortly, when the signal was given, the curtain would roll up, the fanfare +of trumpets would resound--A meadow lark chirped low out of the blackness. +And another, boldly, with full throat, uttered its liquid, joyous song. +This was apparently the signal. The east turned gray. Mt. Tamalpais caught +the first ghostly light. And ecstatically the birds and the insects and the +flying and crawling and creeping things awakened, and each in his own voice +and manner devoutly welcomed the brand-new day with its fresh, clean +chances of life and its forgetfulness of old, disagreeable things. The +meadow larks became hundreds, the song sparrows trilled, distant cocks +crowed, and a dog barked exuberantly far away. + +Keith stirred and looked about him. Objects were already becoming dimly +visible. Suddenly something attracted his attention. He held his head +sideways, listening. Faintly down the little land breeze came the sound of +a bell. It was the Vigilante tocsin. Nan sat up, blinking and putting her +hair back from her eyes. She laughed a little happily. + +"Why, it's the dawn!" she cried, "We've been out all night!" + +"The dawn," repeated Keith, his arm about her, but his ear attuned to the +beat of the distant bell. "The gray dawn of better things." + + + + +LXXVIII + + +As the Keiths, on the way, drove across what is now Harbour View, they +stopped to watch a bark standing out through the Golden Gate before the +gentle morning land breeze. She made a pretty sight, for the new-risen sun +whitened her sails. Aboard her was the arch-plotter, Morrell. Had they +known of that fact, it is to be doubted whether they would have felt any +great disappointment over his escape, or any deep animosity at all. The +outcome of his efforts had been clarifying. The bark was bound for the +Sandwich Islands. Morrell's dispositions for flight at a moment's notice +had been made long since; in fact, since the first days of Vigilante +activity. He lingered in the islands for some years, at first cutting quite +a dash; then, as his money dwindled and his schemes failed, he degenerated +slowly. His latter end was probably as a small copra trader in the South +Seas; but that is unknown. Mrs. Morrell--if indeed she was the man's legal +wife at all--thus frankly abandoned, put a bold front on the whole matter. +She returned to her house. As the Keiths in no manner molested her, she +took heart. With no resources other than heavily mortgaged real property, +she found herself forced to do something for a living. In the course of +events we see Mrs. Morrell keeping a flashy boarding-house, hanging +precariously on the outer fringe of the lax society of the times, frowned +upon by the respectable, but more or less sought by the fast men and young +girls only too numerous among the idle of that day. + +Ben Sansome went south. For twenty years he lived in Los Angeles, where he +cut a figure, but from which he always cast longing eyes back upon San +Francisco. He had a furtive lookout for arrivals from the north. One day, +however, he came face to face with Keith. As the latter did not annihilate +him on the spot, Sansome plucked up courage. He returned to San Francisco, +There in time he attained a position dear to his heart; he became an "old +beau," frequenting the teas and balls, appraising the debutantes, giving +his opinion on vintage wines, leading a comfortable, idle, selfish, +useless, graceful life. His only discomfort was his occasional encounters +with the Keiths. Mrs. Keith never distinguished him from thin air unless +others were present. Keith had always in his eye a gleam of contempt which, +perhaps, Sansome acknowledged, was natural; but it was a contempt with a +dash of amusement in it, and that galled. Still--Ben was satisfied. He +gained the distinction of having discovered the epicurean value of sand- +dabs. + +The Sherwoods founded the family of that name. + +Terry, arrested for the stabbing of Hopkins, was at first very humble, +promising to resign his Supreme Court Judgeship. As time went on he became +arrogant. The Committee of Vigilance was rather at a loss. If Hopkins died, +they could do no less than hang Terry: and they realized fully that in +executing a Justice of the Supreme Court they were entering deep waters. To +the relief of everybody Hopkins fully recovered. After being held closely +in custody, Terry was finally released, with a resolution that he be +declared unfit for office. Once free, however, he revised his intention of +resigning. His subsequent career proved as lawless and undisciplined as its +earlier promise. Finally he was killed while in the act of attempting to +assassinate Justice Stephen Field, an old, weak, helpless, and unarmed man. +If Terry holds any significance in history, it is that of being the +strongest factor in the complete wrecking of the Law and Order party! + +For with the capture of the arsenals, and all their arms, open opposition +to the Committee of Vigilance came to an end. The Executive Committee +continued its work. Numberless malefactors and suspects were banished; two +more men, Hetherington and Brace, were solemnly hanged. On the 8th. of +August the cells were practically empty. It was determined to disband on +the 21st. + +That ceremony was signalized by a parade on the 18th. Four regiments of +infantry, two squadrons of cavalry, a battalion of riflemen, a battalion of +pistol men, and a battalion of police were in line. The entire city turned +out to cheer. + +As for the effects of this movement, the reader must be referred to the +historians. It is sufficient to say that for years San Francisco enjoyed a +model government and almost complete immunity from crime. + +One evening about twilight two men stood in the gathering shadows of the +Plaza. They were old friends, but had in times of stress stood on opposite +sides. The elder man shook his head skeptically. + +"That is all very well," said he, "but where are your Vigilantes now?" + +The other raised his hand toward the great bell of the Monumental +silhouetted against the afterglow in the sky. + +"Toll that bell, sir, and you will see!" replied Coleman solemnly. + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Gray Dawn, by Stewart Edward White + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE GRAY DAWN *** + +This file should be named 7gdwn10.txt or 7gdwn10.zip +Corrected EDITIONS of our eBooks get a new NUMBER, 7gdwn11.txt +VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, 7gdwn10a.txt + +Produced by C. Aldarondo, T. Vergon, J. Fairbanks +and Online Distributed Proofreaders + +Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US +unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we usually do not +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + +We are now trying to release all our eBooks one year in advance +of the official release dates, leaving time for better editing. +Please be encouraged to tell us about any error or corrections, +even years after the official publication date. + +Please note neither this listing nor its contents are final til +midnight of the last day of the month of any such announcement. +The official release date of all Project Gutenberg eBooks is at +Midnight, Central Time, of the last day of the stated month. A +preliminary version may often be posted for suggestion, comment +and editing by those who wish to do so. + +Most people start at our Web sites at: +http://gutenberg.net or +http://promo.net/pg + +These Web sites include award-winning information about Project +Gutenberg, including how to donate, how to help produce our new +eBooks, and how to subscribe to our email newsletter (free!). + + +Those of you who want to download any eBook before announcement +can get to them as follows, and just download by date. This is +also a good way to get them instantly upon announcement, as the +indexes our cataloguers produce obviously take a while after an +announcement goes out in the Project Gutenberg Newsletter. + +http://www.ibiblio.org/gutenberg/etext03 or +ftp://ftp.ibiblio.org/pub/docs/books/gutenberg/etext03 + +Or /etext02, 01, 00, 99, 98, 97, 96, 95, 94, 93, 92, 92, 91 or 90 + +Just search by the first five letters of the filename you want, +as it appears in our Newsletters. + + +Information about Project Gutenberg (one page) + +We produce about two million dollars for each hour we work. The +time it takes us, a rather conservative estimate, is fifty hours +to get any eBook selected, entered, proofread, edited, copyright +searched and analyzed, the copyright letters written, etc. Our +projected audience is one hundred million readers. If the value +per text is nominally estimated at one dollar then we produce $2 +million dollars per hour in 2002 as we release over 100 new text +files per month: 1240 more eBooks in 2001 for a total of 4000+ +We are already on our way to trying for 2000 more eBooks in 2002 +If they reach just 1-2% of the world's population then the total +will reach over half a trillion eBooks given away by year's end. + +The Goal of Project Gutenberg is to Give Away 1 Trillion eBooks! +This is ten thousand titles each to one hundred million readers, +which is only about 4% of the present number of computer users. + +Here is the briefest record of our progress (* means estimated): + +eBooks Year Month + + 1 1971 July + 10 1991 January + 100 1994 January + 1000 1997 August + 1500 1998 October + 2000 1999 December + 2500 2000 December + 3000 2001 November + 4000 2001 October/November + 6000 2002 December* + 9000 2003 November* +10000 2004 January* + + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation has been created +to secure a future for Project Gutenberg into the next millennium. + +We need your donations more than ever! + +As of February, 2002, contributions are being solicited from people +and organizations in: Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Connecticut, +Delaware, District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois, +Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Massachusetts, +Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New +Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, +Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South +Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, West +Virginia, Wisconsin, and Wyoming. + +We have filed in all 50 states now, but these are the only ones +that have responded. + +As the requirements for other states are met, additions to this list +will be made and fund raising will begin in the additional states. +Please feel free to ask to check the status of your state. + +In answer to various questions we have received on this: + +We are constantly working on finishing the paperwork to legally +request donations in all 50 states. If your state is not listed and +you would like to know if we have added it since the list you have, +just ask. + +While we cannot solicit donations from people in states where we are +not yet registered, we know of no prohibition against accepting +donations from donors in these states who approach us with an offer to +donate. + +International donations are accepted, but we don't know ANYTHING about +how to make them tax-deductible, or even if they CAN be made +deductible, and don't have the staff to handle it even if there are +ways. + +Donations by check or money order may be sent to: + +Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation +PMB 113 +1739 University Ave. +Oxford, MS 38655-4109 + +Contact us if you want to arrange for a wire transfer or payment +method other than by check or money order. + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation has been approved by +the US Internal Revenue Service as a 501(c)(3) organization with EIN +[Employee Identification Number] 64-622154. Donations are +tax-deductible to the maximum extent permitted by law. As fund-raising +requirements for other states are met, additions to this list will be +made and fund-raising will begin in the additional states. + +We need your donations more than ever! + +You can get up to date donation information online at: + +http://www.gutenberg.net/donation.html + + +*** + +If you can't reach Project Gutenberg, +you can always email directly to: + +Michael S. Hart <hart@pobox.com> + +Prof. Hart will answer or forward your message. + +We would prefer to send you information by email. + + +**The Legal Small Print** + + +(Three Pages) + +***START**THE SMALL PRINT!**FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN EBOOKS**START*** +Why is this "Small Print!" statement here? You know: lawyers. +They tell us you might sue us if there is something wrong with +your copy of this eBook, even if you got it for free from +someone other than us, and even if what's wrong is not our +fault. So, among other things, this "Small Print!" statement +disclaims most of our liability to you. It also tells you how +you may distribute copies of this eBook if you want to. + +*BEFORE!* YOU USE OR READ THIS EBOOK +By using or reading any part of this PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm +eBook, you indicate that you understand, agree to and accept +this "Small Print!" statement. If you do not, you can receive +a refund of the money (if any) you paid for this eBook by +sending a request within 30 days of receiving it to the person +you got it from. If you received this eBook on a physical +medium (such as a disk), you must return it with your request. + +ABOUT PROJECT GUTENBERG-TM EBOOKS +This PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm eBook, like most PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm eBooks, +is a "public domain" work distributed by Professor Michael S. Hart +through the Project Gutenberg Association (the "Project"). +Among other things, this means that no one owns a United States copyright +on or for this work, so the Project (and you!) can copy and +distribute it in the United States without permission and +without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, set forth +below, apply if you wish to copy and distribute this eBook +under the "PROJECT GUTENBERG" trademark. + +Please do not use the "PROJECT GUTENBERG" trademark to market +any commercial products without permission. + +To create these eBooks, the Project expends considerable +efforts to identify, transcribe and proofread public domain +works. Despite these efforts, the Project's eBooks and any +medium they may be on may contain "Defects". Among other +things, Defects may take the form of incomplete, inaccurate or +corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other +intellectual property infringement, a defective or damaged +disk or other eBook medium, a computer virus, or computer +codes that damage or cannot be read by your equipment. + +LIMITED WARRANTY; DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES +But for the "Right of Replacement or Refund" described below, +[1] Michael Hart and the Foundation (and any other party you may +receive this eBook from as a PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm eBook) disclaims +all liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including +legal fees, and [2] YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE OR +UNDER STRICT LIABILITY, OR FOR BREACH OF WARRANTY OR CONTRACT, +INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE +OR INCIDENTAL DAMAGES, EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE +POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES. + +If you discover a Defect in this eBook within 90 days of +receiving it, you can receive a refund of the money (if any) +you paid for it by sending an explanatory note within that +time to the person you received it from. If you received it +on a physical medium, you must return it with your note, and +such person may choose to alternatively give you a replacement +copy. If you received it electronically, such person may +choose to alternatively give you a second opportunity to +receive it electronically. + +THIS EBOOK IS OTHERWISE PROVIDED TO YOU "AS-IS". NO OTHER +WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, ARE MADE TO YOU AS +TO THE EBOOK OR ANY MEDIUM IT MAY BE ON, INCLUDING BUT NOT +LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A +PARTICULAR PURPOSE. + +Some states do not allow disclaimers of implied warranties or +the exclusion or limitation of consequential damages, so the +above disclaimers and exclusions may not apply to you, and you +may have other legal rights. + +INDEMNITY +You will indemnify and hold Michael Hart, the Foundation, +and its trustees and agents, and any volunteers associated +with the production and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm +texts harmless, from all liability, cost and expense, including +legal fees, that arise directly or indirectly from any of the +following that you do or cause: [1] distribution of this eBook, +[2] alteration, modification, or addition to the eBook, +or [3] any Defect. + +DISTRIBUTION UNDER "PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm" +You may distribute copies of this eBook electronically, or by +disk, book or any other medium if you either delete this +"Small Print!" and all other references to Project Gutenberg, +or: + +[1] Only give exact copies of it. Among other things, this + requires that you do not remove, alter or modify the + eBook or this "small print!" statement. You may however, + if you wish, distribute this eBook in machine readable + binary, compressed, mark-up, or proprietary form, + including any form resulting from conversion by word + processing or hypertext software, but only so long as + *EITHER*: + + [*] The eBook, when displayed, is clearly readable, and + does *not* contain characters other than those + intended by the author of the work, although tilde + (~), asterisk (*) and underline (_) characters may + be used to convey punctuation intended by the + author, and additional characters may be used to + indicate hypertext links; OR + + [*] The eBook may be readily converted by the reader at + no expense into plain ASCII, EBCDIC or equivalent + form by the program that displays the eBook (as is + the case, for instance, with most word processors); + OR + + [*] You provide, or agree to also provide on request at + no additional cost, fee or expense, a copy of the + eBook in its original plain ASCII form (or in EBCDIC + or other equivalent proprietary form). + +[2] Honor the eBook refund and replacement provisions of this + "Small Print!" statement. + +[3] Pay a trademark license fee to the Foundation of 20% of the + gross profits you derive calculated using the method you + already use to calculate your applicable taxes. If you + don't derive profits, no royalty is due. Royalties are + payable to "Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation" + the 60 days following each date you prepare (or were + legally required to prepare) your annual (or equivalent + periodic) tax return. Please contact us beforehand to + let us know your plans and to work out the details. + +WHAT IF YOU *WANT* TO SEND MONEY EVEN IF YOU DON'T HAVE TO? +Project Gutenberg is dedicated to increasing the number of +public domain and licensed works that can be freely distributed +in machine readable form. + +The Project gratefully accepts contributions of money, time, +public domain materials, or royalty free copyright licenses. +Money should be paid to the: +"Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation." + +If you are interested in contributing scanning equipment or +software or other items, please contact Michael Hart at: +hart@pobox.com + +[Portions of this eBook's header and trailer may be reprinted only +when distributed free of all fees. Copyright (C) 2001, 2002 by +Michael S. Hart. Project Gutenberg is a TradeMark and may not be +used in any sales of Project Gutenberg eBooks or other materials be +they hardware or software or any other related product without +express permission.] + +*END THE SMALL PRINT! FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN EBOOKS*Ver.02/11/02*END* + diff --git a/old/7gdwn10.zip b/old/7gdwn10.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..f4f34c6 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/7gdwn10.zip diff --git a/old/8gdwn10.txt b/old/8gdwn10.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..0dfc4ed --- /dev/null +++ b/old/8gdwn10.txt @@ -0,0 +1,14411 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Gray Dawn, by Stewart Edward White + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the +copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing +this or any other Project Gutenberg eBook. + +This header should be the first thing seen when viewing this Project +Gutenberg file. Please do not remove it. Do not change or edit the +header without written permission. + +Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the +eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file. Included is +important information about your specific rights and restrictions in +how the file may be used. You can also find out about how to make a +donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!***** + + +Title: The Gray Dawn + +Author: Stewart Edward White + +Release Date: October, 2005 [EBook #9149] +[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule] +[This file was first posted on September 8, 2003] + +Edition: 10 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE GRAY DAWN *** + + + + +Produced by C. Aldarondo, T. Vergon, J. Fairbanks +and Online Distributed Proofreaders + + + + +THE GREY DAWN + +BY + +STEWART EDWARD WHITE + + +Illustrated by +Thomas Fogarty + +ILLUSTRATIONS + +They moved away, leaving Mrs. Morrell alone, biting her lips and planning +revenges + +King listened to him in silence + +"Look here, don't try to come that rot. I said, get out--and I mean it!" + +"Call all you please," he sneered. "Nobody's going to pay any attention to +your calls at Jake's Place!" + +OTHER BOOKS BY THE SAME AUTHOR + + +THE CLAIM JUMPERS +THE WESTERNERS +THE BLAZED TRAIL +ARIZONA NIGHTS +BLAZED TRAIL STORIES +THE CABIN +CAMP AND TRAIL +CONJUROR'S HOUSE +THE FOREST +THE SIGN AT SIX +THE RULES OF THE GAME + +THE RIVERMAN +THE SILENT PLACES +THE ADVENTURES OF BOBBY ORDE +THE MOUNTAINS +THE PASS +THE MAGIC FOREST +THE LAND OF FOOTPRINTS +AFRICAN CAMP FIRES +THE REDISCOVERED COUNTRY +GOLD +THE MYSTERY + (With Samuel Hopkins Adams) + + +THE GRAY DAWN + + +PRINCIPAL CHARACTERS IN TALE + +MILTON KEITH: a young lawyer from Baltimore. +NAN KEITH: his wife. +JOHN SHERWOOD: a gambler. +PATSY SHERWOOD: his wife. +ARTHUR MORRELL: an English adventurer. +MIMI MORRELL: his wife or mistress. +BEN SANSOME: a lady-killer, destined to become an "old beau." +W. T. COLEMAN, or "old Vigilante," a leader. +DAVID TERRY: a leader on the other side. +JAMES KING OF WILLIAM: a modern Crusader. +THE SPIRIT OF SAN FRANCISCO + AND OTHERS + + + + +I + + +On the veranda of the Bella Union Hotel, San Francisco, a man sat enjoying +his morning pipe. The Bella Union overlooked the Plaza of that day, a +dusty, unkempt, open space, later to be swept and graded and dignified into +Portsmouth Square. The man was at the younger fringe of middle life. He was +dressed neatly and carefully in the fashionable costume of the time, which +was the year of grace 1852. As to countenance, he was square and solid; as +to physique, he was the same; as to expression, he inclined toward the +quietly humorous; in general he would strike the observer as deliberately, +philosophically competent. A large pair of steelbound spectacles sat +halfway down his nose. Sometimes he read his paper through their lenses; +and sometimes, forgetting, he read over the tops of their bows. The +newspaper he held was an extraordinary document. It consisted of four large +pages. The outside page was filled solidly with short eight or ten line +advertisements; the second page grudgingly vouchsafed a single column of +news items; the third page warmed to a column of editorial and another of +news; all the rest of the space on these and the entire fourth page was +again crowded close with the short advertisements. They told of the arrival +of ships, the consignment of goods, the movements of real estate, the sales +of stock, but mainly of auctions. The man paid little attention to the +scanty news, and none at all to the editorials. His name was John Sherwood, +and he was a powerful and respected public gambler. + +The approach across the Plaza of a group of men caused him to lay aside his +paper, and with it his spectacles. The doffing of the latter strangely +changed his whole expression. The philosophical middle-aged quietude fell +from him. He became younger, keener, more alert. It was as though he had +removed a disguise. + +The group approaching were all young men, and all dressed in the height of +fashion. At that rather picturesque time this implied the flat-brimmed +beaver hat; the long swallowtail, or skirted coat; the tight "pantaloons"; +varicoloured, splendid, low-cut waistcoats of satin, of velvet, or of +brocade; high wing collars; varnished boots; many sparkling, studs and +cravat pins; rather longish hair; and whiskers cut close to the cheek or +curling luxuriantly under the chin. They were prosperous, well-fed, +arrogant-looking youths, carrying their crests high, the light of questing +recklessness in their eyes, ready to laugh, drink, or fight with anybody. +At sight of Sherwood they waved friendly hands, and canes, and veered in +his direction. + +"Yo're just the man we are looking for!" cried a tall, dark, graceful young +fellow, "We are all 'specially needful of wisdom. The drinks are on some +one, and we cain't decide who." + +John Sherwood, his keen eyes twinkling, set his chair down on four legs. + +"State your case, Cal," he said. + +Cal waved a graceful hand at a stout, burly, red-faced man whose thick +blunt fingers, square blue jowl, and tilted cigar gave the flavour of the +professional politician. "John Webb, here-excuse _me_, Sheriff John Webb- +presumin' on the fact that he has been to the mines, and that he came here +in '49, arrogates to himself the exclusive lyin' privileges, of this +assemblage." + +"Pretty large order," commented Sherwood. + +"_Pre_cisely," agreed Cal, "and that's why the drinks are on him!" + +But Sheriff Webb, who had been chuckling cavernously inside his bulky +frame, spoke up in a harsh and husky voice: "I told them an innocent +experience of mine, and they try to hold me up for drinks. I don't object +to giving them a reasonable amount of drinks--what _I_ call reasonable," he +added hastily, "but I object to being held up." + +"He says he used to cook," put in a small, alert, nervous, rather flashily +dressed individual named Rowlee, editor of the _Bugle_. + +"I did!" stoutly asseverated Webb. + +"And that he baked a loaf of bread so hard nobody could eat it." + +"Sounds perfectly reasonable," said Sherwood. + +"And that nobody could _break_ it," Rowlee went on. + +"I have no difficulty in believing that," said Sherwood judicially. "Your +case is mighty weak yet, Cal." + +"But he claims it was so hard that they used it for a grindstone." + +"I did not!" disclaimed Webb indignantly. + +An accusing groan met this statement. + +"I tell you I didn't say anything of the kind," roared Webb, his bull voice +overtopping them all. + +"Well, what did you say, then?" challenged Calhoun Bennett. + +"I said we tried to use her as a grindstone," said Webb, "but it didn't +work." + +"Weak case, boys; weak case," said Sherwood. + +The little group, their eyes wide, their nostrils distended, waited +accusingly for Webb to proceed. After an interval, the sheriff, staring +critically at the lighted end of his cigar, went on in a drawling voice: + +"Yes, we, couldn't get a hole through her to hang her axle on. We blunted +all our drills. Every Sunday we'd try a new scheme. Finally we laid her +flat under a tree and rigged a lightnin' rod down to the centre of her. No +use. She tore that lightning all to pieces." + +He looked up at them with a limpid, innocent eye, to catch John Sherwood +gazing at him accusingly. + +"John Webb," said he "you forget that I came out here in, '48. On your +honour, do you expect _me_ to believe that yarn?" + +"Well," said Webb, gazing again at his cigar end, "no--really I don't. The +fact is," he went on with a perfectly solemn air of confidence, "the fact +is, I've lived out here so long and told so many damn lies that now without +some help I don't know when to believe myself." + +"Do we get that drink?" insisted Calhoun Bennett. + +"Oh, Lord, yes, you always get a drink." + +"Well, come on and _get_ it then--you, too, of course, Mr. Sherwood." + +The gambler arose, and began leisurely to fold his paper and to put away +his spectacles. + +"I see you got Mex Ryan off, Cal," he observed. "You either had +extraordinary luck, or you're a mighty fine lawyer. Looked like a clear +case to me. He just naturally went in and beat Rucker half to death in his +own store. How did you do it?" + +"I assure yo' it was no sinecure," laughed the tall, dark youth. "I earned +my fee." + +"Yes," grumbled Webb, "but he got six months--and I got to take care of +him. Cluttering up my jail with dirty beasts like Mex Ryan! Could just as +easy have turned him loose!" + +"That would have been a little too much!" smiled Bennett. "It was takin' +some risk to let him off as easy as we did. It isn't so long since the +Vigilantes." + +"Oh, hell, we can handle that sort of trash now," snorted Webb. + +"Who was backing Mex, anyway?" asked Rowlee curiously. + +"Better ask who had it in for Rucker," suggested the fourth member of the +group, a man who had not heretofore spoken. This was Dick Blatchford, a +round-faced, rather corpulent, rather silent though jovial-looking +individual, with a calculating and humorous eye. He was magnificently +apparelled, but rather untidy. + +"Well, I do ask it," said Rowlee. + +But to this he got no response. + +"Come on, ain't you got that valuable paper folded up yet?" rumbled Webb to +Sherwood. + +They all turned down the high-pillared veranda, toward the bar, talking +idly and facetiously of last night's wine and this morning's head. A door +opened at their very elbow, and in it a woman appeared. + + + + +II + + +She was a slender woman, of medium height, with a small, well-poised head, +on which the hair lay smooth and glossy. Her age was somewhere between +thirty and thirty-five years. A stranger would have been first of all +impressed by the imperious carriage of her head and shoulders, the repose +of her attitude. Become a friend or a longer acquaintance, he would have +noticed more particularly her wide low brow, her steady gray eyes and her +grave but humorous lips. But inevitably he would have gone back at last to +her more general impression. Ben Sansome, the only man in town who did +nothing, made society and dress a profession and the judgment of women a +religion, had long since summed her up: "She carries her head charmingly." + +This poised, wise serenity of carriage was well set off by the costume of +the early fifties--a low collar, above which her neck rose like a flower +stem; flowing sleeves; full skirts with many silken petticoats that +whispered and rustled; low sandalled shoes, their ties crossed and +recrossed around white slender ankles. A cameo locket, hung on a heavy gold +chain, rose and fell with her breast; a cameo brooch pinned together the +folds of her bodice; massive and wide bracelets of gold clasped her wrists +and vastly set off her rounded, slender forearms. + +She stood quite motionless in the doorway, nodding with a little smile in +response to the men's sweeping salutes. + +"You will excuse me gentlemen, I am sure," said Sherwood formally, and +instantly turned aside. + +The woman in the doorway thereupon preceded him down a narrow, bare, +unlighted hallway, opened another door, and entered a room. Sherwood +followed, closing the door after him. + +"Want something, Patsy?" he inquired. + +The room was obviously one of the best of the Bella Union. That is to say, +it was fairly large, the morning sun streamed in through its two windows, +and it contained a small iron stove. In all other respects it differed +quite from any other hotel room in the San Francisco of that time. A heavy +carpet covered the floor, the upholstery was of leather or tapestry, wall +paper adorned the walls, a large table supported a bronze lamp and numerous +books and papers, a canary, in a brass cage, hung in the sunshine of one of +the windows, flitted from perch to perch, occasionally uttering a few +liquid notes under its breath. + +"Just a little change, Jack, if you have some with you," said the woman. +Her speaking voice was rich and low. + +Sherwood thrust a forefinger into his waistcoat pocket, and produced one of +the hexagonal slugs of gold current at that time. + +"Oh, not so much!" she protested. + +"All I've got. What are you up to to-day, Patsy?" + +"I thought of going down to Yet Lee's--unless there is something better to +do." + +"Doesn't sound inspiring. Did you go to that fair or bazaar thing +yesterday?" + +She smiled with her lips, but her eyes darkened. + +"Yes, I went. It was not altogether enjoyable. I doubt if I'll try that +sort of thing again." + +Sherwood's eye suddenly became cold and dangerous. + +"If they didn't treat you right--" + +She smiled, genuinely this time, at his sudden truculence. + +"They didn't mob me," she rejoined equably, "and, anyway, I suppose it is +to be expected." + +"It's that cat of Morrell's," he surmised. + +"Oh, she--and others. I ought not to have spoken of it, Jack. It's really +beneath the contempt of sensible people." + +"I'll get after Morrell, if he doesn't make that woman behave," said +Sherwood, without attention to her last speech. + +She smiled at him again, entirely calm and reasonable. + +"And what good would it do to get after Morrell?" she asked. "Mrs. Morrell +only stands for what most of them feel. I don't care, anyway. I get along +splendidly without them." She sauntered over to the window, where she began +idly to poke one finger at the canary. + +"For the life of me, Patsy," confessed Sherwood, "I can't see that they're +an inspiring lot, anyway. From what little I've seen of them, they haven't +more than an idea apiece. They'd bore me to death in a week." + +"I know that. They'd bore me, too. Don't talk about them. When do they +expect the _Panama_--do you know?" + +But with masculine persistence he refused to abandon the topic. + +"I must confess I don't see the point," he insisted. "You've got more +brains than the whole lot of them together, you've got more sense, you're a +lot better looking"--he surveyed her, standing in the full light by the +canary's cage, her little glossy head thrown back, her pink lips pouted +teasingly at the charmed and agitated bird, her fine clear features +profiled in the gold of the sunshine--"and you're a thoroughbred, egad, +which most of them are not." + +"Oh, thank you, kind sir." She threw him a humourous glance. "But of course +that is not the point." + +"Oh, isn't it? Well, perhaps you'll tell me the point." + +She left the canary and came to face him. + +"I'm not respectable," she said. + +At the word he exploded. + +"Respectable? What are you talking about? You talk as though--as though we +weren't married, egad!" + +"Well, Jack," she replied, a faint mocking smile curving the corners of her +mouth, "when it comes to that, we _did_ elope, you'll have to acknowledge. +And we weren't married for quite a long time afterward." + +"We got married as soon as we could, didn't we?" he cried indignantly. "Was +it our fault that we didn't get married sooner? And what difference did it +make, anyway?" + +"Now don't get all worked up," she chided. "I'm just telling you why, in +the eyes of some of these people, I'm not 'respectable.' You asked me, you +know." + +"Go on," he conceded to this last. + +"Well, we ran away and weren't married. That's item one. Then perhaps +you've forgotten that I sat on lookout for some of your games in the early +days in the mining camps?" + +"Forgotten?" said Sherwood, the light of reminiscence springing to his +eyes. + +The same light had come into hers. + +"Will you _ever_ forget," she murmured, "the camps by the summer streams, +the log towns, the lights, the smoke, the freedom--the comradeship--" + +"Homesick for the old rough days?" he teased. + +"Kind of," she confessed. "But it wasn't 'respectable'--a--well, a _fairly_ +good-looking woman in a miner's saloon." + +He flared again. + +"Do you mean to tell me they dare say--" + +"They dare say anything--behind our backs," she said, with cool contempt. +"It's all drivelling nonsense. I care nothing about it. But you asked me. +Don't bother your head about it. Have you anything to suggest doing this +morning, instead of Yet Lee's?" She turned away from him toward the door +leading into another room. "I'll get my hat," she said over her shoulder. + +"Look here, Patsy," said Sherwood, rather grimly, "if you want to get in +with that lot, you shall." + +She stopped at this, and turned square around. + +"If I do--when I do--I will," she replied. "But, John Sherwood, you mustn't +interfere--never in the world! Promise!" She stood there, almost menacing +in her insistence, evidently resolved to nip this particularly masculine +resolution in the bud. + +"Egad, Patsy," cried Sherwood, "you are certainly a raving beauty!" + +He covered the ground between them in two strides, and crushed her in his +arms. She threw her head back for his kiss. + +A knock sounded, and almost immediately a very black, very bullet-headed +young negro thrust his head in at the door. + +"Sam," said Sherwood deliberately, "some day I'm going to kill you!" + +"Yes, sah! yes, sah!" agreed Sam heartily. + +"Well, what the devil do you want?" + +"Th' _Panama_ done been, signalled; yes, sah!" said the negro, but without +following his head through the door. + +"Well, what the devil do you suppose I care, you black limb?" roared +Sherwood, "and what do you mean coming in here before you're told?" + +"Yes, sah! yes, sah, dat's right," ducked Sam, "Shell I awdah the team, +sah?" + +"I suppose we might as well go see her docked. Would you like it?" he asked +his wife. + +"I'd love it." + +"Then get the team. And some day I'm going to kill you." + + + + +III + + +Mrs. Sherwood prepared herself first of all by powdering her nose. This +simple operation, could it have been seen by the "respectable" members of +the community, would in itself have branded her as "fast," In those days +cosmetics of any sort were by most considered inventions of the devil. It +took extraordinary firmness of character even to protect one's self against +sunburn by anything more artificial than the shadow of a hat or a parasol. +Then she assumed a fascinating little round hat that fitted well down over +her small head. This, innocent of pins, was held on by an elastic at the +back. A ribbon, hanging down directly in front, could be utilized to steady +it in a breeze. + +"All ready," she announced, picking up a tiny parasol, about big enough for +a modern doll. "You may carry my mantle." + +Near the foot of the veranda steps waited Sam at the heads of a pair of +beautiful, slim, satiny horses. Their bay coats had been groomed until they +rippled and sparkled with every movement of the muscles beneath. Wide red- +lined nostrils softly expanded and contracted with a restrained eagerness; +and soft eyes rolled in the direction of the Sherwoods--keen, lithe, +nervous, high-strung creatures, gently stamping little hoofs, impatiently +tossing dainty heads, but nevertheless making no movement that would stir +the vehicle that stood "cramped" at the steps. Their harness carried no +blinders; their tails, undocked, swept the ground; but their heads were +pulled into the air by the old stupid overhead check reins until their +noses pointed almost straight ahead. It gave them rather a haughty air. + +Sherwood stepped in first, took the reins in one hand, and offered his +other hand to his wife. Sam instantly left the horses' heads to hold a +wicker contrivance against the arc of the wheels. This was to protect +skirts from dusty tires. Mrs. Sherwood settled as gracefully to her place +as a butterfly on its flower. Sam snatched away the wicker guards. Sherwood +spoke to the horses. With a purring little snort they moved smoothly away. +The gossamerlike wheels threw the light from their swift spokes. Sam, half +choked by the swirl of dust, gazed after them. Sherwood, leaning slightly +forward against the first eagerness of the animals, showed a strong, +competent, arresting figure, with his beaver hat, his keen grim face, his +snow-white linen, and the blue of his brass-buttoned-coat. The beautiful +horses were stepping as one, a delight to the eye, making nothing whatever +of the frail vehicle at their heels. But Sam's eye lingered longest on the +small stately figure of his mistress. She sat very straight, her head high, +the little parasol poised against the sun, the other hand clasping the hat +ribbon. + +"Dem's quality foh sure!" said Sam with conviction. + +Sherwood drove rapidly around the edge of the Plaza and, so into Kearney +Street. From here to the water front were by now many fireproof brick and +stone structures, with double doors and iron shatters, like fortresses. So +much had San Francisco learned from her five disastrous fires. The stone +had come from China, the brick also from overseas. Down side streets one +caught glimpses of huge warehouses--already in this year of 1852 men talked +of the open-air auctions of three years before as of something in history +inconceivably remote. The streets, where formerly mule teams had literally +been drowned in mud, now were covered with planking. This made a fine +resounding pavement. Horses' hoofs went merrily _klop, klop, klop_, and the +wheels rumbled a dull undertone. San Francisco had been very proud of this +pavement when it was new. She was very grateful for it even now, for in the +upper part of town the mud and dust were still something awful. +Unfortunately the planks were beginning to wear out in places; and a city +government, trying to give the least possible for its taxes, had made no +repairs. + +There were many holes, large or small: jagged, splintered, ugly holes going +down to indeterminate blackness either of depth or mud. Private +philanthropists had fenced or covered these. Private facetiousness had +labelled most of them with signboards. These were rough pictures of +disaster painted from the marking pot, and various screeds--"Head of +Navigation," "No Bottom," "Horse and Dray Lost Here," "Take Soundings," +"Storage, Inquire Below," "Good Fishing for Teal," and the like. + +Among these obstructions Sherwood guided his team skilfully, dodging not +only them, but other vehicles darting or crawling in the same direction. +There were no rules of the road. Omnibuses careered along, every window +rattling loudly; drays creaked and strained, their horses' hoofs slipping +against wet planks; horsemen threaded their way; nondescript delivery +wagons tried to outrattle the omnibuses. The din was something +extraordinary--hoofs drumming, wheels rumbling, oaths and shouts, and from +the sidewalks the blare and bray of brass bands in front of the various +auction shops. Newsboys and bootblacks darted in all directions, shouting +raucously as they do to-day. Cigar boys, an institution of the time, added +to the hubbub. Everybody was going in the same direction, some sauntering +with an air of leisure, some hurrying as though their fortunes were at +stake. + +A wild shriek arose, and everybody made room for the steam sand shovel on +its way to dump the sand hills into the bay. It was called the "steam +paddy" to distinguish it from the "hand paddy"--out of Cork or Dublin. It +rumbled by on its track, very much like juggernaut in its calm indifference +as to how many it ran over. Sherwood's horses looked at it nervously +askance; but he spoke to them, and though they trembled they stood. + +Now they debouched on the Central Wharf, and the sound of the hoofs and the +wheels changed its tone. Central Wharf extended a full mile into the bay. +It was lined on either side its narrow roadway by small shacks, in which +were offered fowls, fish, vegetables, candy, refreshments. Some of them +were tiny saloons or gambling houses. But by far the majority were the +cubicles where the Jewish slop sellers displayed their wares. Men returning +from the mines here landed, and here replenished their wardrobes. +Everything was exposed to view outside, like clothes hung out after a rain. + +The narrow way between this long row of shops was crowded almost +dangerously. Magnificent dray horses, with long hair on the fetlocks above +their big heavy hoofs, bridling in conscious pride of silver-mounted +harness and curled or braided manes, rose above the ruck as their +ancestors, the warhorses, must have risen in medieval battle. The crowd +parted before them and closed in behind them. Here and there, too, a +horseman could be seen--with a little cleared space at his heels. Or a +private calash picking its way circumspectly. + +From her point of vantage on the elevated seat Mrs. Sherwood could see over +the heads of people. She sat very quietly, her body upright, but in the +poised repose characteristic of her. Many admiring glances were directed at +her. She seemed to be unconscious of them. Nevertheless, nothing escaped +her. She saw, and appreciated and enjoyed, every phase of that +heterogeneous crowd--miners in their exaggeratedly rough clothes, brocaded +or cotton clad Chinese, gorgeous Spaniards or Chileńos, drunken men, sober +men, excited men, empty cans or cases kicking around underfoot, frantic +runners for hotels or steamboats trying to push their way by, newsboys and +cigar boys darting about and miraculously worming their way through +impenetrable places. Atop a portable pair of steps a pale, well-dressed +young man was playing thimble-rig on his knees with a gilt pea. From an +upturned keg a preacher was exhorting. And occasionally, through gaps +between the shacks, she caught glimpses of blue water; or of ships at +anchor; or, more often, of the tall pile drivers whose hammers went +steadily up and down. + +Sherwood guided his glossy team and light spidery vehicle with the greatest +delicacy and skill. He was wholly absorbed in his task. Suddenly up ahead a +wild turmoil broke out. People crowded to right and left, clambering, +shouting, screaming. A runaway horse hitched to a light buggy came +careering down the way. + +A collision seemed inevitable. Sherwood turned his horses' heads directly +at an open shop front. They hesitated, their small pointed ears working +nervously. Sherwood spoke to them. They moved forward, quivering, picking +their way daintily. Sherwood spoke again. They stopped. The runaway hurtled +by, missing the tail of the buggy by two feet. A moment later a grand crash +marked the end of its career farther down the line. Again Sherwood spoke to +his horses, and exerted the slightest pressure on the reins. Daintily, +slowly, their ears twitching back and forth, their fine eyes rolling, they +backed out of the opening. + +Throughout all this exciting little incident the woman had not altered her +pose nor the expression of her face. Her head high, her eye ruminative, she +had looked on it all as one quite detached from possible consequences. The +little parasol did not change its angle. Only, quite deliberately, she had +relinquished the ribbon by which she held on her hat, and had placed her +slender hand steadyingly on the side of the vehicle. + +The bystanders, already leaping down from their places of refuge and again +crowding the narrow way, directed admiring eyes toward the beautiful, +nervous, docile horses, the calm and dominating man, and the poised, dainty +creature at his side. One drunken individual cheered her personally. At +this a faint shell pink appeared in her cheeks, though she gave no other +sign that she had heard. Sherwood glanced down at her, amused. + +But now emerged the Jew slop seller, very voluble. He had darted like a rat +to some mysterious inner recess of his burrow; but now he was out again +filling the air with lamentations, claims, appeals for justice. Sherwood +did not even glance toward him; but in the very act of tooling his horses +into the roadway tossed the man some silver. Immediately, with shouts and +cheers and laughter, the hoodlums nearby began a scramble. + +The end of the long wharf widened to a great square, free of all buildings +but a sort of warehouse near one end. Here a rope divided off a landing +space. Close to the rope the multitude crowded, ready for its +entertainment. Here also stood in stately grandeur the three livery hacks +of which San Francisco boasted. They were magnificent affairs, the like of +which has never elsewhere been seen plying for public hire, brightly +painted, highly varnished, lined with silks, trimmed with solid silver. The +harnesses were heavily mounted with the same metal. On their boxes sat +fashionable creatures, dressed, not in livery, but throughout in the very +latest of the late styles, shod with varnished leather, gloved with softest +kid. Sherwood drove skilfully to the very edge of the roped space, pushing +aside the crowd on foot. They growled at him savagely. He paid no attention +to them, and they gave way. The buggy came to a stop. The horses, tossing +their heads, rolling their eyes, stamping their little hoofs, nevertheless +stood without need of further attention. + +Now the brass bands blared with a sudden overwhelming blast of sound, the +crowd cheered noisily; the runners for the hotels began to bark like a pack +of dogs. With a vast turmoil of paddle wheels, swirling of white and green +waters, bellowing of speaking trumpets, throwing of handlines and scurrying +of deck hands and dock hands, the _Panama_ came to rest. After considerable +delay the gangplank was placed. The passengers began to disembark, facing +the din much as they would have faced the buffeting of a strong wind. This +was the cream of the entertainment for which the crowd had gathered; for +which, indeed, the Sherwoods had made their excursion. Each individual +received his meed of comment, sometimes audible and by no means always +flattering. Certainly in variety both of character and of circumstance they +offered plenty of material. From wild, half-civilized denizens of +Louisiana's canebrakes, clinging closely to their little bundles and their +long rifles, to the most polished exquisites of fashion they offered all +grades and intermediates. Some of them looked rather bewildered. Some +seemed to know just what to do and where to go. Most dove into the crowd +with the apparent idea of losing their identity as soon as possible. The +three magnificent hacks were filled, and managed, with much plunging and +excitement, to plow a way through the crowd and so depart. Amusing things +happened to which the Sherwoods called each other's attention. Thus a man, +burdened with a single valise, ducked under the ropes near them. A paper +boy happened to be standing near. The passenger offered the boy a fifty- +cent piece. + +"Here, boy," said he, "just carry this valise for me." + +The paper boy gravely contemplated the fifty cents, dove into his pocket, +and produced another. + +"Here, man," said he, handing them both to the traveller, "take this and +carry it yourself." + +One by one the omnibuses filled and departed. The stream of passengers down +the gangplank had ceased. The crowd began to thin. Sherwood gathered his +reins to go. Mrs. Sherwood suddenly laid her hand on his forearm. + +"Oh, the poor thing!" she cried, her voice thrilling with compassion. + +A young man and a steward were supporting a girl down the gangplank. +Evidently she was very weak and ill. Her face was chalky white, with dark +rings under the eyes, her lips were pale, and she leaned heavily on the +men. Although she could not have heard Mrs. Sherwood's exclamation of pity, +she happened to look up at that instant, revealing a pair of large, dark, +and appealing eyes. Her figure, too, dressed in a plain travelling dress, +strikingly simple but bearing the unmistakable mark of distinction, was +appealing; as were her exquisite, smooth baby skin and the downward +drooping, almost childlike, curves of her lips. The inequalities of the +ribbed gangplank were sufficient to cause her to stumble. + +"She is very weak," commented Mrs. Sherwood. + +"She is--or would be--remarkably pretty," added Sherwood. "I wonder what +ails her." + +Arrived at the foot of the gangplank the young man removed his hat with an +air of perplexity, and looked about him. He was of the rather florid, +always boyish type; and the removal of his hat had revealed a mat of close- +curling brown hair, like a cap over his well-shaped head. The normal +expression of his face was probably quizzically humorous, for already the +little lines of habitual half laughter were sketched about his eyes. + +"A plunger," said John Sherwood to himself, out of his knowledge of men; +then as the young man glanced directly toward him, disclosing the colour +and expression of his eyes, "a plunger in something," he amended, revising +his first impression. + +But now the humorous element was quite in abeyance, and a faint dismay had +taken its place. One arm supporting the drooping girl, he was looking up +and down the wharf. Not a vehicle remained save the heavy drays already +backing up to receive their loads of freight. The dock hands had dropped +and were coiling the line that had separated the crowd from the landing +stage. + +With another exclamation the woman in the carriage rose, and before +Sherwood could make a move to assist her, had poised on the rim of the +wheel and leaped lightly to the dock. Like a thistledown she floated to the +little group at the foot of the gangplank. The steward instantly gave way +to her evident intention. She passed her arm around the girl's waist. The +three moved slowly toward the buggy, Mrs. Sherwood, her head bent +charmingly forward, murmuring compassionate, broken, little phrases, +supporting the newcomer's reviving footsteps. + +Sherwood, a faint, fond amusement lurking in the depths of his eyes, +quietly cramped the wheels of the buggy. + + + + +IV + + +A half hour later the two men, having deposited the women safely in the +Sherwoods' rooms at the Bella Union, and having been unceremoniously +dismissed by Mrs. Sherwood, strolled together to the veranda. They had not, +until now, had a chance to exchange six words. + +The newcomer, who announced himself as Milton Keith from Baltimore, proved +to have a likable and engaging personality. He was bubbling with interest +and enthusiasm; and these qualities, provided they are backed solidly, are +always prepossessing. Sherwood, quietly studying him, concluded that such +was the case. His jaw and mouth were set in firm lines; his eye, while +dancing and mischievous, had depths of capability and reserves of +forcefulness. But Sherwood was, by inclination and by the necessities of +his profession, a close observer of men. Another, less practised, might +have seen here merely an eager, rather talkative, apparently volatile, very +friendly, quite unreserved young man of twenty-five. Any one, analytical or +otherwise, could not have avoided feeling the attractive force of the +youth's personality, the friendly quality that is nine tenths individual +magnetism and one tenth the cast of mind that initially takes for granted +the other man's friendliness. + +At the moment Keith was boyishly avid for the sights of the new city. In +these modern days of long journeys, a place so remote as San Francisco, in +the most commonplace of circumstances, gathers to its reputation something +of the fabulous. How much more true then of a city built from sand dunes in +four years; five times swept by fire, yet rising again and better before +its ashes were extinct; the resort of all the picturesque, unknown races of +the earth--the Chinese, the Chileńo, the Mexican, the Spanish, the +Islander, the Moor, the Turk--not to speak of ordinary foreigners from +Russia, England, France, Belgium, Germany, Italy, and the out-of-the-way +corners of Europe; the haunt of the wild and striking individuals of all +these races. "Sydney ducks" from the criminal colonies; "shoulder strikers" +direct from the tough wards of New York; long, lean, fever-haunted crackers +from the Georgia mountains or the Louisiana canebrakes; Pike County +desperadoes; long-haired men from the trapping countries; hard-fisted, +sardonic state of Maine men fresh from their rivers; and Indian fighters +from the Western Reserve; grasping, shrewd commercial Yankees; fire-eating +Southern politicians; lawyers, doctors, merchants, chiefs, and thiefs, the +well-educated and the ignorant, the high-minded and the scalawags, all +dumped down together on a sand hill to work out their destinies; a city +whose precedents, whose morals, whose laws, were made or adapted on the +spot; where might in some form or another--revolver, money, influence--made +its only right; whose history ranged in three years the gamut of human +passion, strife, and development; whose background was the fabled El Dorado +whence the gold in unending floods poured through its sluices. To the +outside world tales of these things had come. They did not lose in the +journey. The vast loom of actual occurrences rose above the horizon like +mirages. Names and events borrowed a half-legendary quality from distances, +as elsewhere from time. Keith had heard of Coleman, of Terry, of Broderick, +Brannan, Gwin, Geary, as he had heard of the worthies of ancient history; +he had visualized the fabled splendours of San Francisco's great gambling +houses, of the excitements of her fervid, fevered life, as he might have +visualized the magnificences of pagan Rome; he had listened to tales of her +street brawls, her vast projects, the buccaneering raids of her big men, +her Vigilance Committee of the year before, as he would have listened to +the stories of one of Napoleon's veterans. Now, by the simple process of a +voyage that had seemed literally interminable but now was past, he had +landed in the very midst of fable. It was like dying, he told Sherwood +eagerly, like going irretrievably to a new planet. All his old world now +seemed as remote, as insubstantial, as phantomlike, as this had seemed. + +"Even yet I can't believe it's all so," he cried, walking excitedly back +and forth, and waving an extinct cigar. "I've got to see it, touch it! Why, +I know it all in advance. That must be where the Jenny Lind Theatre stood-- +before the fire--just opposite? I thought so! And the bay used to come up +to Montgomery Street, only a block down! You see, I know it all! And when +we came in, and I saw all those idle ships lying at anchor, just as they +have lain since their crews deserted them in '49 to go to the mines--and I +know why they haven't been used since, why they will continue to lie there +at anchor until they rot or sink--" + +"Do you?" said Sherwood, who was vastly amused and greatly taken by this +fresh enthusiasm. + +"Yes, the clipper ships!" Keith swept on. "The first cargoes in this new +market make the money--the fastest clippers--poor old hulks--but you +brought in the argonauts!" + +So he ran on, venting his impatience, so plainly divided between his sense +of duty in staying near his wife and his great desire to slip the leash, +that Sherwood smiled to himself. Once again he mentioned Coleman and the +Vigilantes of '51. + +"I suppose he's around here? I may see him?" + +"Oh, yes," said Sherwood, "you'll see him. But if you would accept a bit of +advice, go slow. You must remember that such a movement makes enemies, +arouses opposition. A great many excellent people--whom you will know--are +a little doubtful about all that." + +Keith mentioned other names. + +"I know them all. They are among the most influential members of the bar." +He glanced at a large watch. "Just at this hour we might find them at the +Monumental engine house. What do you say?" + +"I should like nothing better!" cried Keith. + +"Your wife's illness is not likely to require immediate attendance?" +suggested Sherwood inquiringly. + +"She's only seasick--horrible voyage--she's always under the weather on +shipboard--three weeks of it from Panama--Nan's as strong as a horse," +replied Keith, with obvious impatience. + +They walked across the Plaza to the Monumental fire engine house, a square +brick structure of two stories, with wide folding doors, and a bell cupola +apart. Keith paused to admire the engine. It was of the type usual in those +days, consisting of a waterbox with inlet and outlet connections, a pump +atop, and parallel pump rails on either side, by the hand manipulation of +which the water was thrown with force from the box. The vehicle was drawn +by means of a long rope, carried on a drum. This could be slacked off at +need to accommodate as high as a hundred men or as few as would suffice to +move her. So far this engine differed in no manner from those Keith had +seen in the East. But this machine belonged to a volunteer company, one of +many and all rivals. It was gayly coloured. On the sides of its waterbox +were scenic paintings of some little merit. The woodwork was all mahogany. +Its brass ornamentation was heavy and brought to a high state of polish. +From a light rack along its centre dangled two beautifully chased speaking +trumpets, and a row of heavy red-leather helmets. Axes nestled in sockets. +A screaming gilt eagle, with wings outspread, hovered atop. Alongside the +engine stood the hook and ladder truck and the hose cart. These smaller and +less important vehicles were painted in the same scheme of colour, were +equally glittering and polished. Keith commented on all this admiringly. + +"Yes," said Sherwood, "you see, since the big fires, it has become a good +deal a matter of pride. There are eleven volunteer companies, and they are +great rivals in everything, political and social, as well as in the line of +regular business, so to speak. Mighty efficient. You'll have to join a +company, of course; and you better look around a little before deciding. +Each represents something different--some different element. They are +really as much clubs as fire companies." + +They mounted to the upper story, where Keith found himself in a long room, +comfortably fitted with chairs, tables, books, and papers. A double door +showed a billiard table in action. Sherwood indicated a closed door across +the hall. + +"Card rooms," said he briefly. + +The air was blue with smoke and noisy with rather vociferative conversation +and laughter. Several groups of men were gathered in little knots. A negro +in white duck moved here and there carrying a tray. + +Sherwood promptly introduced Keith to many of these men, and he was as +promptly asked to name his drink. Keith caught few of the names, but he +liked the hearty, instant cordiality. Remarking on the beauty and order of +the machines, loud cries arose for "Taylor! Bert Taylor!" After a moment's +delay a short, stocky, very red-faced man, with rather a fussy manner, came +forward. + +"Mr. Keith," said a tall, dark youth, with a pronounced Southern accent, +"I want foh to make you acquainted with Mr. Tayloh. Mr. Tayloh is at once +the patron saint of the Monumentals, but to a large extent its 'angel' as +well --I hope you understand the theatrical significance of that term, +suh. He is motheh, fatheh, guardeen, and dry nurse to every stick, stone, +and brick, every piece of wood, brass, or rubbah, every inch of hose, and +every man _and_ Irishman on these premises." Taylor had turned an +embarrassed brick red. "Mr. Keith," went on the dark youth, explanatorily, +"was just sayin' that though he had inspected carefully many fire +equipments, per'fessional and amateur, he had nevah feasted his eyes +on so complete an outfit as that of our Monumentals." + +Keith had not said all this, but possibly he had meant it. The brick-red, +stocky little man was so plainly embarrassed and anxious to depart that +Keith racked his brains for something to say. All he could remember was the +manufacturer's nameplate on the machine downstairs. + +"I see you have selected the Hunaman engine, sir," said he. The little +man's eye brightened. + +"It may be, sir, that you favour the piano-box type--of the sort made by +Smith or Van Ness?" he inquired politely. + +"It is a point on which my opinion is still-suspended," replied Keith with +great gravity. + +The little man moved nearer, and his shyness fell from him. + +"Oh, but really there is no choice, none whatever!" he cried. "I'm sure, +sir, I can convince you in five minutes. I assure you we have gone into the +subject thoroughly--this Hunaman cost us over five thousand dollars; and +you may be certain we went very thoroughly into the matter before making +the investment----" + +He went on talking in his self-effacing, deprecatory, but very earnest +fashion. The other men in the group, Keith felt, were watching with covert +amusement. Occasionally, he thought to catch half-concealed grins at his +predicament. In less than the five minutes the claims of the piano box were +utterly demolished. Followed a dissertation on methods of fighting fire; +and then a history of the Monumental Company--its members, its officers, +and its proud record. "And our bell--did you know that?--is the bell used +by the Vigilantes--" He broke off suddenly in confusion, his embarrassment +descending on him again. A moment later he sidled away. + +"But I found him very interesting!" protested Keith, in answer to implied +apologies. + +"Bert is invaluable here; but he's a lunatic on fire apparatus. We couldn't +get along without him, but it's sometimes mighty difficult to get on _with_ +him," said some one. + +Keith was making a good impression without consciously trying to do so. His +high spirits of youth and enthusiasm were in his favour; and as yet he had +no interests to come into conflict with those of any one present. More +drinks were ordered and fresh cigars lighted. From Sherwood they now +learned that Keith had but just landed, and intended to settle as a +permanent resident. As one man they uprose. + +"And yo' wastin' of yo' time indoors!" mourned the dark Southerner. "And so +much to see!" + +Enthusiastically they surrounded him and led him forth. Only a very old, +very small, very decadent village is devoid of what is modernly called the +"booster" spirit. In those early days of slow transportation and isolated +communities, local patriotism was much stronger than it is now. And +something about the air's wine of the Pacific slope has always, and +probably will always, make of every man an earnest proselyte for whatever +patch of soil he calls home. But add to these general considerations the +indubitable facts of harbour, hill, health, opportunity, activity, and a +genuine history, if of only three years, one can no longer marvel that +every man, each in his own way, saw visions. + +In the course of the next few hours Keith got confused and mixed +impressions of many things. The fortresslike warehouses; the plank roads; +the new Jenny Lind Theatre; the steam paddies eating steadily into the sand +hills at the edge of town; the Dramatic Museum; houses perched on the +crumbling edges of hills; houses sunk far below the level of new streets, +with tin cans and ducks floating around them; new office buildings; places +where new office buildings were going to be or merely ought to be; land +that in five years was going to be worth fabulous sums; unlikely looking +spots where historic things had stood or had happened--all these were +pointed out to him. He was called upon to exercise the eye of faith; to +reconstruct; to eliminate the unfinished, the mean, the sordid; to overlook +the inadequate; to build the city as it was sure to be; and to concern +himself with that and that only. He admired Mount Tamalpais over the way. +He was taken up a high hill--a laborious journey--to gaze on the spot where +he would have been able to see Mount Diabolo, if only Mount Diabolo had +been visible. And every few blocks he was halted and made to shake hands +with some one who was always immediately characterized to him impressively, +under the breath--"Colonel Baker, sir, one of the most divinely endowed men +with the gift of eloquence, sir"; "Mr. Rowlee, sir, editor of one of our +leading journals"; "Judge Caldwell, sir at present one of the ornaments of +our bench"; "Mr. Ben Sansome, sir, a leadin' young man in our young but +vigorous social life"; and so on. + +These introductions safely and ceremoniously accomplished, each newcomer +insisted on leading the way to the nearest bar. + +"I insist, sir. It is just the hour for my afternoon toddy." + +After some murmuring of expostulation, the invitation was invariably +accepted. + +There was always a barroom immediately adjacent. Keith was struck by the +number and splendour of these places. Although San Francisco was only three +years removed from the tent stage, and although the freightage from the +centres of civilization was appalling, there was no lack of luxury. +Mahogany bars with brass rails, huge mirrors with gilt frames, pyramids of +delicate crystal, rich hangings, oil paintings of doubtful merit but +indisputable interest, heavy chandeliers of prism glasses, most elaborate +free lunches, and white-clad barkeepers--such matters were common to all. +In addition, certain of the more pretentious boasted special attractions. +Thus, one place supported its ceiling on crystal pillars; another--and this +was crowded--had dashing young women to serve the drinks, though the mixing +was done by men; a third offered one of the new large musical boxes capable +of playing several very noisy tunes; a fourth had imported a marvellous +piece of mechanism: a piece of machinery run by clockwork, exhibiting the +sea in motion, a ship tossing on its bosom; on shore, a water mill in +action, a train of cars passing over a bridge, a deer chase with hounds, +huntsmen, and game, all in pursuit or flight, and the like. The barkeepers +were marvels of dexterity and of especial knowledge. At command they would +deftly and skilfully mix a great variety of drinks--cocktails, sangarees, +juleps, bounces, swizzles, and many others. In mixing these drinks it was +their especial pride to pass them at arm's length from one tall glass to +another, the fluid describing a long curve through the air, but spilling +never a drop. + +In these places Keith pledged in turn each of his new acquaintances, and +was pledged by them. Never, he thought, had he met so jolly, so +interesting, so experienced a lot of men. They had not only lived history, +they had made it. They were so full of high spirits and the spirit of play. +His heart warmed to them mightily; and over and over he told himself that +he had made no mistake in his long voyage to new fields of endeavour. On +the other hand, he, too, made a good impression. Naturally the numerous +drinks had something to do with this mutual esteem; but also it was a fact +that his boyish, laughing, half-reckless spirit had much in common with the +spirit of the times. Quite accidentally he discovered that the tall, dark +Southern youth was Calhoun Bennett. This then seemed to him a remarkable +coincidence. + +"Why, I have a letter of introduction to you!" he said. + +Again and again he recurred to this point, insisting on telling everybody +how extraordinary the situation was. + +"Here I've been talking to him for three hours," he exclaimed, "and never +knew who he was, and all the time I had a letter of introduction to him!" + +This and a warm irresponsible glow of comradeship were the sole indications +of the drinks he had had. Keith possessed a strong head. Some of the others +were not so fortunate. Little Rowlee was frankly verging on drunkenness. + +The afternoon wind was beginning to die, and the wisps of high fog that +had, since two o'clock, been flying before it, now paused and forgathered +to veil the sky. Dusk was falling. + +"Look here," suggested Rowlee suddenly; "let's go to Allen's Branch and +have a good dinner, and then drift around to Belle's place and see if +there's any excitement to be had thereabouts." + +"Belle--our local Aspasia, sah," breathed a very elaborate, pompous, +elderly Southerner, who had been introduced as Major Marmaduke Miles. + +But this suggestion brought to Keith a sudden realization of the lateness +of the hour, the duration of his absence, and the fact that, not only had +he not yet settled his wife in rooms of her own, but had left her on the +hands of strangers. For the first time he noticed that Sherwood was not of +the party. + +"When did Sherwood leave?" he cried. + +"Oh, a right sma't time ago," said Bennett. + +Keith started to his feet. + +"I should like to join you," said he, "but it is impossible now." + +A chorus of expostulation went up at this. + +"But I haven't settled down yet!" persisted Keith. "I don't know even +whether my baggage is at the hotel." + +They waived aside his objections; but finding him obdurate, perhaps a +little panicky over the situation, they gave over urging the point. + +"But you must join us later in the evening," said they. + +The idea grew. + +"I tell you what," said Rowlee, with half-drunken gravity; "he's got to +come back. We can't afford to lose him this early. And he can't afford to +lose us. The best life of this glorious commonwealth is as yet a sealed +book to him. It is our sacred duty, gentlemen, to break those seals. What +does he know of our temples of Terpsichore? Our altars to the gods of +chance? Our bowers of the Cyprians?" + +He would have gone on at length, but Keith, laughingly protesting, trying +to disengage himself from the detaining hands, broke in with a promise to +return. But little Rowlee was not satisfied. + +"I think we should take no chances," he stated. "How would it be to appoint +a committee to 'company him and see that he gets back?" + +Keith's head was clear enough to realize with dismay that this brilliant +idea was about to take. But Ben Sansome, seizing the situation, locked his +arm firmly in Keith's. + +"I'll see personally that he gets back," said he. + + + + +V + + +"That was mighty good of you; you saved my life!" said Keith to him, +gratefully, as they walked up the street. + +"You couldn't have that tribe of wild Indians descending on your wife," +said Sansome. He had kept pace with, the others, but showed it not at all. +Sansome was a slender, languid, bored, quiet sort of person, exceedingly +well dressed in the height of fashion, speaking with a slight, well-bred +drawl, given to looking rather superciliously from beneath his fine +eyelashes, almost too good looking. He liked, or pretended he liked, to +view life from the discriminating spectator's standpoint; and remained +unstirred by stirring events. He prided himself on the delicacy of his +social tact. In the natural course of evolution he would probably never +marry, and would become in time an "old beau," haunting ballrooms with +reminiscences of old-time belles. + +Keith, meeting the open air, began to feel his exhilaration. + +"What I need is my head under a pump for about ten seconds," he told +Sansome frankly. "Lord! It was just about time I got away." + +Arrived at the hotel, Sansome said good-bye, but Keith would have none of +it. + +"No, no!" he cried. "You must come in, now you've come so far! I want you +to meet my wife; she'll be delighted!" + +And Sansome, whose celebrated social tact had been slightly obscured by his +potations, finally consented. Truth to tell, it would have been a little +difficult for him to have got away. Poising his light stick and gloves in +his left hand, giving his drooping moustache a last twirl, and settling his +heavy cravat in place, he followed Keith down the little hall to the +Sherwoods' apartments. + +At the knock Keith was at once invited to enter. The men threw open the +door. Sansome stared with all his might. + +Nan Keith had made the usual miraculous recovery from seasickness once she +felt the solid ground beneath, her. The beautiful baby-textured skin had +come alive with soft colour, her dark, wide, liquid eyes had brightened. +She had assumed a soft, silken, wrapperlike garment with, a wide sash, +borrowed from Mrs. Sherwood; and at the moment was seated in an enveloping +armchair beneath a wide-shaded lamp. The firm, soft lines of her figure, +uncorseted in this negligée, were suggested beneath the silk. Sansome +stopped short, staring, his eyes kindling with, interest. Here was +something not only new but different--a distinct addition. Sansome, like +most dilettantes, was something of a phrase maker, and prided himself on +the apt word. He found it here, to his own satisfaction, at least. + +"Her beauty is positively creamy!" he murmured to himself. + +At sight of her Keith crossed directly to her, full of a sudden, engaging, +tender solicitude. + +"How are you feeling now, honey?" he inquired. "Quite recovered? All right +now?" + +But Nan was inclined to be a little vexed and reproachful. She had been +left alone, with strangers, altogether too long. Keith excused himself +volubly and convincingly--she had been asleep--she was much better off not +being disturbed--that this was true was proven by results--she was +blooming, positively blooming--as fresh as a rose leaf--of course it was +rather an imposition on the Sherwoods, but the baggage hadn't come up yet, +and they were kind people, our sort, the sort for whom the word obligation +did not exist--he, personally, had not intended being gone so long, but by +the rarest of chances he had run across some of the men to whom, he had +introductions, and they had been most kind in making him acquainted-- +nothing was more important to a young lawyer than to "establish +connections"--it did not do to overlook a chance. + +He urged all this, and more, with all his usual, vital, enthusiastic force. +In spite of herself, she was overborne to a reproachful forgiveness. + +In the meantime Mrs. Sherwood had gone over to where Ben Sansome was still +standing by the door. Sansome did not like Mrs. Sherwood. He considered +that she had no social tact at all. This was mainly--though he did not +analyze it--because she was quite apt to speak the direct and literal truth +to him; because she had a disquieting self-confidence and competence in +place of appropriate, graceful, feminine dependence; but especially because +she had never and would never play up to his game. + +"Are you making a formal afternoon call, Ben?" she asked in her cool, +mocking voice. "Aren't you really a little _de trop?_" + +"I did not come of my own volition at this time, I assure you," he replied +a trifle stiffly. The thought that he was suspected of a blunder in social +custom stung him; as, in a rather lazily amused way, she knew it would. + +At this reply she glanced keenly toward Keith, then nodded; slowly. + +"I see," she conceded. + +Sansome moved to go. But at this Keith's attention was attracted. He sprang +forward, seized Sansome's arm, insisted on introducing him to Nan, was +over-effusive, over-cordial, buoyant. Both Sansome and Mrs. Sherwood were +experienced enough to yield entirely to his mood. They understood perfectly +that at the least opposition Keith was in just the condition to reveal +himself, perhaps, to break over the frail barrier that separates +exhilaration from loss of self-control. They saw also that Nan had no +suspicion of the state of affairs. Indeed, following the reaction from her +long voyage and her illness, she responded and played up to Keith's high +spirits. Neither wanted her to grasp the situation if it could be avoided: +Mrs. Sherwood from genuine good feeling, Sansome because of the social +awkwardness and bad taste. Besides, he felt that his presence at such a +scene would be a very bad beginning for himself. + +"No, you're not going," Keith was insisting; "you don't realize what a +celebration this is! Here we've pulled up all our roots, haven't we, Nan? +and come thousands of miles to a new country, a wonderful country; and the +very first day of our landing you want us to act as though nothing had +happened!" + +Nan nodded a vigorous assent to his implied reference to her. + +"And what we're going to do is to celebrate," insisted Keith. "You're all +going to dine with us. No, I insist! You're the only friends we have out +here, and you aren't going to desert us the very first day we need you." + +"I wish you would!" cried Nan, sitting forward eagerly. + +They tried to expostulate, to get out of it, but without avail. It seemed +easier to promise. Keith rushed out to look for his baggage, to arrange for +rooms, leaving the three together to await his return. + + + + +VI + + +Both Mrs. Sherwood and Sansome applied themselves to relieving whatever +embarrassment Nan might feel over this unusual situation. Sansome was +possessed of great charm and social experience. He could play the game of +light conversation to perfection. By way of bridging the pause in events, +he set himself to describing the society in which the Keiths would shortly +find themselves launched. His remarks were practically a monologue, +interspersed by irrepressible gurgles of laughter from Nan. Mrs. Sherwood +sat quietly by. She did not laugh, but it was evident she was amused. In +this congenial atmosphere Sansome outdid himself. + +"They are all afraid of each other," he told her, "because they don't know +anything about each other. Each ex-washerwoman thinks the other ex- +washerwoman must have been at least a duchess at home. It's terribly funny. +If they can get hold of six porcelain statuettes, a half-dozen +antimacassars, some gilt chairs, and a glass bell of wax flowers, they +imagine they're elegantly furnished. And their functions! I give you my +word, I'd as soon attend a reasonably pleasant funeral! Some of them try to +entertain by playing intellectual games--you know, rhyming or spelling +games--seriously!" He went on to describe some of the women, mentioning no +names, however. "You'll recognize them when you meet them," he assured her. +"There's one we'll call the Social Agitator--she isn't happy unless she is +running things. I believe she spent two weeks once in London--or else she +buys her boots there--anyway, when discussions get lively she squelches +them by saying, 'Of course, my dear, that may be absolutely _au fait_ in +New York--but in London--' It corks them up every time. And 'pon honour, +three quarters of the time she's quite wrong! Then there's the Lady Thug, +Square jaw, square shoulder, sort of bulging out at the top--you know--in +décolleté one cannot help thinking 'one more struggle and she'll be free!'" + +"Oh, fie, Mr. Sansome," laughed Nan, half shocked. + +Sansome rattled on. The ultimate effect was to convey an impression of San +Francisco society--such as existed at all--as stodgy, stupid, pretentious, +unattractive. Nan was immensely amused, but inclined to take it all with a +grain of salt. + +"Mrs. Sherwood doesn't bear you out," she told him, "and she's the only one +I've seen yet. I think we're going to have a pretty good time." + +But at this point Keith returned. He was quite sobered from his temporary +exhilaration, but still most cordial and enthusiastic over his little +party, Sansome noted with quiet amusement that his light curly hair was +damp. Evidently he had taken his own prescription as to the pump. + +"Well," he announced, "I have a room--such as it is. Can't say much for it. +The baggage is all here; nothing missing for a wonder. I've spoken to the +manager about dinner for five." He turned to Nan with brightening interest. +"Guess what I saw on the bill of fare! Grizzly bear steak! Think of that! I +ordered some." + +Sansome groaned comically. + +"What's the matter?" inquired Keith. + +"Did you ever try it before? Tough, stringy, unfit for human consumption." + +But Keith was fascinated by the name of the thing. + +"There's plenty else," he urged defensively, "and I always try everything +once." + +It was agreed that they should all meet again after an hour. Sansome +renewed his promises to be on hand. + +The room Keith had engaged was on the second story, and quite a different +sort of affair from that of the Sherwoods'. Indeed it was little more than +a pine box, containing only the bare necessities. One window looked out on +an unkempt backyard, now mercifully hidden by darkness. + +"This is pretty tough," said Keith, "but it is the very best I could do. +And the price is horrible. We'll have to hunt up a living place about the +first thing we do." + +"Oh, it's all right," said Nan indifferently. The lassitude of seasickness +had left her, and the excitement of new surroundings was beginning. She +felt gently stirred by the give and take of the light conversation in the +Sherwoods' room; and, although she did not quite realize it, she was +responding to the stimulation of having made a good impression. Her +subconscious self was perfectly aware that in the silken negligée, under +the pink-shaded lamp, her clear soft skin, the pure lines of her radiant +childlike beauty, the shadows of her tumbled hair, had been very appealing +and effective. She moved about a trifle restlessly, looking at things +without seeing them. "I'm glad to see the brown trunk. Open it, will you, +dear? Heavens, what a mirror!" She surveyed herself in the flawed glass, +moving from side to side, fascinated at the strange distortions. + +"I call it positive extortion, charging what they do for a room like this," +grumbled Keith, busy at the trunk. "The Sherwoods must pay a mint of money +for theirs. I wonder what he does!" + +Her attention attracted by this subject, she arrested her posing before the +mirror. + +"They certainly are quick to take the stranger in," she commented lightly. + +Something in her tone arrested Keith's attention, and he stopped fussing at +his keys. Nan had meant little by the remark. It had expressed the vague +instinctive recoil of the woman brought up in rather conventional +circumstances and in a conservative community from too sudden intimacy, +nothing more. She did not herself understand this. + +"Don't you like the Sherwoods?" he instantly demanded, with the masculine +insistence on dissecting every butterfly. + +"Why, she's charming!" said Nan, opening her eyes in surprise. "Of course, +I like her immensely!" + +"I should think so," grumbled Keith. "They certainly have been mighty good +to us." + +But Nan had dropped her negligée about her feet, and was convulsed at the +figure made of her slim young body by the distorted mirror. + +"Come here, Milt," she gasped. + +She clung to him, gurgling with laughter, pointing one shaking finger at +the monstrosity in the glass. + +"Look--look what you married!" + +They dressed gayly. His optimism and enthusiasm boiled over again. It was a +shame, his leaving her all that afternoon, he reiterated; but she had no +idea what giant strides he had made. He told her of the city, and he +enumerated some of the acquaintances he had made--Calhoun Bennett, Bert +Taylor, Major Marmaduke Miles, Michael Rowlee, Judge Caldwell, and others. +They had been most cordial to him, most kind; they had taken him in without +delay. + +"It's the spirit of the West, Nan," he cried, "hospitable, unsuspicious, +free, eager to welcome! Oh, this is going to be the place for me; +opportunity waits at every corner. They are not tied down by conventions, +by the way somebody else has done things--" + +He went on rapidly to detail to her some of the things he had been told-- +the contemplated public improvements, the levelling of the sand hills, the +building of a city out of nothing. + +"Why, Nan, do you realize that only four years ago this very Plaza had only +six small buildings around it, that there were only three two-story +structures in town, that the population was only about five hundred--there +are thirty-five thousand now, that--" he rattled on, detailing his recently +acquired statistics. Oh, potent influence of the Western spirit--already, +eight hours after his landing on California's shores, Milton Keith was a +"booster." + +With an expansion of relief that only a woman could fully appreciate, Nan +unpacked and put on a frock that had nothing whatever to do with the sea +voyage, and which she had not for some time seen. In ordinary accustomed +circumstances she would never have thought of donning so elaborate a +toilette for a hotel dining-room, but she was yielding to reaction. In her +way she was "celebrating," just as was Keith. Her hair she did low after +the fashion of the time, and bound it to her brow by a bandeau of pearls. +The gown itself was pale green and filmy. It lent her a flowerlike +semblance that was very fresh and lovely. + +"By Jove, Nan, you certainly have recovered from the sea!" cried Keith, and +insisted on kissing her. + +"Look how you've mussed me all up!" chided Nan, but without irritation. + +They found the other three waiting for them, and without delay entered the +dining-room. This, as indeed all the lower story, was in marked contrast of +luxury with the bare pine bedrooms upstairs. Long red velvet curtains, held +back by tasselled silken cords, draped the long windows; fluted columns at +regular intervals upheld the ceiling; the floor was polished and slippery; +the tables shone with white and silver. An obese and tremendous darkey in +swallowtail waved a white-gloved hand at them, turned ponderously, and +preceded them down the aisle with the pomp of a drum major. His dignity was +colossal, awe inspiring, remote. Their progress became a procession, a +triumphal procession, such as few of Caesar's generals had ever known. +Arrived at the predestined table, he stood one side while menials drew out +the chairs. Then he marched tremendously back to the main door, his chin +high, his expression haughty, his backbone rigid. This head waiter was the +feature of the Bella Union Hotel, just as the glass columns were the +feature of the Empire, or the clockwork mechanism of the El Dorado. + +The dinner itself went well. Everybody seemed to be friendly and at ease, +but by one of those strange and sudden social transitions it was rather +subdued. This was for various reasons. Nan Keith, after her brief reaction, +found herself again suffering from the lassitude and fatigue of a long +voyage; she needed a night's rest and knew it. Keith himself was a trifle +sleepy as an after affect to the earlier drinking. Sherwood was naturally +reserved and coolly observing; Mrs. Sherwood was apparently somehow on +guard; and Sansome, as always, took his tone from those about him. The wild +spirits of the hour before had taken their flight. It was, however, a +pleasant dinner--without constraint, as among old friends. After the meal +they went to the public parlour, a splendid but rather dismal place. +Sherwood almost immediately excused himself. After a short and somewhat +awkward interval, Nan decided she would go to bed for her needed rest. + +"You won't think me rude, I know." said she. + +Keith, whose buoyant temper had been sadly divided between a genuine wish +to do the proper and dutiful thing by his wife and a great desire to see +more of this fascinating city, rose with so evident an alacrity under +restraint that Mrs. Sherwood scarcely, concealed a smile. She said her +adieux at the same time, and left the room, troubling herself only to the +extent of that ancient platitude about "letters to write." + + + + +VII + + +"I think we'll find most of the proper crowd down at the Empire," observed +Sansome as the two picked their way across the Plaza. "That is one of the +few old-fashioned, respectable gambling places left to us. The town is not +what it used to be in a sporting way. It was certainly wide open in the +good old days!" + +The streets at night were ill lighted, except where a blaze of illumination +poured from the bigger saloons. The interims were dark, and the side +streets and alleys stygian. "None too safe, either," Sansome understated +the case. Many people were abroad, but Keith noticed that there seemed to +be no idlers; every one appeared to be going somewhere in particular. After +a short stroll they entered the Empire, which, Sansome explained, was the +most stylish and frequented gambling place in town, a sort of evening club +for the well-to-do and powerful. Keith looked over a very large room or +hall, at the lower end of which an alcove made a sort of raised stage with +footlights. Here sat a dozen "nigger minstrels" with banjos strumming, and +bawling away at top pressure. An elaborate rosewood bar ran down the whole +length at one side--an impressive polished bar, perhaps sixty feet long, +with a white-clad, immaculate barkeeper for every ten feet of it. Big +mirrors of French plate reflected the whole room, and on the shelf in front +of them glittered crystal glasses of all shapes and sizes, arranged in +pyramids and cubes. The whole of the main floor was carpeted heavily. Down +the centre were stationed two rows of gambling tables, where various games +could be played--faro, keeno, roulette, stud poker, dice. Beyond these +gambling tables, on the other side of the room from the bar, were small +tables, easy chairs of ample proportions, lounges, and a fireplace. +Everything was most ornate. The ceilings and walls were ivory white and +much gilt. Heavy chandeliers, with the usual glass prisms and globes, +revolved slowly or swayed from side to side. Huge oil paintings with shaded +top and foot-lights occupied all vacant spaces in the walls. They were +"valued" at from ten to thirty thousand dollars apiece, and that fact was +advertised. "Leda and the Swan," "The Birth of Venus," "The Rape of the +Sabines," "Cupid and Psyche" were some of the classic themes treated as +having taken place in a warm climate. "Susannah and the Elders" and "Salome +Dancing" gave the Biblical flavour. The "Bath of the Harem" finished the +collection. No canvas was of less size than seven by ten feet. + +The floor was filled with people. A haze of blue smoke hung in the air. +There was no loud noise except from the minstrel stage at the end. A low +hum of talk, occasionally accented, buzzed continuously. Many of the people +wandering about, leaning against the bar, or integers of the compact groups +around the gambling tables, were dressed in the height of fashion; but, on +the other hand, certainly half were in the roughest sort of clothes--floppy +old slouch hats, worn flannel shirts, top boots to which dried mud was +clinging. These men were as well treated as the others. + +Fascinated, Keith would, have liked to linger, but Sansome threaded his way +toward the farther corner. As Keith passed near one of the close groups +around a gambling table, it parted momentarily, and he looked into the eyes +of the man in charge, cold, passionless, aloof, eyes neither friendly nor +unfriendly. And he saw the pale skin; the weary, bored, immobile features; +the meticulous neat dress; the long, deft fingers; and caught the +withdrawn, deadly, exotic personality of the professional gambler on duty. + +The whole place was unlike anything he had ever seen before. Whether it was +primarily a bar, a gambling resort, or a sort of a public club with +trimmings, he could not have determined. Many of those present, perhaps a +majority, were neither gambling, nor drinking; they seemed not to be adding +to the profits of the place in any way, but either wandered about or sat in +the easy chairs, smoking, reading papers, or attending to the occasional +outbreaks of the minstrels. It was most interesting. + +They joined a group in the far corner. A white-clad negro instantly brought +them chairs, and hovered discreetly near. Among those sitting about Keith +recognized several he had met in the afternoon; and to several more he was +introduced. Of these the one who most instantly impressed him was called +Morrell. This was evidently a young Englishman, a being of a type raised +quite abundantly in England, but more rarely seen in native Americans--the +lean-faced, rather flat-cheeked, high-cheek-boned, aquiline-nosed, florid- +complexioned, silent, clean-built sort that would seem to represent the +high-bred, finely drawn product of a long social evolution. These traits +when seen in the person of a native-born American generally do represent +this fineness; but the English, having been longer at the production of +their race, can often produce the outward semblance without necessarily the +inner reality. Many of us even now do not quite realize that fact; +certainly in 1852 most of us did not. Morrell was dressed in riding +breeches, carried a short bamboo crop, smiled engagingly to exhibit even, +strong, white teeth, and had little to say. + +"A beverage seems called for," remarked Judge Caldwell, a gross, explosive, +tobacco-chewing man, with a merry, reckless eye. The order given, the +conversation swung back to the topic that had occupied it before Keith and +Sansome had arrived. + +It seemed that an individual there present, Markle by name--a tall, +histrionic, dark man with a tossing mane--conceived himself to have been +insulted by some one whose name Keith did not catch, and had that very +afternoon issued warning that he would "shoot on sight." Some of the older +men were advising him to go slow. + +"But, gentlemen," cried Markle heatedly, "none of you would stand such +conduct from anybody! What are we coming to? I'll get that----as sure as +God made little apples." + +"That's all right; I don't blame yo'," argued Calhoun. Bennett. "Do not +misunderstand me, suh. I agree with yo', lock, stock, an' barrel. My point +is that yo' must be circumspect. Challenge him, that's the way." + +"He isn't worth my challenge, sir, nor the challenge of any decent man. You +know that, sir," + +"Well, street shootings have got to be a little, a little----" + +He fell silent, and Keith, looked up in surprise to see why. A man was +slowly passing the table. He was a thick, tall, strong man, moving with a +freedom that bespoke smoothly working muscles. His complexion was florid; +and this, in conjunction with a sweeping blue-black moustache, gave him +exactly the appearance of a gambler or bartender. Only as he passed the +table and responded gravely to the formal salutes, Keith caught a flash of +his eye. It was gray, hard as steel, forceful, but so far from being cold +it seemed to glow and change with an inner fire, The bartender impression +was swept into limbo forever. + +"That's one good reason why," said Calhoun Bennett, when this man had gone +on. + +But Markle overflowed with a torrent of vituperative profanity. His face +was congested and purple with the violence of his emotions. Keith stared in +astonishment at the depth of hatred stirred. He turned for explanation to +the man next him, Judge Girvin, a gentleman of the old school, weighty, +authoritative, a little pompous. + +"That is Coleman," Judge Girvin told him. "W.T. Coleman, the leader of the +vigilance movement of last year." + +"That's why," repeated Calhoun Bennett, with quiet vindictiveness, +"lawlessness, disrespect foh law and order, mob rule. Since this strangler +business, no man can predict what the lawless element may do!" + +This speech was the signal for an outburst against the Vigilance Committee, +so unanimous and hearty that Keith was rather taken aback. He voiced his +bewilderment. + +"Why, gentlemen, I am, of course, only in the most distant touch with these +events; but the impression East is certainly very general that the +Vigilantes did rather a good piece of work in clearing the city of crime." + +They turned on him with a savagery that took his breath. Keith, laughing, +held up both hands. + +"Don't shoot, don't shoot! I'll come down!" he cried. "I told you I didn't +know anything about it!" + +They checked themselves, suddenly ashamed of their heat. Calhoun Bennett +voiced their feeling of apology. + +"Yo' must accept our excuses, Mr, Keith, but this is a mattah on which we +feel strongly. Our indignation was naturally not directed against yo', +suh." + +But Judge Girvin, ponderous, formal, dignified, was making a pronouncement. + +"Undoubtedly, young sir," he rolled forth at Keith, "undoubtedly a great +many scoundrels were cleared from the city at that time. That no one would +have the temerity to deny. But you, sir, as a lawyer, realize with us that +even pure and equitable justice without due process of law is against the +interests of society as a coherent whole. Infringement of law, even for a +good purpose, invariably brings about ultimate contempt, for all law. In +the absence of regularly constituted tribunals, as in a primitive society-- +such as that prior to the Constitutional Convention of September, 1849--it +may become necessary that informal plebiscites be countenanced. But in the +presence of regularly constituted and appointed tribunals, extra-legal +functions are not to be undertaken by the chance comer. If defects occur in +the administration of the law, the remedy is in the hand of the public. The +voter----" he went on at length, elaborating the legal view. Everybody +listened with respect and approval until he had finished. But then up spoke +Judge Caldwell, the round, shining, perspiring, untidy, jovial, Silenus- +like jurist with the blunt fingers. + +"We all agree with you theoretically, Judge," said he. "What these other +fellows object to, I imagine, is that the law has such a hell of a hang +fire to it." + +Judge Girvin's eyes flashed, and he tossed back his white mane. "The due +forms of the law are our heritage from the ages!" he thundered back. "The +so-called delays and technicalities are the checks devised by human +experience against the rash judgments and rasher actions by the volatile +element of society! They are the safeguards, the bulwarks of society! It is +better that a hundred guilty men escape than that one innocent man should +suffer!" + +The old judge was magnificent, his eyes alight, his nostrils expanded, his +head reared back defiantly, all the great power of his magnetism and his +authority brought to bear. Keith was thrilled. He considered that the +discussion had been lifted to a high moral plane. + +By rights Judge Caldwell should have been crushed, but he seemed +undisturbed, + +"Well," he remarked comfortably, "on that low average we must have quite a +few innocent men among us after all." + +"What do you mean, sir?" demanded Judge Girvin, halted in mid career and +not catching the allusion. + +"Surely, Judge, you don't mean to imply that you endorse Coleman and his +gang?" put in Calhoun Bennett courteously but incredulously. + +"Endorse them? Certainly not!" disclaimed Caldwell. "I need my job," he +added with a chuckle. + +Bennett tossed back his hair, and a faint disgust appeared in his dark +eyes, but he said nothing more. Caldwell lit a cigar with pudgy fingers. + +"My advice to you," he said to Markle, "is that if you think you're going +to have to kill this man in self-defence"--he rolled an unabashed and +comical eye at the company--"you be sure to see our old friend, Sheriff +Webb, gets you to jail promptly." He heaved to his feet, "Might even send +him advance word," he suggested, and waddled away toward the bar. + +A dead silence succeeded his departure. None of the younger men ventured a +word. Finally Judge Girvin, with a belated idea of upholding the honour of +the bench, turned to Keith. + +"Judge Caldwell's humour is a little trying at times, but he is +essentially sound." + +The young Englishman, Morrell, uttered a high cackle. + +"Quite right," he observed; "he'll fix it all right for you, Markle." + +At the bad taste of what they thought an example of English stupidity every +one sat aghast. Keith managed to cover the situation by ordering another +round of drinks. Morrell seemed quite pleased with himself. + +"Got a rise out of the old Johnny, what?" he remarked to Keith aside. + +Judge Caldwell returned. The conversation became general. Vast projects +were discussed with the light touch--public works, the purchase of a +theatre for the town hall, the sale by auction of city or state lands, the +extension of wharves, the granting of franchises, and many other affairs, +involving, apparently, millions of money. All these things were spoken of +as from the inside. Keith, sipping his drinks quietly, sat apart and +listened. He felt himself in the current of big affairs. Occasionally, men +sauntered by, paused a moment. Keith noticed that they greeted his +companions with respect and deference. He experienced a feeling of being at +the centre of things. The evening drifted by pleasantly. + +Along toward midnight, John Sherwood, without a hat, stopped long enough to +exchange a few joking remarks, then sauntered on. + +"I know him," Keith told Calhoun Bennett. "That's John Sherwood. He's at +our hotel. What does _he_ do?" + +"Oh, don't you know who he is?" replied Bennett. "He's the owner of this +place." + +"A gambler?" cried Keith, a trifle dashed. + +"Biggest in town. But square." + +Keith for a moment was a little nonplussed. The sudden intimacy rose up to +confront him. They were kind people, and Mrs. Sherwood was apparently +everything she should be--but a public gambler! Of course he had no +prejudices--but Nan-- + + + + +VIII + + +Keith returned to the hotel very late, and somewhat exalted. He was +bubbling over with good stories, interesting information, and ideas; so he +awakened Nan, and sat on the edge of the bed, and proceeded +enthusiastically to tell her all about it. She was very sleepy. Also an +exasperated inhabitant of the next room pounded on the thin partition. +Reluctantly Keith desisted. It took him some time to get to sleep, as the +excitement was seething in his veins. + +He came to consciousness after a restless night. The sun was streaming in +at the window. He felt dull and heavy, with a slight headache and a +weariness in all his muscles. Worst of all, Nan, in a ravishing pink fluffy +affair, was bending over him, her eyes dancing with amusement and mischief. + +"And how is my little madcap this morning?" she inquired with mock +solicitude. This stung Keith to some show of energy, and he got up. + +The sun was really very bright. A dash of cold water made him feel better. +Enthusiasm began to flow back like a tide. The importance of the evening +before reasserted its claims on his imagination. As he dressed he told Nan +all about it. In the midst of a glowing eulogy of their prospects, he +checked himself with a chuckle. + +"Guess what the Sherwoods are," said he. + +Nan, who had been half listening up to this time, gave him her whole +attention. + +"A gambler! A common gambler!" she repeated after him, a little dismayed. + +"I felt the same way for a minute or so," he answered her tone cheerfully. +"But after all I remembered--you must remember--that society here is very +mixed. And anyway, Sherwood is no 'common gambler'; I should say he was a +most _un_common gambler!" He chuckled at his little joke. "All sorts of +people are received here. We've got to get used to that. And certainly no +one could hope anywhere to find nicer--more presentable--people." + +She nodded, but with a reservation. + +"Surely nowhere would you find kinder people," went on Keith. "See how they +took us in!" + +"Look out they don't take you in, Milton," she interjected suddenly. + +Keith, brought up short, sobered at this. + +"That is unjust, Nan," he said gravely. + +She said nothing, but showed no signs of having been convinced. After her +first need had passed, Nan Keith's natural reserve had asserted itself. +This was the result of heredity and training, as part of herself, something +she could not help. Its tendency was always to draw back from too great or +too sudden intimacies. There was nothing snobbish in this; it was a sort of +instinct, a natural reaction. She liked Mrs. Sherwood, admired her slow, +complete poise, approved her air of breeding and the things by which she +had surrounded herself. The older woman's kindness had struck in her a deep +chord of appreciation. But somehow circumstances had hurried her too much. +Her defensive antagonism, not to Mrs. Sherwood as a person, but to sudden +intimacy as such, had been aroused. It had had, in her own mind, no excuse. +She knew she ought to be grateful and cordial; she felt that she was not +quite ready. The fact that the Sherwoods had proved to be "common gamblers" +gave just the little excuse her conscience needed to draw back a trifle. +This, it should be added, was also quite instinctive, not at all a +formulated thought. + +She said nothing for some time; then remarked mysteriously: + +"Perhaps that's why they go to meet boats." + +Keith, who was miles beyond the Sherwoods by now, looked bewildered. + +Keith had letters of business introduction to Palmer, Cook & Co., a banking +firm powerful and respected at the time, but destined to become involved in +scandal. The most pressing need, both he and Nan had determined, was a +house of their own; the hotel was at once uncomfortable and expensive. +Accordingly a callow, chipper, self-confident, blond little clerk was +assigned to show them about. He had arrived from the East only six months +ago; but this was six months earlier than the Keiths, so he put on all the +airs of an old-timer. In a two-seated calash, furnished by the bankers, +they drove to the westerly part of the town. The plank streets soon ran out +into sand or rutty earth roads. These bored their way relentlessly between +sand hills in the process of removal. Steam paddies coughed and clanked in +all directions. Many houses had, by these operations, been left perched +high and dry far above the grade of the new streets. Often the sand was +crumbling away from beneath their outer corners. All sorts of nondescript +ramshackle and temporary stairs had been improvised to get their +inhabitants in or out. The latter seemed to be clinging to their tenements +as long as possible. + +"They often cave in," explained the clerk, "and the whole kit and kaboodle +comes sailing down into the street. Sometimes it happens at night," he +added darkly. + +"But isn't anybody hurt?" cried Nan. + +"Lots of 'em," replied the clerk cheerfully "Git dap!" + +They now executed a flank attack on the "fashionable" quarter of the town. + +"They're grading the street down below," the clerk justified his roundabout +course. + +Here were a number of isolated, scattered wooden houses, of some size and +of much scroll and jigsaw work. Some of them had little ornamental iron +fencelets running along their ridgepoles, or lightning rods on the chimneys +or at the corners, although thunderstorms were practically unknown. The +clerk at once began to talk of these as "mansions." He drew up before one +of them, hitched the horse, and invited his clients to descend. Nan looked +at the exterior a trifle doubtfully. It was a high-peaked, slender house, +drawn together as though it felt cold; with carved wooden panels over each +window, miniature balconies with elaborate spindly columns beneath, and a +haughty, high, narrow porch partially clothing a varnished front door +flanked with narrow strips of coloured glass. + +The clerk produced a key. The interior also was high and narrow. Much +glistening varnish characterized the front hall. They inspected one after +another the various rooms. The house was partly furnished. In the showrooms +hung heavy red curtains held back by cords with gilt tassels. Each +fireplace was framed by a mantel of white marble. But the glory was the +drawing-room. This had been frescoed in pale blue, and all about the wall +and even across part of the ceiling had been draped festoon after festoon +of fishnet. Only this was not real fishnet, as a closer inspection showed. +It had been cunningly painted! In the dim light, and to a person with an +optimistic imagination, the illusion was almost perfect. Nan choked +suddenly at the sight of this; then her eyes widened to a baby stare, and +she become preternaturally solemn. + +They looked it all over from top to bottom; the clerk fairly tiptoeing +about with the bent-backed air of one who handles a precious jade vase. +From the front windows he showed them a really magnificent view, with the +blue waters of the bay shining, and the Contra Costa shore shimmering in +the haze. + +"In the residence next door to the west dwell most desirable neighbours," +he urged, "the Morrells. They are English, or at least he is." + +"I met him last night," said Keith to Nan; "he looked like a good sort." + +"Who is in the big house over there?" asked Nan, indicating a very +elaborate structure diagonally opposite. + +"That--oh, that--well, that is in rather a state of transition, as it +were," stammered the little clerk, and at once rattled on about something +else. This magnificent mansion, he explained, was the only one Palmer, Cook +& Co. had on their lists for the moment. + +Therefore he drove them back to the Bella Union. Keith departed with him to +look up a suitable office downtown, + +Nan bowed solemnly to his solemn salutation in farewell, and turned as +quickly as she could to the interior of the hotel. Sherwood sat in his +accustomed place, his big steel spectacles on his nose, his paper spread +out before him. He arose and bowed. She nodded, but did not pause. Once +inside the hall, she picked up her skirts and fairly flew up the stairs to +her room. Slamming the door shut, she locked it, then sank on the edge of +the bed and laughed--laughed until she wiped the tears from her cheeks, +rocking back and forth and hugging herself in an ecstasy. Every few moments +she would pull up; then some unconsidered enormity would strike her afresh +and she would go off into another paroxysm. After a while, much relieved, +she wiped her eyes and arose. + +"This place will be the death of me yet," she told her distorted image in +the mirror. + +She rummaged in one of her trunks, produced writing materials, and started +a letter to an Eastern friend. This occupied her fully for two hours. At +that period it was customary to "indite epistles" with a "literary +flavour," a practice that immensely tickled those who did the inditing. Nan +became wholly interested and quite pleased with herself. Her first +impressions, she found when she came to write them down, were stimulating +and interesting. She was full of enthusiasm; but had she been capable of a +real analysis she would have found it quite different from Keith's +enthusiasm. She looked on this strange, uncouth, vital city from the +outside, from the superior standpoint. She appreciated it as she would have +appreciated the "quaintness" of the villagers in some foreign town. + +About noon Keith returned. + +"I've looked into every possibility," he told her. "Honest, Nan, I don't +see exactly what we are to do unless we build for ourselves. That Boyle +house is the only house in town for rent--that is of any size and in a +respectable quarter. You see they are too new out here to have built houses +for rent yet; and if you find any vacant at all, it is sheer good fortune. +Of course to stay in this little box is impossible, and--" + +She had been contemplating him, her eyes dancing with amusement. + +"You've taken it!" she accused him. + +"Well--I--yes," he admitted, a little red. + +She laughed. + +"I knew it," she said. "When can we move in? I want to get started." + + + + +IX + + +Keith's first plunge into the teeming life of the place had to suffice him +for all the rest of that week. There seemed so many pressing things to do +at home. The Boyle house was only partly furnished. Each morning he and Nan +went downtown and prospected for things needed. This was Nan's first +experience of the sort; and she confessed to a ludicrous surprise over the +fact that pots, pans, brooms, kitchen utensils, and such homely matters had +to be thought of and bought. + +"I had a sort of notion they grew on the premises," she said. + +Mrs. Sherwood gave them much valuable advice, particularly as to auctions. +In the Keiths limited experience auctions generally had meant cheap or +second-hand articles, but out here the reverse was the case. A madness +possessed otherwise conservative Eastern merchants--especially of the staid +city of Boston--to send out on speculation immense cargoes of all sorts of +goods. These were the despair of consignees. Heavy freights, high interest +charges, tremendous warehouse rates, speedily ate up whatever chance of +profits a fresh consignment might have. The only solution was to sell out +as promptly as possible; and the quickest method was the auction. +Therefore, auctions were everywhere in progress, and the professional +auctioneers were a large, influential, and skilful class of people. Their +advertisements made the bulk of the newspapers. They dressed well, carried +an air of consequence, furnished refreshments, brass bands, or other +entertainments to their patrons. The era of fabulous prices was at an end, +but the era of wild speculation as to what the public was going to want was +in full tide. Keith and Nan found these auctions great fun, and piece by +piece they accumulated the items of their house furnishing. It was slow +work, but amusing. At times Mrs. Sherwood accompanied them, but not often. +Her advice was always good. + +As to Mrs. Sherwood, Nan Keith found her attitude very vague. There was no +doubt that she liked her personally, admired her slow, purposeful, half- +indolent movements, the poise of her small, patrician head, the +unconscious, easy grace of her body, the direct commonsense quality of her +mind. One met her face to face; there were no frills and furbelows of the +spirit. Also, Nan was grateful for the other woman's first kindness and +real sympathy, and she wanted to "play the game." But, on the other hand, +all her social training and her instinct of formalism tended to hold her +aloof. She blamed herself intellectually for this feeling; but since it was +a feeling, and had nothing to do with intellect, it persisted. + +In the auction rooms, also, she seemed to meet--be formally introduced to-- +a bewildering number of people, most of whom she could not place at all. +There seemed to be no reason for meeting them; certainly she would not have +met them in the East. Nevertheless, they all shook her by the hand, and +bowed to her whenever subsequently they passed her on the street. Keith +told her this was all usual and proper in this new and mixed social order; +and she was perfectly willing to make the effort. She was really charming +to everybody. The consciousness that she was successfully adapting herself +to their primitive provincial scope, and her very gracious condescension to +all types, filled her with respect for her democracy and breadth of mind. + +The afternoon they spent at the house receiving boxes and packages. Keith +worked busily, happily, feverishly, in his shirt sleeves. He attacked the +job on the principle of a whirlwind campaign, hammering, ripping, throwing +papers down, deciding instantly where this or that chair or table was to +stand, tearing on to the next, enjoying himself dustily and hugely. + +Nan was more leisurely. She found time to gossip with the drayman who +brought up the goods, actually came to a liking and a warm friendly feeling +for him as a person. This was a new experience for Nan, and she explored it +curiously. + +John McGlynn was a teamster, but likewise a thoroughly independent and +capable citizen. He was of the lank, hewn, lean-faced, hawk-nosed type, +deliberate in movement and speech, with a twinkling, contemplative, +appraising eye, and an unhurried drawl. He told Nan he had come out in '49. + +"No, ma'am," he disclaimed vigorously, "I didn't go to the mines. I am a +teamster, and I always did teaming." He did not add, as he might have done, +that in those days of the individual he had been an important influence. + +His great pride was his team and wagon, and that pride was justified. The +wagon was a heavy flat affair, gayly decorated, and on the sides of the box +were paintings of landscapes. The horses were great, magnificent creatures, +with arching thick necks, long wavy manes and forelocks, soft, intelligent +eyes, and with great hoofs and hairy fetlocks. They carried themselves in +conscious pride, Their harness was heavy with silver and with many white +and coloured rings. In colour they were dapple gray. + +"That team," said John McGlynn, "is a perfect match. Took me two years to +get them together. Wuth a mint of money. That Kate, there, is a regular +character. You'd be surprised how cute she is. I often wonder who Kate +_is_. She must be some very famous woman." + +John McGlynn was a very wonderful and very accommodating person, Nan +thought. He would help carry things in, and was willing to unpack or to +carry out the mess Keith's mad career left behind, it. Also he cast an eye +on the garden possibilities, and issued friendly, expert advice to which +Nan listened, breathless. They held long intimate consultations as to the +treatment of the soil. + +"A few posies does sort of brighten things up; they're wuth while," quoth +John. + +Without previous consultation, he appeared one day accompanied by a rotund, +bland, gorgeous Chinaman, perched beside him on his elevated seat. + +"This is Wing Woh, a friend of mine," he announced. "You got to have a +Chink, of course. You can't run that sized house without help. Wing knows +all the Chinks in town, and bosses about half of them." + +Wing Woh descended and without a word walked into the house. He was a very +ornate person, dressed in a skull cap with a red coral button atop, a +brocaded pale lavendar tunic of silk, baggy pale green trousers tied close +around the ankles, snow-white socks and the typical shoe. Gravely, +solemnly, methodically he went over the entire house; then returned and +clambered up beside John. + +"All light," he vouchsafed to the astonished Nan. + +Next morning she found waiting on the veranda a smiling "china boy" dressed +all in clean white. A small cloth bundle lay at his feet. + +"My name Wing Sam," he announced; "I wo'k you thi'ty dolla' month. Where +you keep him bloom?" + +That day John McGlynn stopped after unloading his boxes to give a little +advice. + +"Chinks are queer," said he. "When you show this fellow how to do anything, +be sure to show him right, because that's the way he's going to do it +forever after. You can't change him. And show him; don't tell him. And let +him do things his own way as much as you can, instead of insisting on your +way." + +McGlynn also advised Keith as to where he could to the best advantage hire +a horse and buggy by the month. + +"You want a good safe animal, so Mrs. Keith can drive him; but you don't +want a cow. Jump aboard and I'll take you around. Never mind your coat," he +told Keith, "it's warm." + +So they "jumped aboard" and drove down the street. Nan gurgled with +amusement over the episode. She sat on the high seat beside John McGlynn's +lank figure, above the broad backs of the great horses; and Keith in his +shirtsleeves, his hair every which way, a smudge of black across his nose, +balanced in the flat dray body behind. Nan tried to imagine the sensation +they would create in Baltimore, and laughed aloud. + +"Is sort of funny," commented John McGlynn sympathetically. "But everything +goes out here." + +Nan, aghast at the uncanny perspicacity of the man, choked silently. In her +world there had always been a sort of vague, unexpressed feeling that the +"lower classes" were dull. + +They used the horse and buggy a great deal. It was delivered at the hotel +door every morning and taken from the same place every evening. Innumerable +errands downtown for things forgotten kept it busy. At night they returned +to the hotel pretty well tired out. It was a tremendous task, much as they +might be enjoying it. + +"Seems to me the more we do the worse it gets," said Keith. "Let's dig some +sort of a hole and move in anyway." + +"In a few days," agreed Nan, who as general-in-chief had a much clearer +idea of the actual state of affairs than the dusty private. + + + + +X + + +One morning the accumulated fatigue had its way, and they overslept +scandalously. It was after ten o'clock before they were ready to drive up +the street. As they turned the corner from Kearney Street they were saluted +by the ringing of numerous bells. + +"Why, it's Sunday!" cried Keith, after a moment's calculation. In the +unexpectedness of this discovery he reined in the horse. + +"It will never do to work to-day," she answered his unspoken thought. "I +suppose we ought to go to church." + +But Keith turned the horse's head to the left. + +"Church?" he returned with great decision. "We're going on a spree. This is +a day of rest, and we've earned it." + +"Where?" asked Nan, a trifle shocked at his implication as to church. + +"I haven't the remotest idea," said Keith. + +They drove along a plank road leading out of town. It proved to be thronged +with people, all going in the same direction. The shuffle of their feet on +the planks and the murmur of their many voices were punctuated by the +_klop, klop_ of hoofs and occasional shouts of laughter. All races of the +earth seemed to be represented. It was like a Congress of the Nations at +some great exposition. French, Germans, Italians, Russians, Dutchmen, +British, were to be recognized and to be expected. But also were strange +peoples--Turks, Arabs, Negroes, Chinese, Kanakas, East Indians, the +gorgeous members of the Spanish races, and nondescript queer people to whom +neither Nan nor Keith could assign a native habitat. At every step one or +the other called delighted attention to some new exhibit. Most +extraordinary were, possibly, the men from the gold mines of the Sierras, +These were mostly young, but long haired, bearded, rough, wilder than any +mortal man need be. They walked with a wide swagger. Their clothes were +exaggeratedly coarse, but they ornamented themselves with bright silk +handkerchiefs; with feathers, flowers; with squirrel or buck-tails In their +hats; with long heavy chains of nuggets; with glittering and prominently +displayed pistols, revolvers, stilettos, knives, or dirks. Some had plaited +their beards in three tails; others had tied their long hair under their +chins. But even the most bizarre seemed to attract no attention. San +Francisco was accustomed to it. + +Indeed, the few fashionable strollers were much more stared at. Most of the +well dressed were in some sort of vehicle. The Keiths saw many buggies like +their own. A few very smart, or rather very ornamental, double rigs dashed +by. In these sat generally good-looking but rather loud young women, who +stared straight ahead with an assumption of supreme indifference. Hacks or +omnibuses careered along. In these the company was generally merry but +mixed, though occasionally a good-looking couple had hired an ordinary +public conveyance. Horsemen and horsewomen were numerous. Some of these +were very dashing indeed, the women with long trailing skirts and high hats +from which floated veils; the men with skin-tight trousers strapped under +varnished boots, and long split-skirted coats. Others were simply plain a- +horseback. The native Californians with their heavy, silver-mounted +saddles, braided rawhide reins and bridles, their sombreros, their +picturesque costumes, and their magnificent fiery horses made a fine +appearance. Occasionally screaming, bouncing Chinese, hanging on with both +hands, would dash by at full speed, their horses quite uncontrolled, their +garments flying, ecstatically scared and happy, causing great confusion, +and pursued by curses. + +"Evidently we're headed in the right direction," remarked Keith. + +After a drive of two or three miles, never far from the bay they arrived +at what had evidently been a sleepy little village. The original low, +picturesque, red-tiled adobe buildings still clustered about the Mission. +But much had been added. The Keiths found themselves in an immense +confusion. Screaming signs cried everywhere for attention--advertising bear +pits, cock fights, theatrical attractions, side shows, and the like. +Innumerable hotels and restaurants, small, cheap, and tawdry, offered their +hospitality, the liquid part of which was already being widely accepted. +Men were striking pegs with hammers, throwing balls at negroes' heads +thrust through canvas, shooting at targets. A racecourse was surrounded. +Dust rose in choking clouds, and the sun beat down heavily. + +"Goodness, what a place!" cried Nan in dismay. + +Had they known it, there were many quiet, attractive, outlying resorts +catering to and frequented by the fashionables, for "the Mission" was at +that time in its heyday as a Sunday amusement for all classes. As it was, +Keith drove on through the village, and so out to a winding country road. + +"This is heavenly," said Nan, and laid aside her veil. + +The road wound and meandered through the low hills of the peninsula. The +sun beat down on them in a flood, only its heat, no longer oppressive, had +become grateful. + +"Doesn't it feel good on your back!" exclaimed Nan, recognizing this +quality. "One seems to soak it in--just the way a thirsty plant soaks +water." + +The rounded hills were turning a ripe soft brown. Across their crests the +sky looked very blue. High in the heavens some buzzards were sailing. +Innumerable quail called. On tree tops perched yellow-breasted meadow larks +with golden voices. In the bottom of the narrow valley where the road wound +were green willow trees and a little trickle of water. From the ground came +upward waves of heat and a pungent clean odour of some weed. Nan was +excited and keenly receptive to impressions. + +"It's a hot day!" she cried, "and the road is dusty. By rights it ought to +be disagreeable. But it isn't! Why is that?" + +The little valley widened into a pocket. Back from the road stood a low +white much house. Its veranda was smothered in the gorgeousness of +bougainvillaea. A grave, elderly, bearded Spaniard, on horseback, passed +them at a smooth shuffling little trot, and gave them a sonorous _buenas +dias_, The road mounted rapidly. Once when Keith had reined in to breathe +the horse, they heard the droning crescendo hum of a new swarm of bees +passing overhead. + +"Isn't this nice!" cried Nan, snuggling against Keith's arm. + +Suddenly, over the crest and down the other side, they came on sand hills. +The horse plodded along at a walk. Nan hung far out watching, fascinated, +the smooth, clean sand dividing before the wheels and flowing back over the +rim, and so over a little rise, and the sea was before them. + +"Oh, the Pacific!" exclaimed she, sitting up very straight. + +The horse broke into a trot along the smooth hard shore. The wind was +coming in from the wide spaces. A taste of salt was in the air. Foam +wreaths advanced and receded with the edge of the wash, or occasionally +blew in a mass across the flat, until gradually they scattered and +dissipated. The horse pricked up his ears, breathed deep of the fresh cool +air, expanded his nostrils snorting softly, pretended to shy at the foam +wreaths. The wash advanced and drew back with a soft hissing sound; the +wind blew flat and low, so that even on the wet parts a fine, white, dried +mist of sand was always scurrying and hurrying along close to the ground. +Outside the surges reared and fell with a crash. + +After the tepid or heated atmosphere of the hills the air was unexpectedly +cool and vital. A flock of sickle-billed curlews stood motionless until +they were within fifty yards; then rose and flew just inside the line of +the breakers, uttering indescribably weird and lonely cries. A long file of +pelicans, their wings outspread, sailed close to the surface of the ocean, +undulating over the waves and into the hollows exactly paralleling, at a +height of only a few feet, the restless contour of the sea. Occasionally +they would all flop their wings two or three times in unison. + +"I believe it's a sort of game--they're having fun!" stated Nan with +conviction. + +Everything seemed to be having fun. Close to the wash were forty or fifty +tiny white sanderlings in a compact band. When the wash receded they +followed it with an incredibly rapid twinkling of little legs; and when +again the wave rushed, shoreward, _scuttle, scuttle, scuttle_ went they, +keeping always just at the edge of the water. Never were they forced to +wing; yet never did they permit the distance to widen between themselves +and the inrushing or outrushing wave. There were also sundry ducks. These +swam just inside the breakers, and were carried backward and forward by the +surges. Always they faced seaward. At the very last instant, as a great +curler bent over them, they dipped their heads and dived. If the wave did +not break, however, they rode over its top. Their accuracy of eye was +uncanny. Time after time they gauged the wave so closely that they just +flipped over the crest as it crashed with a roar beneath them. A tenth of a +second later would have destroyed them. Keith reined up the horse to watch +them and the sanderlings. + +"It _is_ a game," he agreed after a while, "just like the pelicans. It +isn't considered sporting for sanderlings to get more than three inches +away from the edge of the wash; or for a duck to dive unless he actually +has to. It must be a game; for they certainly aren't catching anything." + +At this moment the sanderlings as though at a signal sprang into the air, +wheeled back and forth with instantaneous precision, and departed. The +ducks, too, dove, and came up only outside the surf. + +"Good little sportsmen," laughed Keith; "they play the game for its own +sake. They don't like an audience." + +After a few miles they came to a cliff reaching down to the beach and +completely barring the way. Off shore were rocky islets covered with seals +and sea lions. A lone blue heron stood atop a sand dune, absolutely +motionless. + +"I don't know where we are, or how we get out," said Keith, "but I'm going +to take that chap there as a sign post," and he turned his horse directly +toward the heron. + +Sure enough, a track led them through the sand, and by a zigzag route to +the top of the knoll that had barred their way along the shore. They came +to an edge. Before them lay an arm of the sea, sweeping and eddying with a +strong incoming tide. Over the way stood a great mountain, like a sentinel. +Far to their right the arm widened. There was a glimpse of sparkling blue, +and of the pearl of far-off hills, and the haze of a distant dim peak. + +"It's the Golden Gate!" cried Keith in sudden enlightenment. + +He told her that the mountain over the way must be Tamalpais; that the +pearl-gray, far-off hills must be Contra Costa; that the distant dim peak +was undoubtedly Mount Diabolo. She repeated the syllables after him softly, +charmed by their music. + +Simultaneously they discovered that they were hungry. The wind whipped in +from the sea. An outpost tent or so marked the distant invisible city over +the hills. Keith turned his horse's head toward them. They drove back +across what are now the Presidio hills. + +But in a hollow they came upon another ranch house, like the first--low, +white, red roofed, covered with vines. Keith insisted on driving to it. A +number of saddled horses dozed before the door, a half-dozen dogs sprawled +in the dust, fowls picked their way between the horses' legs or over the +dogs' recumbent forms. At the sound of wheels several people came from the +shadow of the porch into the open. They proved to be Spanish Californians +dressed in the flat sombreros, the short velvet jackets, the slashed +trousers, and soft leather _zapatos_. The men, handsome, lithe, indolent, +pressed around the wheels of the buggy, showing their white teeth in +pleasant smiles. + +"Can we get anything to eat here?" asked Keith. + +They all smiled again most amiably. The elder swept off his hat with a free +gesture. + +"_A piedes ouestros, seńora_," he said, "_pero no hablo Inglés. Habla usted +Espańol?_" + +Keith understood the last three words. + +"No," he shook his head violently, "no _Espańol_. Hungry." He pointed to +Nan, then to himself: "She, me, hungry." + +This noble effort brought no results, except that the Californians looked +more politely distressed and solicitous than ever. + +"They don't understand us," murmured Nan; "don't you think we'd better +drive on?" + +But Keith, who had now descended from the buggy, resorted to sign language. +He rubbed his stomach pathetically and pointed down his open mouth; as an +afterthought he rubbed the horse's belly; then, with apparent intention, he +advanced toward Nan. A furious red inundated her face and neck, and she +held her little parasol threateningly between them. Everybody burst into +laughter. + +"_Si! si! si!_" they cried. + +Several started to unharness the horse. Others held out their hands. After +a moment's hesitation Nan accepted their aid and descended. Keith's +performance was evidently considered a great joke. + +On the low veranda were two women, one most enormously fat, the other young +and lithe. They were dressed almost exactly alike, their blue--black hair +parted smoothly over their foreheads but built up to a high structure +behind, filmy _rebosas_ over high combs, and skirts with many flowered +flounces. They both had soft, gentle eyes, and they were both so heavily +powdered that their complexions were almost blue. All the men explained to +them at once. The younger answered gayly; the older listened with entire +placidity. But when the account was finished, she reached out to pat Nan's +hand, and to smile reassuringly. + +Various foods and a flask of red wine were brought. There was no +constraint, for Keith threw himself with delighted abandon into experiments +with sign language. + +"_Esta simpatica_," the Californians told each other over and again. + +Their manners were elaborate, dignified, deliberate, and beautiful. Keith, +ordinarily rather direct and brusque, to Nan's great amusement became +exactly like them. They outvied each other. The women touched smilingly the +stuff of Nan's gown, and directly admired her various feminine trappings. +She, thus encouraged, begged permission to examine more closely the lace of +the _rebosas_ or the beautiful embroidery on the shawls. A little feeling +of intimacy drew them all together, although they understood no word of +each other's language. + +One of the dogs now approached and gravely laid its nose on Nan's knee, +gazing up at her with searching soft eyes. The older woman cried out +scandalized, but Nan shook her head, and patted the beast's nose. + +"You like?" asked the woman. + +"Why, you do talk English!" cried Nan. + +But either these two words were all the woman had, or she was unwilling to +adventure further. + +"You like?" she repeated again, after a moment, and then, observing Nan's +interest, she uttered a command to one of the numerous ragged small boys +standing about. The urchin darted away, to return after a moment with a +basket, which he emptied on the ground. Four fuzzy puppies rolled out. + +"Oh, the darlings!" cried Nan. + +The little animals proceeded at once to roll one another over, growling +fiercely, charging uncertainly about, gazing indeterminately through their +blue infantile eyes. The mother left her position at Nan's knee to hover +over them; turning them over with her nose, licking them, skipping nimbly +sidewise when they charged down upon her with an idea of nourishment. + +Nan was enchanted. She left the bench to stoop to their level, tumbling +them over on their backs; playfully boxing their ears, working them up to a +wild state of yapping enthusiasm. + +"The little darlings!" she cried; "just see their fat little tummies! And +their teeth are just like needles. No, no, you mustn't! You'll tear my +flounces! Look, Milton, see this little rascal pull at my handkerchief!" + +Her cheeks were flushed, and as she looked up laughing from beneath her +hat, she made a very charming picture. + +"You like," stated the Californian woman with conviction. + +After a while it became time to go. Vaqueros brought out the horse and +harnessed it to the buggy. Keith made a movement to offer payment, but +correctly interpreted the situation and refrained. They mounted the +vehicle. + +"_Muchas gracias!_" Nan enunciated slowly. + +This effort was received with an admiring acclaim that flushed Nan with an +inordinate pride. She had picked up the phrase from hearing it used at +table. The fat woman came forward, one of the puppies tucked under her arm. +In spite of her apparently unwieldy size she moved gracefully and lightly. + +"You like?" she inquired, holding the squirming puppy at arm's length. + +"_Si, si, muchas gracias!_" cried Nan eagerly, and employing at once all +her Spanish vocabulary. She deposited the puppy in her lap and reached out +to shake hands. Keith flicked the horse with his whip. He, too, had +recollected a word of Spanish, and he used it now. + +"_Adios!_" he shouted. + +But their hosts had a better phrase. + +"_Vaya Con Dios!_" they cried in chorus. + +Nan was in raptures over the whole episode, but especially over the puppy. +The latter, with the instantaneous adaptability of extreme youth, had +snuggled down into a compact ball, and was blinking one hazy dark blue eye +upward at his new mistress. + +"Weren't they nice people," cried Nan, "and wasn't it an adventure? And +isn't he just the dearest, cutest little thing? You're not a little Spanish +dog any more, you know. You're a--what is it they call us?--oh, yes! You're +a gringo now. Why, that's a fine idea! Your name is Gringo!" + +And Gringo he became henceforth. + +"What kind of a dog is he?" she asked. + +Keith grinned sardonically. + +"Of course I do not know his honoured father," said he, "so I cannot offer +an opinion as to that half of him. But on his mother's side he is +bloodhound, bulldog, collie, setter, pointer, St. Bernard, and Old English +sheepdog." + +"Which?"' asked Nan puzzled. + +"All," asserted Keith. + +Now suddenly the sun was blotted out. They looked back: a white bank of fog +was rolling in from the sea. It flowed over the hills like a flood, +reaching long wisps down into the hollows, setting inertly in the flats and +valleys, the upper part rolling on and over in a cascade. Beneath its +shadow the warmth and brightness of the world had died. + +"It strikes me we're going to be cold," remarked Keith, urging forward the +horse. + +The roadbed became more solid, and they trotted along freely. The horse, +also, was anxious to get home. Signs of habitations thickened. The wide +waste hills of the ranchos had been left behind. Here and there were +outlying dwellings, or road houses, the objectives of pleasure excursions +of various sorts and degrees of respectability from the city. From one of +the latter came a hail. + +"Oh, Keith! I say, Keith!" + +From a group of people preparing to enter a number of vehicles two men came +running. Ben Sansome and Morrell, somewhat out of breath, came alongside. +They were a little flushed and elevated, but very cordial, and full of +reproaches that Keith had so entirely dropped out of sight during the past +week. + +"I tell you, you must come over to our house for supper," said Morrell +finally. "Everybody comes." + +"The Morrells' Sunday night suppers are an institution," supplemented +Sansome. + +"I wish I could persuade you," urged Morrell. "I wonder where Mimi is. I +know Mrs. Morrell ought to call, and all that sort of thing, but this is +not a conventional place. We live next door, y'know. Do be delightful and +neighbourly, and come!" + +Nan hesitated; but the lure of the well-dressed company, so thoroughly at +ease with one another, was irresistible in the reaction. She accepted. + + + + +XI + + +The Keiths arrived to find the Morrells' informal party in full blast. The +front parlour was filled with a number of people making a great noise. Out +of the confusion Mrs. Morrell arose and came to them, as they stood where +the China-man had abandoned them. + +"Mimi" Morrell was a tall woman, not fat, but amply built, with a full bust +and hips. Her hair was of the peculiar metallic golden blond that might or +might not have been natural; her skin smooth and white, but coarse in +grain, would look better at night than by daylight. Her handsome, regular +features were rather hard and set in their expression when in absolute +repose, but absolute repose was rare to them. In action they softened to a +very considerable feminine allurement. She moved with decision, and +possibly her general attitude smacked the least bit of running things. She +gave the impression of keeping an eye open for everything going on about +her. To Nan she seemed tremendous, overwhelming, and a little magnificent. + +Immediately, without introductions, the whole party moved through the +double doors into the dining-room. There they took their places at a table +set out lavishly with food and drink in great quantity. Mrs. Morrell +explained in her high level voice that servants and service were always +dispensed with at her Sunday nights. She rather carelessly indicated a seat +to Mrs. Keith, and remarked to Keith that he was to sit next herself. +Otherwise the party distributed itself. Ben Sansome promptly annexed the +chair next to Nan, and started in to make himself agreeable. + +A complete freemasonry obtained among all the party. There was a great deal +of shouting back and forth, from one end of the table to the other. Each +seemed to have a nickname. One young man was known exclusively as "Popsy," +another answered as "Zou-zou," a third was called "Billy Goat"; a very +vivid, flashing young woman was "Teeny," and so on. They conversed, or +rather shouted, to a great extent by means of catch words or phrases, +alluding evidently to events the purport of which the Keiths could by no +possibility guess. There were a great many private jokes, the points of +which were obvious to only one or two. Every once in a while some one would +say "Number Seven!" and everybody would go off into convulsions of +laughter. The vivid young woman called Teeny suddenly shrieked, "How about +Friday, the twenty-third?" at Popsy, to Popsy's obvious consternation and +confusion. Immediately every one turned on either Popsy or Teeny, demanding +the true inwardness of the remark. Popsy defended himself, rather pink and +embarrassed. The young woman, a devilish knowing glint in her eyes, her red +underlip caught between her teeth, refused to answer. + +Keith warmed to this free and easy atmosphere. He was friendly and +sympathetic with the lively crowd. But in vain he tried for a point of +contact. All this badinage depended on a previous knowledge and intimacy, +and that, of course, he lacked. Mrs. Morrell, sitting beside him very +straight and commanding, delivered her general remarks in a high, clear +voice, turning her attention impartially now to one part of the noisy +table, now to another. + +Suddenly she abandoned the company to its own devices, and leaning her left +elbow on the table, she turned squarely to Keith, enveloping him with a +magnetic all-for-you look. + +"Do you know," she said abruptly, "something tells me you are musical." + +"Why, I am, a little," admitted Keith, surprised. "But how could you tell?" + +"La, now, I was sure you had a voice the first time I heard you speak. I +adore music, and I can always tell." + +"Do you sing, too?" asked Keith. + +"I? No, unfortunately. I have no more voice than a crow. I strum a bit, but +even that has been a good deal neglected lately. There's no temptation to +keep up one's music here. I don't know a single soul in all this city who +cares a snap of their finger for it." + +"We'll have to have some music together," suggested Keith. + +"I'd adore it. Isn't it lucky we're neighbours? I've been so interested"-- +she said it as though she had almost intended to say "amused"--"in watching +you this past week. You are the most domestic man I know. I never saw a man +work so singlemindedly at his house and home. Domesticity is a rare outworn +virtue here, I assure you. It is really quite touching to see a man so +devoted these days." + +She said these things idly, a little disjointedly, looking at him steadily +all the while. Her manner was detached, and yet somehow it impelled him +strongly to protest that he was really not a bit domestic. + +"Have you met any of the people of the place?" she shifted suddenly, + +"Well--I really haven't had much chance yet--a few of the men." + +"Well--you'll find things pretty mixed. Don't expect much; one has to take +things pretty much as one finds them." + +To this simple speech was appended one gesture only--a slight raising of +the eyebrows. Yet the effect was to sweep Keith into the intimacy of an +inner circle, to suggest that she, too, found society mixed, and to imply-- +very remotely--that at least certain members of the present company itself +were not quite what he--or she--would choose in another environment. In +unconscious response to this unspoken thought, Keith glanced about the +table. There was a good deal of drinking going on; and the fun was becoming +even more obvious and noisy. Mrs. Morrell occasionally sipped at her +champagne. She emitted a slight but rather disturbing perfume. + +"Why did you come out here, anyway?" she asked him. "I can't make out. I'm +curious." + +"Why shouldn't I?" demanded Keith. + +"Well, men come here either for money, for adventure, or to make a career." +She marked each on the tablecloth with the end of a fork. "Which is it?" + +"Guess," laughed Keith. + +"You don't need money--or else you have a wonderful nerve to take the Boyle +house. I believe you have the nerve, all right. Men with your sort of close +curly hair are never--bashful!" she laughed shortly. + +"Boyle's rent is safe--for a while," admitted Keith. + +"Career?" she went on, looking him in the eyes speculatively, and allowing +her gaze to sink deep into his. He noticed that her eyes were a gray green, +like semi-precious stones of some sorts, with surface lights, but also with +grayer radiations that seemed to go below the surface to smouldering +depths--disturbing eyes, like the perfume. "Career?" she repeated. "I think +you hold yourself better--a career in the riff-raff of this town." She +shook her head archly. "But adventure! Oh, la! There's plenty of that--all +sorts!" She gave the impression of meaning a great deal more than she said. +"I wish I were a man!" she exclaimed, and laughed. + +"I'm glad you're not," rejoined Keith sincerely. + +She tapped him lightly on the arm with her fan. + +"Oh, la!" she cried. + +Keith laughed meaningly and mischievously. He was feeling entirely at home +--in his mental shirtsleeves--thoroughly at ease. + +"You're a lawyer, are you not?" she asked him. + +"Try to be." + +"Going to practise?" + +"If any practice comes my way." + +She looked at him, smiling slowly. + +"Oh, it'll come fast enough." She seized her glass and held it to him. +"Here's to your career!" she cried. "Bottoms up!" + +They clinked glasses and drank. + +"You must meet people--influential people," she told him. "We must see what +we can do; I'll have some of them in." + +"You're simply fine to take all this trouble for me!" + +She tapped him again on the arm. + +"Silly! We take care of our own people, of _course!_ Let's plan it. Have +you any connections in town at all?" + +"Well, I've met quite a few people about town, and I have some letters." + +"Casual acquaintances are well enough, but your letters?" + +"I have one to Calhoun Bennett, and to Mr. Dempster, and Mr. Farwell, and +Truett--" + +But she was making a wry face. + +"What's the matter with, them?" he demanded. + +"Cal Bennett's all right--but the others--oh, I suppose they're all right +in a business way--but--" + +"But, what?" + +She made a helpless little gesture. + +"I can't describe it--you know--the sort that are always so keen on doing +their _duty!_" + +She laughed; and to his subconscious surprise Keith found himself saying +sympathetically: + +"I know the sort of people who always pay their debts!" + +They looked into each other's eyes and laughed in comradeship. In sober +life Keith did his duty reasonably well, and was never far behind +financially. + +She fell silent for a moment; then with a muttered "excuse me," she leaned +directly across his shoulder to impart something low-voiced and giggly to +the woman on his right. To do this she leaned her breast against his arm +and shoulder. The conversation lasted some seconds. Keith could not hear a +word of it; but he was disturbingly aware of her perfume, the softness of +her body, and the warmth that struck even through the intervening clothing. +She drew back with a half apology. + +"Feminine nonsense," she told him. "Mere man couldn't be expected to +understand." She was herself a little flushed from leaning over, but she +appeared not to notice Keith's rather breathless state. He muttered +something, and gulped at his champagne. + +"Do you know Mrs. Sherwood?" he asked, merely to say something, + +But to his surprise Mrs, Morrell answered him shortly, her manner changing: + +"No, I don't. We draw the line _somewhere_!" + +Again she addressed the woman on the right, but this time without leaning +across: + +"Oh, Amy, the fair Patricia has another victim!" and laughed rather +shrilly. Suddenly she rapped the table with the handle of a knife. "Stop +it!" she cried to the company at large. "You're making too much noise!" + +They all turned to her except one youth who was too noisily busy with his +partner to have heard her. Failing in another attempt to get his attention, +Mrs. Morrell picked up a chunk of French bread and hurled it at him. + +"Good shot!" "Bravo!" "Encore!" came a burst of applause, as the bread, +largely by accident, took him squarely between the eyes. + +The youth, though astonished, was game. He retaliated in kind. Keith +whipped up an empty plate and intercepted it. The youth's partner came to +his assistance. Keith, a plate in either hand, deftly protected Mrs. +Morrell from the flying missiles. The implied challenge was instantly +accepted by all. The air was full of bread. Keith's dexterity was tested to +the utmost, but he came through the battle with flying colours. Everybody +threw bread. There was much explosive laughter, that soon became fairly +exhausting. The battle ceased, both because the combatants were out of +ammunition, and because they were too weak from mirth to proceed. Keith +with elaborate mock gallantry turned and presented Mrs. Morrell with the +two plates. + +"The spoils of war!" he told her. + +"He should be decorated for conspicuous gallantry on the field of battle!" +cried some one. + +The idea took. But they could find nothing appropriate until Teeny +McFarlane deliberately stepped up on the table and broke from the glass +chandelier one of its numerous dangling prisms. This called forth a mild +protest from Morrell--"Oh, I say!"--which was drowned in a wild shriek of +delight. The process of stepping down from the table tilted Teeny's wide +skirts so that for an instant a slim silken leg was plainly visible as far +as the knee. "Oh! oh!" cried every one. Some pretended to be shocked, and +covered their faces with spread fingers; others feigned to try for another +look. Teeny was quite unperturbed. + +Keith was the centre of attention and a great success. But there were no +more tčte-ŕ-tętes. Mrs. Morrell managed to convey the idea that she was +displeased, and Keith was of a sufficiently generous and ingenuous +disposition to be intrigued by the fact. He had no chance to probe the +matter. In a moment or so Mrs. Morrell rose and strolled toward the +drawing-room. The others straggled after her. She rather liked thus to +emphasize her lack of convention as a hostess, making a pose of never +remembering the proper thing to do. Now she moved here and there, laughing +her shrill rather mirthless laugh, calling everybody "dearie," uttering +abrupt little platitudes. Keith found himself left behind, and rather out +in the cold. The company had quite frankly segregated itself into couples. +The room was well adapted to this, filled as it was with comfortable chairs +arranged with apparent carelessness two by two. The men lighted cigars. +Keith saw Nan's eyes widen at this. She was sitting near the fire, and +Sansome had penned her in beyond the possibility of invasion by a third. At +this date smoking was a more or less doubtfully considered habit, and in +the best society men smoked only in certain rigidly specified +circumstances. In a drawing-room such an action might be considered the +fair equivalent to powdering the feminine nose. + +In such a condition, Keith was left rather awkwardly alone, and was fairly +thrust upon a fictitious interest in a photograph album, at which he +glowered for some moments. Then by a well-planned and skilfully executed +flank movement he caught Mrs. Morrell. + +"Look here," he demanded; "what has the standing army done to deserve +abandonment in a hostile country?" + +But she looked at him directly, without response to his playful manner. + +"My friend," she said, "this is a pretty free and easy town, as no doubt +you have observed, and society is very mixed. But we haven't yet come to +receiving women like Mrs. Sherwood, or relishing their being mentioned to +us." + +"Why, what's the matter with her?" demanded Keith, astonished. "Is she as +far from respectability as all that?" + +"Respectable! That word isn't understood in San Francisco." She appeared +suddenly to soften. "You're a dear innocent boy, so you are, and you've got +a dear innocent little wife, and I'll have to look out for you." + +Before the deliberate and superior mockery in her eyes as well as in her +voice, Keith felt somehow like a small boy. He was stung to a momentary +astonishing fury. + +"By God--" he began, and checked himself with difficulty. + +She smiled at him slowly. + +"Perhaps I didn't mean all of that," she said; "perhaps only half of it," +she added with significance. "My personal opinion is that you are likely to +be a curly haired little devil; and when you look at me like that, I'm glad +we're not alone." + +She looked at him an enigmatic moment, then turned away from the table near +which they had been standing. "Come, help me break up some of this +'twosing,'" she said. + +Shortly after this the party dispersed. Mrs. Morrell said good-bye to them +carelessly, or not at all, according as it happened. + +"You must come again, come often," she told the Keiths. "It's pretty dull +unless you make your own fun." She was half sleepily conventional, her lids +heavy. "Perhaps we can have some music soon," she added. The words were +careless, but she shot Keith an especial gleam. + +The Keiths walked sociably home together, almost in silence. Keith, after +his habit, super-excited with all the fun, the row, and the half-guilty +boyish feeling of having done a little something he ought not to have done, +did not want to seem too enthusiastic. + +"Jolly crowd," he remarked. + +"They were certainly noisy enough," said Nan indifferently; then after a +moment, "Where _do_ you suppose some of them get their clothes?" + +Keith's mind was full of the excitement of the evening. He found himself +reviewing the company, appraising it, wondering about it. Was Teeny +McFarlane as gay as she appeared? He had never seen women smoke before; but +that dark girl with the red thing in her hair puffed a cigarette. Perhaps +she was Spanish--he had not met her. And Mrs. Morrell--hanged if he quite +dared make her out--it wouldn't do to jump to conclusions nor too hastily +to apply Eastern standards; this was a new country, fatal to make a fool +mistake; well-built creature, by gad-- + +Nan interrupted his thoughts. He came to with a start. + +"I think we'd better put the big armchair in the front room, after all," +she was saying. + + + + +XII + + +Next morning Keith allayed what little uneasiness his conscience might +harbour by remarking, as he adjusted his collar: + +"Mrs. Morrell is an amusing type, don't you think? She's a bit vulgar, but +she seems good hearted. Wonder what colour her hair used to be?" + +"I suppose they are all right," said Nan. "They are a little rowdy. They +gave me a headache." + +Illogically rehabilitated in his own self-esteem, Keith went on dressing. +He was "on" to Mrs. Morrell; her methods were pretty obvious. Wonder if she +thought she had really fooled him? Next time he would be on guard and beat +her at her own game. She was not a woman to his taste, anyway--he glanced +admiringly at Nan's clean profile against the light--but she was full of +vitality, she was keen, she was brimming with the joy of life. + +The long drive over the Peninsula to the sea and back, the episode of the +Spanish people, the rowdy supper party, had one effect, however: it had +made so decided a break in the routine that Keith found himself thrust +quite outside it. He had worked feverishly all the week, at about double +speed; and in ordinary course would have gone on working feverishly at +double speed for another week. Now, suddenly, the thought was irksome. He +did not analyze this; but, characteristically, discovered an irrefutable +reason for not going on with it. They rescued Gringo from Sam's care, and +drove up to the house. On the way Keith said: + +"Look here, Nan; do you suppose you and Wing can get on all right this +morning? All the heavy work is done. I really ought to be settling the +office and getting some lines laid for business." + +"Why, of course we can get on, silly!" she rejoined. "This isn't your job, +anyway. Of course you ought to attend to your business." + +Keith again consulted Palmer, Cook & Co. The same clerk showed him offices. +He was appalled at the rents. Even a miserable little back room in the +obscurer blocks commanded a sum higher than he had anticipated paying. +After looking at a dozen, he finally decided on a front room in the +Merchants' Exchange Building. This was one of the most expensive, but Keith +was tired of looking. The best is the greatest economy in the long run, he +told himself, and with a lawyer, new-come, appearances count for much in +getting clients. Must get the clients, though, to support this sort of +thing! The rest of the morning he spent buying furniture. + +About noon he walked back to the Bella Union. His horse and buggy were not +hitched to the rail, so he concluded Nan had not yet returned for lunch. +Mrs. Sherwood, however, was seated in a rocker at the sunny end of the long +veranda. She looked most attractive, her small smooth head bent over some +sort of fancywork. Before she looked up Keith had leisure to note the poise +of her head and shoulders, the fine long lines of her figure, and the +arched-browed serenity of her eyes. Different type this from the full- +breasted Morrell, more--more patrician! Rather absurd in view of their +respective places in society, but a fact. Keith found himself swiftly +speculating on Mrs. Sherwood's origin and experience. She was endowed with +a new glamour because of Mrs. Morrell's enigmatic remark the evening +before, and also--for Keith was very human--with a new attraction. Feeling +vaguely and boyishly devilish, Keith. stopped. + +She nodded at him, laying her work aside. + +"You are practically invisible." she told him. + +"Making ourselves a habitation. Seen Mrs. Keith?" + +"No. I don't think she's come in." + +Keith hesitated, then: + +"I think I'll go up to the house for her." + +Mrs. Sherwood nodded, and resumed her work calmly, without further remark. + +At the house Keith found Nan, her apron on, her hair done up under a dust +cap, very busy. + +"Noon?" she cried, astonished. "It can't be! But I can't stop now. I think +I'll have Wing pick me up a lunch. There's plenty in the house. It's too +much bother to clean up." + +Keith demurred; then wanted to stay for the pick-up lunch himself. Nan +would have none of it. She was full of repressed enthusiasm and eagerness, +but she wanted to get rid of him. + +"There's not enough. I wouldn't have you around. Go away, that's a good +boy! If you'll leave Wing and me entirely alone we'll be ready to move in +to-morrow." + +"Where's Gringo?" asked Keith by way of indirect yielding--he had really no +desire for a picked-up lunch. + +"The little rascal! He started to chew everything in the place, so I tied +him in the backyard. He pulls and flops dreadfully. Do you think he'll +strangle himself?" + +Keith looked out the window. Gringo, all four feet planted, was +determinedly straining back against his tether. The collar had pulled +forward all the loose skin of his neck, so that his eyes and features were +lost in wrinkles. + +"He doesn't yap," volunteered Nan. + +Keith gave it as his opinion that Gringo would stop short of suicide, +commended Gringo's taciturnity and evident perseverance, and departed for +the hotel. In the dining-room he saw Mrs. Sherwood in a riding habit, +eating alone. Keith hesitated, then took the vacant seat opposite. She +accorded this permission cordially, but without coquetry, remarking that +Sherwood often did not get in at noon. Immediately she turned the +conversation to Keith's affairs, inquiring in detail as to how the settling +was getting on, when they expected to get in, how they liked the house, +whether they had bought all the furniture. + +"You remember I directed you to the auctions?" she said. + +She asked all these questions directly, as a man would, and listened to his +replies. + +"I suppose you have an office picked out?" she surmised. + +At his mention of the Merchants' Exchange Building she raised her arched +eyebrows half humorously. + +"You picked out an expensive place." + +Keith went over his reasoning, to which she listened with a half smile. + +"You may be right," she commented; "the reasoning is perfectly sound. But +that means you must get the business in order to make it pay. What are your +plans?" + +He confessed that as yet they were rather vague; there had not been time to +do much--too busy settling. + +"The usual thing, I suppose," he added: "get acquainted, hang out a +shingle, mix with people, sit down and starve in the traditional manner of +young lawyers." + +He laughed lightly, but she refused to joke. + +"There are a good many lawyers here--and most of them poor ones," she told +him. "The difficulty is to stand out above the ruck, to become noticed. You +must get to know all classes, of course; but especially those of your own +profession, men on the bench. Yes, especially men on the bench, they may +help you more than any others--" + +He seemed to catch a little cynicism in her implied meaning, and +experienced a sense of shock on his professional side. + +"You don't mean that judges are--" + +"Susceptible to influence?" She finished the sentence for him with an +amused little laugh. She studied him for an instant with new interest, +"They're human--more human here than anywhere else--like the rest of us-- +they respond to kind treatment--" She laughed again, but at the sight of +his face her own became grave. She checked herself. "Everything is so new +out here. In older countries the precedents have all been established. Out +here there are practically none. They are being made now, every day, by the +present judges. Naturally personal influence might get a hearing for one +point of view or the other--" + +"I see what you mean," he agreed, his face clearing. + +"Join a good fire company," she advised him. "That is the first thing to +do. Each company represents something different, a different class of men." + +"Which would you advise?" asked Keith seriously. + +"That is a matter for your own judgment. Only, investigate well. Meet all +the people you can. Know the newspaper men, and the big merchants. In your +profession you must cultivate men like Terry, Girvin, Shattuck, Gwin. Keep +your eyes open. Be bold and use your wits. Above all, make friends; that's +it, _make friends_--everybody, everywhere. Don't despise anybody. You will +get plenty of chances." She was sitting erect, and her eyes were flashing. +Her usual slow indolent grace had fallen from her; she radiated energy. Her +slender figure took on a new appearance of knit strength. "Such chances! My +heavens! if I were a man!" + +"You'd make a bully man!" cried Keith. Mrs. Morrell, uttering the same +wish, had received from him a different reply, but he had forgotten that. + +She laughed again, the tension broke, and she sank back into her usual +relaxed poise. + +"But, thank heavens, I'm not," said she. + + + + +XIII + + +Affairs for the Keiths passed through another week of what might be called +the transition stage. It took them that long to settle down in their new +house and into some semblance of a routine--two days to the actual +installation, and the evenings full of small matters to arrange. Nan was +busy all day long playing with her new toy. The housekeeping was +fascinating, and Wing Sam a mixture of delight and despair. Like most women +who have led the sheltered life, she had not realized as yet that the +customs of her own fraction of one per cent, were not immutable. Therefore, +she tried to model the household exactly in the pattern of those to which +she had been accustomed. Wing Sam blandly refused to be moulded. + +Thus Nan spent all one morning drilling him in the proper etiquette of +answering doors. Mindful of John McGlynn's advice, she did this by precept, +ringing her own door bell, presenting a card as though calling on herself. +Wing Sam's placid exterior changed not. A half hour later the door bell +rang, but no Wing Sam appeared to answer it. It rang again, and again, +until Nan herself opened the door. On the doorstep stood Wing Sam himself. + +"I foolee you, too," he announced with huge delight. + +Painstakingly Nan conveyed to him that this was neither an amusing game nor +a practical joke. Later in the day the door bell rang again. Nan, hovering +near to gauge the result of her training, saw Wing Sam plant himself firmly +in the opening. + +"You got ticket?" he demanded sternly of the deliveryman outside. "You no +got ticket, you no get in!" + +Which, Nan rather hysterically gathered, was what Wing Sam had gained of +the calling-card idea. After that, temporarily as she thought, Nan +permitted him to go back to his own method, which, had she known it, was +the method of every Chinese servant in California. The visitor found his +bell answered by a blandly smiling Wing Sam, who cheerfully remarked: +"Hullo!" It was friendly, and it didn't matter; but at that stage of her +development Nan was more or less scandalized. + +Nan's sense of humour always came to her assistance by evening, and she had +many amusing anecdotes to tell Keith, over which both of them laughed +merrily. Gringo added somewhat to the complications in life. He was a fat, +roly-poly, soft-boned, ingratiating puppy, with a tail that waved +energetically but uncontrolledly. Gringo at times was very naughty, and +very much in the way. But when exasperation turned to vengeance he had a +way of keeling over on his back, spreading his hind legs apart in a manner +to expose his stomach freely to brutal assault, and casting one calm china- +blue eye upward. + +"Can there anywhere exist any one so hard-hearted as to injure a poor, +absolutely defenceless dog?" he inquired, with full confidence in the +answer. + +The iniquities of Gringo and the eccentricities of Wing Sam Nan detailed at +length, and also her experiences with the natives. She as yet looked on +every one as natives. Only later could she expand to the point of including +them in her cosmos of people. Nan was transplanted, and her roots had not +yet struck down into the soil. In her shopping peregrinations she was +making casual acquaintance, and she had not yet become accustomed to it. + +"I bought some darling little casseroles at Phelan's to-day," she said. +"The whole Phelan family waited on me. Where do you suppose the women get +their perfectly awful clothes? Mrs. Phelan offered to take me to her +milliner!" or "You know Wilkins--the furniture man where we got the big +armchair? I was in there to-day, and he apologized because his wife hadn't +called!" + +They went to bed early, because they were both very tired. + +Keith also had generally passed an interesting day. Immediately after +breakfast he went to his office, and conscientiously sat a while. Sometimes +he wrote letters or cast up accounts; but there could not be much of this +to do. About ten or eleven o'clock his impatient temperament had had enough +of this, so he drifted over to the Monumental engine house. After +considerable thought he had decided to join this company. It represented +about the class of men with whom he wanted to affiliate himself--the +influential men of the lawyer, Southern-politician, large business men +type. There were many of these volunteer organizations. Their main purpose +was to fight fire; but they subserved other objects as well--political, +social, and financial. David Broderick, for example, already hated and +feared, partly owned and financed a company of ward-heelers who were +introducing and establishing the Tammany type of spoils politics. Casey, +later in serious trouble, practically manipulated another. + +Among the Monumentals, Keith delighted especially in Bert Taylor. Bert +Taylor likewise delighted in Keith. The little chubby man's enthusiasm for +the company, while recognized as most valuable to the company's welfare, +had ended by boring most of the company's members. But Keith was a new +listener and avid for information. He had had no notion of how complicated +the whole matter could be. Bert Taylor dissertated sometimes on one phase +of the subject, sometimes on another. + +"It's drills we need, and the fellows won't drill enough!" was Bert +Taylor's constant complaint. "What do they know about hose? They run it out +any way it comes; and roll it up anyhow, instead of doing a proper job." + +"How should you do it?" asked Keith. + +"It ought to be laid right--so there's no bends or sharp angles in it; it +should never be laid over heaps of stones, or any kind of uneven surface-- +it all increases the water resistance. If there are any bends or curves +they should be regular and even. The hose ought never to rest against a +sharp edge or angle. And when you coil it up you ought to reverse the sides +every time, so it will wear even and stretch even. Do they do it? Not +unless I stand over them with a club!" + +He showed Keith the hose, made of India rubber, a comparatively new thing, +for heretofore hose had been made of riveted leather. Bert Taylor made him +feel the inside of this hose with his forefinger to test its superlative +smoothness. + +"Mighty little resistance there!" he cried triumphantly. + +The nozzles, all in racks, he handled with almost reverent care. + +"These are the boys that cost the money," said Taylor. "If the inside isn't +polished like a mirror the water doesn't come smooth. And the least little +dent makes the stream ragged and broken. Nothing looks worse--and it isn't +as effective on the fire. It ought to be thrown like a solid rod of water. +I can't get the boys to realize that the slightest bruise, dent, or burr +throws the stream in a ragged feathery foam. The result of that is that a +lot of water is dissipated and lost." + +Keith, who had taken hold of the nozzle rather negligently, returned it +with the reverent care due crown jewels. + +"How long a stream will it throw?" he asked. + +"With thirty men on a side she's done a hundred and twelve feet high, and +two hundred and eighteen for distance," said Bert with simple pride. + +He picked up the nozzle again. + +"See here. Here's an invention of my own. Cost money to put it in, too, +because every other nozzle on earth is made wrong." + +He explained that other nozzles are made so that the thread of the hose +screwed into the nozzle; while in his, the thread of the nozzle screwed +into the hose. + +"If there's a leak or a bad connection," explained Bert, "with the old +type, the water is blown back into the fireman's face, and he is blinded. +His whole efficiency depends on a close joint. But with my scheme the leak +is blown forward, away from the lineman. It's a perfectly sound scheme, but +I can't make them see it." + +"Sounds reasonable," observed Keith, examining perfunctorily a device to +which later he was to owe his life. + +Item by item they went over the details of equipment--the scaling ladders, +the jumping sheets, the branch pipes, the suction pipes, the flat roses, +standcocks, goose necks, the dogtails, dam boards, shovels, saws, poleaxes, +hooks, and ropes. From a consideration of them the two branched off to the +generalities of fire fighting. Keith learned that the combating of a fire, +the driving it into a corner, outflanking it, was a fine art. + +"I say always, _get in close_," said Taylor. "A fire can be _put_ out as +well as just drowned out." + +It struck Keith as interesting that in a room a stream should always be +directed at the top of a fire, so that the water running down helps +extinguish the flames below, whereas in attack at the bottom or centre +merely puts out the immediate blaze, leaving the rest to spread upward or +sideways. Taylor put himself on record against fighting fire from the +street. + +"Don't want a whole lot of water and row," he maintained. "Get in close +quarters and make every drop count." + +When Bert's enthusiasm palled, Keith always found men in the reading-room. +The engine house was a sort of clearing house for politics, business +schemes, personal affairs, or differences. + +Once a day, also, as part of his job in his profession, Keith went to the +courthouse. There he sat in the enclosure reserved for lawyers and listened +to the proceedings, his legal mind alert and interested in the technical +battles. At no time in the world's history has sheer technicality +unleavened by common sense been carried further than in the early +California courts. Even in the most law-ridden times elsewhere a certain +check has been exercised by public opinion or the presence of business +interests. But here was as yet no public opinion; and business interests, +their energies fully taxed by the necessities of a new country, were +willing to pay heavily to be let alone. Consequently, lawyers were +permitted to play out their fascinating game to their hearts' content, and +totally without reference to expedience or to the justice of the case. The +battles were indeed intensely technical and shadowy. Points within points +were fought bitterly. Often for days the real case at issue was forgotten. + +Only one of the more obvious instances of technical triumph need be cited. +One man killed another, on a public street, before many witnesses. The +indictment was, however, thrown out and he released because it stated only +that the victim was killed by a pistol, and failed to specify that his +death was due to the discharge of said pistol. The lawyer who evolved this +brilliant idea was greatly admired and warmly congratulated. + +The wheels of the law ground very slowly. One of the simplest and most +effective expedients of defence was delay. A case could be postponed and +remanded, often until the witnesses were scattered or influenced. But there +were infinite numbers of legal expedients, all most interesting to a man of +Keith's profession. His sense of justice was naturally strong and warm, and +an appeal to it outside a courtroom or a law office always got an immediate +and commonsense response. But inside the law his mind automatically closed, +and a "case" could have only legal aspects. Which is true of the majority +of lawyers to-day. + +On the adjournment of court Keith generally drifted over to the El Dorado +or the Empire, where he spent an hour or so loafing with some of his +numerous acquaintances. He was of the temperament that makes itself quickly +popular, the laughing, hearty sort, full of badinage, and genuinely liking +most men with whom he came in contact. There was always much joking in the +air, but back of it was a certain reserve, a certain wariness, for every +second man was a professed "fire-eater," given to feeling insulted on the +slightest grounds, and flying to the duel or the street fight instanter. + +This hour was always most pleasant to Keith; nevertheless, he went home +about five o'clock in order to enjoy an hour or so of daylight about the +place. He performed prodigies of digging in the new garden: constructing +terraces, flower beds, walks, and the like. While the actual construction +work was under way he was greatly interested, but cared nothing for the +finished product or the mere growing of the flowers. + +Gringo received his share of training, at first to his intense disgust. +Twice he refused obedience, and the matter being pressed, resorted to the +simple expedient of retiring from the scene. Keith dropped everything and +pursued. Gringo crawled under things, but was followed even to the dustiest +and cob-webbiest farthest corner under the porch; he tried swiftness and +dodging, but was trailed in all his doublings and twistings at top speed; +he tried running straight away over the sand hills, and at first left his +horrible master behind, but the horrible master possessed a horrible +persistence. Finally he shut his eyes and squatted, expecting instant +annihilation, but instead was haled back to the exact scene of his +disobedience, and the command repeated. Nan laughed until the tears came, +over the large, warm, red-faced man after the small, obstinate, scared pup, +but Keith refused to joke. + +"If he finds he can't get away, no matter what happens, I'll never have to +do it again," he panted. "But if he wins out, even once, it'll be an awful +job." + +Gringo tried twice. Then, his faith in his ability to escape completely +shattered, he gave up. After that he adored Keith and was always under his +feet. + +Keith saw nothing of any of the women. Mrs. Sherwood seemed to have dropped +from their ken when they left the hotel. Once Keith inquired casually about +Mrs. Morrell. + +"She's been over twice to see the place," replied Nan. + +"We ought to go over there to call," proffered Keith vaguely; but there the +matter rested. + + + + +XIV + + +One night Keith was awakened by Nan's suddenly sitting up in bed. There +came to his struggling consciousness the persistent steady clangour of many +deep bells. Slowly recognition filtered into his mind--the fire bells! + +He hastily pulled on some clothes and ran down the front stairs, stumbling +over Gringo, who uttered an outraged yelp. From the street he could see a +red glow in the sky. At top speed he ran down the street in the direction +of the Monumental. In the half darkness he could make out other figures +running. The deep tones of the bells continued to smite his ear, but now in +addition he heard the tinkling and clinking of innumerable smaller bells-- +those on the machines. He dashed around a corner to encounter a double line +of men, running at full speed, hauling on a long rope attached to an +engine. Their mouths were open, and they were all yelling. The light engine +careened and swayed and bumped. Two men clung to the short steering tongue, +trying to guide it. They were thrown violently from side to side, dragged +here and there, tripping, hauling, falling across the tongue, but managing +to keep the machine from dashing off at a tangent. Above them, high and +precarious, swayed the short stout figure of Bert Taylor. He was in full +regalia--leather helmet, heavy leather belt, long-tailed coat, and in his +free hand the chased silver speaking trumpet with the red tassels that +usually hung on the wall. He was in his glory, dominating the horde. His +keen eye, roving everywhere, seeing everything, saw Keith. + +"Catch hold!" he roared through the trumpet. + +Keith made a flying grab at a vacant place on the line, caught it, was +almost jerked from his feet, recovered himself, and charged on, yelling +like the rest. + +But now Bert Taylor began to shriek something excitedly. It became evident, +from glimpses caught down the side streets, but especially through the many +vacant lots, that another engine was paralleling their own course a block +away. + +"Jump her, boys, jump her!" shrieked Bert Taylor. "For God's sake, don't +let those Eurekas beat you!" + +He danced about on top of the waterbox of the engine, in imminent peril of +being jerked from his place, battering his silver trumpet insanely against +the brake rods, beseeching, threatening profanely. And profanity at that +time was a fine art. Men studied its alliteration, the gorgeousness of its +imagery, the blast of its fire. The art has been lost, existing still, in a +debased form, only among mule drivers, sailors, and the owners of certain +makes of automobiles. The men on the rope responded nobly. The roar of +their going over the plank road was like hollow thunder. A man dropped out. +Next day it was discovered he had broken his leg in a hole. At tremendous +speed they charged through the ring of spectators, and drew up, proud and +panting, victors by a hundred feet, to receive the plaudits of the +multitude. A handsome man on a handsome horse rode up. + +"Monumentals on the fire! Eurekas on cistern number twenty!" he commanded +briefly. + +This was Charles Duane, the unpaid fire chief; a likable, efficient man, +but too fond of the wrong sort of friends. + +Now it became evident to Keith why Bert Taylor had urged them so strongly +in the race. The fire was too distant from the water supply to be carried +in one length of hose. Therefore, one engine was required to relay to +another, pumping the water from the cistern, through the hose, and into the +waterbox of the other engine. The other engine pumped it from its own +waterbox on to the fire. The latter, of course, was the position of honour. + +The Eurekas fell back grumbling, and uttering open threats to wash their +rivals. By this they meant that they would pump water into the Monumentals +faster than the latter could pump it out, thus overflowing and eternally +disgracing them. They dropped their suction hose into the cistern, and one +of their number held the end of the main hose over a little trapdoor in the +Monumental's box. The crews sprang to the long brake handles on either +side, and at once the regular _thud, thud, thud_ of the pumps took up its +rhythm. The hose writhed and swelled; the light engines quivered. Bert +Taylor and the Eureka foreman, Carter by name, walked back and forth as on +their quarterdecks, exhorting their men. Relays, in uniform assumed on the +spot, stood ready at hand. Nobody in either crew knew or cared anything +whatsoever about the fire. As the race became closer, the foremen got more +excited, begging their crews to increase the stroke, beating their speaking +trumpets into shapeless battered relics. An astute observer would now have +understood one reason why the jewellery stores carried such a variety of +fancy speaking trumpets. They were for presentation by grateful owners +after the fire had been extinguished, and it was generally necessary to get +a new one for each fire. + +Keith, acting under previous instructions, promptly seized a helmet and +poleaxe and made his way to the front. The fire had started in one of many +flimsy wooden buildings, and had rapidly spread to threaten a whole +district. Men from the hook and ladder companies were already at work on +some of the hopeless cases. A fireman or two mounted ladders to the eaves, +dragging with them a heavy hook on the end of a long pole. Cutting a small +hole with their axes, they hooked on this apparatus and descended. As many +firemen and volunteers as could get hold of the pole and the rope attached +to it, now began to pull. + +"Yo, heave ho!" they cried. + +The timbers cracked, broke, the whole side of the house came out with a +grand and satisfying crash. An inferno of flame was thereby laid open to +the streams from the hose lines. It was grand destructive fun for +everybody, especially for the boys of all ages, which included in spirit +about every male person present. + +This sort of work was intended, of course, to confine or check the fire +within the area already affected, and could accomplish nothing toward +saving the structures already alight. The roar of the flames, the hissing +of firebrands sucked upward, the crash of timbers, the shrieks of the +foremen through their trumpets, the yells of applause or of sarcasm from +the crowd, and the _thud, thud, thud, thud_ of numerous brake bars made a +fine pandemonium. Everybody except the owners or tenants of the buildings +was delighted. + +Keith, with two others, was instructed to carry the Monumental nozzle to +the roof of a house not afire. Proudly they proceeded to use their scaling +ladders. These were a series of short sections, each about six feet long, +the tops slightly narrower than the bottoms. By means of slots these could +be fitted together. First, Keith erected one of them against the wall of +the building, at an angle, and ascended it, carrying another section across +his shoulder. When he reached a certain rung, which was painted red, he +thrust his foot through the ladder and against the wall, pushed the ladder +away from the wall, and fitted the section he was carrying to the top of +the section on which he was standing. He then hauled up another section and +repeated. When the ladder had reached to the eaves, he and his companions +dragged the squirting, writhing hose up with them, chopped footholds in the +roof, and lay flat to look over the ridgepole as over a breastwork. All +this to the tune of admiring plaudits and with a pleasing glow of heroism. +There was a skylight, but either they overlooked or scorned that prosaic +expedient. + +At the other end of the ridgepole Keith made out the dark forms of two men +from another company. His own companions, acting under orders, now +descended the ladder, leaving him alone. + +The next building was a raging furnace, and on it Keith directed the heavy +stream from his nozzle. It was great fun. At first the water seemed to have +no effect whatever, but after a little it began to win. The flames were +beaten back, broken into detachments. Finally, Keith got to the point of +chasing down small individual outbreaks, driving them into their lairs, +drowning them as they crouched. He was wholly interested, and the boy in +him, with a shamefaced half apology to the man in him, pretended that he +was a soldier directing a battery against an enemy. + +Along the ridgepole cautiously sidled the two men of the other company, +dragging their hose. Keith now recognized them. One was a vivid, debonair, +all-confident, magnetic individual named Talbot Ward, a merchant, promoter, +speculator, whom everybody liked and trusted; the other a fair Hercules of +a man, slow and powerful in everything, called Frank Munro. + +"Look here," said Ward, "does it strike you this roof's getting hot?" + +Recalled to himself, Keith immediately became aware of the fact. + +"The house is afire beneath us," said Ward; "we've got to get out." + +"What's the matter with your ladder?" asked Keith. + +"They took it away." + +"We'll use mine." + +They let themselves cautiously down the footholds that had been chopped in +the roof, and looked over. A blast of smoke and flame met them in the face. + +"Good Lord, she's all afire!" cried Keith, aghast. + +The flames were licking around the scaling ladder, which was already +blazing. Keith directed the stream from his hose straight down, but with no +other result than to break the charred ladder. + +They crawled back to the ridgepole, and worked their hose lines around to +the end of the building, out of the flames. Here a two-story drop +confronted them. + +"This thing is going to fall under us if we don't do something," muttered +Ward. + +"Duane's forgotten us, and those crazy idiots at the engines are too busy +trying to keep from being washed," surmised Keith. + +"Look here," said Munro suddenly; "I'll brace against a chimney and hang on +to the hose, and you can slide down it like a rope." + +"How about you?" demanded Ward crisply. + +"You can run for more ladders, once you're on the ground." + +At this moment the water failed in Keith's hose. He stared at the nozzle, +then rapidly began to unscrew it. + +"Cistern empty or hose burst," surmised Munro. + +But Talbot Ward, cocking his ear toward a distant pandemonium of cheering, +guessed the true cause. + +"Sucked," said he. By this he meant that the Monumental crew had succeeded +in emptying their water box in spite of the Eureka's best efforts. + +"Get off your nozzle quick!" urged Keith. + +Munro, without stopping to ask why, bent his great strength to the task; +and it was a task, for in his hose the pressure of the water was +tremendous. It spurted back all over him, and at the last the nozzle was +fairly blown away from him. + +"Now couple my hose to yours quick, quick, before my hose fills!" cried +Keith. + +"They won't go--" Munro began to object. + +"Yes, they will, mine's a special thread," urged Keith, who had remembered +Bert Taylor's reversed nozzle. + +All three bent their energies to catching the threads. It was a fearful +job, for the strength of the water had first to be overcome. Keith was +terribly excited. Time was precious, for not only might the roof give way +beneath them, but at any moment the water might come again in Keith's hose. +Then it would be physically impossible to make the coupling. All three men +concentrated their efforts on it, their feet gripping the irregularities of +the roof or slipping on the shingles. Frank Munro bent his enormous back to +the task, the veins standing out in his temples, his face turning purple +with the effort. Keith helped him as well as he was able. Talbot Ward, +coolly, deliberately, delicately, as though he had all the time in the +world, manipulated the coupling, feeling gingerly for the thread. The water +spurted, fanned, sprayed, escaping with violence, first at one point, then +at another, drenching and blinding them. + +"There!" breathed Ward at last, and with a few twists, of his sinewy hands +brought the couplings into close connection. Munro relaxed, drawing two or +three deep breaths. Without the aid of his great strength the task could +not have been accomplished. + +"Hook her over the chimney," gasped Keith. + +With some difficulty they lifted the loop of the throbbing hose over the +chimney. + +"Down we go!" cried Keith, and slid hand over hand down the way thus made +for them. The others immediately followed, and all three stood looking +back. It was a wonder the building had stood so long, for in both stories +it was afire, and the walls had apparently burned quite through. Indeed, a +moment later the whole structure collapsed. A fountain of sparks and brands +sprang upward in the mighty suction. + +"There goes our good hose!" said Keith. + +The remark brought them to wrath and a desire for vengeance. + +"I'm going to lick somebody!" cried Keith, starting determinedly in the +direction of the engine. + +"We'll help," growled Munro. + +But when they came in sight of the engine their anger evaporated, and they +clung to each other, weak with mirth. + +For the Monumental was "washed," and washed aplenty. This was natural, for +now the water was pouring into her box from _both_ directions, and would +continue so to pour until the hose coupled to Ward's engine had burned +through. The water was fairly spouting up from the box, not merely +overflowing. Her crew were still working, but raggedly and dispiritedly. +Bert Taylor, his trumpet battered beyond all recognition, was fairly +voiceless with rage. An interested and ribaldry facetious crowd spared not +its sarcasm. + +"My crowd must be in the same fix!" gurgled Ward; "the back pressure has +'washed' them, too." Then the full splendour of the situation burst on him, +and he fell again on Munro for support. + +"Don't you see," he gasped. "They'll never know! The hose will burn +through. Unless we tell, they'll never know! We've got even, all right." + +At this moment Duane rode up, foaming at the mouth, and desiring to know +what the assorted adjectives they were doing there. The crews awoke to +their isolation and general uselessness. Bert Taylor, still simmering, +descended from his perch. They followed the hose lines to glowing coals! + +"Here, this won't do," said Talbot; so they reported themselves before the +news of a tragedy had had time to spread. + +The fire was now practically under control. It had swept a city block +pretty clean, but had been confined to that area. An hour later they +dragged their engine rather dispiritedly back to the house. Ordinarily they +would have been in high spirits. Fires were to these men a good deal of a +lark. The crews were very effective and well drilled, and the saving of +property was as well done as possible, but that was all secondary to the +game of it. But to-night they had been "washed," they had lost the game, +and the fact that they had put out the fire cut very little figure. There +was much bickering. It seemed that Bert Taylor, in his enthusiasm, had, out +of his own pocket, hired extra men who appeared at the critical moment to +relieve the tired men at the brakes; and it was under their fresh impetus +that the Monumental had so triumphantly "sucked." Now Bert Taylor was +freely blamed. The regular men stoutly maintained that if they had been +left alone this would never have happened. + +"These whiskey bummers never can last!" they said. Everybody trooped +upstairs to the main rooms, where refreshments were served. After some +consideration Keith decided to tell his story in explanation of how it was +that the Monumentals were washed. Instantly the company cheered up, A +clamour broke out. This was great! With Talbot Ward and Munro to +corroborate, no one could doubt the story. Taylor ran about jubilantly, +returning every few moments to pat Keith on the shoulder. + +"Fine! fine!" he cried. "We've got those _Eurekas_! I can't wait for +morning!" + + + + +XV + + +Keith got home about daylight to find Nan, terribly anxious, waiting up for +him. He brushed away her anxiety with the usual masculine impatience at +being made a fuss over, gave a brief account of the fire--omitting mention +of his narrow escape--and insisted that she go to bed. After a few moments +she obeyed, and immediately fell asleep. Keith bathed himself and changed, +made a cup of coffee, and wandered about rather impatiently waiting for +time to go downtown. Wing Sam appeared, the morning paper came. The sun +gained strength, and finally tempted him outside. + +For some time he prowled around, examining Nan's efforts at gardening. +There was not much to show as yet, but Keith had already the eye of faith +so essential to the Californian, and saw plainly trees, shrubs, and flowers +where now only spears of green were visible. The Morrells' garden next door +was already well grown, and he cast on it an appraising eye. No sign of +life showed about the place except a thread of smoke from the kitchen +chimney. It was still early. + +Nevertheless, five minutes later Mrs. Morrell opened the side door and +stepped forth. She had on a wide leghorn hat, and carried a basket and +scissors as though to gather flowers. Immediately she caught sight of Keith +and waved him a gay greeting. He vaulted the fence and joined her. + +"Aren't these early morning hours perfect? Isn't this glorious sunshine?" +she greeted him. + +As a matter of fact Mrs. Morrell seldom rose before noon, and detested +early morning hours and glorious sunshine. She was inclined to consider the +usual remarks in their praise as sheer affectation. But she adored fires, +and often went to them when they promised well enough. Sometimes she +attended in company with certain of her men friends; and sometimes alone, +cloaked as a man. She liked the destruction and stimulation of them. She +had been to the fire just extinguished, and seeing Keith in the garden, had +put on her fluffiest and gone out to him. It was time this most attractive +young man next door paid her more attention. + +"How does the hero of the fire survive?" she asked him archly. + +"Hero?" + +"Don't pretend ignorance. Charles told me all about it. He heard your tale +at the Monumental." + +"It's hardly heroism to get out of a scrape the best way possible." + +"It's heroic to save lives, I think; but especially heroic to keep your +head in an emergency." + +"Mr. Morrell all right?" asked Keith, to change the subject. + +"He is sleeping off the fire--and the after effects. You men need watching +every minute--even when we think you must be in danger of your lives." + +She laughed and clipped a few flowers at random. + +"Have you been moving furniture all these days? We've seen nothing of you. +I thought we were going to have some music. I do my little five-finger +exercises all by myself and nobody knows but I am playing Beethoven. You +ought in Christian charity to help me out--whether you want to or not. What +do you think of our garden? Don't you adore flowers?" + +"No, I don't believe I do," replied Keith bluntly. "I like to see a pretty +woman amongst 'em," he went on gallantly, "they set her off. It's like +dresses. No good to show me pretty frocks--unless they're filled." + +"La! You are so clever; at times I'm really afraid of you," said she. + +She went on tossing a few blooms into her basket. Under the stimulus of the +fire she had acted on impulse in going out into the garden. She realized it +as perhaps a mistake. Keith's early morning freshness and fitness made her +feel less sure of herself than usual. She had an uneasy impression that she +was not at her best, and this reacted on her ability to exercise her usual +magnetism. In fact, Keith, the least observant of men in such things, could +not avoid noticing her rather second-hand looking skin, and that her +features were more pronounced than he had thought. + +"Do come over this evening for some music," she begged. "You can take a nap +this afternoon, and you can go home early." + +Keith had been just a little uneasy over this second interview with Mrs. +Morrell. His straightforward nature was inclined to look back on the +impression she had made on him at the supper party with a half-guilty sense +of some sort of vague disloyalty he could not formulate. Now he felt much +satisfied with himself, and quite relieved. Therefore, he accepted. + +"I shall be very glad to," said he. + +At breakfast, which was rather late, he told Nan of the meeting and the +invitation. Nan's clear lines, fresh creamy skin, bright young eyes, looked +more than usually attractive to him. + +"Perhaps she _can_ play," he said. "Let's go find out. And you must wear +your prettiest gown; I'm proud of my wife, and I want her to look her very +best." + +A little later he remarked: + +"I wonder if she isn't considerably older than Morrell." + + + + +XVI + + +When he had at last reached downtown after his late breakfast, Keith found +it in a fair turmoil. Knots of men stood everywhere arguing, sometimes very +heatedly. Eureka members were openly expressing their anger over what they +called Taylor's "dirty trick" in putting hirelings on the brakes, men who +did not belong to the Monumental organization at all. If it had not been +for that the Monumentals could never have "sucked" at all. On the other +hand, the Monumentals and their friends were vehemently asserting that they +were well within their rights. Fists were brandished. Several fights +started, but were stopped before they had become serious. + +Keith avoided these storm centres, waving a friendly hand, but smilingly +refusing to be drawn in. Near the Merchants' Exchange, however, he came on +a quieter, attentive group, in the centre of which stood Calhoun Bennett. +The Southerner's head was thrown back haughtily, but he was listening with +entire courtesy to a violent harangue from a burly, red-faced man in rough +clothes. + +"And I tell you that sort of a trick won't go down with nobody, and the +story of why you were washed won't wash itself. It's too thin." + +"I have the honah, suh," said Bennett formally, "to info'm yo' that yo' do +not know what yo' are talkin' about." + +His silken tones apparently enraged the man. + +"You silk-stockinged----of a----!" said he. + +Without haste Calhoun Bennett rapped the man across the face with his light +rattan cane. Venting a howl of rage, the Eureka partisan leaped forward. +Calhoun Bennett, quick as a flash, drew a small derringer and fired; and +the man went down in a heap. Superbly nonchalant, Bennett, without a glance +at his victim, turned away, the ring of spectators parting to let him +through. He saw Keith, and at once joined him, drawing the young man's arm +through his own. Keith, looking back, saw the man already sitting up, +feeling his shoulder and cursing vigorously. + +Bennett was fairly radiating rage, which, however, he managed to suppress +beneath a well-bred exterior calm. + +"These hounds, suh," he told Keith, "profess not to believe us, suh! They +profess, suh, that our explanation of how we were washed is a fabrication. +You will oblige me, suh, by profferin' yo' personal testimony in the case." + +He faced Keith resolutely toward the Eureka engine house. Keith spared a +thought to wonder what he was being let in for by this handsome young fire- +eater, but he went along unprotesting. + +Around the Eureka engine house was a big crowd of men. These fell silent as +Bennett and Keith approached. The Eurekas represented quite a different +social order from the Monumentals. Its membership was recruited from those +who in the East had been small farmers, artisans, or workingmen in the more +skilled trades; independent, plain, rather rough, thoroughly democratic, a +trifle contemptuous of "silk stockings," outspoken, with little heed for +niceties of etiquette or conduct. Bennett pushed his way through them to +where stood Carter, the chief, and several of the more influential. Keith, +looking at them, met their eyes directed squarely into his. They were +steady, clear-looking, solid, rather coarse-grained, grave men. + +"I have brought Mr. Keith here, who was an eyewitness, to give his +testimony as to the events of last evenin'," said Bennett formally. + +Keith told his story. It was received in a blank noncommittal silence. The +men all looked at him steadily, and said nothing. Somehow, he was +impressed. This silence seemed to him, fancifully, more than mere lack of +words--it conveyed a sense of reserve force, of quiet appraisal of himself +and his words, of the experiences of men who have been close to realities, +who have _done_ things in the world. Keith felt himself to be better +educated, to own a better brain, to have a wider outlook, to be possessed, +in short, of all the advantages of superiority. He had never mingled with +rough men, and he had always looked down on them. In this attitude was no +condescension and no priggishness, Now he felt, somehow, that the best of +these men had something that he had not suspected, some force of character +that raised them above his previous conception. They might be more than +mere "filling" in a city's population; they might well come to be an +element to be reckoned with. + +When he had quite finished his story, there ensued a slight pause. Then +said Carter: + +"We believe Mr. Keith. If Mr. Ward and Frank Munro were there, of course +there can be no doubt." Somehow Keith could not resent the implication; it +was too impersonally delivered. Carter went on with cold formality and +emphasis; "Mr. Keith had a very narrow escape. It was lucky for him that +your hired men had 'sucked' your waterbox. In view of that we can, of +course, no longer regret the fact." + +"It was a dirty trick just the same!" growled a voice out of the crowd. + +Carter turned a deliberate look in that direction, and nothing more was +said. Bennett ignored the interruption, bowed frigidly, and turned away. +The Eureka leaders nodded. In dead silence Keith and Bennett withdrew. + +"That settles _that_!" observed Bennett, when at a little distance. "A lot +of cheap shopkeepers! It makes me disgusted every time I have anythin' to +do with them!" + +As they walked away, one of the hangers-on of the police court approached, +touching his hat. + +"For you, Mr. Bennett," he said most respectfully, proffering a paper. + +"Me?" observed Bennett, surprised. He unfolded the paper, glanced at it, +and laughed. "I'm arrested for wingin' that 'shoulder-striker' up the +street a while back," he told Keith. + +"Anything I can do?" asked Keith anxiously. + +"Not a thing, thank you. There'll be no trouble at all--just a little +nuisance. May call you for a witness later." + +He went away with the officer, but shortly after Keith saw him on the +street again. The matter had been easily arranged. + +Keith went to his office. In spite of himself he could not entirely take +Bennett's point of view. Several of the men at Eureka headquarters looked +interesting--he would like to know them--perhaps more than interesting, the +potentiality of a reasoning and directed power. + + + + +XVII + + +The afternoon nap suggested by Mrs. Morrell was not enjoyed, and Keith +returned home feeling pretty tired and inclined to a quiet evening. Nan had +to remind him of his engagement. + +"Oh, let's send a note over by Wing," he said, a little crossly. "I don't +feel like making an effort to-night." + +But Nan's convention could not approve of anything quite so radically a +last-minute decision. + +"It's a little late in the day for that," she pointed out. "She may have +stayed in just to see us. We can leave early." + +Keith went, grumbling. They found Mrs. Morrell in full evening dress, +showing her neck and shoulders, which were her best points, for she was +full bosomed and rounded without losing firmness of flesh. Nan was a trifle +taken back at this gorgeousness, for she had not dressed. Keith, with his +usual directness, made no secret of pretending to be utterly overwhelmed. + +"I didn't know we were expected to dress for a real concert with flowers!" +he cried, laughing. + +Mrs. Morrell shrugged her fine shoulders indifferently. + +"This old rag!" she said. "Don't let that bother you. I always like to put +on something cool for the evening. It's such a relief." + +It developed that Morrell had an engagement, and could not stay. + +"He was so disappointed," purred Mrs. Morrell. + +She was all eager for the music, brushing aside this and other +preliminaries. + +"You play, sing?" she asked Nan. "What a pity! I'm afraid you're going to +be terribly bored." + +She turned instantly to Keith, hurrying him to the piano, giving the +impression of being too eager to wait--almost the eagerness of a drunkard +in the presence of drink. And this in turn conveyed a vibrating feeling of +magnetism, of temperament under restraint, of possibilities veiled. The +impact struck Keith's responsive nature full. He waked up, approached the +piano with reviving interest. She struck idle chords and flashed at him +over her shoulder a brilliant smile. + +"What shall it be?" she demanded, still with the undercurrent of eagerness. +"You choose--a man's song--something soulful. I'm just in the mood." + +"Do you know the 'Bedouin Love Song?'" he inquired. + +"The 'Bedouin Love Song?' No--I'm afraid not. We are so far out of the +world." + +"It's a new thing. It goes like this." + +He hummed the air, and she followed it hesitatingly, feeling out the +accompaniment. Mrs. Morrell knew her instrument and had a quick ear. +Occasionally Keith leaned over her shoulder to strike for her an elusive +chord or modulation. In so doing he had to press close, and for all his +honest absorption in the matter at hand, could not help becoming aware of +her subtle perfume, the shine of her flesh, and the brightness of her crown +of hair. + +"You play it," she said suddenly. + +But he disclaimed the ability. + +"I don't know it any better than you do, and you improvise wonderfully." + +They became entirely absorbed in this most fascinating of tasks, the +working out little by little of a complicated accompaniment. + +"There!" she cried gayly at last. "I believe I have it. Let's try." + +Keith had a strong smooth baritone, not too well trained, but free from +glaring faults and mannerisms. It filled the little drawing-room ringingly. +He liked the song, and he sang it with fire and a certain defiance that +suited it. At its conclusion Mrs. Morrell sprang to her feet, breathing +quickly, her usual hard, quick artificiality of manner quite melted. + +"It's wonderful!" she cried. "It lifts one right up! It makes me feel I'd +run away----" She checked herself abruptly, and turned to where Nan sat in +an armchair outside the circle of light, "Don't you just _adore_ it?" she +asked in a more restrained manner, and turned back to Keith, who was +standing a little flushed and excited by the song, "You have just the voice +for it--with that vibrating deep quality." She reseated herself at the +piano and struck several loud chords. Under cover of them she added, half +under her breath, as though to herself, but distinctly audible to the man +at her shoulder; "Luck for us all that you are already taken." + +Keith would have been no more than human if he had not followed this cue +with a look. She did not lower her eyes, but gave him back his gaze +directly. It was as though some secret understanding sprang up between +them, though Keith,--in half-angry confusion, could not have analyzed it. + +After this they compared notes until they found several songs they both +knew. Mrs. Morrell brushed aside Keith's suggestion that she herself should +sing, but she did it in a way that left the implication that he was the +important one vocally. + +"No, no! I've been starved too long. I'm as tired of my little reed of a +voice as of the tinkle of a musical box." + +The close of the evening was brought about only by the return of Morrell +from his engagement. Keith had utterly forgotten his fatigue, and was +tingling with the enthusiasm to which his nature always rose under +stimulus. The Englishman, very self-contained, clean-cut, incisive, brought +a new atmosphere. He was cordial and polite, but not expansive. Keith came +down from the clouds. He remembered, with compunction, Nan sitting in the +armchair, the lateness of the hour, his own fatigue. + +"You should hear Mr. Keith's new song, Charley," said Mrs, Morrell. "It's +the most wonderful thing! The 'Bedouin Love Song,' You must surely sing it +at the Firemen's Ball. It will make a great hit. No, you surely must. With +a voice like yours it is selfish not to use it for the benefit of all. +Don't you agree with me, Mrs. Keith?" + +"I'll sing it, if you will play my accompaniment," said Keith. + +On their way home Keith's enthusiasm bubbled up again. + +"Isn't it great luck to find somebody to practise with?" he cried-- +"Unexpected luck in a place like this! I wish you cared for music." + +"Oh, I do," said Nan. "I love it. But I just can't do it, that's all." + +"Did you like it to-night?" + +"I liked it when you really _sang_" replied Nan with a little yawn, "but it +always took you such a time to get at it." + +A short silence fell. + +"Are you really going to sing at the Firemen's Ball?" she asked curiously. + +"I haven't been asked yet," he reminded her. "Don't you think it a good +idea?" + +"Oh, I don't know," said Nan, but her voice had a little edge. Keith felt +it, and made the usual masculine blunder. He stopped short, thunderstruck +at a new idea. + +"Why, Nan," he cried reproachfully, "I don't believe you like her!" + +"Like her!" she flashed back, her anger leaping to unreasonable +proportions--"that old frump!" + +No sooner had the door closed after them than Morrell's conventional smile +faded, and his countenance fell into its usual hard, cold impassivity. + +"Well, what is the game there?" he demanded. + +"There is no game," she replied indifferently. + +"There is very little money there, I warn you," he persisted. + +She turned on him with sudden fury. + +"Oh, shut up!" she cried. "I know my own business!" + +"And I know mine," he told her, slowly and dangerously. "And I warn you to +go slow unless I give the word." + +She stared at him a moment, and he stared back. Then, quite deliberately, +she walked over to him until her breast almost touched him. Her eyes were +half closed, and a little smile parted her full lips. + +"Charley," she drawled wickedly, "I warn _you_ to go slow. And I warn you +not to interfere with me--or I might interfere with you!" + +Morrell shrugged his shoulders, and turned away with an assumption of +indifference. + +"Please yourself. But I can't afford a scandal just now." + +"_You_ can't afford a _scandal!_" she cried, and laughed hardly. + +"Not just now," he repeated. + + + + +XVIII + + +Perhaps this unwise antagonizing by her husband, perhaps the idleness with +which the well-to-do woman was afflicted, perhaps a genuine liking for +Keith, gave Mrs. Morrell just the impulse needed. At any rate, she used the +common bond of music to bring him much into her company. This was not a +difficult matter. Keith was extravagantly fond of just this sort of +experimental amateur excursions into lighter music, and he liked Mrs. +Morrell. She was a good sort, straightforward and honest and direct, no +nonsense in her, but she knew her way about, and a man could have a sort of +pleasing, harmless flirtation to which she knew how to play up. There was +not, nor could there be--in Keith's mind--any harm in their relations. Nan +was the woman for him; but that didn't mean that he was never to see +anybody else, or that other women might not--of course in unessential and +superficial ways--answer some of his varied needs. + +Mrs. Morrell was skilful at keeping up his interest, and she was equally +skilful in gradually excluding Nan. This was not difficult, for Nan was +secretly bored by the eternal practising, and repelled by Mrs. Morrell's +efforts to be fascinating. She saw them plainly enough, but was at first +merely amused and faintly disgusted, for she was proud enough to believe +absolutely that such crude methods could have no effect on Milton, +overlooking the fact that the crudities of women never appear as plainly to +a man as they do to another woman. For a woman is in the know. At first she +offered one excuse or another, in an attempt to be both polite and +plausible. She much preferred a book at home, or a whole free evening to +work at making her house attractive. Later, Keith got into the habit of +taking her attitude for granted. + +"I promised to run over to the Morrells' this evening," he would say, "More +music. Of course you won't care to come. You won't be lonely? I won't be +gone late." + +"Of course not," she laughed. "I'm thankful for the chance to get through +with the blue room." + +Nevertheless, after a time she began to experience a faint, unreasonable +resentment; and Keith an equally faint, equally unreasonable feeling of +guilt. + +Left to itself this situation would, therefore, have righted itself, but +Mrs. Morrell was keen enough to give it the required directing touches: + +"Too bad we can't tear your wife away from her house and garden." + +"If you only had some one to practise with regularly at home! Your voice +ought to be systematically cultivated. It is wonderful!" + +And later: + +"You ought not to come here so much, I suppose--" rather doubtfully, "Any +sort of practice and accompaniment--even my poor efforts--does you so much +good! You or I would understand perfectly, but it is sometimes so difficult +for the inexperienced domestic type to comprehend! An older woman who +understands men knows--but come, we must sing that once more." + +The effect of these and a thousand similar speeches injected apparently at +random here and there in the tide of other things was at once to intensify +Keith's vague feeling of guilt, and to put it in the light somehow of an +injustice to himself. He had an unformulated notion that if Nan would or +could only understand the situation and be a good fellow that every one +would be happy; but as she was a mere woman, with a woman's prejudices, +this was impossible. It was absurd to expect him to give up his music just +because she wanted to be different! He had really nothing whatever to +conceal; and yet it actually seemed that difficulty and concealment would +be necessary if this sort of unspoken reproach were kept up. Women were so +confoundedly single-minded! + +And as the normal, healthy, non-introspective male tends to avoid +discomfort, even of his own making, it thus came about that Keith spent +less and less time at home. He did not explain to himself why. It was +certainly no lessening of his affection for Nan. Only he felt absolutely +sure of her, and the mental situation sketched above left him more open to +the lure of downtown, which to any live man was in those days especially +great. Every evening the "fellows" got together, jawed things over, played +pool, had a drink or so, wandered from one place to another, looked with +the vivid interest of the young and able-bodied on the seething, colourful, +vital life of the new community. It was all harmless and mighty pleasant. +Keith argued that he was "establishing connections" and meeting men who +could do his profession good, which was more or less true; but it took him +from home evenings. + +Nan, at first, quite innocently played into his hands. She really preferred +to stay at home rather than be bored at the Morrells'. Later, when this +tradition had been established, she began to be disturbed, not by any +suspicion that Milton's interest was straying, but by a feeling of neglect. +She was hurt. And little by little, in spite of herself, a jealousy of the +woman next door began to tinge her solitude. Her nature was too noble and +generous to harbour such a sentiment without a struggle. She blamed herself +for unworthy and wretched jealousy, and yet she could not help herself. +Often, especially at first, Keith in an impulse would throw over his plans, +and ask her to go to the theatre or a concert, of which there were many and +excellent. She generally declined, not because she did not want to go, but +because of that impelling desire, universal in the feminine soul, to be a +little wooed to it, to be compelled by gentle persuasion that should at +once make up for the past and be an earnest for the future. Only Keith took +her refusal at its face value. Nan was lonely and hurt. + +Her refusals to respond to his rather spasmodic attempts to be nice to her +were adopted by Keith's subconscious needs for comfort. If she didn't want +to see anything of life, she shouldn't expect him to bury himself. His +restless mind gradually adopted the fiction persistently held before him by +Mrs. Morrell that his wife was indeed a domestic little body, fond only of +her home and garden. As soon as he had hypnotized himself into the full +acceptance of this, he felt much happier, His uneasiness fell from him, and +he continued life with zest. If any one had told him that he was neglecting +Nan, he probably would have been surprised. They were busy; they met +amicably; there were no reproaches; they managed to get about and enjoy +things together quite a lot. + +The basis for the latter illusion rested on the Sunday excursions and +picnics. Both the Keiths always attended them. There was invariably the +same crowd--the Morrells; Dick Blatchford, the contractor, and his fat, +coarse-grained, good-natured Irish wife; Calhoun Bennett; Ben Sansome: +Sally Warner, a dashing grass widow, whose unknown elderly husband seemed +to be always away "at the mines"; Teeny McFarlane, small, dainty, precise, +blond, exquisite, cool, with very self-possessed manners and decided ways, +but with the capacity for occasionally and with deliberation outdoing the +worst of them, about whom were whispered furtive things the rumour of which +died before her armoured front; her husband, a fat, jolly, round-faced, +somewhat pop-eyed man who adored her and was absolutely ignorant of one +side of her. These and a sprinkling of "fast" youths made the party. +Sometimes the celebrated Sam Brannan went along, loud, coarse, shrewd, bull +voiced, kindly when not crossed, unscrupulous, dictatorial, and +overbearing, They all got to know each other very well and to be very free +in one another's society, + +The usual procedure was to drive in buggies, sometimes to the beach, +sometimes down the peninsula, starting rather early, and staying out all +day. Occasionally rather elaborate lunches were brought, with servants to +spread them; but the usual custom was to stop at one of the numerous road +houses. No man drove, walked, or talked with his own wife; nevertheless, +these affairs though rowdy, noisy, and "fast" enough, were essentially +harmless. The respectable members of the community were sufficiently +shocked, however. Gay dresses, gay laughter, gay behaviour, gay scorn of +convention, above all, the resort to the mysterious naughty road houses +were enough. It must be confessed that at times things seemed to go a bit +far; but Nan, who was at first bewildered and shocked, noticed that the +women did many things in public and nothing in private. As already her mind +and tolerance were adapting themselves to new things, she was able to +accept it all philosophically as part of a new phase of life. + +These people had no misgivings about themselves, and they passed judgment +on others with entire assurance. In their slang all with whom they came +into contact were either "hearses" or "live Mollies." There was nothing +racial, local, or social in this division. A family might be divided, one +member being a live Molly, and all the rest the most dismal of hearses. +Occasionally a stranger might be brought along. He did not know it, but +always he was very carefully watched and appraised: his status discussed +and decided at the supper to which the same people--minus all strangers-- +gathered later. At one of these discussions a third estate came into being. + +Teeny McFarlane had that day brought with her a young man of about twenty- +four or twenty-five, well dressed, of pleasant features, agreeable in +manner, well spoken, but quiet. + +"He isn't a live Molly," stated Sally positively. + +"Well, Sally took a walk with him," observed Sam Brannan dryly; "she ought +to know!" + +"Don't need to take a walk with him," countered Sally; "just take a talk +with him--or try to.". + +"I did try to," interpolated Mrs. Morrell. + +"May as well make it unanimous, looks like," said Sam. "He goes for a +hearse." + +But Teeny McFarlane interposed in her positive, precise little way. + +"I object," she drawled. "He certainly isn't as bad as all that. He's a +nice boy, and he never bored anybody in his life. Did he bore you, Sally?" + +"I can't say he did, now you mention it. He's one of those nice doggy +people you don't mind having around." + +They discussed the matter animatedly. Teeny McFarlane developed an +unexpected obstinacy. She did not suggest that the young man was to be +included in any of the future parties; indeed, she answered the direct +question decidedly in the negative; no, there was no use trying to include +anybody unless they decidedly "belonged." + +"You wouldn't call him a live Molly, now would you, Teeny?" implored Cal +Bennett. + +"No," she answered slowly, "I suppose not. But he is _not_ a hearse." + +The men, all but Popsy McFarlane, were inspecting Teeny's cool, unrevealing +exterior with covert curiosity. She was always an enigma to them. Each man +was asking himself why her interest in the mere labelling of this stranger. + +"He isn't a live Molly and she objects to his being a hearse," laughed +Sally. "He must be something between them. What," she inquired, with the +air of propounding a conundrum, "is between a live Molly and a hearse?" + +"Give it up!" they cried unanimously. + +Sally looked nonplussed, then shrieked: "Why, the pallbearers, of course!" + +The silly phrase caught. Thereafter, those who were acknowledged to be all +right enough but not of their feather were known as "pallbearers." + +The Keiths were live Mollies. He was decidedly one. His appearance alone +inspired good nature and high spirits, he looked so clean, vividly +coloured, enthusiastic, alive to his finger tips. He was always game for +anything, no matter how ridiculous it made him, or in what sort of a so- +called false position it might place him. When he had reached a certain +state of dancing-eyed joyous recklessness, Nan was always athrill as to +what he might do next. And Nan, spite of her quieter ways and the reserves +imposed on her by her breeding, was altogether too pretty and too much of a +real person ever to be classed as a hearse. With her ravishing Eastern +toilettes, her clear, creamy complexion, and the clean-cut lines of her +throat, chin, and cheeks, she always made the other women look a little too +vividly accented. The men all admired her on sight, and at first did their +best to interest her. They succeeded, for in general they were of vital +stuff, but not in the intimately personal way they desired. Her nature +found no thrill in experiment. One by one they gave her up in the favour of +less attractive but livelier or more complaisant companions; but they +continued to like her and to pay her much general attention. She never, in +any nuance of manner, even tried to make a difference; nevertheless, their +attitude toward her was always more deferential than to the other women. + +Ben Sansome was the one exception to the first part of the above statement. +Her gentle but obvious withdrawals from his advances piqued his conceit. +Ben was a spoiled youth, with plenty of money; and he had always been a +spoiled youth, with plenty of money. Why he had come to San Francisco no +one knew. Possibly he did not know himself; for as his affairs had always +been idle, he had drifted much, and might have drifted here. Whatever the +reason, the fact remained that in this busy, new, and ambitious community +he was the one example professionally of the gilded youth. His waistcoats, +gloves, varnished boots, jewellery, handkerchiefs were always patterns to +the other amateur, gilded youths who had also other things to do. His +social tact was enormous, and a recognized institution. If there had been +cotillons, he would have led them; but as there were no cotillons, he +contented himself with being an _arbiter elegantiarum_. He rather prided +himself on his knowledge of such things as jades, old prints, and obscure +poets of whom nobody else had ever heard. Naturally he had always been a +great success with women, both as harmless parlour ornaments, and in more +dangerous ways. In San Francisco he had probably carried farther than he +would have carried anywhere else. He had sustained no serious reverses, +because difficult game had not heretofore interested him. Entering half +interestedly with Nan into what he vaguely intended as one of his numerous, +harmless, artistic, perfumed flirtationlets, he had found himself +unexpectedly held at arm's length. Just this was needed to fillip his +fancy. He went into the game as a game. Sansome made himself useful. By +dint of being on hand whenever Keith's carelessness had left her in need of +an escort, and only then, he managed to establish himself on a recognized +footing as a sort of privileged, charming, useful, harmless family friend. + +Outside this small, rather lively coterie the Keiths had very few friends. +It must be confessed that the mothers of the future leaders of San +Francisco society, and the bearers of what were to be her proudest names, +were mostly "hearses." Their husbands were the forceful, able men of the +city, but they themselves were conventional as only conventional women can +be when goaded into it by a general free-and-easy, unconventional +atmosphere. That was their only method of showing disapproval. The effect +was worthy but dull. It was a pity, for among them were many intelligent, +charming women who needed only a different atmosphere, to expand. The +Keiths never saw them, and gained their ideas of them only from the +merciless raillery of the "live Mollies." + +All this implied more or less entertaining, and entertaining was expensive. +The Boyle house was expensive for that matter; and about everything else, +save Chinese servants, and, temporarily, whatever the latest clipper ship +had glutted the market with. Keith had brought with him a fair sum of money +with which to make his start; but under this constant drainage, it dwindled +to what was for those times a comparatively small sum. Clients did not +come. There were more men practising law than all the other professions. In +spite of wide acquaintance and an attractive popular personality, Keith had +not as yet made a start. He did not worry--that was not his nature--but he +began to realize that he must do one of two things: either make some money, +somehow, or give up his present mode of living. The latter course was +unthinkable! + + + + +XIX + + +One morning Keith was sitting in his office cogitating these things. His +door opened and a meek, mild little wisp of a man sidled in. He held his +hat in his hand, revealing clearly sandy hair and a narrow forehead. His +eyebrows and lashes were sandy, his eyes pale blue, his mouth weak but +obstinate. On invitation he seated himself on the edge of the chair, and +laid his hat carefully beside him on the floor. + +"I am Dr. Jacob Jones," he said, blinking at Keith. "You have heard of me?" + +"I am afraid I have not," said Keith pleasantly. + +The little man sighed. + +"I have held the City Hospital contract for three years," he explained, +"and they owe me a lot of money. I thought you might collect some of it." + +"I think if you'd put in a claim through the usual channels you'd receive +your dues," advised Keith, somewhat puzzled. He had not heard that the city +was refusing to pay legitimate claims. + +"I've done that, and they've given me these," said Doctor Jones, handing +Keith a bundle of papers. + +Keith glanced at them. + +"This is 'scrip,'" he said. "It's perfectly good. When the city is without +current funds it issues this scrip, bearing interest at 3 per cent. a +month. It's all right." + +"Yes, I know," said the little man ineffectually, "but I don't want scrip." + +Keith ran it over. It amounted to something like eleven thousand dollars. + +"What do you want done about it?" he asked, + +"I want you to collect the money for me." + +But Keith, had recollected something. + +"Just wait a minute, please," he begged, and darted across the hall to a +friend's office, returning after a moment with a file of legislative +reports. "I thought I'd heard something about it; here it is. The State +Legislature has voted an issue of 10 per cent. bonds to take up the scrip." + +"I don't understand," said Doctor Jones. + +"Why, you take your scrip to the proper official and exchange it for an +equal value of State bonds." + +"But what good does that do me?" cried Jones excitedly. "It doesn't get me +my money. They don't guarantee I can sell the bonds at par, do they? And +answer me this: isn't it just a scheme to cheat me of my interest? As I +understand it, instead of 3 per cent. a month I'm to get 10 per cent. a +year?" + +"That's the effect," corroborated Keith. + +"Well, I don't want bonds, I want money, as is my due." + +"Wait a minute," said Keith. He read the report again slowly. "This says +that holders of scrip _may_ exchange, for bonds; it does not say they +_must_ exchange," he said finally. "If that interpretation is made of the +law, suit and judgment would lie against the city. Do you want to try +that?" + +"Of course I want to try it!" cried Jones. + +"Well, bring me your contract and vouchers, and any other papers to do with +the case, and I'll see what can be done." + +"I have them right here," said Doctor Jones. + +This, as Keith's first case, interested him more than its intrinsic worth +warranted. It amused him to bring all his powers to bear, fighting strongly +for the technical point, and finally establishing it in court. In spite of +the evident intention of the Legislature that city scrip should be retired +in favour of bonds, it was ruled that the word _may_ in place of the word +_must_ practically nullified that intention. Judgment was obtained against +the city for eleven thousand dollars, and the sheriff was formally +instructed to sell certain water-front lots in order to satisfy that +judgment. The sale was duly advertised in the papers. + +Next morning, after the first insertion of this advertisement, Keith had +three more callers. These were men of importance: namely, John Geary, the +first postmaster and last _alcalde_ of the new city; William Hooper, and +James King of William, at that time still a banker. These were grave, +solid, and weighty citizens, plainly dressed, earnest, and forceful. They +responded politely but formally to Keith's salute, and seated themselves. + +"You were, I understand, counsel for Doctor Jones in obtaining judgment on +the hospital scrip?" inquired Geary. + +"That is correct," acknowledged Keith. + +"We have called to inform you of a fact that perhaps escaped your notice: +namely, that these gentlemen and myself have been appointed by the +Legislature as commissioners to manage the funded debt of the city; that, +for that purpose, title of all city lands has been put in our hands." + +"No, I did not know that," said Keith. + +"Therefore, you see," went on Geary, "the sheriff cannot pass title to any +lots that might be sold to satisfy Doctor Jones's judgment." + +Keith pondered, his alert mind seizing with avidity on this new and +interesting situation. + +"No, I cannot quite see that," he said at last; "the actual title is in the +city. It owns its property. You gentlemen do not claim to own it, as +individuals. You have delegated to you the power to pass title, just as the +sheriff and one or two others have that power; but you have not the _sole_ +power." + +"We have advice that title conveyed under this judgment will be invalid." + +"That is a matter for the courts to settle." + +"The courts----" began Hooper explosively, but Geary overrode him. + +"If all the creditors of the city were to adopt the course pursued by +Doctor Jones, the city would soon be bankrupt of resources." + +"That is true," agreed Keith. + +"Then cannot I appeal to your sense of civic patriotism?" + +"Gentlemen," replied Keith, "you seem to forget that in this matter I am +not acting for myself, but for a client. If it were my affair, I might feel +inclined to discuss the matter with you more in detail. But I am only an +agent." + +"But----" interrupted Hooper again. + +"That is quite true," interjected James King of William. + +"Well, we shall see your client," went on Geary, "But I might state that on +the side of his own best interests he would do well to go slow. There is at +least a considerable doubt as to the legality of this sale. It is unlikely +that people will care to bid." + +After some further polite conversation they took their leave. Keith quickly +discovered that the opinion held by the commissioners was shared by most of +his friends. They acknowledged the brilliance of his legal victory, admired +it heartily, and congratulated him; but they considered that victory +barren. + +"Nobody will buy; you won't get two bits a lot bid," they all told him. + +Little Doctor Jones came to him much depressed. The commissioners had +talked with him. + +"Do you want my advice?" asked Keith, "Then do this: stick to your guns." + +But little Jones was scared. + +"I want my money," said he; "perhaps I'd better take those bonds after +all." + +"Look here," suddenly said Keith, who had been making up his mind. "I'll +guarantee you the full amount in cash, within, say, two weeks, but only on +this condition: that you go out now, and spread it about everywhere that +you are going to stand pat. Tell 'em all you are going to push through this +sale." + +"How do I know----" + +"Take a chance," interrupted Keith. "If at the end of two weeks I don't pay +you cash, you can do what you please. Call off the sheriff's sale at the +last minute; I'll pay the costs myself. Come, that's fair enough. You can't +lose a cent." + +"All right," agreed Jones after a minute. + +"Remember: it's part of the bargain that you state everywhere that you're +going to force this sale, and that you don't let anybody bluff you." + +The affair made quite a little stir. Men like Sam Brannan, Dick Blatchford, +the contractor, and Jim Polk discussed Keith and his ability. + +"Got a pretty wife, too," added Brannan. "--never heard of the fall of +man." + +"Well, she's going to, if the Morrell woman has her way," observed Ben +Sansome dryly. + +Polk stretched his long legs, and smiled his desiccated little smile. + +"He's a pretty enterprising youngster--more ways than one," said he. + + + + +XX + + +On the evening of the third day after his latest interview with Doctor +Jones, Keith threw down his paper with a cry of triumph. He had been +scanning the columns of every issue with minute care, combing even the fine +print for the auctioneer's advertisements. Here was what he wanted: top of +column, third page, where every one would be sure to see it. The +commissioners issued a signed statement, calling public attention to the +details of their appointment, and warning that titles issued under +sheriff's sale would be considered invalid. + +Keith read this with great attention, then drew his personal check against +Palmer, Cook & Co. for eleven thousand dollars in favour of Doctor Jones. +After some search he unearthed the little man in a downtown rookery, and +from him obtained an assignment of his judgment against the city. Doctor +Jones lost no time spreading the news, with the additional statement that +he considered himself well out of the mess. He proceeded to order himself a +long-coveted microscope, and was thenceforth lost to sight among low-tide +rocks and marine algae. The sheriff's sale came off at the advertised date. +There were no bidders; the commissioners' warning had had its effect. Keith +himself bought in the lots for $5,000. This check about exhausted his +resources. This, less costs, was, of course, paid back to himself as holder +of the judgment. He had title, such as it was, for about what he had given +Jones. + +The bargain amused Keith's acquaintance hugely. Whenever he appeared he was +deluged with chaff, all of which he took, good naturedly. He was +considered, in a moment of aberration, to have bought an exceedingly +doubtful equity. Some thought, he must have a great deal of money, arguing +that only the owner of a fat bank account could afford to take such fliers; +others considered that he must have very little sense. Keith was apparently +unperturbed. He at once began to look about him, considering the next step +in his scheme. Since this investment had taken nearly every cent he had +left, it was incumbent to raise more money at once. + +He called on John Sherwood at the Empire. The gambler listened to him +attentively. + +"I can't go into it," he said, when Keith had finished. A slight smile +sketched itself on his strong, impassive face. "Not that I do not believe +it will work; I think it will. But I have long made it a rule never to try +to make money outside my own business--which is gambling. I never adopt +ordinary honest methods." + +Keith's honest but legally trained mind failed to notice the quiet sarcasm +of this. "Well, you know everybody in town. Where can I go?" + +Sherwood thought a moment. + +"I'll take you to Malcolm Neil," he said at last. It was Keith's turn to +look thoughtful. + +"All right," he said at last. "But not just right away. Give me a couple of +days to get ready." + +At the appointed time Sherwood escorted Keith to Malcolm Neil's office, +introduced and left him. Keith took the proffered wooden chair, examining +his man with the keenest attention. + +Malcolm Neil, spite of his Scotch name, was a New Englander by birth. He +had come out in '49, intending, like everybody else, to go to the mines, +but had never gone farther than San Francisco. The new city offered ample +scope for his talents, and he speedily became, not only rich, but a +dominating personality among financial circles. He accomplished this by +supplementing his natural ability with absolute singleness of purpose. It +was known that his sole idea was the making of money. He was reputed to be +hard, devoid of sentiment, unscrupulous. Naturally he enjoyed no +popularity, but a vast respect. More people had heard of him, or felt his +power, than had seen him; for he went little abroad, and preferred to work +through agents. John Sherwood's service in obtaining for Keith a personal +interview was a very real one. Neil's offices were small, dingy, and ill +lighted, at the back of one of the older and cheaper buildings. In the +outer of the two were three bookkeepers; the other contained only a desk, +two chairs, and an engraving of Daniel Webster addressing the Senate. + +The man himself sat humped over slightly, his head thrust a little forward +as though on the point of launching a truculent challenge. He was lean, +gray, with bushy, overhanging brows, eyes with glinting metallic surfaces, +had long sinewy hands, and a carved granite and inscrutable face, His few +words of greeting revealed his voice as harsh, grating and domineering. + +Keith, reading his man, wasted no time in preliminaries. + +"Mr. Neil," he said, "I have a scheme by which a great deal of money can be +made." + +Neil grunted. If it had not been for the fact that John Sherwood had +introduced the maker of that speech, the interview would have here +terminated. Malcolm Neil deeply distrusted men with schemes to make large +sums of money. After a time, as Keith still waited, he growled; + +"What is it?" + +"That," said Keith, "I shall not disclose until my standing in the matter +is assured." + +"What do you want?" growled Neil. + +"Fifty per cent of the profits, if you go in." + +"What do you want of me?" + +"The capital." + +"What is the scheme?" + +"That I cannot tell you without some assurance of your good intention." + +"What do you expect?" rasped Neil, "that I go into this blind?" + +"I have prepared this paper," said Keith, handing him a document. + +Neil glanced over the paper, then read it through slowly, with great care. +When he had finished, he looked up at Keith, and there was a gleam of +admiration in his frosty eye. + +"You are a lawyer, I take it?" he surmised. + +Keith nodded. Neil went over the document for the third time. + +"And a good one," added Neil. "This is watertight. It seems to be a +contract agreeing to the division you suggest, _providing_ I go into the +scheme. Very well, I'll sign this." He raised his voice. "Samuels, come in +and witness this. Now, what is the scheme?" + +Keith produced another paper. + +"It is written out in detail here." + +Neil reached for it, but Keith drew it back. + +"One moment." + +He turned it over on the blank side and wrote: + +"This is in full the financial deal referred to in contract entered into +this 7th of June, 1852, by Malcolm Neil and Milton Keith." + +To this he appended his signature, then handed the pen to Neil. + +"Sign," he requested. + +Neil took the pen, but hesitated for some moments, his alert brain seeking +some way out. Finally and grudgingly he signed. Then he leaned back in his +chair, eying Keith with rather a wintry humour, though he made no comment. +He reached again for the paper, but Keith put his hand on it. + +"What more do you want?" inquired Neil in amused tones. His sense of humour +had been touched on its only vulnerable point. He appreciated keen and +subtle practice when he saw it, + +"Not a thing," laughed Keith, "but a few words of explanation before you +read that will make it more easily understood. Can you tell me how much +water lots are worth?" + +"Five to eight thousand for fifty varas." + +"All right. I've bought ten fifty vara lots at sheriff's sale for five +thousand dollars." + +Neil's eye went cold. + +"I've heard of that. Your title is no good. The reason you got them so +cheaply was that nobody would bid because of that." + +"That's for the courts to decide. The fact remains that I've a title, even +though clouded, at $500 per lot." + +"Proceed." + +"Well, the commissioners are now advertising a sale of these same lots at +auction on the 15th." + +"So I see." + +"Well," said Keith softly, "it strikes me that whoever buys these lots then +is due for a heap of trouble." + +"How so?" + +"My title from the sheriff may be clouded, but it will be contested against +the title given at that sale. The purchaser will have to defend himself up +to the highest court. I can promise him a good fight." + +Neil was now watching him steadily, + +"If that fact could be widely advertised," went on Keith slowly, "by way of +a threat, so to speak, it strikes me it would be very apt to discourage +bidding at the commissioners' sale. Nobody wants to buy a lot of lawsuits, +at any price. In absence of competition, a fifty vara lot might be sold for +as low as--say $500." + +Neil nodded, Keith leaned forward. + +"Now here's my real idea: suppose _I_ buy in against this timid bidding. +Suppose _I_ am the one who gets the commissioners' title for $500. Then I +have both titles. And I am not likely to contest against myself. It's cost +me $1,000 per lot--$500 at each sale--a profit of from $4,000 to $7,000 on +each lot." + +He leaned back. Malcolm Neil sat like a graven image, no expression showing +on his flintlike face nor in his eyes. At length he chuckled harshly. Then, +and not until then, Keith proceeded: + +"But that isn't all. There's plenty more scrip afloat. If you can buy up as +much of it as you can scrape together, I'll get judgment for it in the +courts, and we can enlarge the deal until somebody smells a rat. We need +several things." + +"What?" + +"Secrecy." + +Neil made no reply, but the lines of his mouth straightened. + +"Influence to push matters along in official circles." + +"Matters will be pushed along." + +"A newspaper." + +"Leave that to me." + +"Agents--not known to be connected with us." + +Neil nodded. + +"Working capital--but that is provided for in the contract. And"--he +hesitated--"it will not harm to have these matters brought before a court +whose judge is not unfriendly." + +"I can arrange for that, Mr. Keith." + +Keith arose. + +"Then that is settled." He picked up the duplicate copy of the contract. +"There remains only one other formality." + +"Yes? What?" + +"Your check for $12,000." + +"What for?" + +"For my expenses in this matter up to date." + +"What!" cried Neil. + +"The contract specifies that you are to furnish the working capital," Keith +pointed out. + +"But that means the future--" + +"It doesn't say so." + +Neil paused a moment. + +"This contract would not hold in law, and you know it," he asserted boldly. +"It would be held to be an illegal conspiracy." + +"I would be pleased to have you point out the illegality in court," said +Keith coldly, his manner as frosty as Neil's. "And if conspiracy exists, +your name is affixed to it." + +Neil pondered this point a moment, then drew his checkbook toward him with +a grim little smile. + +"Young man, you win," said he. + +Keith thawed to sunniness at once. + +"Oh, we'll work together all right, once we understand each other," he +laughed. "Send your man out after scrip. Let him report to me." + +Neil arose rather stiffly, and extended his hand. + +"All right, all right!" he muttered, as though impatient. "Keep In touch. +Good-day. Good-day." + + + + + +XXI + + +The time for the annual Firemen's Ball was now at hand. At this period the +Firemen's Ball was an institution of the first social importance. As has +been shown, the various organizations were voluntary associations, and in +their ranks birds of a feather flocked together. On the common meeting +ground of the big annual function all elements met, even--if they did not +mingle as freely as they might. + +In any case, the affair was very elaborate and very gorgeous. Preparations +were in the hands of special committees months in advance. One company had +charge of the refreshments, another of the music, a third of the floor +arrangements, and so on. There was much jealous anxiety that each should do +its part thoroughly and lavishly, for the honour of its organization. The +members of each committee were distinguished by coloured ribbons, which +they wore importantly everywhere. An air of preoccupied business was the +proper thing for days before the event. + +It was held this year in one of the armouries. The decoration committee had +done its most desperate. Flags of all nations and strips of coloured +bunting draped the rafters; greens from the Sausalito Hills framed the +windows and doors; huge oiled Chinese lanterns swayed from the roofs. The +floor shone like glass. At either end bowers of green half concealed the +orchestras--two of them, that the music might never cease. The side rooms +were set for refreshments. Many chairs lined the walls. Hundreds of lamps +and reflectors had been nailed up in every conceivable place. It took a +negro over an hour to light them all. Near the door stood a wide, flat +table piled high with programs for the dancers. These were elaborate +affairs, and had cost a mint of money--vellum folders, emblazoned in colour +outside, with a sort of fireman heraldry and the motto: "We strive to +save." Gilded pencils on short silken tasselled cords dangled from their +corners. + +At eight o'clock the lights were all blazing, the orchestras were tuning, +and the floor fluttered with anxious labelled committeemen dashing to and +fro. There was nothing for them to do, but they were nervous. By half-past +eight the first arrivals could be seen hesitating at the outer door, as +though reluctant to make a plunge; herded finally to the right and left of +men's and women's dressing-rooms. After a long, chattering interval, +encouraged by the slow accumulation of numbers, a little group debouched on +the main, floor. Its members all talked and laughed feverishly, and tried +with varying success to assume an accustomed ease they did not feel. Most +of the women, somehow, seemed all white gloves and dancing slippers, and +bore themselves rather like affable, slightly scared rabbits. The men +suddenly became very facetious, swapping jokes in loud tones. + +The orchestra at the far end immediately struck up, but nobody ventured on +the huge and empty floor. Masters of ceremonies, much bebadged, rather +conscious of white gloves, strove earnestly with hurried, ingratiating +smiles to induce the younger members to break the ice. Ben Sansome, +remarkable among them for his social ease and the unobtrusive correctness +of his appointments, responsible head of the reception committee, +masterfully seized a blushing, protesting damsel and whirled her away. +This, however, was merely an informal sort of opening. The real bail could +start only with the grand march; and the grand march was a pompous and +intricate affair, possible only after the arrival of the city's elite. +Partners for the grand march had been bespoken months before. + +The Keiths arrived about half-past nine. Nan was looking particularly well +in her girlish fashion. Her usual delicate colour was heightened by +anticipation, for she intended ardently to "have a good time." For this +occasion, too, she had put on the best of her new Eastern clothes, and was +confident of the sensation they would create in the feminine breast. The +gown was of silk the colour of pomegranate blossoms, light and filmy, with +the wide skirts of the day, the short sleeves, the low neck. Over bodice +and skirt had been gracefully trailed long sprays of blossoms. Similar +flowers wreathed her head, on which the hair was done low and smooth, with +a golden arrow securing it. A fine golden chain spanned her waist. From it +dangled smaller chains at the ends of which depended little golden hands. +These held up the front of the skirt artistically, at just the right height +for dancing and to show flounces and ravishing petticoats beneath. It was +an innovation of the sort the feminine heart delights in, a brand-new thing +straight from Paris. Nan's gloves were of half length, the backs of the +hands embroidered and displaying each several small sparkling jewels. The +broad golden bracelets had been clasped outside the gloves. Around her +little finger was a ring from which depended, on the end of a chain, a +larger ring, and through this larger ring hung her dainty lace +handkerchief. This was innovation number two. The men all stared at her +proud, delicate, flowerlike effect of fresh beauty; but every woman +present, and Nan knew it, noted first, the cut of her gown, second, the +dangling little golden hands, and third, the handkerchief ring. She knew +that not later than to-morrow at least a half-dozen urgent orders would be +booked at Palmerston's; but she knew, also, that at least six months must +elapse before those orders could be filled. As for the rest, her stockings +were white, her slippers ribboned with cross-ties up the ankles, she +carried a stiff and formal bouquet, as big around as a plate, composed of +wired flowers ornamented with a "cape" of lace paper; but those things were +common. + +Altogether, Nan looked extraordinarily well, made a sensation. Keith was +pleased and proud of her. He picked one of the blazoned vellum cards from +the table and scrawled his initials opposite half a dozen dances. + +"I'm going to hold you to those, you know," he said. + +They proceeded, leisurely across the floor, and Keith established her in +one of the chairs. + +"I'll go get some of the men I want you to meet," said he. When he returned +with Bernard Black he found Nan already surrounded, Ben Sansome was there, +and Calhoun Bennett, and a half-dozen others, either acquaintances made on +some of the Sundays, or young men brought up by Sansome in his capacity of +Master of Ceremonies. She was having a good time laughing, her colour high, +Keith looked about him with the intention of filling his own card. + +Mrs, Morrell, surrounded by a hilarious group of the younger fry, was just +entering the room. She was dressed in flame colour, and her gown was cut +very low, plainly to reveal the swell of her ample bosom. Her evening +gloves and slippers were golden, as was a broad metallic woven band around +her waist. Altogether, striking, rather a conspicuous effort than an +artistic success, any woman would have said; but there could be no doubt +that she had provided a glittering bait for the attentions of the men. + +Keith immediately made his way across to her. + +"You are ravishing this evening," he said, reaching for her card. It was +full. Keith was chopfallen. + +"Take me to Mrs. Keith," asked Mrs. Morrell, taking the card again, "She +looks charming to-night; that simple style just suits her wide-eyed +innocence." + +She placed her fingers lightly on Keith's arm and moved away, nodding over +her shoulder at the rather nonplussed young men who had come in with her. +Thus rid of them, she turned again to Keith. + +"You didn't think I'd forget you!" she said, as though, reproachfully. +"See, I kept you four dances. I put down those initials myself. Now don't +you think I'm a pretty good sort?" + +"Indeed I do! Which ones are they?" asked Keith, opening his own card. + +"The third, seventh, ninth, and eleventh." + +Keith hesitated for an appreciable instant. The seventh and eleventh he had +put down for Nan. But somehow in the face of this smiling, cynical-looking, +vivid creature, he rather shrank from saying that he had them with his +wife. He swiftly reflected that, after all, he had four others with Nan, +that she was so surrounded with admirers that she could not go partnerless, +and that he would explain. + +"Delightful!" he cried, pencilling his program. + +Mrs. Morrell fluttered down alongside Mrs. Keith with much small talk. +After a moment the music started for the grand march. Everybody took the +floor. + +"Where can Charley be!" cried Mrs. Morrell in apparent distress. "Don't +wait here with me. I assure you I do not in the least mind sitting alone." + +But she said it in a fashion that made it impossible, and in this manner +Nan lost her first engagement with her husband. Not that it mattered +particularly, she told herself, grand marches were rather silly things, and +yet she could not avoid a feeling of thwarted pique at being so tied to the +wall. + +At the close of the march, and after the couples had pretty well resumed +their seats, Mrs. Sherwood entered, unattended and very leisurely. She +made, in her quieter manner, a greater sensation than had Mrs. Morrell. +Quite self-possessed, carrying herself with her customary poise, dressed +unobtrusively in black and gold, but with the distinction of an indubitable +Parisian model, moving without self-consciousness in contrast to many of +the other women, her small head high, her direct gaze a-smoulder with lazy +amusement, she glided across the middle of the floor. The eyes of every +woman in the ballroom were upon her. The "respectable" element stared +shamelessly, making comments aside. Those a little _déclassé_, on the +fringe of society, or the "faster" women like Mrs. Morrell--who might in a +way be considered her rivals--were apparently quite unaware of her. She +made her unhasting way to a vacant chair, sat down, and looked calmly about +her. + +Immediately she was surrounded by a swarm of the unattached men. The +attached men became very attentive to their partners. + +"Hullo," remarked Keith cheerfully. "There's Mrs. Sherwood. I must go over +and say good-evening to her." + +On sudden impulse Nan rose with him. She instinctively disliked her present +company and the situation; and a sudden pang of conscience had told her +that not once since she had left the Bella Union had she laid eyes on the +woman who had received her with so much kindness. + +"Take me with you," she said to Keith. + +"My dear!" cried Mrs. Morrell. "You wouldn't! Take my advice--you're young +and innocent!" + +She sought one of those exclusive, private-joke glances at Keith, but +failed to catch his eye. + +"She was very kind to me when I arrived," said Nan serenely. Keith, +hesitated; then his impulsive, warm-hearted loyalty spoke. + +"Good for you, Nan!" he cried. + +They moved away, leaving Mrs. Morrell alone, biting her lip and planning +revenges. + +The group around Mrs. Sherwood fell away at their approach. Nan sat down +next her, leaning forward with a pretty and girlish, impulsiveness. + +"It's ages since I have seen you, and I have no excuse to offer," she said. +"The days slip by." + +"I know," said Mrs. Sherwood. "New house, new Chinaman, even new dog-- +enough to drive the most important thoughts out of one's head. But you've +come out to-night like a flower, my dear. Your gown is charming, and it +suits you so well!" + +She chatted on, speaking of the floor, the music, the decorations, the +crowd. + +"I love this sort of thing," she remarked. "People in the mass amuse me. +Jack couldn't get away until midnight, but I wouldn't wait for him. I told +him it didn't worry me a bit to come without an escort," smoothing away +what little embarrassment might linger. The music started up again. The +Keiths arose and made their adieux. Mrs, Sherwood looked after them, her +bright eyes tender. Mrs. Keith was the only woman who had yet spoken to +her. + +"Isn't she simply stunning?" cried Keith. "She has something about her that +makes most of these others look cheap." + +"She's really wonderfully attractive and distinguished looking," agreed +Nan. + +"If she were only a little less practical--a little softer; more feminine-- +she'd be a sure-enough man killer. As it is, she needs a little more--you +know what I mean--" + +"More after Mrs. Morrell's fashion," suggested Nan a trifle wickedly. It +popped out on the impulse, and the next instant Nan would have given +anything if the words had not been said. Keith was arrested in mid- +enthusiasm as though by cold water. He checked himself, looked at her +sharply, then accepted the pseudo-challenge. + +"Well, Mrs. Morrell, for all her little vulgarities, impresses you as being +a very human sort of person." + +He felt a sudden and unreasoning anger, possibly because the shot had hit a +tender place. + +"Shall we dance?" he suggested formally. + +"I'm sorry," replied Nan, "I have this with Mr. Sansome; there he comes." + +For the first time Keith felt a little irritated at the ubiquitous Sansome; +but his sense of justice, while it could not smooth his ruffled feelings, +nevertheless made itself heard. + +"What I need is a drink," he told himself. + +At the buffet he found a crowd of the non-dancing men, or those who had +failed to get the early numbers. Here were many of his acquaintances; among +them, to his surprise, he recognized the grim features of Malcolm Neil. All +were drinking champagne. Keith joined them. They chaffed him unmercifully +about his purchases of clouded titles in water lots, and he answered them +in kind, aware of Neil's sardonically humorous eye fixed on him. But at the +first bars of the next dance he bolted in search of Mrs. Morrell, with +whom, he remembered, he had this number. + +Mrs. Morrell danced smoothly and lightly for a woman of her size, but was +inclined to snuggle up too close, to permit undistracted guidance to her +partner. It was almost impossible to avoid collisions with other couples, +unless one possessed a Spartan mind and an iron will. In spite of himself, +Keith became increasingly aware of her breast pressing against his chest; +her smooth arm against his shoulder; the occasional passing contact of her, +scarcely veiled from the sense of touch by the thin flame-coloured silk; +the perfume she affected; the faint odour of her bright blond hair. In an +attempt to break the spell he made some banal remark, but she shook her +head impatiently. She danced with her eyes half closed. When the music +stopped she drew a deep sighing breath. + +"You dance--oh, divinely!" she cried. "I might have known it." + +She moved away, and Keith followed her, a trifle intoxicated. + +"Let me see your card," she demanded abruptly. "Why, you haven't done your +duty; this is hardly a third filled!" + +"I hadn't started to fill it--and then you came in," breathed Keith. + +They were opposite the door leading into one of the numerous small rooms +off the main floor of the armoury. + +"Let's sit here--and you can get me a punch," she suggested. + +He brought the punch, and she drank it slowly, leaning back in an easy +chair. The place was dimly lighted, and her blond, full beauty was more +effective than in the more brilliantly lighted ballroom. Mrs. Morrell +exerted all her fascination. The next dance was half over before either +Keith or--apparently--Mrs. Morrell became aware of the fact. + +"Oh, you must run!" she cried, apparently greatly exercised. "Don't mind +me; go and find your partner." + +Keith replied, that he had this dance free, a fact of which her inspection +of his card had perfectly informed her. In answer to his return +solicitation as to her own partner, she shrugged her shoulders. + +"Oh, he'll find me," she said indifferently. "This is very cozy here." + +They resumed what had become an ardent flirtation. Toward the end of the +dance Mrs. Morrell's partner came in, looking very flurried. Before he +could say a word, Mrs. Morrell began reproachfully to chide him with lack +of diligence. + +"I've been waiting just _rooted_ to this spot!" she said truthfully. + +"Shall we dance?" suggested the unfortunate young man. + +"It's nearly over," replied Mrs. Morrell carelessly. "Do sit down with us. +Get yourself something to drink. _Don't go!_" she commanded Keith fiercely +under her breath. + +At the beginning of the fourth dance, however, her next partner found her +and led her away. She "made a face" over her shoulder at Keith. + +When a woman makes up her mind to monopolize a man who has not acquired the +fine arts of rudeness and escape she generally succeeds. Keith's cordial +nature was incapable of rudeness. Besides, being a perfectly normal man, +and Mrs. Morrell experienced and attractive, he liked being monopolized. It +crossed his mind once or twice that he might be in for a scolding when he +got home. Nan might be absurd. But he was so secure in his essential +loyalty to Nan that his present conduct was more in the nature of a +delightfully naughty escapade than anything else. He stole the apples now, +and later would go dutifully for his licking. Men of Keith's nature are +easily held and managed by a wise woman, but the woman must be very wise. +Keith loved celebrations. On the wings of an occasion he rose joyfully and +readily to incredible altitudes of high-spirited but harmless recklessness. +Birthdays, anniversaries, New Years, Christmas, arrivals, departures, he +seized upon with rapture. Each had its appropriate ceremonial, its +traditional drink, the painstaking brewing of which was a sacred rite. On +such occasions he tossed aside the cloak of the everyday. A "celebration" +meant that you were different. Humdrum life and habits must be relegated to +the background. It was permitted that, unabashed, you be as silly, as +frivolous, as inconsequential, as boisterous, as lighthearted, as +delightfully irresponsible as your ordinary concealed boyishness pleased. +Customary repressions had nothing to do here. This was a celebration! And +in the aforementioned our very wise woman would have seen--a safety valve. + +Keith was off on a celebration to-night: an unpremeditated, freakish, +impish, essentially harmless celebration, with a faint flavour of mischief +in it because he had Nan in the back of his head all the time. He played up +to Mrs. Morrell with exuberance, with honestly no thought except that he +was having a whacking good time, and that old Nan was being teased. It was +characteristic that for the time being he fell completely under Mrs. +Morrell's fascination. They were together fully half the time, appearing on +the floor only occasionally, then disappearing in one or the other of the +many nooks. Mrs. Morrell "bolted" her dances shamelessly. Keith thought her +awfully amusing and ingenious in the way she managed this. Sometimes they +hid in out-of-the-way places. Sometimes she pretended to have mistaken the +dance. "The sixth, are you very _sure_? I'm convinced it is only the +fifth." Keith's conscience troubled him a little concerning the few names +on his own card. + +"I have this with Mrs. Wilkins," said he. "I really ought to go and look +her up." + +She took his card from him and deliberately tore it to small bits which she +blew from the palm of her gloved hand. He protested in real dismay, but she +looked him challengingly, recklessly, in the eye, until he laughed, too. + +All this was, of course, well noticed. Keith, again characteristically, had +not taken into consideration the great public. Nan might have remained +comparatively indifferent to Keith's philandering about for an evening with +the Morrell creature--she had by now a dim but growing understanding of +"celebrations"--but that he should deliberately neglect and insult her in +the face of all San Francisco was too much. Her high, young enjoyment of +the evening fell to ashes. She was furiously angry, but she was a +thoroughbred. Only a heightened colour and a sparkling eye might have +betrayed her to an astute woman. Observing her, Ben Sansome took heart. It +was evident to him that the Keiths had long since reached an absolute +indifference in their relations, that they lived the conventional, +tolerant, separate lives of the majority of married couples in Ben +Sansome's smart acquaintance. He ventured to apply himself more +assiduously, and was by no means badly received. + +Keith remembered the next dance with his wife. He could not find her, +although, a trifle conscience stricken, he searched everywhere. After the +music had finished, she emerged from the dressing-room; the next time she +could not be found at all. Evidently she was avoiding him with intention. + +Mrs. Sherwood, after each dance, returned invariably to the same chair near +the middle of one wall. There, owing to the fact that the "respectables" +withdrew from the chairs on either side, withdrew gradually and without +open rudeness, she held centre of a little court of her own. This made of +it a sort of post of observation from which she could review all that was +going on. She had no lack of partners, for she danced wonderfully, and in +looks was quite the most distinguished woman there. Keith's dance with her +came and went, but no Keith appeared to claim it. Mrs. Sherwood smiled a +little grimly, and her glance strayed down the wall opposite until it +rested on Nan. She examined the girl speculatively. Nan was apparently +completely absorbed in Ben Sansome; but there was in her manner something +feverish, hectic, a mere nothing, which did not escape Mrs. Sherwood's keen +eye. + +About midnight Sherwood appeared, and at once made his way to his wife's +side. He was punctiliously dressed in the mode: a "swallowtail," bright, +soft silk tie of ample proportions, frilled linen, and sparkling studs. He +bent with an old-world formality over his wife's hand. She swept away her +skirts from the chair at her side, her eyes sparkling softly with pleasure. + +"You won't mind," she said carelessly to the young men surrounding her, "I +want to talk to Jack for a minute." + +They arose, laughing a little. + +"That is your one fault, Mrs. Sherwood," said one, "you are altogether too +fond of your husband." + +"Well, how are things going?" asked Sherwood, as they moved away. + +"I'm having a good time. But you're very late, Jack," + +"I know--I wanted to come earlier. Everything all right?" + +At the question a little frown sketched itself on her clear brow. + +"In general, yes," she said. "But they've got that Lewis boy out in the bar +filling him up on champagne." + +"That's a pity." + +"It's a burning shame!" said she, "And I'd like to shake young Keith. He's +dangled after the Morrell woman from start to finish in a manner scandalous +to behold." + +Sherwood laughed. + +"The 'Morrell woman' will do his education good," he remarked. + +"Well, she isn't doing that poor little Mrs. Keith's education any good," +returned Mrs. Sherwood rather tartly. + +Sherwood surveyed Nan and Ben Sansome leisurely. + +"I must say she doesn't look crushed," he said, after a moment. + +"Do you expect her to weep violently?" asked Mrs. Sherwood. + +He accepted good naturedly the customary feminine scorn for the customary +masculine obtuseness. + +"Well, I don't know that we can help it," said he, philosophically. + +Mrs. Sherwood appeared to come to a sudden resolution. She arose. + +"You go get that Lewis boy away from the bar," she commanded. + +Deliberately she shook and arranged her full skirts. The man with whom she +had this dance, and who had been waiting dutifully for the conference to +close, darted forward. She shook her head at him smilingly. + +"I'm going to let you off," she told him. "You won't mind. I have something +extra special to do." + +She swept quite alone across the middle of the ballroom, serene, self- +possessed; and walked directly toward Keith and Mrs. + +Morrell, who were seated together at the other end. A perceptible pause +seemed to descend. The music kept on playing, couples kept on dancing, but, +nevertheless, suddenly the air was charged with attention. Sherwood looked +after her with mingled astonishment and fond pride. + +"A frontal attack, egad!" said he to himself. + +Keith and Mrs. Morrell pretended, as long as they decently could, not to +see her. She swam leisurely toward them. Finally Keith arose hastily; Mrs. +Morrell stared straight ahead. + +"Young man," accused Mrs. Sherwood, with a faint amusement in her rich, low +voice, "do you know that this is our dance?" + +Keith excused his apparent lapse volubly, telling several times over that +his program had been destroyed, that he was abject when he thought of the +light this put him in. + +"It is only when angels like yourself condescend to reach me a helping hand +that I have even a chance to right myself," he added. He thought this +rather a good touch. + +Mrs. Sherwood stood before him easily, in perfect repose of manner, the +half smile still sketching her lips. She said just nothing at all in +response to his glib excuses; but when he had quite finished she laid her +hand in his arm. Mrs. Morrell, her colour high, continued to stare straight +ahead, immobile except for the tapping of one foot. To Keith's request to +be excused she vouchsafed a stiff half nod, partly in his direction. + +They danced. Mrs. Sherwood, like most people who have command enough of +their muscles to be able to keep them in graceful repose, danced +marvellously well. When she stopped after a single turn of the room, Keith +expostulated vigorously. + +"You are a perfect partner," he told her. + +"Take me in here and get me a sherbet," she commanded, without replying to +his protests. "That's good," she said, when she had tasted it. "Now sit +down and listen to me. You are making a perfect spectacle of yourself. +Don't you know it?" + +Keith stiffened to an extreme formality. + +"I beg your pardon!" said he freezingly. + +"That may be your personal individual right"--went on Mrs. Sherwood's low, +rich voice evenly. She was not even looking at him, but rather idly toward +the open door into the ballroom. Her fan swung from one finger; every line +of her body was relaxed. She might have been tossing him ordinary +commonplaces from the surface of a detached mind--"making a spectacle of +yourself," she explained; "but you're making a perfect spectacle of your +wife as well--and in public. That is not your right at all." + +Keith sprang to his feet, furious. + +"You are meddling with what is really my own business, madam," said he. + +For the first time she looked up at him, dearly and steadily. In the eyes. + +"Very well. That is true. Stop a moment and think. Are you attending to +your business yourself, even decently? Yes, I understand; you are angry +with me. If I were a man, you would challenge me to a duel and all that +sort of thing." She smiled indifferently. "Let's take that for granted and +get on. Sweep it aside. You are man enough to do it, or I mistake you +greatly. Look down into yourself for even one second. Are you playing fair +all around? _Aren't you a little ashamed?_" + +She held him with, her clear, level gaze. His own did not fall before it, +and his head went back, but slowly his face and neck turned red. Thus they +stared at each other for a full half minute, she smiling slightly, +perfectly cool; he seething with a suppressed emotion of some sort. Then +she turned indolently away. + +"You're too fine to do things like that," she said, with a new softness in +her voice; "we all have too much faith in you. The common tricks would not +appeal to you, except in idleness; is it not so?" + +She smiled up at him, a little sidewise. Keith caught his breath. For a +fleeting instant this extraordinary woman deigned to exert her feminine +charms for the first time the coquette looked from her eyes; for the first +time he saw mysteriously deep in her veiled nature a depth of possibility, +of rich possibility--he could not grasp it--it was gone. But in spite of +himself his pulses leaped like a flame. But now she was gazing again at the +ballroom door, cool, indolent, aloof, unapproachable. Yet just at that +instant, somehow, the other woman looked shallow, superficial, cold. His +glance fell on Mrs. Morrell still sitting where he had left her. Something +was wrong with her effect---- + +Analysis was submerged in a blaze of anger. This anger was not now against +the woman before him; his instinct prevented that. Nor against Mrs. Morrell +nor his wife; reluctant justice prevented that. Nor against himself--where +it really belonged. Things were out of joint; he felt cross-grained and +ugly. Mrs. Sherwood rose. + +"You may take me back now," said she. + +As they glided across the floor together, her small sleek head came just +above his shoulder. No embarrassment disturbed her manner. Keith could not +find in him a spark of resentment against her. She moved by his side with +an air of poise and detachment as a woman whose mind had long since weighed +and settled the affairs of her own cosmos so that trifles could not disturb +her. + +Leaving her in her accustomed chair, where Sherwood waited, Keith loyally +returned to Mrs. Morrell, who still sat alone. Subconsciously he noticed +something wrong with Mrs. Morrell. Her gowning was indeed rather a +conspicuous effort than an artistic success. She had badly torn her dress-- +perhaps that was it. + +Mrs. Morrell received him with every appearance of sympathy. + +"You poor thing!" she cried. "What a fearful situation! Of course I know +you couldn't help it." + +But Keith was grumpy and monosyllabic. He refused to discuss the situation +or Mrs. Sherwood, returning with an obvious effort to commonplaces. Mrs. +Morrell exerted all her fascination to get him back to the former level. A +little cold imp sat in the back of Keith's brain and criticised +sardonically; Why will big women persist in being kittenish? Why doesn't +she mend that awful rent, it's fairly sloppy! Suppose she thinks that kind +of talk is funny! I _do_ wish she wouldn't laugh in that shrill, cackling +fashion! In short, the very tricks that an hour ago were jolly and amusing +were now tiresome. Having been distrait, ungallant, masculinely put out for +another fifteen minutes, he abruptly excused himself, sought out Nan, and +went home. + +From her point of observation, Mrs. Sherwood watched them go. Nan looked +very tired, and every line of Keith's figure expressed a grumpy moroseness. + +"Congratulations," said Sherwood. + +"He certainly is a child of nature," returned his wife. "Look at him! He is +cross, so he _looks_ cross. That this is a ballroom and that all San +Francisco is present is a mere detail." + +"How did you break it up?" asked Sherwood curiously. + +"Men are so utterly ridiculous! He had built up a lot of illusions for +himself, but his instincts are true and good. It needed only a touch. It +was absurdly simple." + +"He'll go back to the Morrell to-morrow," asserted Sherwood confidently. + +She shook her head. + +"Not to her. He _sees_ her now. And not to-morrow. But eventually to +somebody, perhaps. He has curly hair." + +Sherwood laughed. + +"Shear him, like Sampson," he suggested. "But it strikes me he has about +the most attractive woman--bar one--in town right at home." + +"She'd have no trouble in holding him if she were only _awake_. But she's +only a dear little child--and about as helpless. She has very little +subtlety. I'm afraid she'll follow the instincts of her training. She'll be +too proud to do anything herself to attract her husband, once his +attentions to her seem to drop off. She'll just become cold and proud--and +perhaps eventually turn elsewhere." + +"I don't believe she's a bit that kind," asserted Sherwood positively. + +"Nor do I. But, Jack, a woman lonely enough has fancies, that in the long +run may become convictions." + + + + +XXII + + +Mrs. Sherwood was completely right. Keith had _seen_ Mrs. Morrell. The +glamour had fallen from her at a touch. He did not in the least understand +how this had happened, and considered that it was his own fault. Mrs. +Morrell had not changed in the least, but he had, somehow. He looked upon +himself as fickle, disloyal, altogether despicable. Yet for the life of him +he could not get up the slightest spark of enthusiasm for musical evenings, +Sunday night suppers, or week-end excursions into the country. They had +fallen dead to his taste; and with the sudden revolt to which such +temperaments as his are subject, he could not bear even the thought of them +without a feeling of incipient boredom. The blow administered to his self- +respect put him quite out of conceit with himself and the world in general. +If he had followed his natural instinct, he would instanter have thrown, +overboard all the Morrell episode, bag and baggage. + +But that was, of course, impossible. Keith felt his obligations; he was a +man of honour; he had respect for the feelings of others; he could not make +friendly people the victims of his own outrageous freaks. That was out of +the question! + +Mrs. Morrell sent for him. She had been puzzled by the episode of the +evening before. It would have been absolutely incredible to her that a +hundred words from a woman who was not her rival could have destroyed her +influence over this man. She had considerable knowledge of men, and she had +played her cards carefully. But she realized that something was the matter; +and she thought that the time had come to use the power she had gained. A +note dispatched by the Chinaman would do. + +Keith obeyed the summons. He knew himself well enough to realize that the +intimacy, such as it was, must come to a pretty abrupt termination. +Otherwise, he would shortly get very bored; and when he got very bored he +became, in spite of himself, reserved and self-contained to the point of +rudeness. For the exact reason that he saw thus clearly, his conscience was +smiting him hard. Mrs. Morrell had done nothing to deserve this treatment. +He was a dastard, a coward, ashamed of himself. If she wanted to see him, +it was her due that he obey her summons promptly. He went with the vague +idea of making amends by doing whatever she seemed to require--for this +once. + +She entered the dim sitting-room clad in a flowing silken negligée, which +she excused on the ground of laziness. + +"I'm still a little tired from last night," she said, with a laugh. + +The soft material and informal cut clung to and defined the lines of her +figure, showing to especial advantage the long sweep of her hips, the +pliancy of her waist, the swell of her fine bust. A soft lilac colour set +off the glint of her fair hair. She was, in fact, feeling a little languid +from the reaction of the ball and in a sudden rush of emotion she admired +Keith's crisp freshness. Her eyes swam a little and her breast heaved. + +But the preliminary conversation went by jerks. Keith answered her advances +with an effort toward ease and cordiality, but with a guarded, unnatural +manner that sent a sudden premonitory chill to the woman's heart. Her +instinct warned her. As the minutes passed, her uneasiness grew to the +point of fear. Was she losing him? Why? This was no time for ordinary +methods. + +She arose and went to sit by his side. + +"What's the matter, dear?" she asked. + +"Nothing." + +"Why are you acting in this manner? What have I done?" + +"I'm not; you haven't done anything--of course." + +She suddenly leaned forward, looking into his eyes, projecting all the +force of her magnetism. She had before seen him respond, felt him quiver to +her tentative, mischievous advances, + +"Kiss me," she breathed. + +Poor Keith was having a miserable enough time. He clung to his first +thought--that this evening was her due, that he was in some way bound, in +ending everything, to pay whatever coin he had left. He obeyed her, +touching her lips lightly and coldly with his own. Never was chaster caress +bestowed on melting mood! + +She flung him violently aside, her face writhing and contorted with fury. +She was enlightened, completely, as she could have been enlightened in no +other manner. + +"You can go!" she cried hoarsely. "Get out! Don't dare enter this house +again!" + +He made some sort of spiritless, feeble protest, trying his best to put +some convincing quality into it. But she did not even listen. The +ungoverned tiger-cat part of her nature was in the ascendant, the fierce +pride of the woman living near the edge of the half-world. She would gladly +have killed him. At length he went, very confused, bewildered, miserable-- +and relieved! He left behind him a bitter enemy. + + + + +XXIII + + +In complete revulsion, Keith scuttled the frivolous world of women. As he +expressed it, he was sick of women. They made him tired. Too much fuss +trying to keep even with their vagaries. A man liked something he could +bite on. He plunged with all the enthusiasm and energy of his vivid +personality into his business deal of the water lots and into the +fascinating downtown life of the pioneer city. The mere fact that he had +ended that asinine Morrell affair somehow made him think he had made it all +up to Nan, and he settled back tacitly and without further preliminaries +into what his mood considered a most satisfactory domestic basis. That is, +he took his home and his home life for granted. It was there when he needed +it. He admired Nan greatly, and supplied her with plenty of money, and took +her to places when he could get the time. Some day, when things were not +quite so lively, they would go somewhere together. In the meantime he never +failed to ask her every evening if she had enjoyed herself that day; and +she never failed to reply that she had. Everything was most comfortable. + +After the Firemen's Ball Nan, somehow relieved of any definite uneasiness, +felt that she should be made much of, should be a little wooed, that Keith +should make up a little for having been somewhat of a naughty boy. When, +instead, she was left more alone than before, she was hurt and depressed. +Of course, Milton did not realize--but what was there for her? Wing Sam ran +the house; she worked a good deal in the garden, assisted by Gringo. +Probably at no time in modern history have wives been left so much alone +and so free as during this period. The man's world was so absorbing; the +woman's so empty. + +Ben Sansome dropped in quite often. He was always amusing, always +agreeable, interested in all sorts of things, ready to give his undivided +attention to any sort of a problem, no matter how trivial, to consider it +attentively, and to find for it a fair and square deliberate solution. This +is exceedingly comforting to the feminine mind. He taught Gringo not to +"jump up"; he found out what was the matter with the _Gold of Ophir_ +cutting; he discovered and took her to see just the shade of hangings she +had long sought for the blue room. Within a very short time he had +established himself on the footing of the casual old-time caller, happening +by, dropping in, commenting and advising detachedly, drifting on again +before his little visit had assumed rememberable proportions. He had always +the air of just leaning over the fence for a moment's chat; yet he +contrived to spend the most of an afternoon. He spoke of Keith often, +always in affectionate terms, as of a sort of pal, much as though he and +Nan _both_ owned him, he, of course, in a lesser degree. + +One afternoon, after he had actually been digging away at a bulb bed for +half an hour, Nan suggested that he come in for refreshment. Gradually this +became a habit. Sansome and Nan sat cozily either side the little Chinese +tea table. He visibly luxuriated. + +"You don't know what a privilege this is for me--for any lonesome bachelor +in this crude city--to have a home like this to come to occasionally." + +He hinted at his situation, but made of its details a dark mystery. The +final impression was one of surface lightness and gayety, but of inner +sadness. + +"It is a terrible city for a man without an anchor!" he said. "Keith is a +lucky fellow! If I only had some one, as he has, I might amount to +something." A gesture implied what a discouraged butterfly sort of person +he really was. + +"You ought to marry," said Nan gently. + +"Marry!" he cried. "Dear lady, whom? Where in this awful mixture they call +society could one find a woman to marry?" + +"There are plenty of nice women here," chided Nan. + +"Yes--and all of them taken by luckier fellows! You wouldn't have me marry +Sally Warner, would you--or any of the other half-dozen Sally Warners? I +might as well marry a gas chandelier, a grand piano, and a code of +immorals--but the standard of such women is so different from the standard +of women like yourself." + +Nan might pertinently have inquired what Ben Sansome did in this gallery, +anyhow; but so cold-blooded and direct an attack would have required a cool +detachment incompatible with his dark, good looks, his winning, appealing +manners, his thoughtfulness in little things, his almost helpless reliance +on her sympathy; in other words, it presupposed a rather cynical, elderly +person. And Nan was young, romantic, easily stirred. + +"All you need is to believe in yourself a little more," she said earnestly +and prettily. "Why don't you undertake something instead of drifting? Some +of the people you go with are not especially good for you--do you think +so?" + +"Good for me?" he laughed bitterly. "Who cares if I go to the dogs? They'd +rather like me to; it would keep them company! And I don't know that I care +much myself!" he muttered in a lower tone. + +She leaned forward, distressed, her eyes shining with expostulation. + +"You mustn't hold yourself so low," she told him vehemently. "You mustn't! +There are a great many people who believe in you. For their sake you should +try. If you would only be just a little bit serious--in regard to yourself, +I mean. A gay life is all very well----" + +"Gay?" he interrupted, then caught himself. "Yes, I suppose I do seem gay-- +God knows I try not to cry out--but, really, sometimes I'm near to ending +it all----" + +She was excited to a panic of negation. + +"Oh, no! no!" she expostulated vehemently. ("Egad, she's stunning when +she's aroused!" thought Sansome.) "You mustn't talk like that! It isn't +fair to yourself; it isn't fair to your manhood! Oh, how you do need some +one to pull you up! If I could only help!" + +He raised his head and looked directly at her, his dark, melancholy eyes +lighting slowly. + +"You have helped; you are helping," he murmured. "I suppose I have been +weak and a coward, I will try." + +"That's right. I am so glad," she said, glowing with sweetness and a desire +to aid. "Now you must turn over a new leaf," she hesitated. "Every way, I +mean," she added with a little blush. + +"I know I drink more than I ought," he supplied in accents of regret. + +"Don't you suppose you could do without?" she begged very gently. + +"Will you help me?" He turned on her quickly; then, his delicate instincts +perceiving a faint, instinctive recoil at his advance, he added: "Just let +me come here occasionally, into this quiet atmosphere, when it gets too +hard and I can see no light; just to get your help, the strength I shall +need to tide me over." + +He looked very handsome and romantic and young. He was apparently very, +deeply in earnest. Nan experienced a rash of pity, of protective maternal +emotion. + +"Yes, do come," she assented softly. + + + + +XXIV + + +All this time Keith was busy every minute of the day. The water-lot matter +was absorbing all his attention. Through skilful and secret agents Neil had +acquired a great deal of scrip issued by the city for various public works +and services which the holders had not yet exchanged for the new bonds. +These he turned over to Keith. Very quietly, by prearrangement, the latter +sued and obtained judgments. When all this had been fully accomplished--and +not before then--the veil of secrecy was rent. Rowlee's paper advertised a +forthcoming sale of water lots to satisfy the judgments. + +Then followed, for Keith, an anxious period of three days. But at the end +of that time the commissioners issued a signed warning that the titles +conveyed by this sale would not be considered legal. On seeing this, Keith +at once rushed around to Neil's office. + +"Here it is," he announced jubilantly. "They held off so long that I began +to be afraid they did not intend to play our game for us. But it's all +right." + +The matter was widely discussed; but next morning placards, bearing the +text of the commissioners' warning, were posted on every blank wall in town +and distributed as dodgers. These were attributed by the public to zeal on +the part of those officials; but the commissioners knew nothing about it. + +"Some anonymous friend of the city must have done it," Hooper told his +friends, and added, "We are delighted!" + +The unknown friend was Malcolm Neil himself. + +This warning had its effect. As Keith had predicted, nobody cared to put +good money into what was officially and authoritatively announced as a bad +title. At the sheriff's sale there were no bona fide bidders except the +secret agents of Malcolm Neil. The sheriff's titles--such as they were-- +went for a song. Immediately the ostensible purchasers were personally +warned by the commission; but they seemed satisfied. + +So matters rested until, a little later, the commissioners inserted in all +the papers the customary legal advertisements setting forth a sale by them, +under the State law, of these same water lots to satisfy the interest and +fill the sinking fund for the bonds. The next morning appeared a statement +signed by all the ostensible purchasers under the sheriff's sale. This +stated dearly and succinctly the intention to contest any titles given by +the commissioners, even to the highest courts. This was marked _advt_, to +indicate the newspaper's neutrality in the matter. Rowlee commented on the +situation editorially, He took the righteous and indignant attitude, +expressing extreme journalistic horror that such a hold-up should be +possible in a modern, civilized community, hurling editorial contempt on +the dastardly robbers who were thus intending to shake down the innocent +purchasers, etc. In fact, he laid it on thick, But he managed to insinuate +a doubt. Between the lines the least astute reader could read Rowlee's +belief that perhaps these first purchasers might have a case, iniquitous +but legal. He hammered away at this for a week. By the end of that time he +had, by the most effective, indirect methods--purporting all the time to be +attacking the signers of the warning--succeeded in instilling into the +public mind a substantial distrust of the stability of the titles to be +conveyed at the commissioners' sale. Malcolm Neil complimented him highly +at their final and secret interview. + +Again Keith's predictions were fulfilled to the letter. Nobody wanted to +buy a lawsuit. There were a few bidders, it is true, but they were faint +hearted. Another set of Malcolm's secret agents bid all the lots in at a +nominal figure. That very afternoon they all met in Neil's stuffy little +back office. Keith had the deeds prepared. All that was necessary was to +affix the signatures. The purchasers under both sales conveyed their rights +to Neil and Keith. The latter now possessed uncontested and incontestable +title. + + + + +XXV + + +Having personally delivered the deeds to the recorder's office, Keith went +home. In the relief from pressure, the triumph, and the exaltation, his +instinct carried him to the actual background of his life--his genuine but +preoccupied affection for Nan. The constraint, that had been so real to +her, had never been anything but nebulous to him. + +He burst into the house, capered around the room boyishly, seized her, and +waltzed her gayly about. Quite taken by surprise, Nan's first thought was +that he had been drinking too much; so naturally she failed to rise +instantly to the occasion. + +"Stop it, Milton!" she cried. "What has got into you! You're tearing me to +ribbons!" + +He laughed heartily. + +"You must think I'm crazy," he acknowledged. "Sit down here, and learn what +a great man your husband is." He poured out the story of the transaction, +omitting no details of the clever schemes by which it had been worked. He +was, above all, proud of his legal address and acumen--there was something +in Eastern training, after all; this lay right under their noses, but none +of them saw it until he came along and picked it up. "And there are some +pretty smart men out here, too, let me tell you that," he added. "They're +from all parts of the world, and they've had a hard practical education, +their eye teeth are cut!" His egotism over being keener than the +acknowledged big men was very fresh and charming. The money gained he +mentioned as an afterthought, only when the other aspect of the situation +had been exhausted. "The cold hard dollars are pretty welcome just now," he +told her. "There's about a quarter million in those lots--and we can +realize on all or part of them at any time. All came out of here!" He +tapped his forehead, and paused in his rapid pacing to and fro to look down +at her In the easy chair, "We are well off now. We needn't scrimp and +save"--it did not for the moment occur to him that they had not been doing +so--"I'm going to get you eight new gowns, and twelve new hats, and a +bushel of diamonds----" + +"I'm glad, very glad!" she cried, catching his enthusiasm, her mind for the +first time occupying itself seriously with the mechanism of the deal. At +first, when he had been explaining, she had not thrown off the impression +that he had been drinking, and so had paid little attention to his +explanations. "It sounds like magic. Tell me again--how you did it," + +Nothing loath, he went over it again, making clear the double clouding of +the titles. + +But Nan, being much alone, had the habit, shared with few women of that +time, of reading the newspapers. She had followed Rowlee's campaign, and +she had taken seriously the editor's diatribes, Rowlee had been talking for +effect. The ideals of ultimate civic honesty were yet fifty years in the +future, but he had stumbled on their principle. Nan's mind, untrained in +any business ethics, caught them; and her sure natural instincts had +accepted their essential justice. In recognizing Milton's connection as +promoter with just this deal, she was suddenly called upon to make +adjustments for which there was no time. She knew Milton would do nothing +wrong, and yet--he was waiting in triumph for her response. + +"It was very clever. And yet, somehow, it doesn't sound right--" she +puzzled, "Are you sure it's honest?" + +"Honest?" he snorted, halted in mid-career, "Of course it's honest! Why +isn't it honest?" + +Confronted with the direct question, she really did not know. She groped, +proffering tentatively some of the arguments half remembered from Rowlee's +editorial columns. But she confronted now a lawyer, sure of himself. Keith +explosively, and contemptuously demolished her contentions. Everything was +absolutely legal, every step of it. If a man hadn't a right to buy in +property at any sale and sell it again where he wanted, where in thunder +was our boasted liberty? Just the kind of fool notion women get! Keith in +his honest pride and triumph had come for sympathy and admiration. Turned +back on himself, he became vaguely resentful, and shortly left the house. + +Hardly had the front door closed after him when Nan burst into tears. She +had not meant it to come out that way at all. Of course she had had no real +thought that Milton would do anything dishonest; how absurd of him to take +it that way! She had simply expressed a queer instinctive thought that had +flashed across her mind; and now she could not for the life of her guess +how she had come to do so. Miserably and passionately she realized that she +had bungled it. + + + + +XXVI + + +But if Keith missed the appreciation of his triumph at home, he received +full meed of it downtown. In a corner of the Empire a dozen of the biggest +men in town were gathered. They were Sam Brannan; Palmer, of Palmer, Cook & +Co.; Colonel E. D. Baker, the original "silver-tongued orator"; Dick +Blatchford, the contractor; Judge Terry, of the Supreme Court; oily, coarse +Ned McGowan; Nugent and Rowlee, editors, and some others. They were doing +an exceedingly important part of their daily business: sipping their late +afternoon cocktails. Calhoun Bennett joined them. + +"Little item of news to interest you-all," drawled the Southerner. "I've +just come down from the recorder's office. The deeds for the water lots +have just been recorded." He paused. + +"Have a drink, Cal," urged Dick Blatchford, "and sit down. What of it?" + +"They were recorded in the names of Malcolm Neil and young Keith. I'll have +a cocktail." + +"That so? Pretty shaky title. Which sale did they record under?" + +"Both!" said Bennett. + +He stood until he saw that the significance of this had soaked in; then he +drew out a chair and sat down. Ned McGowan chuckled hoarsely. + +"Pretty slick!" said he. "Wonder some of us didn't think of that! I suppose +they went around and scared the purchasers until they got them, pretty +cheap. Trust old Neil to drive a bargain!" + +But Palmer, the banker, who had been thinking, here spoke up: + +"The purchasers were undoubtedly their agents," he surmised quietly. + +"By God, you're right!" cried Terry. "Old Malcolm is certainly the devil +without a tail!" + +"Speak of him and you get him," remarked Colonel Baker, pointing out Neil, +who had just entered. + +They raised a shout at him, until finally the old man, reluctantly and +crabbedly, sidled over to join them. + +"You're discovered, old fox!" cried Terry; "and the outraged dignity of the +law demands a drink." + +They plied him with half-facetious, half-envious congratulations. But Neil +would have none of them. + +"Not my scheme," he growled. "Entirely Keith's. I'm a sleeping partner +only. He engineered it all, thought of it all, dragged me in." + +"You must have made a good thing out of it, Mr. Neil," suggested Palmer +respectfully. + +The formidable old man eyed the speaker grumpily for a moment. + +"About a quarter million, cool, between us," he vouchsafed finally. He was, +for some reason, willing to brag a bit. + +This statement was received in admiring silence by all but Terry. Everybody +but that devil-may-care and lawless pillar of the law was afraid of Neil. +But Terry would joke with anybody. + +"I hope you're going to let him have a little of it, Neil," he laughed. + +The old man shifted his eyes from Palmer to Terry with much the air of +restraining heavy guns. Terry met the impact untroubled. + +"Judge," grunted the financier at last, "that young man will get his due +share. He has tied me up in a contract that even your honoured court would +find difficulty in breaking." + +With this parting shot he arose and stumped out. + +"If Malcolm Neil acknowledges he is tied up," observed Terry, who had not +been in the slightest degree disturbed, "he is certainly tied up!" + +"Consider the man who tied him," begged Colonel Baker. "He must, in the +language of the poets, be a lallapaloozer." + +"He's worth getting hold of," said Dick Blatchford. + +Therefore, when, a little later, Keith appeared, he was hailed jovially, +and invited to drink. Everybody was very cordial. Within five minutes he +was hail fellow with them all, joking with the most august of them on terms +of equality. Judge Terry, in whose court he had stood abashed, plied him +with cocktails; Colonel Baker told several stories, one of which was new; +Sam Brannan, with the mixture of coarseness, overbearing manners, and +fascination that made him personally attractive to men and some women, +called him "my boy"; and the rest of the party had whole-heartedly taken +him in and were treating him as one of themselves. Keith had known all +these men, of course, but they had been several cuts above him in +importance, and his relations with most of them had been formal. His whole +being glowed and expanded. After the first cocktail or two, and after a +little of this grateful petting, he had some difficulty in keeping himself +from getting too expansive, in holding himself down to becoming modesty, in +not talking too much. He quite realized the meaning of this sudden +cordiality; but he welcomed it as another endorsement, from the highest, +most unimpeachable sources, of his cleverness and legal acumen. + +They drank and talked until twilight. Then Keith began to make his excuses. +They shouted him down. + +"You're going to dinner with us, my son," stated Brannan. "They've opened +an oyster palace down the street, and we're going to sample it." + +"But my wife--" began Keith. + +"Permit me," interrupted Terry, bending his tall form in courtesy. "I am +about to dispatch a messenger to Mrs. Terry, and shall be pleased to +instruct him to call at your mansion also." + +It was so arranged. Immediately they adjourned to the new "Oyster Palace," +a very gaudy white and gilt monstrosity with mirrors and negro minstrels. +There were small private rooms, it seemed, and one of these was bespoken +from the smiling manager, flattered at the patronage of these substantial +men. + +San Francisco lived high in those days. It could pay, and for pay the best +will go anywhere. The dinner was quite perfect. There were more cocktails +and champagne. Under the influence of good fellowship and drinks, Keith was +finally prevailed upon to give the details of the whole transaction. +Perhaps this was a little indiscreet, but he was carried away by the +occasion. The noisy crowd suddenly became quiet, and listened with the +deepest attention. When Keith had finished, there ensued a short silence. +Then Judge Terry delivered his opinion. + +"Sound as a dollar," he pronounced at last. "Not a hole in it. Is that your +opinion, Colonel Baker?" + +"Clever piece of work," nodded the orator gravely. After this interim of +sobriety the dinner proceeded more and more noisily. The drink affected the +different men in different ways. A flush appeared high on the cheek bones +of Terry's lean face and an added dignity in his courtly manner. Brannan +became louder and more positive. On Blatchford his potations had no +appreciable effect except that his round face grew redder. Ned McGowan +dropped even his veneer of good breeding, became foul mouthed and profane, +full of unpublishable reminiscence to which nobody paid any particular +attention. Calhoun Bennett's speech became softer, more deliberate, more +consciously Southern. Keith, who was really most unaccustomed to the heavy +drinking then in vogue, was filled with a warm and friendly feeling toward +everybody. His thoughts were a bit vague, and he had difficulty in +focussing his mind sharply. The lights were very bright, and the room warm. + +Suddenly they were all in the open air under the stars. There seemed to +have been an unexplained interim. Everybody was smoking cigars. Keith was +tugging at his pocket and expostulating something about payment--something +to do with the dinner. Evidently some part of him had gone on talking and +thinking. The fresh air brought him back to the command. Various +suggestions were being proffered. Blatchford was for hiring rigs and +driving out to the Mission; Calhoun Bennett suggested the El Dorado; but +Sam Brannan's bull voice decided them. + +"I'm going to Belle's!" he roared, and at once started off up the street. +The idea was received with acclamation. They straggled up the street toward +the residential portion of town. + +Keith followed. The delayed action of the drink had thrown him into a +delicious whirling haze. He felt that he could be completely master of +himself at any moment merely by making the effort; only it did not at +present seem worth while. He knew where Belle's was: it was the ornate +house diagonally across the street from his own, the one concerning which +the clerk had been so evasive when they were house hunting. + +Belle's was a three-story frame building, differing in no outward essential +from the fashionable residences around it. On warm evenings there sometimes +came through the opened windows the sound of a piano, the clink of glasses, +loud laughter or singing. The chance bystander might have heard identically +the same from any other house in the neighbourhood. Only Belle's +occasionally--rarely occasionally--contributed a crash or an oath. Such +things were, however, quickly hushed. Belle's was run on respectable lines. +Men went in and out quite openly, with the tolerance of most, but to the +scandal of a few. Those curious, consulting the yellowed files of the +newspapers, can read little protests--signed with _nom de plumes_--from +young women, complaining that young men of their acquaintance, after +calling decorously on them, would cross quite openly to the house over the +way. Yet they were powerless, for a year or so at least, to break up the +custom. + +For Belle's was a carry-over from the 49-51 days when of social life there +was none at all. It differed from the merely disreputable house. Belle +prided herself on quiet conduct and many friends. In person she was a +middle-aged, still attractive Frenchwoman. She had furnished her parlours +very elaborately, and she insisted that both her employees and clients +should behave in the public rooms with the greatest circumspection. + +Indeed, a casual visitor, unacquainted with the character of the place, +might well have been deceived. The women sitting about were made up and +very décolleté, to be sure, but their conduct, while not always of the +highest tone, was nevertheless quite devoid of freedom. Belle permitted no +overt word or action; nor was any visitor subjected to another expectation +than the occasional opening of a bottle of wine "for the good of the +house." + +But outside of the one fundamental rule of decency, the caller could make +himself comfortable in his own way. He could lounge, pound the piano, joke, +play games, smoke where he pleased, and enjoy what was then a rarity--the +company and conversation of nimble-witted, well-dressed, beautiful women +whose ideas were not narrow. Ultimate possibilities were always kept very +much in the background, but that there were possibilities made for present +relaxation or freedom. + +Twice a year Belle was in the habit of giving a grand party. The +invitations were engraved. Entertainment was on a sumptuous scale. There +were dancing, all sorts of card games, an elaborate supper, the best of +music, often professional entertainers of great merit. Everything was free +except wine. Nearly the whole masculine population turned out for Belle's +big party--judges, legislators, bankers, merchants, as well as the +professional politicians and the gamblers. The most prominent men of the +city frequented Belle's at other times openly, without fear of public +opinion--many of them merely for the sense of freedom and relaxation they +there enjoyed. Everybody was welcome. + +Keith, however, knowing the character of the place, had never been inside +its doors. Now, enveloped in his rosy haze, exceedingly contented with his +company, he followed where they led. At the door a neat coloured maid +relieved him of his hat and coat, and smiled a welcome. His dazzled vision +took in a long drawing-room, soft red carpets, red brocade curtains of +heavy material, with edges of gold fringe and with gold cords, chandeliers +of many dangling prisms, a white marble mantel, a grand piano, a few +pictures of the nude, and many chairs. Ravishingly beautiful, wonderfully +dressed women sat about in indolent attitudes. + +The hilarious party at once scattered through the room, Calhoun Bennett +went to the piano and began to play sentimental airs. Ned McGowan, his face +very red, enthroned himself in an easy chair, clasping girls who perched on +either arm. He talked to them in a low voice. They leaned over to hear, and +every moment or so they burst into shrieks of laughter. Judge Terry was +listening intently to some serious communication Belle herself was making +to him. Sam Brannan was roaring for champagne. The others were circulating +here and there, talking, playing practical jokes. Altogether, to Keith's +rosy vision, a colourful and delightful scene. Nobody paid him the least +attention. + +How long he stood there he did not know. The groups before him shifted and +changed confusedly. The lights seemed to blaze and to dim, and then to +blaze again. After a long interval he became aware of a touch on his arm. +He looked down. A piquant, dark-eyed, tilt-nosed girl was smiling up at +him. + +"Wat you do?" she was begging. "You come wiz me?" + +He focussed his attention on the room. It was almost empty. He saw the back +of Judge Terry disappearing into the street. He passed his hand across his +eyes. + +"Where are the others?" he asked confusedly. + +She laughed with significance. He looked down at her again. Her complexion +was a sort of dead white, her lips were red and glistening, her eyes were +darkened. He turned suddenly and left the house. The coloured maid, +disappointed in a tip, stood in the doorway, his hat and coat in her hands, +staring after him. The cool air a little cleared his brain. He stopped +short in the middle of the street, trying to collect himself. + +"I'm drunk," he solved finally, and proceeded very carefully toward his own +house. After each dozen steps he paused to collect his thoughts before +proceeding. In one of these pauses he distinctly heard a window slam shut; +there were plenty of louder things, he heard only the window. He hadn't the +least idea of the time of night, except that it must be very late. As a +matter of fact, it was not more than half-past ten. Near his own gate he +nearly ran into a woman strolling. With some instinct of apology, he turned +in her direction. As his bare head was revealed in the dim light, the woman +uttered a low laugh. + +"And was Belle as charming as ever?" demanded Mrs. Morrell sweetly but +icily. "Go in carefully now, so dear little wifey won't know." + +She laughed again and moved past him. He stared after her with a vague +sense of injustice, somehow; then went on. + + + + +XXVII + + +Keith was sorry next morning, but he was not repentant, in the sense of +feeling that he had done anything fatally wrong. He was disgusted with +himself. He wasted no regrets, but did register a very definite intention +not to let _that_ happen again! It was all harmless enough, once in a way, +but it was not his sort of thing. Nan would not understand it a bit--why +should she? His head ached, and he was feeling a little conscience-stricken +about Nan, anyway. He must take her around more, see more of her. Business +had been very absorbing lately, but now that this deal had been brought off +successfully, it was only due her and himself that he take a little time +off. In his present mood he convinced himself, as do most American business +or professional men, that he was being driven in his work, and that he +wanted nothing better than a let-up from the grind. As a matter of fact, +he--and they--love their work. + +In this frame of mind he started downtown, rather late. On the street he +met a number of his friends. A good many of them chaffed him good-naturedly +about the night before. By the time he reached his office he was feeling +much better. Things were assuming more of an everyday comfortable aspect. +He had not been seated ten minutes before Dick Blatchford drifted in, +smoking a black cigar that gave Keith a slight qualmish feeling. Dick +seemed quite unaffected by the evening before. + +"Hullo, Milt!" he boomed, rolling his heavy form into a chair, his round, +red face beaming. "How's the wild Injin this morning? Say, you're a wonder +when you get started! You needn't deny it; wasn't I there?" He shook his +head, chuckling fatly. "Look here," he went on, "I'm busy this morning--got +to get down to North Beach to see Harry Meigs--and I guess you are." He +tossed over a package of papers that he produced from an inside pocket. +"Look those over at your leisure. I think we better sue the sons of guns. +Let me know what you think." He fished about in a tight-drawn waistcoat +pocket with a chubby thumb and forefinger, pulled out a strip of paper, and +flipped it to Keith as casually as though it were a cigarette paper. +"There's a little something as a retainer," said he. "Well, be good!" + +After he had lumbered out, Keith examined the check. It was for one +thousand dollars. If anything were needed to restore his entire confidence +in himself, this retainer would have sufficed. The little spree was +regrettable, of course, but it had brought him a client--and a good one! + +Two days later Keith, who now had reason to spend more time in his office, +received another and less welcome visitor: this was Morrell. The young +Englishman, his clean-cut face composed to wooden immobility, his too- +close-set eyes squinting watchfully, came in as though on a social call. + +"Just dropped around to look at your diggin's," he told the surprised +Keith. "Not badly fixed here; good light and all.". + +He accepted a cigar, and sat for some moments, his hat and stick carefully +disposed on his knees. + +"Look here, Keith," he broke into a desultory chat after a few minutes. +"Deucedly awkward, and all that, of course; but I've been wondering whether +you would, be willing to tide me over--remittances late, and all that sort +of thing. Stony for the moment. Everything lovely when the mails arrive. +Neighbours, see a lot of each other, and that sort, you know." + +Keith was totally unprepared for this, and floundered. Morrell, watching +him calmly, went on: + +"Of course I wouldn't think of coming to you, old chap--plenty of people +glad to bank for me temporarily--but I wanted you to know just how we +stand--Mrs. Morrell and I--that we feel friendly to you, and all that sort +of thing, you know! You can rely on us--no uneasiness, you know." + +"Why, that's very kind of you," returned Keith, puzzled. + +"Not a bit! The way I looked at it was that a chap wouldn't borrow from a +man he wasn't friendly with, it isn't done." He laughed his high, cackling +laugh, "So I said to Mimi, 'the dear man must be worryin' his head off.' It +was lucky for you, old top, that a woman of the world with some sense saw +you the other night instead of some feather-headed gossipin' fool. But +Mimi's not that." + +Keith was slowly beginning to suspect, but as yet he considered his +suspicion unjust. + +"How much do you need?" he asked, + +"Five hundred dollars," replied Morrell coolly. + +"I doubt I have that sum free in ready cash." + +Morrell looked him in the eye. + +"I fancy you will be able to raise it," he said very deliberately. + +The men looked at each other. + +"This is blackmail, then," said Keith without excitement. + +Morrell became very stiff and English in manner. + +"Words do not frighten me, sir. This is a personal loan. It is an action +between friends, just as my silence on the subject of your peccadillo is a +friendly action. I mention that silence, not as a threat, but as an +evidence of my own friendly feeling. I see I have made a mistake." + +He arose, his bearing very frigid. Keith was naturally not in the least +deceived by this assumption of injured innocence, but he had been thinking. + +"Hold on!" he said. "You must forgive my being startled; and you must admit +you were a little unfortunate in your presentation. For this loan, what +security?" + +"My personal note," replied Morrell calmly. + +"I must look into my resources. I will let you know to-morrow." + +"Not later than to-morrow. I'll call at this hour," said Morrell with +meaning. + +After the Englishman had gone Keith considered the matter at leisure. +Although of a sanguine and excitable temperament When only little things +were involved, he was clear headed and uninfluenced by personal feeling in +real emergencies. + +First, would the Morrells carry out the implied threat? His instinct +supplied that answer. Of Morrell himself he had never had any trust. Now he +remembered what had never really struck him before: that Morrell, even in +this fast and loose society, had never been more than tolerated, and that, +apparently, only because of the liveliness of his wife. He had the +indefinable air of a bad 'un. And Keith's knowledge of women was broad +enough to tell him that Mrs. Morrell would be relentless. + +Second, would a denial avail against their story? His commonsense told him +that if the Morrells started this thing they would carry it through to a +finish. There was no sense in it otherwise, for such an attack would mean +the burning of most of their social bridges. Morrell could get witnesses +from Belle's--say, the coloured maid whom he had not tipped--and there were +his hat and coat. + +Third, could he afford to let them tell the tale? As far as his position in +the city, either professionally or socially, most decidedly yes. But at +home, as decidedly no. In her calmest, most judicial, trusting, loving +mood, Nan could never understand. Her breeding and upbringing were against +it. She could never comprehend the difference between such a place as +Belle's and any disreputable house--if there was a difference. This point +needed little argument. + +Then he must pay. + +Having definitely decided this, he repressed his natural inclinations +toward anger, drew the money, laid it aside in his drawer, and went on with +his work. When Morrell came, in next morning, very easy and debonair, he +handed out the gold pieces and took in return the man's note, without +relaxing the extreme gravity and formality of his manner. + +"Thanks, old chap!" cried Morrell. "You've saved my life. I won't forget." +He paused; then cackled harshly: "Good joke that! No, _I won't_ forget!" + +Keith bowed coldly, waiting. Morrell, with, a final cackle, made leisurely +for the door. As he laid his hand on the knob, Keith spoke: + +"By the way, Morrell." + +Morrell turned. + +"Take care you don't overdo this," advised Keith, very deliberately. + +Morrell examined him. Keith's face was grim. He smiled enigmatically. + +"Tact is a blessed gift, old top," said he, and went out. + + + + +XXVIII + + +This whole episode proved to be a turning-point in Keith's career. His +revulsion against the feminine--hence society--side of life brought about +by the affair of Mrs. Morrell, might soon have passed, and he might soon +have returned to the old round of picnics, excursions, dinners, and +parties, were it not that coincidentally a new and absorbing occupation was +thrust upon him. Dick Blatchford's case was only one of many that came to +him. He became completely immersed in the fascinating intricacies of the +law. + +As has been previously pointed out, nowhere before nor since has pure +legality been made such a fetish. It was a game played by lawyers, not an +attempt to get justice done. Since, in all criminal cases at least, the +prosecution was carried on by one man and his associates, poorly paid and +hence of mediocre ability, and the defence conducted by the keenest brains +in the profession, it followed that convictions were rare. Homicide in +various forms was little frowned upon. Duels were of frequent occurrence, +and, in several instances, regular excursions, with tickets, were organized +to see them. Street shootings of a more informal nature were too numerous +to count. Invariably an attempt, generally successful, was made to arrest +the homicide. If he had money, he hired the best lawyers, and rested +secure. If he had no money, he disappeared for a time. Almost everybody had +enough money, or enough friends with money, to adopt the former course. Of +1,200 murders--or "killings"--committed in the San Francisco of those days, +there was just _one_ legal conviction! + +It was a point of professional pride with a lawyer to get his client free. +Indeed, to fail would be equivalent to losing a very easy game. The whole +battery of technical delays, demurrers, etc., was at his command; a much +larger battery than even the absurd criminal courts of our present day can +muster. Delays to allow the dispersal of witnesses were easily arranged +for, as were changes of venue to courts either prejudiced in favour of the +strict interpretation of "law" or frankly venal. Of shadier expedients, +such as packing juries, there seemed no end. + +Your honourable, high-minded lawyers--which meant the well-dressed and +prosperous--had nothing to do with such dirty work; that is, directly. +There were plenty of lawyers not so honourable and high minded called in as +"counsel." These little lawyers, shoulder strikers, bribe givers and +takers, were held in good-humoured contempt by the legal stars--who +employed them! Actual dishonesty was diluted through a number of men. +Packing a jury was a fine art. Initially was needed connivance at the +sheriff's office. Hence lawyers, as a class, were in politics. Neither the +stellar lawyer nor the sheriff knew any of the details of the transaction. +A sum of money went to the former's "counsel" as expenses, and emerged, +considerably diminished, in the sheriff's office as "perquisites." It had +gone from the counsel to somebody like Mex Ryan, from him to various plug- +uglies, ward heelers, shoulder strikers, from them to one or another of the +professional jurymen, and then on the upward curve through the sheriff's +underlings who made out the jury lists to Webb himself. The thing was done. + +In this tortuous way many influences were needed. The most honest lawyer's +limit as to the queer things he would do depended on his individual +conscience. It is extraordinary what long training and the moral support of +a whole profession will do toward educating a conscience. Do not despise +unduly the lawyers of that day. We have all of us good friends in the legal +profession who will defend in court a criminal they know to be guilty as +charged. They will urge that no man should go undefended; and will argue +themselves into a belief that in such a case "defence" means not merely +fair play, but a desperate effort to get him off anyhow--trained +conscience. If such sophistries are sincerely believed by honest men +nowadays, it cannot be wondered at that queerer sophistries passed current +in a community not five years old. It was difficult to draw the line +between the men who mistakenly believed themselves honest and those who +knew themselves dishonest. + +But once in politics there could be no end. In this field the law rubbed +shoulders with big contracts, big operations. A city was being built, in a +few years, out of nothing, by a busy, careless, and shifting population. +The opportunities for making money on public works--either honestly or by +jobbery--were almost unlimited. The mood of the times was extravagant. From +the still unexhausted placers poured a flood of gold, hard money, tangible +wealth; and a large percentage of it paused in San Francisco, changed hands +before continuing its journey. Immigrants brought with them a lesser but +still significant sum. Money was easy. People could and would pay high +taxes without a thought, for they would rather pay well to be let alone +than bother with public affairs. The city treasury should have been full to +bursting. In addition, the municipality was rich in its real estate. The +value of all land had gone up immensely; any time more cash was needed it +could quickly be raised by the sale of public lots. The supply seemed +inexhaustible. + +Like hyenas to a kill the public contractors gathered. Immense public works +were undertaken at enormous prices. Paving, sewers, grading, filling, +lighting, wharves, buildings Were all voted; and the work completed in the +quickest, flimsiest, most slipshod fashion; and at terrible prices. The +Graham House, a pretentious frail structure that had failed as a hotel +because a swamp lay between it and the city, was bought at a huge price to +serve as city hall. It was a veritable white elephant, and even the busy +populace spared time to grumble at the flagrant steal. Nobody knew what it +would cost to make the thing habitable even. Soon, to every one's relief, +it burned down. The property was then swindled over to Peter Smith. The +Jenny Lind Theatre, an impossible, ramshackle structure, was purchased over +the vigorous protest of every decent citizen, for the enormous sum of +$300,000. Another $100,000 was alleged to have been spent in remodelling +and furnishing it. Then it was solemnly declared "unsuited to the purpose." +It also burned down in one of the numerous fires. But the money was safe! + +To get such deals as these through "legally" it was of course necessary +that officials, councilmen, engineers, etc., should be sympathetic. +Naturally the big operators, as well as the big lawyers, had to go into +politics. Elections came soon to be so many farces. In some wards no decent +citizen dared show his face. "Shoulder strikers" were openly hired for +purposes of intimidation. Bribery was scarcely concealed. And if things +looked doubtful, there were always the election inspectors and judges in +reserve who could be relied upon to make things come out right in the final +count. The proper men were always returned as elected. If violence or fraud +were alleged, lawyers always got the accused off in a strictly legal +manner. + +In these matters, it must be repeated, no opprobrium ever rested on either +the big lawyers or the big operators. "Expenses" went to the underlings, +and after some mysterious subterranean manipulation, of which the big +fellows remained blandly unconscious, results came back. + +In the world of public works Keith rapidly made himself a position. He was +leading counsel for Dick Blatchford and one or two others. His job was to +know all the rules of the game so well that there were no comebacks; to set +the machinery in motion by which the contracts were procured; and to +straighten out any irregularities that might arise afterward. His position +was almost academic. The matters he fought and decided were so detached +from actuality, as far as he was concerned, that they might have been +hypothetical cases. When Dick wanted anything specific, Keith instructed +Patsy Corrigan to see that the proper officials awarded the contract. If +the matter ever came to the courts, Keith furnished the brains and Patsy +somehow "saw" the sheriff and whoever was necessary from the mysterious +underworld. Everybody was doing the same thing. In the minds of men profits +of any sort were legitimate provided they were "legal," but especially +against so vague an entity as a community. Civic consciousness had not been +born in them, for the simple reason that the city was constituted perfectly +to suit them. Only when men are dissatisfied with their government do they +seek to become responsible for it. There was no active public opinion +against them. Men were too busy to bother with such things. Occasionally a +fairly vigorous protest against some peculiarly outrageous steal made +itself heard, but the men who made it were either cranks or it was +suspected they had been pinched in some way. They merely represented the +opposition any active man expects. + +And every last one of these merry, jovial pirates was inordinately proud of +the ship he was helping to scuttle! That one fact, attentively considered, +explains much. + +The city was growing, it was taking on a permanent character. In spite of +waste, shoddy work, and frequent fires, its vitality was triumphant. The +sand hills had all been graded flat, and the material from them had filled +in the water lots of the bay; miles of fireproof brick structures had been +built on four or five streets; there were now a half score of long wharves +instead of one; omnibuses ran everywhere; fine steamers plied to +fashionable watering places about the bay; the planks in the streets were +being replaced by cobblestones; telegraph service had been inaugurated to +San José and Sacramento; several new theatres had been built; gas lamps +were being placed about the streets; huge wooden palaces with much +scrollwork ornamentation were being built on Stockton Street and the Rincon +Hill. All these things, as well as the climate, the mines, the agricultural +resources, the commerce, the scenery, were fully appreciated and +enthusiastically made the most of by every mother's son. Any man among them +was ready at a moment's notice to wax enthusiastic about the resources and +the future of the place. They were "boosters" in the modern acceptation of +the term. + + + + +XXIX + + +In this eager, fast-living, nervous, high-strung man's world Keith took to +himself a prominent part. He was so fully-occupied in other directions that +his practice did not lead him into criminal law, so he missed an influence +that must have either ended by blunting or repelling him. He corresponded +to what nowadays would be called a corporation lawyer. His clients were +few, but wealthy, powerful, and remunerative; his cases were subtle and +hard fought, He enjoyed the intricate game for its own sake, and he enjoyed +his success in it. In the inevitable give and take of a complicated world +he knew, of course, of shady doings beneath; but he was not personally +involved; he accepted them as part of the make-up of society, human nature, +the medium--of work. + +But Nan was necessarily left more and more to her own devices. And, +further, she was left alone without even the preoccupation furnished her +domestic side by such an affair as that with Mrs. Morrell. She knew that +Keith was wholly absorbed in his business. She was loyal to his unexpressed +idea that in these propitious beginnings he must devote all his energies to +his career. She was loyal to his preoccupation. It was the only way in +which she could help. And yet, without being given cause for grievance, she +was temporarily thrust outside his life, put in cold storage, as it were, +until she should be wanted. He bolted immediately after breakfast; often he +did not come home to lunch; was quite likely to go out again in the +evening. + +It followed that Nan had to make her own life out of the materials at hand. +This was at first difficult, for all the materials were novel to her. +Gradually, however, she fitted herself into the social transformation that +was taking place. + +Heretofore, society had not existed. Now, vaguely, it was beginning to take +coherence and form. A transition period was on. The "nobs" were evolving +from chaos. People of the fast Morrell type were losing their influence and +ascendency, were being pushed aside to the fringes by the more "solid" +elements. Wealth and arrogant dignity were coming into their innings. +Formal functions, often on an elaborate scale, were taking the place of the +harum-scarum informal parties. There came up some questions of social +leadership. In short, social life was developing into the usual game. +Lacking other interests, Nan found it amused her to play at it, to contend +with the leaders, to form alliances, to declare war, to assume by right and +talent her place among the best. + +This pleased Keith. Social standing helped him in business; and he enjoyed +the sight of his beautiful young wife queening it serenely over the city's +best. He was always eager to advance money for new gowns or expensive +parties. At first he went out with her, but soon found that three o'clock +in the morning meant a next day's brain dulled of its keenest edge. But he +would not hear of her staying at home on his account. + +"I'm tired, and I'm going to bed right away," he told her. "You go and +uphold the splendour of the family. Get Ben to take you." + +Ben Sansome was to Keith a tremendous convenience. He was the only idle man +in town, always on tap, ready to stay out any and every night until the +cocks crowed. Why shouldn't he? He had nothing to do all next day, except, +perhaps, to decide which stick he should carry! With a busy man's good- +humoured contempt for the mere idler, Keith looked upon Sansome as a +harmless household-pet sort of person; good natured, accommodating, +pleasant to talk to, good looking, foppish in dress, but beneath any +serious human being's notice. Sansome was on easy terms of intimacy with +the Keiths. It was mighty good of him to look out for Nan. If he did not, +Keith would have to. + +In this formative period Ben Sansome was, however, a very important figure +in the woman's world. Social construction was a ticklish matter. There were +so many things to be decided; small items of etiquette, the "proper thing" +--procedure, decorations, good form, larger matters as to whether so-and-so +should be received, and if so, how extensively. Ben Sansome was past master +of such things. He was the only man in town who knew--or cared--how to +"draw lines." He became truly a modern _arbiter elegantiarum_. For San +Francisco had begun in real earnest to "draw lines." + +They were rather strange lines at times. Of course such people as the +Brannans, Montgomerys, Terrys, Bushs, Bakers, Caldwells, and other "old +families" (three or four years old), went without saying. Also were +included the greater merchants and their feminine representatives, such as +Palmer, Cook, Adams, Wilkins, and the like. Also there seemed to be a solid +foundation of those respectable and powerful with plenty of wealth--"but +hopeless, my dear, absolutely hopeless!" groaned some of the livelier +members. + +Lightning struck capriciously at those on whom this new society might +frown, on those who as lately as last year had ridden the crest of the +wave. For example, it spared Sally Warner, with her spotted veils drawn +close around her face, her red belts, and her red tufts on her small +toques, but it blasted the Morrells. Mrs. Morrell clung tenaciously to the +outskirts, but she knew only too well that she did not "belong." In her +heart she ascribed this fact to Mrs. Keith. This was unjust, but it added +to her bitterness against her neighbours. + +Perhaps her suspicions were not unnatural, for Nan won easily in this game. +She was undoubtedly the social leader. It seemed eminently fitting that, +lacking her husband, she should go out much with Ben Sansome. Most women +thought her lucky to have acquired so valuable a social acquisition. Some +people, like fat, coarse, sensible Mrs. Dick Blatchford, were a little +doubtful. + +"Shucks!" snorted Sally Warner, slapping her little riding boot dashingly +with her latest novelty, an English hunting crop, "Nan Keith impresses me +as one who knows her way about. And, anyway, as long as Mr. Keith is +satisfied, I'm sure we should be!" + + + + +XXX + + +To his surprise Ben Sansome found himself warming to what he considered a +real passion. At least it was as real a passion as he was capable of +feeling. Sansome had always been spoiled. Accustomed as he was to easy +conquests, especially of late among the faster San Francisco women of the +early days, Nan Keith's very aloofness attracted him. She dwelt in a serene +atmosphere of unsuspicion, going about freely with him, taking their right +relations for granted, and not thinking about them. Contemplating this, +Sansome was clever enough to see that, a false move at the wrong time would +do for him. Therefore, he occupied himself at first merely in making +himself useful. He accepted Keith's rôle for him, becoming the friend of +the family, dropping in often and informally, happening on the spot at just +the right time to relieve Keith of the necessity of escorting Nan to this +or that tea or ball. So well did he play his part that at last there came a +time when Keith said: + +"I'm dead tired to-night, Nan. Seems as if I couldn't stand chatter. Can't +you send a note around to Ben and see if he can't get you there and back?" + +This came to be a regular thing. If Sansome did not happen to be there, he +was sent for. And his engagements were never such that he failed to accept. + +He and Keith called each other by their given names; but even after a close +intimacy had been established, he never addressed Nan by hers. + +"You sound very formal," she hinted to him at last. + +"To me the privilege of calling you by your 'little name' is so great an +evidence of friendship, that it actually seems like flaunting that +friendship to call you so before others" he replied. + +Always after that he called her "Nan" when they were alone together, but +"Mrs. Keith" when a third, even Keith himself, was present. In that way +their tęte-ŕ-tętes were marked off a little. When alone with her he +maintained the pose of one struggling manfully against tremendous +temptations held back only by her sweet influence. But he never overdid it. +As they came to know each other better, he talked ever the more freely of +men's mysterious temptations. Nan could not define to herself exactly what +they might be. + +"Yesterday I couldn't see you," he told her. "I struggled with myself all +day. Good God, what does a woman like you know of a man's weaknesses and +temptations--But I conquered." + +Nan was uneasy. She did not know quite what it was all about, but her +instincts warned her. + +"I am glad," she replied; and went on hastily, "but you must tell me what +you think about having the tea served in the arbour on the seventh, I've +been dying to ask you." + +With an obvious effort to be cheerful about this fresh subject, he wrenched +himself into a new mood. They consulted on the party for the seventh. He +broke off abruptly to say: "Do you know you're an extraordinary person--but +you are!" he overrode her protests. "Don't I know the ordinary kind? Women +have a deep strength of their own that men cannot understand." + +He stayed only a few minutes after that. On parting he for the first time +permitted himself a lingering gaze into her eyes as he reluctantly +relinquished her hand. She turned away, distinctly uneasy. Yet so skilfully +had he woven, his illusion of dependence on her that she shook it off with +a tender and maternal smile. + +"Poor boy," she murmured. "He is so unhappy and alone!" + +Sansome was an accomplished equestrian. Finding that Nan knew nothing +whatever about riding, he procured her a gentle horse, and took the +greatest trouble and pleasure in teaching her. She proved apt, for she had +good natural control of her body. After the first uncertainty and the first +stiffness had worn off, she delighted in long rides toward different parts +of the peninsula. Gringo, now a full-grown dog inclining toward the +shepherd more than anything else, delighted in them, too. He ranged far and +wide in front of the horses, exploring every ditch and thicket, wallowing +happily in every mudhole, returning occasionally to roll his comical eyes +at them as though to say, "Aren't we having a good time?" for Gringo was a +dog with a sense of humour. On these excursions she renewed acquaintance +with the sand dunes, and the little cańons with birds, and the broad beach +at low tide on which it was glorious to gallop. Once or twice they even +stopped at the little rancho where the Keiths had lunched. There Nan, +through Sansome, who talked Spanish, was able to communicate with her +kindly hosts; and Gringo met his honoured but rather snappy mother. The +mother disowned him utterly. As the days grew shorter they often rode on +the Presidio hills, watching the sun set beyond the Golden Gate. + +One such evening they had reined up their horses atop one of the hills next +the Gate. The sun had set somewhere beyond the headlands. Tamalpais was +deep pink with the glow; the water in the Gate was pale lilac; the sky +close to the horizon burned orange, but above turned to a pale green that +made with its lucent colour alone infinite depths and spaces. Below, the +darker waters twisted and turned with the tide. The western headlands were +black silhouettes. + +"Oh, but it is beautiful!" she said at last. + +"Yes, it is beautiful," he agreed somberly; "but when one is lonely, +somehow it hurts." + +There ensued a short, tense silence, broken only by the soft rolling of the +bit wheels in the horses' mouths. + +"Yes," she agreed softly, after a moment, "I feel that, too. Yet sometimes +I wonder if one doesn't see and feel more keenly when one is not too +happy--" She hesitated. + +"Yes, yes! Go on!" he urged in a low voice. His tone, his attitude, +suddenly seemed to envelop her with understanding. He appeared to offer her +aid, chivalrous aid, although no word was spoken. She had not quite meant +it that way; in fact, her thought was to offer _him_ sympathy. But somehow +it was grateful. It would do no harm to enjoy it, secretly, for a moment. +His unexpressed sympathy--for what she would have been unable to say--was +attractive to her isolation. + +Often on returning from these rides she asked him in for a cup of tea. +Occasionally, when she was overheated, or damp from the fog, she would +excuse herself and slip into a soft negligee. With lamp and fire lit they +made a very cozy tęte-ŕ-tęte. He smoked contemplatively; she stitched at +the inevitable embroidery of the period. Occasionally they talked +animatedly; quite as frequently they sat in sociable silence. Gringo slept +by the fire dreaming of rabbits and things, his hind legs twitching as he +triumphantly ran them down. One evening she caught sight of a rip in the +sewing of his tobacco pouch. In spite of his protests, she insisted on +sewing it up for him. She was conscious of his eyes on her while she plied +the needle, and felt somehow very feminine and sure of her power. + +"There!" she cried, when she had finished. "You certainly do need somebody +to take care of you!" + +He took it without spoken thanks, and put it slowly away in his pocket--as +though, he would have kissed it. A pregnant silence followed, he sitting +staring at her, she jabbing the needle idly into the arm of her chair. +Suddenly, as though taking a tremendous resolution, he spoke: + +"Nan, I am going to ask you a question. You must not be offended. Do you +really love your husband?" At her hasty movement he hurried on: "I imagine +I feel something unsatisfied about you--besides, lots of women don't." + +As he probably expected, her indignation was thoroughly aroused. He took +his castigation and dismissal meekly, and found some interest in the +ensuing negotiations toward reconciliation. No one knew better than he how +to sue for forgiveness. But he was quite satisfied to have implanted the +idea, for Ben Sansome was content with slow coral-insect progress. A busy +man, engaged in men's occupations, would never have had the patience for +this leisurely establishment of atmosphere and influence; his impatience or +passion would have betrayed him to an early outbreak. But with Sansome it +was the practice of a fine art. He knew just how far to go. No one could +more skilfully ingratiate himself in small ways. He always knew what gown +she should wear or had worn, and always commented appreciatively on what +she had on. Keith merely knew vaguely whether she looked well or ill. +Sansome noticed and praised little things--her well-shod feet, the red +lights in her hair, an unusual flower in her belt. He knew every hat she +owned, and he had his well-marked preferences. He never made direct love, +nor attempted to touch her. She felt the growing attraction, enjoyed it, +but did not analyze it. She merely considered Ben Sansome as "nice," as +needing guidance, as romantic---- + +Occasionally, after seeing more than usual of him, some feeling of reaction +or some faint stirring of conscience would impel her--perhaps to convince +herself of the harmlessness of it all--to make an especial effort to draw +her husband out of his preoccupation into more human relations. She dressed +with great care, earlier than usual; she gathered flowers for the vases, +she fussed about lighting lamps, placing ash trays and chairs, generally +arranging the setting for his welcome home. The preparations kindled her +own enthusiasm. She became herself quite worked up in anticipation. When +she heard his step, she ran to meet him in the hall. Keith happened to be +tired to the point of exhaustion. + +"Good heavens!" was his comment; "are we having company to-night? Why all +the clothes and illumination?" + +His relaxed, dispirited manner of removing and hanging up his coat reacted +upon her instantly. Her high spirits sank to the depths. They ate their +meal in almost complete silence. Nan could not help visualizing Sansome's +appreciation of such an occasion. + + + + +XXXI + + +The new coherence in society began to manifest itself in one important way: +public gambling declined. In the "old days" it was said that everybody but +clergymen frequented the big gambling halls. They were a sort of club. But +now the most influential citizens began to stay away. Probably they gambled +as much as ever, but they took such pleasures in private. Two or three only +of the larger places remained in business. Save for them, open gambling was +confined to the low dives near the water front. There was no definite +movement against the practice. It merely fell off gradually. + +During these busy years the Sherwoods had quite methodically continued to +lead their customary lives. He read his morning paper on the veranda of the +Bella Union, talked his leisurely politics, drove his horses, and in the +evening attended to his business. She drove abroad, received her men +friends, gave them impartial advice and help in their difficulties, dressed +well, and carried on a life of many small activities. The Sherwoods were +always an attractive looking and imposing couple, whenever they appeared. +About three or four times a year they drove into the residential part of +town and made a half-dozen formal calls--on the Keiths among others. +Probably their lives were more nearly ordered on a routine than those of +any other people in the new city. + +One afternoon Sherwood came in at the usual hour, deposited his high hat +carefully on the table, flicked the dust off his boots, and remarked +casually: + +"Patsy, I've sold the business." + +Mrs. Sherwood was pinning on her hat. She stopped short, her hand halfway +to her head, as though turned to marble. After a moment she asked in a +quick, stifled voice: + +"What do you mean?" + +"Well," replied Sherwood, continuing methodically to readjust his dress, +"I've been thinking for some time that times were changing. The gambling +business is losing tone. I don't see the same class of people I used to +see. Public sentiment--of the very best people, I mean--is drifting away +from it. In the future, in my judgment, it's not going to pay as it ought. +I've been thinking these things for some time. So when a bona fide +purchaser came along----" + +But he got no further. With a smothered cry she let her arms drop. Her +customary poise had vanished. She flung herself on him, laughing, crying, +gasping. + +"Why, Patsy! Patsy!" he cried, patting her small, sleek head as it pressed +against his shoulder. "What is it, dearie? Tell me? What's wrong?" + +He was vastly perturbed and anxious, for she was not at all the type that +loses control readily. + +"Nothing! nothing!" she gasped. "I'll be all right in a minute. Don't mind +me. Just let me alone. Only you told me so suddenly----" + +"Don't you want me to sell?" he asked, utterly bewildered. + +Gradually he gathered from her disjointed exclamations that this was just +the one thing she had wanted, secretly, for years; the thing she had +schooled herself not to hope for; the last thing in the world she had +expected. And to his astonishment he gathered further that now she was free +she could take her place with the other women---- + +"But I hadn't the slightest idea you wanted to!" he interrupted at this +point. "You've never showed any signs of paying the slightest attention to +them before!" + +She was drying her eyes, and looking a little happily foolish. + +"I knew better than to give them a chance to snub me," she told him. "Now +I'm respectable." + +But at this Sherwood reared his crest. + +"Respectable!" he snorted, "What do you mean? Haven't you always been +respectable? I'd like to see anybody who would hint--" + +"You're a dear, but you're a man," she broke in more calmly. "Don't you +know that a gambler's wife isn't respectable--in their sense of the word?" + +"But every mother's son of them gambles!" cried Sherwood. "It's a perfectly +legal and legitimate occupation!" + +"The men do; we'd always get along if it was only a question of the men. +But the women make distinctions--" + +"Look here!" he broke out wrathfully. "There's Dick Blatchford mixed up in +dirty work for dirty money I wouldn't lay my fingers on; and Terry, or +Brannan, or McGowan, or all the rest of the boodling, land-grabbing, +pettifogging crew! Why, if I made my living or spare cash the way that gang +of pirates and cutthroats do I'd carry a pair of handcuffs for myself. +Honest! Respectable! I've got no kick on their methods; it's, none of my +business. But their wives are all right. I don't see it!" + +"It's all names, I acknowledge," she soothed, "just names, I attach no more +weight to them than you do. Don't you suppose I'd have said something if I +had thought you were doing anything wrong? But that's the way they play the +game, and it is their game. If we play it we've got to accept their rules. +Don't you see?" + +"Well, it's a mighty poor game," grumbled Sherwood, "and they strike me as +an exceptionally stupid lot of women. They'd drive me to drink. I don't see +what you want to bother with them for." + +"They are," she agreed. "They won't amuse me much--you couldn't understand +--it's just the _idea_ of it--But I won't be looked down on, even by my +inferiors! Tell me, Jack, when we sell the business are we going to be +wealthy, will we have plenty of money?" + +A hurt look came into his fine, straightforward eyes. + +"Haven't you always had all you wanted, Patsy?" he inquired. + +"Of course I have, you old goose! But I want to know what our resources are +before I plan my campaign." + +"Going in up to your neck, are you?" he commented ruefully. + +She nodded. Her eyes were bright, and a spot of colour glowed in either +cheek. + +"Course I am. What can I spend?" + +"You can have whatever you want." + +"That's too vague, too indefinite. How rich--or poor--are we going to be?" + +"We'll be rich enough." + +"Very?" + +"Well--yes, very. The business has paid, investments have panned out. I got +a good cash purchase price." + +"How much can I spend a year?" she persisted. "It doesn't matter whether +it's much or little, but I want to know." + +"What a mercenary little creature!" he cried facetiously, then sobered as +he saw by the expression of her face that this, apparently trivial thing +meant a great deal to her. "Oh, fifty thousand or so won't cripple us." + +"A year?" she breathed, awed. + +He nodded. + +"Oh!" she cried rapidly. "Then we'll have a house--a house built for our +very own selves, our very own plans!" + +"Why, I thought we were very comfortable here!" he protested, a little +dismayed. "Haven't we room enough? I'll make Rebinot cut a door----" + +"No! no! no! a house of my own!" She was on fire with excitement, walking +restlessly up and down. He watched her a moment or so. His slower +imagination was kindling. He was beginning to grasp the symbolism of it, +what it meant to her, the release of long-pent secret desires. As she +passed him, he seized her and drew her gently to his knee. + +"Patsy!" he cried contritely, "I didn't realize! I didn't guess you weren't +perfectly contented here!" + +She brushed his cheek with hers. + +"Of course you didn't," she reassured him. + +"If you'd the slightest----" + +She threw her head back proudly, her breast swelled. + +"I married you to lead your life. Jack, whatever it was," she told him, "to +be your _help_mate." + +"You're the game little sportsman in this town!" he cried. "And if you want +to make those flub-dubs crawl, by God you sail in! I'll back you!" + +Ten minutes later she asked him: + +"What are you going to do, yourself, Jack? Somehow, I can't imagine you +idle." + +"Well," said Sherwood, "the boys are organizing a stock exchange, and it +struck me that it might be a good idea if I went into that." + +She began to laugh softly, in affectionate amusement. + +"Stop it!" he commanded indignantly. "I know that laugh, What have I done +now?" + +"I was just thinking what a nice, _respectable_ gambler you are going to be +now," she said, "It's in your blood, Jack, and I love it--but it's funny!" + + + + +XXXII + + +But now, at the very sources, the full flood of the somewhat turbid tide of +prosperity was beginning to fail. The ebb had not yet reached the civic +consciousness. It would have required a philosopher, and a detached +philosopher at that, to have connected cause and effect, to have forecast +the inevitable trend of events. If there were any philosophers they were +not detached! Nobody had discovered the simple truth that extravagance, +graft, waste, cost money; and that the money must come from somewhere. +Realization on its property and taxes were the twin sources of the city's +revenues. The property was now about all sold or swindled away. Remained +the taxes. And it is a self-evident truth that people will pay high taxes +cheerfully only so long as they themselves are making plenty of money +easily. + +Up to this period such had been the case. Prices had been high, wages had +been high, opportunities had been many. Enormous profits had been the rule. +Everybody had invariably made money. These conditions upset the mental +balance of the shipping merchants back East. A madness seemed to obsess +them for sending goods to California. The mere rumour of a want or a lack +was answered by immense shipments of that particular commodity. The first +cargo to arrive supplied the want; all the rest simply broke the market. It +was a gamble as to who should get there first. The immediate and +picturesque consequence was a fleet of beautiful clipper ships, built like +racing yachts, with long clean lines and snowy sails. They made +extraordinarily fast voyages, and they promptly condemned to death the old- +fashioned, slow freight carriers. Indeed, four-hundred odd of these +actually rotted at anchor in the bay; it had not paid to move them! Some of +these clippers gained vast reputations: the _Flying Cloud_, the _White +Squall_, the _Typhoon_, the _Trade Wind_. The markets were continually in a +state of glut with goods sold at auction. This condition tightened the +money market, which in turn reacted on other branches of industry. Again, +the great fires of '49-'53 resulted in the erection of too many fireproof +buildings. Storage was needed, and rentals were high, so everybody plunged +on storehouses. By '54 many hundreds of them stood vacant, representing +loss. At that period the first abundance of the placers began to fall off. + +Agriculture was beginning to be undertaken seriously; and while this would +be an ultimate source of wealth, its immediate effect was to diminish the +demand for imported foodstuffs--another blow to a purely mercantile city. + +All this made for excitement, some immediate gain, but a sure ultimate +loss. Markets fluctuated wildly. A ship in sight threw operators into a +fever. No one knew what she might be carrying, or how she would, affect +prices. It was, therefore, positively unsafe to keep-many goods is stock. +Quick, immediate sales were the rule. And failures were many. + +Now in these middle fifties the pinch was beginning at last to itself felt. +Everybody was a little vague about it all, and nobody had gone so far as to +formulate his dissatisfactions or his remedies. The tangible result was the +formation of two as yet inchoate elements, representing the extremes of +ideas and of interests. + +The first of these elements--that can with equal justice be called the +parasitic or the middleman class--consisted in itself of several sorts of +people. The nucleus was a small, intellectually honest set of men who +believed, in the law _per se_, in the sacredness of formal institutions in +the constitution, and in the subservience of the individual to the +institution. This was temperamental. Behind them were many much larger +groups of those needed either the interpretation or the protection of the +law for their private interests. These were of all sorts from honest +literal-minded dealers, through shady contractors and operators, down to +grafters and the very lowest type of strong-arm bullies. The tone and +respectability came from the first, the practical results from the second. +The first class had a genuine intellectual contempt for men whose minds +could not see--or at least would not accept--the same subtleties that it +did. Its members were fond of such phrases as the "lawless mob," or the +"subversion of time-honoured institutions." This small, subjectively +honest, conservative, specially trained element must not be forgotten in +the final estimate of what later came to be known as the "Law and Order" +party. + +On the other hand was first of all an equally small nucleus of thinking men +whose respect for the law, merely as law, was not so profound; men who +were, reluctantly, willing to admit that when law completely broke down in +encompassing justice, individualism was justified in stepping in. Behind +them was a vast body of more or less unthinking men who recognized the +indubitable facts that the law had become a farce, that justice had +degenerated to tricks, and who were, therefore, instinctively against law, +lawyers, and everybody who had anything to do with them. + +Strangely enough this made for lawlessness on both sides. Those who +believed in "law and order" committed crime or misdemeanour or mere +injustice, sure of escape through some technicality. Those who distrusted +courts administered justice illegally with their own hands! Nor was this +merely in theory. San Francisco at that time was undoubtedly the most +corrupt and lawless city in the world. Street shootings, duels, robberies, +ballot-box stuffing, bribery, all the crimes traceable to a supine police +and venal or technical courts were actually so commonplace as to command +but two or three lines in the daily papers. Justice was completely +smothered under technicalities and delays. + +The situation would have been intolerable to any people less busy than the +people of that time. For political corruption in a vigorous body politic is +not, as pessimists would have us believer an indication of incipient decay, +but only an indication that a busy people are willing to pay that price to +be left alone, to be relieved of the administration of their public +affairs, When they get less busy, or the price in corruption becomes too +high, then they refuse to pay. The price Francisco was paying becoming very +high, not only in money, but in other and spiritual things. She could still +afford to pay it; but at the least pressure she would no longer afford it. +Then she would act. + + + + +XXXIII + + +In the second year of his residence Keith had a minor adventure that +shifted a portion of his activities to other fields. He was in attendance +at a council meeting, following the interests of certain clients. The +evening was warm, the proceedings dull. Opened windows let in the sounds +from the Plaza and a night air that occasionally flared the smoky lamps. +The clerk's voice was droning away at some routine when the outer door +opened and a most extraordinary quartette entered the chamber. Three of +these were the ordinary, ragged, discouraged, emaciated, diseased "bums," +only too common in that city. In early California a man either succeeded or +he failed into a dark abyss of complete discouragement; the new +civilization had little use for weaklings. The fourth man can be no better +described than in the words of a chronicler of the period. Says the worthy +diarist: + +"He was a man of medium stature, slender but very graceful, with almost +effeminate hands and feet--the former scrupulously kept, the latter neatly +shod--and with a certain air of fragility; very soft blue eyes with sleepy +lids; a classically correct nose; short upper lip; rosy, moist lips. His +clothes: a claret-coloured coat, neither dress nor frock, but mixed of both +fashions, with a velvet collar and brass buttons; a black vest, double +breasted; iron-gray pantaloons; fresh, well-starched, and very fine linen; +plain black cravat, negligently tied; a cambric handkerchief; and dark kid +gloves. He wore gold spectacles, and carried a malacca cane." + +Instead of slipping into the seats provided for spectators, this striking +individual marched boldly to the open space before the mayor's chair, +followed, shamefaced and shambling, by the three bums. + +"Your honours and gentlemen," he cried in a clear, ringing voice, to the +scandal of the interrupted legislators, "we are very sick and hungry and +helpless and wretched. If somebody does not do something for us, we shall +die; and that would be bad, considering how far we have come, and how hard +it was to get here, and how short a time we have been here, and that we +have not had a fair chance. All we ask is a fair chance, and we say again, +upon our honour, gentlemen, if somebody does not do something for us, we +shall die, or we shall be setting fire to the town first and cutting all +our throats." + +He stood leaning lightly against his malacca cane, surveying them through +his sleepy blue eyes. The first astonishment over, they took up a +collection, after the customary careless, generous fashion. The young man +saluted with his cane, and herded his three exhibits out. + +Keith, much struck, followed them, overtaking the quartette on the street. + +"My name is Keith," he said, "I should like to make your acquaintance." + +"Mine is Krafft," replied the unknown, "and I am delighted to accept your +proffer." + +He said nothing more until he had marshalled his charges, into a cheap +eating-house, ordered and paid for a supper, and divided the remainder of +the amount collected. Then he dusted his fingers daintily with a fine +handkerchief, and sauntered out into the street, swinging his malacca cane. + +"Incidents of that sort restore one's faith in the generosity of our +people," Keith remarked, in order to say something. + +"Nobody has been generous," denied Krafft categorically, "and no particular +good has been accomplished. Filled their bellies for this evening; given +them a place to sleep for this night; that's all." + +"That's something," ventured Keith. "It helps." + +"The only way to help we have not undertaken. We have done nothing toward +finding out why there are such creatures--in a place like this. That's the +only way to help them: find out why they are, and then remove the why." + +This commonplace of modern charity was then a brand-new thought. Keith had +never heard it expressed, and he was much interested. + +"I suppose there are always the weak and the useless," he said vaguely. + +"If those men were wholly weak and useless, how did they get out here?" +countered Krafft. "To compass such a journey takes a certain energy, a +certain sum of money, a certain fund of hope. The money goes, the energy +drains, the hope fades. Why?" + +They stopped at a corner. + +"I live just near here," said Krafft. "If you will honour me." + +He led the way down a narrow dark alley, along which they had fairly to +grope their way. It debouched, however, into the forgotten centre of the +square. All the edges had been built close with brick stores, warehouses, +and office buildings. But in the very middle had been left a waste piece of +ground, occupied only by a garden and a low one-room abode, with a veranda +and a red-tiled roof. Under the moonlight and the black shadows from the +modern buildings it slept amid its bright flowers with the ancient air of +another world. Krafft turned a key and lighted a lamp. Keith found himself +in a small, neat room, with heavy beams, fireplace, and deep embrasured +windows. An iron bed, two chairs, a table, a screen, a shelf of books, and +a wardrobe were its sole furnishings. In the fireplace had been laid, but +not lighted, a fire of sagebrush roots. + +Krafft touched a match to the roots, which instantly leaped into eager and +aromatic flames. From a shelf he took a new clay pipe which he handed to +Keith. + +"Tobacco is in that jar," he said. + +He himself filled and lighted a big porcelain pipe with wexelwood stem. + +"What would you do about it?" asked Keith, continuing the discussion. + +"What would you most want, if you were those poor men?" retorted Krafft, +blowing a huge cloud. + +Keith laughed. + +"Drink, food, clothes, bed," he stated succinctly. + +"And work wherewith to get them," supplemented Krafft. + +Keith laughed again. + +"Not if I know their sort! Work is the one thing they _don't_ want." + +Krafft leaned forward, and tapped the table with one of his long +forefingers, + +"The lazy part of them, the earthen part of them, the dross of them--yes, +perhaps. But let us concede to them a spark that smoulders, way down deep +within them--a spark of which they think they are ashamed, which they do +not themselves realize the existence of except occasionally. What is the +deep need of them? It is to feel that they are still of use, that they +amount to something, that they are men. That more than mere food and +warmth. Is it not so?" + +"I believe you're right," said Keith, impressed. + +"Then," said Krafft triumphantly, "it _is_ work they want, work that is +useful and worth paying for." + +"But there's plenty of work to be had," objected Keith, after a moment. "In +fact, there's more work in this town than there are men to do it." + +"True, But it is the hard work these men have failed at. It is too hard. +They try; they are discouraged; they fall again, and perhaps they never get +up. Such men must be led, must be watched, must be stopped within their +strength." + +"Who's there to do that sort of dry nursing of bums?" demanded Keith with a +half laugh. + +"He who would help," said Krafft quietly. + +They smoked for some time in silence; then Keith arose to go. + +"It is a big idea; it requires thought," said he ruminativeiy. "You are a +recent arrival, Mr. Krafft? What is your line of activity?" + +The slight, elegant little man smiled. + +"I am one of the--what is it you called, them--bums of whom we talk. I try +to do what is within my power, within my strength-lest I, too, become +discouraged, lest I, too, fall again--and not get up." + +"I have not seen you about anywhere," said Keith, puzzled by this speech. + +"I do not go anywhere; I should be eaten. You do not understand me, and I +am a poor host to talk in riddles. I am a philosopher, not a man of action; +egotist, not an egoist; one who cannot swim in your strong waters. As I +said, one of that same class whom your bounty helped this evening." + +"Good Lord, man!" cried Keith, looking about the little room. "You're not +in want?" + +Krafft laughed gently. + +"In your sense, no. I have my meals. Enough of me. Go, and think of what I +say." + +Keith did so, and the result was the first organized charity in San +Francisco. Since 1849 men had always been exceptionally generous in +responding to appeals for money. Huge sums could easily be raised at any +time. Hospitals and almshouses dated from the first. But having given, +these pioneers invariably forgot. The erection of the buildings cost more +than they should, and management being venal, conditions soon became +disgraceful. Alms reached the professional pauper. The miner or immigrant, +diseased, discouraged, out of luck, more often died--either actually or +morally. + +So much had this first interview caught his interest that Keith dropped in +on his new acquaintance quite often. It soon became evident that Krafft +lived in what might be called decent poverty. The one fine rig-out in which +he made his public appearances was most carefully preserved. Indoors he +always promptly assumed a dressing-gown, a skull cap with a gold tassel, +and his great porcelain pipe. His meals he cooked for himself. Never did he +leave his house until about three o'clock. Then, spick and span, +exquisitely appointed, he sauntered forth swinging his malacca cane. After +a promenade of several hours he returned again to his dressing-gown, his +porcelain pipe, and his books. Keith enjoyed hugely his detached, +reflective, philosophical, spectator-of-life conversation. They talked on +many subjects besides sociology. At his fourth visit Krafft made a +suggestion. + +"You shall come with me and see," said he. + +He led the way to the water front under Telegraph Hill, the newest and the +most squalid part of town. The shallow water was in slow process of being +filled in by sand from the grading uptown and with all sorts of +miscellaneous debris, Pending solidity, this sketchy real estate swarmed +with squatters. There were lots sunken below the street level, filled with +stagnant water, discarded garments, old boxes, ashes, and rubbish; houses +huddled closely together with stale water beneath; there were muddy alleys; +murderous cheap saloons; cheaper gambling joints; rickety, sagging +tenements. The people corresponded to their habitations. All the low +elements lurked here, the thugs, strong-arm men, the hold-ups, the heelers, +the weaklings, the bums, the diseased. In ordinary times they here dwelt in +a twilight existence; but at periods of excitement--as when the city +burned--they swarmed out like rats for plunder. + +Krafft held his way steadily to the wharves. There he left the causeway and +descended to the level of the beach. Beneath the pilings, and above the +high-water mark, was a little hut. It was not over six feet square, +constructed of all sorts of old pieces of boxes, scraps of tin, or remnants +of canvas. Overhead rumbled continuously the heavy drays, shaking down, +through the cracks the dust of the roadway. Against one outside wall of +this crazy structure an old man sat, chair tilted in the sun. Even the +chair was a curiosity, miraculously held together by wires. The man was +very old, and very feeble, his knotted hands clasping a short, black clay +pipe. Inside the hut Keith, saw a rough bunk on which lay jumbled a quilt +and a piece of canvas. + +"Well, John," greeted Krafft cheerfully, "I've brought a friend to see +you." + +The old man turned on Keith a twinkling blue eye. + +"Glad to see you," he said briefly. + +"Getting on?" pursued Krafft. + +"Fine." + +"Here's a new kind of tobacco I want you to try. I should value your +opinion." + +Keith's hand wandered toward his pocket, but stopped at a sharp look from +Krafft. After a moment's chat they withdrew. + +"What a pathetic old figure! What utter misery!" cried Keith. + +"No!" said Krafft positively. "There you are wrong. Old John is in no need +of us. He has his house and his bed, and he gets his food. How, I do not +know, but he gets it. The spark is burning clear and steady. He has not +lost his grip. He gets his living with confidence. Let him alone." + +"But he must be very miserable--especially when it rains," persisted Keith. + +Krafft shrugged his shoulders. + +"As to that, I know not," he returned indifferently. "That does not matter +to the soul. I will now show you another man." + +They retraced their steps. On a corner of Montgomery Street Krafft stopped +before a one-armed beggar, the stump exposed, a placard around his neck. + +"Now here's another John," said Krafft. "What he wants is work, and +somebody to see that he does it." + +The one-armed beggar, who was fat, with a good-natured countenance, +evidently considered this a joke. He grinned cheerfully. + +"Don't have to, guvenor," said he. + +"How much did you take in yesterday, John?" asked Krafft; then, catching +the beggar's look of suspicion, he added, "This is a friend of mine; he's +all right." + +"Twenty-two dollars," replied the beggar proudly. "Pretty good day's +wages!" + +"I'm afraid the spark is about out with you, John," said Krafft +thoughtfully. He walked on a few steps, then turned back. "John," he asked, +"what is your contribution to society?" + +The beggar stared, uncertain of this new chaff. + +"The true theory of business, John, is that traffic which does not result +In reciprocal advantages to buyer and seller is illegitimate, or at least +abnormal." + +They walked on, Keith laughing at the expression on the beggar's face. + +"That was considerably over his head," he observed. + +Nothing more was said for half a block. + +"I wonder if it was over yours," then said Krafft, unexpectedly. + +"Eh?" ejaculated Keith, bewildered. + +These walks with Krafft finally resulted in the institution of a fund which +Keith raised and put into Krafft's hands for intelligent use. The effects +were so interesting that Keith, thoroughly fascinated, began to pester his +friends for positions for some of his protégés. As he was well-liked and in +earnest, these efforts were taken good-humourediy. + +"Here comes Milt Keith," said John Webb to Bert Taylor. "Bet you a beaver +hat he's got a highly educated college professor that he wants a job for." + +"'A light job, not beyond his powers,'" quoted Taylor. + +"Like cleaning genteel spittoons," supplemented Webb. + +"The engine house is full of 'em polishing brass," complained Taylor. + +"Well, he's a young felly, and I like him," concluded Webb heartily. + +Of course many of the experiments failed, but fewer than might have been +anticipated. Part of Krafft's task was to keep in touch with the men. His +detached, philosophical method of encouragement and analysis of the +situation seemed just the thing they needed. + + + + +XXXIV + + +These activities gave Keith just the required door out into a world other +than his own. Were it not for something of the sort he might, like many +modern corporation lawyers, have confined himself entirely to his own +class. And this, of course, would eventually have meant narrowness. + +But through Krafft, and especially through his desire to help Krafft's +work, he came in contact with all sorts of people; and, what was more +important, he found that he liked a great many of them. So it happened that +when it seemed expedient to the ruling caste to put him in as Assistant +District Attorney, his inevitable election met with wider approval than +such elections usually enjoy. + +For it must be understood that in the fifties any candidate selected by the +ruling caste was absolutely sure of election. The machinery was thoroughly +in their hands. Diplomacy in party caucuses, delicate manipulation at +primaries, were backed by cruder methods if need be. Associations were +semi-publically formed for the sale of votes; gangs of men were driven from +one precinct to another, voting in all; intimidation, and, indeed, open +violence, was freely used. Only the most adventurous or the most determined +thought it worth while even to try to vote in the rough precincts. And if +the first and second lines of defence failed, there was still the third to +fall back on when the booths were dosed and the ballots counted: the boxes +could still be "stuffed," the count could still be scientifically juggled +to bring about any desired result. + +This particular election was one of the worst in the history of the place. +All day fighting was kept up, and the rowdies swaggered everywhere. Whiskey +was to be had for the asking; and the roughs who surrounded the polls fired +shots, and in some places started what might fairly be called riots. Yankee +Sullivan returned James Casey as elected supervisor, which was probably a +mistake, for Casey was not a candidate, his name was on none of the +official ballots, and nobody could be found who had voted for him. +Everybody was surprised, Casey most of all! The sixth ward count was +delayed unconscionably, its returns being withheld until nearly morning. It +was more than hinted that this delay was prolonged until the returns had +been received from all other precincts, so that any deficiencies might be +made up by the sixth. The "slate" went through unbroken. + +Of all the candidates, Keith received the most votes, for the simple reason +that his total included both the honest and dishonest ballots. Blanchford, +Neil, Palmer, Adams, all the political overlords of the city were +satisfied, as well they might be, for they had issued the fiat that he be +chosen. + +"He's one of us," said they. + +But what was more unusual, the rank and file of decent, busy, hard-working +citizens approved, too. + +"Keith is not stuck up," they told each other. "He is the _commonest_ man +in that bunch. And he's square." + +The position carried some social as well as political significance. Society +made another effort to take him up. His rare appearances were rather in the +nature of concessions. They served to make him more regretted, for he had +an easy, jolly way of moving from one group or one woman to another, of +paying flattering, monopolizing, brief attention to each in turn, and then +disappearing, very early! His bold rather florid countenance radiated +energy and quizzical good humour; his tight, closely curled hair crisped +with virile alertness; he carried himself taut and eager--altogether a +figure to engage the curiosities of women or the interest of men. + +Mrs. Sherwood alone was shrewd enough to penetrate to his true feelings. +She had experienced no difficulty in pushing to a social leadership shared +--indolently and indifferently--with Nan Keith. Already her past was +growing dim in a tradition kept alive only by a few whisperers. Her wealth, +her natural tact and poise, her calm assumption of the right to rule, her +great personal charm, beauty, and taste were more than sufficient to get +her what she wanted. The game was almost too easy, when one held the cards. + +"Yes, he's very charming," she told her husband, "but that manner of his +does not impress me. As a matter of fact, he doesn't care a snap of his +finger about any of them. He does it too well. It's a stencil. Only the +outside of him does it. He's just as bad as you are; only _he_ doesn't hold +up a corner of the doorway all the evening, and beam vaguely in general, +like a good-natured, dear old owl." + + + + +XXXV + + +A few clear-headed men--not the "chivalry," as the fire-eating professional +politicians and lawyers from the South were almost uniformly designated-- +were able to see exactly the problem that must eventually demand Keith's +solution. Some of them talked it over while lounging and smoking in the +Fire Queen reading-room. There were present Talbot Ward and his huge +satellite, Munro; Coleman, quiet, grim, complacent, but looking, with his +sweeping, inky moustache and his florid, complexion, like a flashy "sport"; +Hossfros, soon to become an historic character; and the banker, James King +of William. + +The latter had recently come in for considerable public discussion. He had +for some time conducted a banking business, but becoming involved in +difficulties, he had turned over all his assets, all his personal fortune, +even his dwelling-house, to another bank as trustee to take care of his +debts. Almost immediately after, that bank had failed. Opinion in the +community divided according to the interests involved. The majority +considered that King had been almost quixotically conscientious in +stripping himself; but there did not lack those who accused him of sharp +practice. In the course of ensuing discussions and recriminations King was +challenged to a duel. He declined to fight, basing his refusal on +principle. As may be imagined, such an action at such a time was even more +widely commented upon than even his refusal to take advantage of the +bankruptcy laws. It was, as far as known, the first time any one had had +the moral courage to refuse a duel. King had gone quietly about his +business, taking an ordinary clerkship with Palmer, Cook & Co. In the eyes +of the discriminating few he had gained prestige, but most people thought +him down and out. + +"What do you think of our new Assistant District Attorney?" Ward had begun +the conversation. + +"He's a lawyer," growled Hossfros. + +"A pretty fairly honest one, I think," ventured King. "His training may be +wrong, but his instincts are right." + +"Fat chance anything's got when it mixes up with legalities," supplemented +Frank Munro. + +"Nevertheless," remarked Coleman seriously, "I believe plain justice has +more of a chance with him in charge than with another." + +"What sort of justice?" queried King. "Commercial?" He laughed in answer to +his own question. "Criminal? I'd like to think it, gentlemen, but I cannot. +You know as well as I do that any of us could this evening go into the +streets, select our victim, and shoot him down secure in the knowledge that +inconvenience is all the punishment we need expect--if we have money or +friends. Am I not right, Coleman?" + +Coleman smiled sardonically, lifting his blue-black moustache. + +"Were Herod for the slaughter of the Innocents brought before a jury of +this town, he would be acquitted," he said half-seriously. "Judas Iscariot +would pass unscathed so long as any portion of his thirty pieces of silver +remained with him." + +They laughed at this remarkable pronouncement, but with an undernote of +seriousness. + +"No man, even exceptionally equipped as this young man seems to be," went +on Coleman after a moment, "can accomplish _that_"--he snapped his fingers +--"against organized forces such as those of 'Law and Order.'" + +"We can't stand this sort of thing forever!" cried Hossfros hotly. "It's +getting worse and worse!" + +"We probably shall not stand it forever," agreed Coleman equably, "but we +are powerless--at present." + +They looked toward him for explanation of this last. + +"When the people at large find that _they_ cannot stand it either, then we +shall be no longer powerless. A single man can do something then--a single +child!" + +"What will happen then?" asked Munro. "Vigilantes? '51 again?" + +Coleman, the leader of the Vigilantes of '51, turned on him a grave eye. + +"God forbid! We were then a frontier community. We are now an organized, +civilized city. We have rights and powers through the regular channels--at +the ballot box for example." + +Hossfros laughed skeptically. + +"It must wait," continued Coleman; "it must wait on public opinion." + +"Well," spoke up King, "it's all very well to wait, but public opinion left +to itself is a mighty slow growth. It should be fostered. The newspapers--" + +"Don't let's lose our sense of humour," cut in Talbot Ward. "Can you see +Charley Nugent or Mike Rowlee crusading for the right?" + +"But my point is good," insisted King. "An honest, fearless editor, not +afraid to call a spade a spade--" + +"Would be shot," said Coleman briefly. + +"The chances of war," replied King. + +"They don't grow that kind around here," grinned Ward. + +"Well," concluded Coleman, "this young Keith probably won't help any, but +he's going to be interesting to watch, just the same, to see what he'll do +the first time they crack the whip over him. That's the vital point as far +as he is concerned." + + + + +XXXVI + + +Keith's activities did not immediately confront him with anything in the +nature of a test, however. His superiors confined him to the drawing of +briefs and the carrying through of carefully selected cases. It was +considered well to "work him in" a little before putting responsibility on +him. + +He enjoyed it, for now he had at his call all the civil and police +resources of the city. This gave him a pleasant feeling of power. He was at +the centre of things. And through his office he came into contact with +ever-widening circles of people, all of whom were disposed, even anxious, +to treat him well, to get in his good graces. Possibly most of these were +what we would call the worst elements; and by that we would mean not only +the roughnecks of the police or sheriff's offices, but also the +punctilious, smooth-mannered Southerners who practically monopolized the +political offices. These men would have been little considered in the +South; in fact, in many cases, they had left their native states under a +cloud or even with prison records; but their natural charm, their audacity, +and their great punctilio as to "honour" deeply impressed the ordinary +citizen. As one chronicler of the times puts it, they had "fluency in +harangue, vigour in invective, ostentatious courage, absolute confidence +about all matters of morals, politics, and propriety"--which is an +excellent thumbnail sketch. Many of these ex-jailbirds rose to wealth and +influence, so that to this day the sound of their names means aristocracy +and birth to those ignorant of local history. Their descendants may be seen +to-day ruffling it proudly on the strength of their "birth!" + +They, and the classes they directly and indirectly encouraged, had at last +brought the city fairly on the financial rocks. There was no more revenue. +Everything taxable had been taxed. The poll tax was out of all reason; +property paid 4 per cent. on an actual valuation; theatres, bankers, +brokers, freight, miners, merchants, hotel, keepers, incorporations, every +form of industry was levied upon heavily. Still that was not enough. Even +labour was paid now in scrip so depreciated that the cost of the simplest +public works was terrible. + +And to heap up the measure, the year of 1855 was one of financial +stringency. The season of '54-'55 had been one of drought. For lack of +water most of the mining had ceased. The miners wanted to be trusted for +their daily needs; the country stores had to have credit because the miners +could not pay; and so on up to the wholesalers in the city. Goods were +therefore sold cheap at auction, and the gold went East to pay at the +source. Money, actual physical money, became scarce. The gold was gone, and +there existed no institution legally entitled to issue the paper money that +might have taken its place. All the banking was done by private firms. +These took deposits, made loans, issued exchange, but could not issue +banknotes. + +Still, things had looked a bit squally many times before, but nothing had +happened. Men had the habit of optimism. No one stopped to analyze the +situation, to realize that the very good reason nothing had happened was +that the city had always had behind it the strength of the mines, and that +now the mines had withdrawn. + +Out of a clear sky came the announcement that Adams & Co. had failed! + +At first nobody believed it. Adams & Co. had occupied in men's minds from +the start much the same position as the Bank of England. The confirmation +of the news caused the wildest panic and excitement. If Adams & Co. were +vulnerable, nobody was secure. Small merchants began to call in their +credits. The city caught up eagerly every item of news. All the assets of +the bankrupt firm were turned over to Alfred Cohen as receiver. Some +interested people did not trust Cohen. They made enough of a fuss to get H. +M. Naglee appointed in Cohen's place. Naglee, demanding the assets, was +told they had been deposited with Palmer, Cook & Co. The latter refused to +give them up, denying Naglee's jurisdiction in the matter. The case was +brought into court. Then suddenly it was found that Palmer, Cook & Co. had +mysteriously lost their paramount interest in the courts. They had counted +on the case being brought before their own judges; but it was cited before +Judges Hazen and Park, both of whom, while ultra-technical, were honest. +The truth of the matter was that the rats suspected Palmer, Cook & Co. of +sinking, too, and had deserted. Judges Hazen and Park called upon the firm +to turn over to Naglee the assets of Adams & Co. They still refused. One of +the partners, named Jones, and Cohen were imprisoned. Some where $269,000 +was missing. Nobody knew anything about it. The books having to do with the +transaction had mysteriously disappeared. Two days later an Irishman found +them floating in the bay, and brought them to the court. But the crucial +pages were missing. And then suddenly, while both Judge Hazen and Judge +Park were out of town, application was made to the Supreme Court--of which +Judge Terry was head--for the release of Jones and Cohen. The application +was granted. + +So an immense sum of money disappeared; nobody was punished; it was all +strictly legal; and yet the dullest labourer could see that the whole +transaction amounted to robbery under arms. Failures resulted right and +left. Wells Fargo & Co. closed their doors, but resumed within a few days. +A great many pocketbooks were hit. There was much talk and excitement. + + + + +XXXVII + + +On an evening in October, returning home at an early hour, Keith found Nan +indignant and excited. She held in her hand a tiny newspaper, not half the +usual size, consisting only of a single sheet folded. + +"Have you seen this?" she burst out as Keith entered. "Isn't it +outrageous!" + +Keith was tired, and sank into an easy chair with a sigh of relaxation. + +"No, what is it?" he asked, reaching his hand for the paper. "Oh, the new +paper. I saw them selling it on the street yesterday." + +It was the _Bulletin_, Vol. 1, No. 2. Like all papers of that day, and like +some of the English papers now, its first page was completely covered with +small advertisements. A thin driblet of short local items occupied a column +on the third and fourth pages, a single column of editorial on the second. + +"Seems a piffling little sheet," he observed, "to be read in about eight +seconds by any one not interested in advertisements. What is it that +agitates you, Nan?" + +"Read that." She pointed to the editorial. + +The article in question proved to be an attack on Palmer, Cook & Co. It +said nothing whatever about the Cohen-Naglee robbery. Its subject was the +excessive rentals charged the public by Palmer, Cook & Co. for postal +boxes. But it mentioned names, recorded specific instances, avoided +generalities, and stated plainly that this was merely beginning at the +beginning in an exposé of the methods of these "Uriah Heeps." + +"Why do they permit such things?" cried Nan, scarcely waiting for Keith to +finish his reading, "What is Mr. Palmer going to do about it?" + +"Survive, I guess," replied Keith, with a grin. "I take back my opinion of +the paper. It certainly has life." He turned to the head of the page. +"Hullo!" he cried in surprise. "James King of William running this, eh?" He +whistled, then laughed. "That promises to be interesting, sure. He was in +business with that crowd for some time. He ought to have information from +the inside!" + +"Mrs. Palmer is simply furious," said Nan. + +"I'll bet she is. Are we invited out this evening?" + +"The Thurstons' musicale. I thought you'd be interested in that." + +"Let me off, Nan, that's a good fellow," pleaded Keith, whose weariness had +vanished. "I'd be delighted to go at any other time. But this is too rich. +I must see what the gang has to say." + +"I suppose I could drop Ben Sansome a note," assented Nan doubtfully. + +"Do! Send the Chink around with it," urged Keith, rising. "I'll get a bite +downtown and not bother you." + +The gang--as indeed the whole city--took it as a great joke. Of those Keith +met, only Jones, the junior partner, failed to see the humour, and he +passed the affair off in cavalier fashion. That did not save him from the +obligation of setting up the drinks. + +"I'm going to fix this thing up in the morning," he stated confidently. +"Between you and me, there's evidently been a slip somewhere. Of course it +ought never to have been allowed to go so far. I'll see this man King first +thing in the morning, and buy him off. Undoubtedly that's about the only +reason his paper exists. Wonder where he got the money to start it? He's +busted. It can't last long." + +"If it keeps up the present gait, it'll last," said Judge Caldwell +shrewdly. "Me--I'm going to send in a subscription tomorrow. Wouldn't miss +it for anything." + +"It'll last as long as he does," growled Terry, "and that'll be about as +long as a snowball in hell. What you ought to do, Jones, is what any man of +spirit ought to do--call him out!" + +"He announces definitely that he won't fight duels," said Calhoun Bennett. + +"Then treat him like the cowardly hound he is," flared the uncompromising +Terry. "Take the whip to him; and if that isn't effective, shoot him down +as you would any other mad dog!" + +"Surely, that's a little extreme, Judge," expostulated Caldwell. "He hasn't +done anything worse than stir up Jonesy a little." + +"But he will, sir," insisted Terry, "you mark my words. If you give him +line, he'll not only hang himself, but he'll rope in a lot of bystanders as +well." + +"I'll bet he sells a lot of papers to-morrow, anyhow," predicted Keith. + +"I hope so," bragged Jones. "There'll be the more to read his apology." + +Evidently Jones fulfilled his promise, and quite as evidently Keith's +prediction was verified. Every man on the street had a copy of the next +day's _Bulletin_ within twenty minutes of issue. + +A roar of delight went up. Jones's visit was reported simply as an item of +news, faithfully, sarcastically, and pompously. There was no comment. Even +the most faithful partisans of Palmer, Cook & Co. had to grin at the +effectiveness of this new way of meeting the impact of such a visit, + +"It's clever journalism," Terry admitted, "but it's blackguardly; and I +blame Jones for passing it over." + +The fourth number--eagerly purchased--proved more interesting because of +its hints of future disclosures rather than for its actual information. +Broderick was mentioned by name. The attention of the city marshal was +succinctly called to the disorderly houses and the statutes concerning +them; and it was added, "for his information," that at a certain address a +structure was actually building at a cost of $30,000 for improper purposes. +Then followed a list of personal bonds and sureties for which Palmer, Cook +& Co. were standing voucher, amounting to over two millions. + +The expectations of disclosures, thus aroused, were not immediately +gratified, except in the case of Broderick. His swindles in the matters of +the Jenny Lind Theatre and the City Hall were traced out in detail. Every +one knew these things were done, but nobody knew just how; so these +disclosures made interesting reading if only as food for natural curiosity. +However, the tension somewhat relaxed. It was generally considered that the +coarse fibre of the ex-stone-cutter, the old Tammany heeler, and the thick +skins of his political adherents could stand this sort of thing. Nobody +with a sensitive honour to protect was assailed. + +The position of the new paper was by now firmly established. It had a large +subscription list; it was eagerly bought on the streets; and its +advertising was increasing. King again turned his attention to Palmer, Cook +& Co. Each day he treated succinctly, clearly, without rhetoric, some +branch of their business. By the time he had finished with them he had not +only exposed their iniquities, he had educated the public to an +understanding of the financial methods of the times. His tilting at this +banking firm had inevitably led him to criticism of certain of their +subterfuges to avoid or take advantage of the law; and that as inevitably +brought him to analysis and condemnation of the firm's legal advisers, +James, Doyle, Barber & Boyd, a firm which had heretofore enjoyed a good +reputation. Incidentally he called attention to duelling, venal newspapers, +city sales, gambling, Billy Mulligan, Wooley Kearney, Casey, Cora, Yankee +Sullivan, Martin Gallagher, Tom Cunningham, Ned McGowan, Charles Duane, and +many other worthies, both of high and low degree. Never did he fear to name +names and cite specific instances plainly. James King of William dealt in +no innuendoes. He had found in himself the editor he had wished for, the +man who would call a spade a spade. + +The _Bulletin_ twice enlarged its form. It sold by the thousand. Its weapon +of defence was the same as its weapon of offence--pitiless and complete +publicity. Measures of reprisal, either direct or underhand, undertaken +against him, King published often without comment. + +At the first some of the cooler heads thought it might be well to reason +with him. + +"The man has run a muck," said old Judge Girvin, "and while I am far from +denying that In many--perhaps in most--cases his facts are correct, still +his methods make for lawlessness among the masses. It might be well to meet +him reasonably, and to expostulate." + +"I'd expostulate--with a blacksnake," growled the fiery Terry. + +A number waited on King. Keith was among them. They found his office in a +small ramshackle frame building, situated in the middle instead of +alongside one of the back streets. It had probably been one of the early +small dwelling-houses, marooned by a resurvey of the streets, and never +since moved. King sat in his shirtsleeves before a small flat table. He +looked up at them uncompromisingly from his wide-apart steady eyes. + +"Gentlemen," he greeted them tentatively. + +Judge Girvin seated himself impressively, his fat legs well apart, his +beaver hat and cane poised in his left hand; the others, grouped themselves +back of him. The judge stated the moderate case well. "We do not deny any +man the right to his opinion," he concluded, "but have you reflected on the +effect such an expression often has on the minds of those not trained to +control?" + +King listened to him in silence. + +"It seems to me, sir," he answered, when Judge Girvin had quite finished, +"that if abuses exist they should be exposed until they are remedied; and +that the remedy should come from the law." + +"What is your impelling motive?" asked the judge. "Why have you so suddenly +taken up this form of activity? Do you feel aggrieved in any way-- +personally?" + +"My motive in starting a newspaper, if that is what you mean, is the plain +one of making an honest if modest living. And, incidentally, while doing +so, I have some small idea of being of public use. I have no personal +grievance; but I am aggrieved, as every decent man must be, at the way the +lawyers, the big financial operators, and the other blackguards have robbed +the city," stated King plainly. + +Judge Girvin, flushing, arose with dignity, + +"I wish you good-day, sir," he said coldly, and at once withdrew. + +Keith had been watching King with the keenly critical, detached, analytical +speculation of the lawyer. He carried away with him the impression of a man +inspired. + +At the engine house, to which the discomfited delegation withdrew, there +was more discussion. + +"The man is within his legal rights so far," stated Judge Girvin. "If any +of his statements are libellous, it is the duty of the man so libelled to +institute action in the courts." + +"He's too smooth for that," growled Jones. + +"He'll bite off more than he can chew, if he keeps on," said Dick +Blatchford comfortably. "He's stirring up hornets' nests when he monkeys +with men like Yankee Sullivan. He's about due for an awful scare, one of +these days, and then he'll be good." + +"Do you know, I don't believe he'll scare," said Keith suddenly, with +conviction. + + + + +XXXVIII + + +As Keith surmised, intimidation had no effect. In such a city of fire- +eaters it was promptly tried. A dozen publically announced that they +thirsted for his blood, and intended to have it; and the records of the +dozen were of determination and courage in such matters. In the gambling +resorts and on the streets bets were made and pools formed on the probable +duration of King's life. He took prompt notice of this fact. Said the +_Bulletin's_ editorial column: + + Bets are now being offered, we are told, that the editor of the + _Bulletin_ will not be in existence twenty days longer, and the case + of Doctor Hogan, of the Vicksburg paper, who was murdered by gamblers + of that place, is cited as a warning. Pah! War, then, is the cry, is + it? War between the prostitutes and gamblers on one side, and the + virtuous and respectable on the other! Be it so, then! Gamblers of San + Francisco, you have made your election, and we are ready on our side + for the issue! + +Keith read this over John Sherwood's shoulder at the +Monumental. The ex-gambler, his famous benign spectacles atop his nose, +chuckled over it. + +"He doesn't scare for a cent, does he?" was his comment. "Strikes me I got +out of the ranks of the ungodly just in time. If I were still gambling, I +believe I'd take some of those bets he speaks of. He won't last--in this +town. But I like his pluck--kind of. Only he's damn bad for business!" + +Saying which, John Sherwood, late gambler but now sincerely believing +himself a sound and conservative business man, passed the sheet over to +Keith. + +From vague threats the situation developed rapidly to the definite and +personal. One Selover sent a challenge to King, which was refused. Selover +then announced his intention of killing King on sight. The _Bulletin_ +published this: + + Mr. Selover, it is said, carries a knife. We carry a pistol. We hope + neither will be required, but if this encounter cannot be avoided, why + will Mr. Selover insist on imperilling the lives of others? We pass + every afternoon, about half-past four to five o'clock, along Market + Street from Fourth to Fifth streets. The road is wide, and not so much + frequented as those streets farther in town. If we are to be shot or + cut to pieces, for heaven's sake let it be done there. Others will not + be injured, and in case we fall, our house is but a few hundred yards + beyond, and the cemetery not much farther. + +These detailed attacks and bold defiances had the effect of greatly +angering those who were the specific objects of attention; of making very +uneasy the class to which these victims belonged; of focussing on public +matters a public sentiment that was just becoming conscious of itself +because of the pinch of hard times; and of rendering contemptuously +indignant all of "higher" society. + +To this latter category Keith would undoubtedly have belonged--as did his +wife and practically all his friends--had it not been for his association +with Krafft. Through him the young lawyer came into intimate personal touch +with a large class of people who would otherwise have been remote from him. +He heard of their difficulties and problems at first hand, saw the actual +effect of abuses that, looked at from above, were abstract or academic. +Police brutality as a phrase carried little significance; police brutality +as a clubbing of Malachi Hogan, who was brought in with his skull crushed, +and whose blood stained Keith's new coat, meant something. Waste of public +funds, translated before his eyes into eviction for nonpayment of taxes, +took on a new significance. Keith saw plainly that a reform was needed. He +was not, on that account, in the least sympathetic with King's methods. +Like Judge Girvin, he felt them revolutionary and subversive. But he could +not share the contempt of his class; rather he respected the editor as a +sincere but mistaken man. When his name came up for discussion or bitter +vituperation, Keith was silent. He read the _Bulletin_ editorials; and +while he in no way endorsed their conclusions or recommendations, he could +not but acknowledge their general accuracy. Without his knowing it, he was +being educated. He came to realize the need for better administration by +the city's officers and a better enforcement of the laws. Very quietly, +deep down within himself, he made up his mind that in the Assistant +District Attorney's office, at least, the old order of things should cease. + + + + +XXXIX + + +One afternoon Keith walked down Kearney Street deep in discussion of an +important Federal case with his friend, Billy Richardson, the United States +Marshal. Although both just and an official, Richardson was popular with +all classes save those with whom his duty brought him into conflict. They +found their way deliberately blocked, and came out of the absorption of +their discussion to recognize before them Charles Cora, an Italian gambler +of considerable prominence and wealth. Cora was a small, dark man, +nervously built, dressed neatly and carefully in the height of gambler +fashion. He seemed to be terribly excited, and at once launched a stream of +oaths at Richardson. + +"What's the matter with you, Charley?" asked the latter, as soon as he had +recovered from his surprise. + +Cora, evidently too incoherent to speak, leaped at the marshal, his fist +drawn back. Keith seized him around the body, holding his arms to his +sides. + +"Hold on; take it easy!" he panted. "What's up, anyway?" + +Cora, struggling violently, gritted out: + +"He knows damn well what's up." + +"I'll swear I don't!" denied Richardson. + +"Then what do you mean telling every one that my Belle insulted your wife +last night at the opera house?" demanded Cora, ceasing to struggle. + +"Belle?" repeated Richardson equably. "I don't know what you're talking +about. Be reasonable. Explain yourself." + +"Yes, I got it straight," insisted the Italian. "Your wife says it insults +her to sit next to my Belle, and you go everywhere telling it. What right +you got to do that? Answer me that!" + +"Now look here," said Richardson. "I was with Jim Scott all last evening. +My wife wasn't with me. If you don't believe me, go ask Scotty." + +Cora had apparently cooled off, so Keith released him. He shook his head, +grumbling, only half convinced. After a moment he moved away. The two men +watched him go, half vexed, half amused. + +"He's crazy as a pup about that woman," observed Richardson. + +"Who is she?" inquired Keith. + +"Why, Belle--you know Belle, the one who keeps that, crib up your way." + +"That woman!" marvelled Keith. + +He spent the afternoon in court and in his office. About half-past six, on +his way home, he saw Cora and Richardson come out of the Blue Wing saloon +together. They were talking earnestly, and stopped in the square of light +from the window. Richardson was explaining, and Cora was listening +sullenly. As Keith passed them he heard, the marshal say, "Well, is it all +right?" and Cora reply, "Yes." Something caused him to look back after he +had gone a dozen yards. He saw Cora suddenly seize Richardson's collar with +his left hand, at the same time drawing a derringer with his right. + +"What are you going to do?" cried Richardson loudly and steadily, without +straggling, "Don't shoot; I am unarmed!" + +Without reply Cora fired into his breast. The marshal wilted, but with iron +strength Cora continued for several moments to hold up his victim by the +collar. Then he let the body drop, and moved away at a fast walk, the +derringer still in his right hand. + +Keith ran to his friend, and with others carried him into a nearby drug +store. The sound of the shot almost immediately brought out a crowd. Keith, +bending over the body of the murdered man, could see them pressing about +the windows outside, their faces showing white from the lamps in the drug- +store window or fading into the darkness beyond. They crowded through the +doorway until driven out again by some of the cooler heads. Conjectures and +inquiries flew thick. All sorts of reports were current of the details, but +the crowd had the main facts--Cora had shot Richardson, Richardson was +dead, Cora had been taken to jail. + +"Then he's safe!" they sneered savagely. + +Men had been shot on the streets before, many men, some of them as well +known and liked as Richardson; but not after public sentiment had been +aroused as the _Bulletin_ had aroused it. The crowds continued to gather. +Several men made violent street-corner speeches. There was some talk of +lynching. A storm of yes and no burst forth when the question was put. +Bells rang. A great mob surged to the jail, were firmly met by a strong +armed guard, and fell back muttering. + +"Who will be the next victim?" men asked. "What a farce!" cried some, in +deep disgust. "Why, the jailer is Cora's especial crony!" stated others, +who seemed to know. "If the jury is packed, hang the jury!" advised certain +far-seeing ones. A grim, quiet, black-bearded man expressed the +undercurrent of opinion: "Mark my words," said he, "if Charles Cora is left +for trial, he will be let loose on the community to assassinate his third +victim!" It seemed that Cora had been involved in a previous shooting +scrape. But to swing a mob to action there must be determined men at its +head, and this mob had no leaders. Sam Brannan started to say something in +his coarse, roaring voice, and was promptly arrested for inciting a riot. +Nobody cared enough seriously for the redoubtable Sam to object to this. +The situation was ticklish, but the police handled it tactfully for once, +opposing only a passive opposition, leaving the crowd to fritter its +energies in purposeless cursing, surging to and fro, and in harmless +threats. + +Keith did not join the throngs on the streets. Having determined that +Richardson was dead, he accompanied the body home. He was deeply stirred, +not only by the circumstances of the murder, but also by the scene at which +he had to assist when the news must be broken to Mrs. Richardson. From the +house he went directly to King's residence, where he was told that the +editor had gone downtown. After considerable search and inquiry he at last +got sight of his man standing atop a wooden awning overlooking the Plaza in +front of the jail. King nodded to him as he climbed out of the second-story +window to take his position at the newspaper man's side. + +The square was a wild sight, filled, packed with men, a crowd of men tossed +in constant motion. A mumbling growl came from them continuously, and +occasionally a shout. Many hands were upraised, and in some of them were +weapons. Opposite, the blank front of the jail. + +King's eyes were shining with interest and a certain quiet exultation, but +he seemed not at all excited. + +"Will they storm the jail?" asked Keith. + +King shook his head. + +"No, these people will do nothing. But they show the spirit of the time. +All it needs now is organization, cool, deliberate organization--to- +morrow." + +"That's just what I've hunted you out to talk about," said Keith earnestly. +"There is much talk of a Vigilance Committee. As you say, all it needs is +the call. That means lawlessness, bloodshed." + +"Conditions at present are intolerable," said King briefly. + +"I agree with you," replied Keith. King stared. "But in this case I assure +you the law will do its duty. It is an absolutely open and shut case. +Acquittal is impossible. Why, I myself was witness of the affair." + +King looked skeptical. + +"Hundreds of such cases have been acquitted, or the indictment quashed." + +"But this is entirely different. In the first place, the case will come +before Judge Norton and Judge Hazen, both of whom you will acknowledge are +honest. In the second place, this case will be in my hands as Assistant +District Attorney. I myself shall do the prosecuting, and I promise you on +my honour that every effort will be made for a deserved and speedy +conviction. I acknowledge justice has sometimes gone wrong in the past; but +that has not been the fault of the law, but of the administration of the +law. If you have the least confidence in Judge Norton and Judge Hazen, and +if you can be brought to believe me, you will see that this one case of all +cases should not be taken from the constituted authorities or made the +basis for a movement outside the law." + +"Well?" said King, half convinced. + +"The _Bulletin_ has the greatest influence with these people. Use it. Give +the law, the honest law, a chance. Do not get back of any Vigilante +movement. In that way, I am convinced, you will be of the greatest public +service." + +Next day the _Bulletin_ came out vigorously counselling dependence on the +law, expressing confidence in the integrity of Hazen and Norton, and +enunciating a personal belief that the day had passed when it would be +necessary to resort to arbitrary measures. The mob's anger had possessed +vitality enough to keep it up all night; but the attitude of the +_Bulletin_, backed by responsible men like Ward, Coleman, Hossiros, +Bluxome, and others, averted a crisis. Nevertheless, King added a paragraph +of warning: + +Hang Billy Mulligan! That's the word! If Mr. Sheriff Scannell does not +remove Billy Mulligan from his present post as keeper of the county jail, +and Mulligan lets Cora escape, hang Billy Mulligan, and if necessary to get +rid of the sheriff, hang him--hang the sheriff! + + + + +XL + + +The popular excitement gradually died. It had no leaders. Coleman and men +of his stamp, who had taken command of similar crises in former times, +counselled moderation. They were influenced, partly by the fact that +Richardson had been a public official and a popular one. Conviction seemed +certain. + +Keith applied himself heart and soul to the case. Its preparation seemed to +him, at first an easy matter. It was open and shut. Although at the moment +of the murder the street had not been crowded, a half-dozen eye-witnesses +of the actual shooting were easily found, willing to testify to the +essential facts. No defence seemed possible, but Cora remained undisturbed. +He had retained one of the most brilliant lawyers of the time, James +McDougall. This fact in itself might have warned Keith, for McDougall had +the reputation of avoiding lost causes and empty purses. The lawyer +promptly took as counsel the most brilliant of the younger men, Jimmy Ware, +Allyn Lane, and Keith's friend, Calhoun Bennett. This meant money, and +plenty of it, for all of these were expensive men. The exact source of the +money was uncertain; but it was known that Belle was advancing liberally +for her lover, and that James Casey, bound by some mysterious obligation, +was active in taking up collections. Cora lived in great luxury at the +jail. He had long been a personal friend of Sheriff Webb and his first +deputy, Billy Mulligan. + +Several months passed before the case could be forced to trial. All sorts +of legal and technical expedients were used to defer action. McDougall and +his legal assistants were skilful players at the game, and the points they +advanced had to be fought out according to the rules, each a separate +little case with plenty of its own technicalities. Some of Keith's +witnesses were difficult to hold; they had business elsewhere, and +naturally resented being compelled, through no fault of their own, to +remain. Keith had always looked on this play of legal rapiers as a part--an +interesting part--of the game; but heretofore he had always been on the +obstructing side. He worried a great deal. At length, by superhuman +efforts, he broke through the thicket of technicalities and brought the +matter to an issue. The day was set. He returned home so relieved in spirit +that Nan could not but remark on his buoyancy. + +"Yes," he responded, "I've managed to drive that old rascal, McDougall, +into the open at last." + +Nan caught at the epithet. + +"But you don't mean that--quite--do you?" she asked. "The McDougalls are +such delightful people." + +"No, of course not. Just law talk," said Keith, quite sincerely. "He's +handled his case well up to now. I'm just exasperated on that account, +that's all." + +But setting the day irrevocably was only a beginning. The jury had to be +selected. Sheriff Webb had in his hands the calling of the venire. While it +was true that the old-time, "professional jurymen"--men who hung around the +courthouse for no other purpose--were no longer in existence, it can be +readily seen that Webb was able, if it were worth while, to exercise a +judicious eye in the selection of "amenables." The early exhaustion of +Keith's quota of peremptory challenges was significant, for McDougall +rarely found it desirable to challenge at all! Keith displayed tremendous +resource in last-moment detective work concerning the records of the panel. +In this way he was enabled to challenge several for cause, after all his +peremptory challenges had been used. At first he had great difficulty in +getting results, for the police detectives proved supine. It was only after +he had hired private agents, paying for them from his own pocket, that he +obtained information on which he could act. The final result was a jury +better than he had dared hope for, but worse than he desired. He had gone +through a tremendous labour, and realized fully the difference between +being for or against the powers. + +The case came to trial, Keith presented six witnesses--respectable, one of +them well-known. These testified to the same simple facts, and their +testimony remained unshaken under cross-examination. McDougall offered the +plea of self-defence. He brought a cloud of witnesses to swear that Cora +had drawn his weapon only after Richardson had produced and cocked a +pistol. By skilful technical delays Keith gained time for his detectives, +and succeeded in showing that two of these witnesses had been elsewhere at +the time of the killing, and therefore had perjured themselves. He recalled +his own witnesses, and found two willing to swear that Richardson's hands +had been empty and hanging at his sides, The defence did not trouble to +cross-examine this statement. + +At last, with a perfunctory judicial charge, the case went to the jury. +Keith, weary to the bone, sat back in grateful relaxation. He had worked +hard, against odds, and had done a good job. He was willing now to spare a +little professional admiration for McDougall's skilful legal manoeuvring. +There could be no earthly doubt of the result. He idly watched the big +bland-faced clock, with its long second hand moving forward by spaced +jerks. The jury was out a very long time for so simple a verdict, but that +was a habit of California juries. It did not worry Keith. He was glad to +rest. The judge stared at the ceiling, his hands clasped over his stomach. +Cora's lawyers talked together in a low voice. Flies buzzed against dusty +window-panes. The spectators watched apathetically. Belle, in a ravishing +toilet, was there. + +The opening of the door broke the spell almost rudely. Keith sat up, +listening to the formal questions and answers. They had disagreed! + +For a moment the import of this did not penetrate to Keith's understanding. +Then he half rose, shouted "What!" and sank back stunned. His brain was in +confusion. Only dimly did he hear the judge dismissing the jury, remanding +Cora for retrial, adjourning court. Instantly Cora was surrounded by a +congratulatory crowd. Keith sat alone. McDougall, gathering up his papers +from the table assigned to counsel, made some facetious remark. Keith did +not reply. McDougall looked at him sharply, and as he went out he remarked +to Casey: + +"Keith takes this hard." + +"He does!" cried Casey, genuinely astonished. "They were trying to tell me +he was altogether too active in this matter; but I told them he was young +and had his way to make, and was playing to the gallery." + +He sauntered across the room. + +"Well, Milt," he cried in a jovial voice, but watching the young lawyer +narrowly, "the Lord's on the side of true virtue, as usual." + +Keith came to himself, scowled, started to say something, but refrained +with an obvious effort. + +Casey wandered back to McDougall. + +"You're right, Mac," he said. "I guess he's got the swell head. We'll have +to call him off gently, or he'll make a nuisance of himself at the next +trial. He makes altogether too much trouble." + +But McDougall was tolerant. + +"Oh, let him alone, Jim. He's got his way to make. Let him alone. We can +handle the situation." + + + + +XLI + + +Keith left the courtroom in a daze of incredulity. This was his first +serious defeat; and he could not understand it. The case was absolutely +open and shut, a mere question of fact to which there were sufficient and +competent witnesses. For the moment he was completely routed. + +As he emerged to the busy crowds on Kearney Street a sudden repugnance to +meeting acquaintances overcame him. He turned off toward the bay, making +his way by the back streets, alleys, and slums of that unsavoury quarter. +But even here he was not to escape. He had not gone two blocks before he +descried Krafft's slight and elegant figure sauntering toward him. Keith +braced himself for the inevitable question. + +"Well," it came, "how goes the trial?" + +The words released Keith's pent flood of bitterness. Here was an outlet; +Krafft was "safe." He poured out his disappointment, his suspicion, his +indignation. The little man listened to him in silence, a slight smile, +sketching his full, red lips. When Keith had somewhat run down, Krafft, +without a word, took him by the arm and led him by devious ways down to the +water-front portion of the city. There he planted him near the entrance of +a dark alley. + +"Now you wait here," Keith was told. + +Keith obeyed. The interval was long, but he had much to occupy his mind. +After a time Krafft returned in company with a slouching, drink-sodden +bummer of powerful build and lowering mien, the remains of a forceful +personality. This individual shambled along in the wake of the dapper +little Krafft quite meekly and submissively. + +"Here you are," said the latter briskly, and with a sort of nonchalant +authority. "Come, now, Mex, tell Mr, Keith what you know about the Cora +trial. Go on!" he urged, as the man hesitated. "He's not going to 'use' +you--he doesn't even know who you are or where you're to be found, and I'm +not going to tell him. Speak up, Mex! I tell you I want him to know how +things stand." + +Keith by now was acquainted with many of Krafft's protégés, but he had +never met the delectable Mex. Evidently the latter had long known Krafft, +however, for he acknowledged his authority unquestioningly. + +"It's like this, boss," he began in a hoarse voice. "You don't know me, +like Mr. Krafft says, but there's plenty that do. I got a lot of infloonce +down here, and when anybody wants anything they know where to come to get +it, which is right to headquarters--here," he slapped his great chest. + +"Get on," interrupted Krafft impatiently. "We'll take it for granted that +you are a great man." + +Mex looked at him reproachfully, but went on: + +"About this Cora trial: they come to me for good, reliable witnesses, and I +got 'em, and drilled 'em. There ain't nobody in it with me for making any +witness watertight." + +"How many witnesses?" prompted Krafft. + +"Eight," replied Mex promptly. + +"How much?" + +"Well, they give me five thousand fer to git the job done," admitted Mex, +with some reluctance. + +"Hope they got some of it," commented Krafft. + +"Who gave you the money?" demanded Keith. + +But Krafft interposed. + +"Hold on, my son, that isn't ethics at all! You mustn't ask questions like +that, must he, Mex? Very bad form!" He turned to Keith with a crisp air of +decision. "That's what was the matter with your trial; I just thought I'd +show you. Go on, Mex, get out," he commanded that individual, good- +humouredly. "I'm not particularly proud of you, but I suppose I've got to +stand you. Only remember this: Mr. Keith is my friend. Swear him out of the +high seats of heaven--if you can--because that's the nature of you; but let +him walk safely. In other words, no strong-arm work; do you understand?" + +The man mumbled and growled something. + +"Nonsense, Mex," interrupted Krafft sharply. "Do as I say. + +"It's a matter of a tidy sum," blurted out Mex at last. + +Krafft laughed. + +"You see, you were already marked for the slaughter," he told Keith; then +to Mex: + +"Well, you let him alone; he's my friend." + +"All right, if you say so," growled the man. + +"You're safe--as far as Mex and all his people are concerned," said Krafft +to Keith. "Our word is always good, when given to a friend; isn't it, Mex?" + +The man nodded, awkwardly and slouched away. + +Keith's depression had given place to anger. He had been beaten by unfair +means; his opponent had cheated at the game, and his opponent enjoyed the +respect of the community as a high-minded, able, dignified member of the +bar. It was unthinkable! A man caught cheating at cards would most +certainly be expelled from any decent club. + +"I'll disbar that man if it's the last act of my life!" He cried, "He's not +fit to practise among decent men!" + +He left Krafft standing on the corner and smiling quietly, and hurried back +to his office. + + + + +XLII + + +It was unfortunate for everybody that Morrell should have chosen that +particular afternoon to pay one of his periodical calls. Morrell had been +tactful and judicious in his demands. Keith was not particularly afraid of +his story or the effect of it if told, but he disliked intensely the fuss +and bother of explanations and readjustments. It had seemed easier to let +things drift along. The transactions were skilfully veiled, notes were +always given, Morrell was shrewd enough to take care that it did not cost +too much. There existed not the slightest cordiality between the men, but a +tacit assumption of civil relations. + +But this afternoon the sight of Morrell, seated with what seemed to Keith a +smug, superior, supercilious confidence in the best of the office chairs, +was more than Keith could stand. He was bursting with anger at the world in +general. + +"You here?" he barked at Morrell, without waiting for a greeting. "Well, +I'm sick of you! Get out!" + +Morrell stared at him dumbfounded. + +"I don't believe I understand," he objected. + +"Get out! Get out! Get out! Is that plain enough?" shouted Keith. + +Morrell arose with cold dignity. + +"I cannot permit--" he began. + +Keith turned on him abruptly. + +"Look here, don't try to come that rot. I said, get out--and I mean it!" + +So menacing was his aspect that Morrell drew back toward the door. + +"I suppose you know what this means?" he threatened, an ugly note in his +quiet voice. + +"I don't give a damn what it means," rejoined Keith with deadly +earnestness, "and if you don't get out of here I'll throw you out!" + +Morrell went hastily. + +Keith slammed his papers into a drawer, locked it and his office door, and +went directly to the office of the _Bulletin_. There, seated in all the +chairs, perched on the tables and window ledges, he found a representative +group. He recognized most of them, including James King of William, +Coleman, Hossfros, Isaac Bluxome, Talbot Ward, and others. A dead silence +greeted his appearance. He stopped by the door. + +"You have, of course, heard the news," he said. "I have come here to state +unequivocally, and for publication, that the Cora trial will be pushed as +rapidly and as strongly as is in the power of the District Attorney's +office. And if legal evidence of corruption can be obtained, proceedings +will at once be inaugurated to indict the bribe givers." + +A short silence followed this speech. Several men looked toward one +another. The tension appeared to relax a trifle. + +"I am glad to hear this, sir, from your own lips," at last said Coleman +formally, "and I wish you every success." + +Another short and rather embarrassed silence fell. + +"I should like to state privately to you gentlemen, and not for +publication"--Keith, paused and glanced toward King, who nodded +reassuringly--"that I have evidence, but unfortunately not legal, that +James McDougall has been guilty, either personally or through agents, of +bribery and corruption; and it is my intention to undertake his disbarment +if I can possibly get proper evidence." + +"Whether he bribed or didn't bribe, he knew perfectly well that Cora was +guilty," stated King positively. "And he had no right to take the case." + +But at that period this was an extreme view, as it still is in the legal +mind. + +"I suppose every man has a moral right to a defence," said Coleman +doubtfully. "If every lawyer should refuse to take Cora's case, as you say +McDougall should have refused, why the man would have gone undefended!" + +"That's all right," returned King, undaunted, "He ought to have a lawyer-- +appointed by the court--to see merely that he gets a fair trial; not a +lawyer--hired, prostituted, at a great price--to try by every technical +means to get him off." + +"A lawyer must, by the ethics of his profession, take every case brought +him, I suppose," some one enunciated the ancient doctrine. + +"Well, if that is the case," rejoined King hotly, "the law warps the +thinking and the morals of any man who professes it. And if I had a son to +place in life, I most certainly should not put him in a calling that +deliberately trains his mind to see things that way!" + +"I am sorry you have so low an opinion," spoke up Keith from the doorway. +"I am afraid I must hold the contrary as to the nobility of my chosen +profession. It can be disgraced, I admit. That it has been disgraced, I +agree. That it can be redeemed, I am going to prove." + +He bowed and left the office. + + + + +XLIII + + +Morrell went directly from Keith's office to Keith's house. He was not +particularly angry; for some time he had expected just this result, but +since he had threatened, he intended to accomplish. Finding Nan Keith at +home, he plunged directly at the subject in his most direct and English +fashion. She listened to him steadily until he had finished. + +"Is that all?" she then asked him quietly, + +"That's all," he acknowledged. + +She arose. + +"Then I will say, Mr. Morrell, that I do not believe you. I know my husband +thoroughly, and I am beginning to know you. I believe that is my only +comment. Good afternoon." + +He made a half attempt to point to her the way to corroborative evidence, +but she swept this superbly aside, Finally he took his correct leave, half +angry, half amused, wholly cynical, for to his mind the reason for her +indifference to the news he brought lay in what he supposed to be her +relations with Ben Sansome. + +"Bally ass!" he apostrophized himself. "Might have known how she'd take +it." + +His reading of Nan's motives was, of course, incorrect. Her first feeling +was merely a white heat of anger against Morrell, whom she had never liked. +Perhaps after a little this emotion might have carried over into, not +distrust, but an uneasiness as to the main issue; but before she had +arrived at this point Keith came in to deliver an ill-timed warning. As ill +luck would have it, and as such coincidences often come about in the most +perverse fashion, Keith had, down the street, met some malicious fool who +had dropped a laughing remark about Sansome. It was nothing in itself. +Ordinarily, Keith would have paid no attention to it. To-day it clashed +with his mood. Even now his jealousy was not stirred in the least, but his +sense of appearances was irritated. By the time he had reached home he had +worked up a proper indignation. + +"Look here, Nan," he blurted out as soon as he had closed the door behind +him, "you're seeing too much of Sansome. Everybody's talking." + +"Who is everybody?" she asked very quietly. + +"Of course I know it's all right," he blundered ahead tactlessly--the gleam +in her eye should have warned him that he might have omitted that +reassurance--"but just the looks of the thing. And he's such a weak and +wishy-washy little nonentity!" + +Her sense of justice aroused by this, she sprang to the defence of Sansome. + +"You are quite mistaken there," she said with dignity. "Men of that type +are never understood by men of yours. He is my friend--and yours. And he +has been very kind to both of us." + +"Well, just the same, you ought not to get yourself talked about," repeated +Keith stubbornly. + +"Do you distrust me?" she demanded. + +"Heavens, no! But you don't realize how it looks to others. He's coming +here morning, noon, and night." + +"It seems to me I may be the best judge of my own conduct." + +"Well," said Keith deliberately, "I don't know that you are. You must +remember that you are my wife, and that you bear my name. I have something +to say about it. I'm telling you; but if you cannot manage the matter +properly, I'll just have to drop a hint to Sansome." + +At that she blazed out. + +"Do that and you will regret it to the last day of your life!" she flared. +"If you'd be as careful with the name of Keith as I am, it would not +suffer!" + +"What do you mean by that?" he asked? after a blank pause. + +She had not intended to use that weapon, but now she persisted placidly. + +"I mean that if our name has been talked about, it has not been because of +any action of mine." + +His heart was beating wildly. In the multiplicity of fighting interests he +had actually forgotten (for the moment) all about his office visitor. But +he, too, had pluck. + +"I see you have had a call from our friend Morrell," he ventured. + +"Well!" she challenged. + +Her head was back, and her breath was short. This crisis had come upon them +swiftly, unexpectedly, unwanted by either. Now it loomed over them in a +terrible, because unknown, portent. Each realized that a misstep might mean +irreparable consequences, but each felt constrained to go on. The situation +must now be developed. Keith, faced with this new problem, lost his heat, +and became cool, careful, wary, as when in court his faculties marshalled +themselves. Nan, on the other hand, while well in control of her mind, +poised on a brink. + +"I don't know what he told you," said Keith, the blood suffusing his face +and spreading over his ears and neck, "but I'm going to tell you everything +he would be justified in telling you. One evening a number of years ago, in +company with a crowd, I went inside the doors of a disreputable place, and +immediately came out again. It was part of a spree, and harmless. That was +all there was to it. You believe me?" In spite of his iron control, a deep +note of anxiety vibrated in his voice as he proffered the question. + +Her heart gave a leap for pride as he made this confession, his face very +red, but his head back, She knew he spoke the truth, the whole truth. + +"Of course I believe you," she said, trying to speak naturally, but with a +mad impulse to laugh or cry. She swallowed, gripped her nerves, and went +on. "But, naturally," she told him, + +"I consider myself as good a custodian of the family reputation as +yourself." + +There the matter rested. By mutual but tacit consent they withdrew +cautiously from the debated ground, each curiously haunted by a feeling +that catastrophe had been fortunately and narrowly averted. + + + + +XLIV + + +Keith immediately moved for a retrial, and began anew his heartbreaking +labours in forcing a way to definite action through the thorn thicket of +technicalities. At the same time, on his own account, and very secretly, he +commenced a search for evidence against the attorneys for the defence. By +now he possessed certain private agents of his own whom he considered +trustworthy. + +Early in his investigations he abandoned hope of getting direct evidence +against McDougall himself. That astute lawyer had been careful to have +nothing whatever to do with actual bribery or corruption, and he was crafty +enough to disassociate himself from direct dealing with agents. Indeed, +Keith himself was in some slight doubt as to whether McDougall had any +actual detailed knowledge of the underground workings at all. But +McDougall's. associates were a different matter. Here, little by little, +real evidence began to accumulate, until Keith felt that he could, with +reasonable excuse, move for an official investigation. To his genuine grief +Calhoun Bennett seemed to be heavily involved. He could not forget that the +young Southerner had been one of his earliest friends in the city, nor had +he ever tried to forget the real liking he had felt for him. It was not +difficult to recognize that according to his code Cal Bennett had merely +played the game as the game was played, carrying out zealously the +intentions of his superiors, availing himself of time-honoured methods, +wholeheartedly fighting for his own side. Yet there could be no doubt that +he had made himself criminally liable. Keith brooded much over the +situation, but got nowhere, and so resolutely pushed it into the back of +his mind in favour of the need of the moment. + +But quietly as he conducted his investigations, some rumour of them +escaped. One afternoon he received a call from Bennett. The young man was +evidently a little embarrassed, but intent on getting at the matter. + +"Look heah, Keith," he began, dropping into a chair, and leaning both arms +on the table opposite Keith, "I don't want to say anything offensive, or +make any disagreeable implications, or insult you by false suspicions, but +there are various persistent rumours about, and I thought I'd better come +to you direct." + +"Fire away, Cal," said Keith. + +"Well, it's just this: they do say yo're tryin' to fasten a criminal charge +of bribery on me. You and I have been friends--and still are, I hope--but +if yo're goin' gunnin' foh me, I want to know it." + +His face was slightly flushed, but his fine dark eyes looked hopefully to +his friend for denial. Keith was genuinely distressed. He moved an inkwell +to and fro, and did not look up; but his voice was steady and determined as +he replied: + +"I'm not gunning for you, Cal, and I wish to heaven you weren't mixed up in +this mess." He looked up. "But I _am_ gunning for crooked work in this Cora +case!" + +Bennett took his arms from the table, and sat erect. + +"Do you mean to imply, suh, that I am guilty of crooked work?" he inquired, +a new edge of formality in his voice. + +"No, no, of course not!" hastened Keith. "I hadn't thought of you in that +connection! I am just looking the whole matter up----" + +"Well, suh, I strongly advise you to drop it," interrupted Bennett curtly. + +"But why?" + +"It isn't ethical. You will find great resentment among yo' colleagues of +the bar at the implication conveyed by yo' so-called investigation, suh." + +Calhoun Bennett had become stiff and formal. Keith still tried desperately +to be reasonable and conciliatory. + +"But if there proves to be nothing out of the way," he urged, "surely no +one could have anything to fear or object to." + +"Nobody has anything to fear in any case," said Bennett, "but any +gentleman--and I, most decidedly--would object to the implication." + +At this Keith, stiffened a little in his turn. + +"I am sorry we differ on that point, I have good reason to believe there +has been crooked work somewhere in this Cora trial. I do not know who has +done it; I accuse nobody; but in the public office I hold it seems my plain +duty to investigate." + +"Yo' public duty is to prosecute, that is all," argued Bennett. "It is the +duty of the grand jury to investigate or to order investigations." + +Here spoke the spirit of the law, for technically Bennett was correct. + +"Whatever the rigid interpretation"--Keith found himself uttering heresy-- +"I still feel it my duty to deal personally with whatever seems to me +unjustly to interfere with, proper convictions." Then he stopped, aghast at +the tremendous step he had taken. For to a man trained as was Keith, in a +time when all men were created for the law, and not the law for men, in a +society where the lawyer was considered the greatest citizen, and subtle +technicality paramount to justice or commonsense, this was a tremendous +step. At that moment, and by that spontaneous and unconsidered statement, +Keith, unknown to himself, passed from one side to the other in the great +social struggle that was impending. + +"I wa'n you, suh," Bennett was repeating, "yo' course will not meet with +the approval of the members of the bar." + +"I am sorry, Cal," said Keith sadly. + +Bennett rose, bowed stiffly, and turned to the door. But suddenly he +whirled back, his face alight with feeling, + +"Oh, see heah, Milt, be sensible!" he cried. "I know just how yo're feelin' +now. Yo're sore, and I don't blame you. You put ap a hard fight, and though +you got licked, I don't mind tellin' you that the whole bar appreciates +yo're brilliant work. You must remember you had to play a lone hand against +pretty big men--the biggest we've got! We all appreciate the odds. Cora has +lots of friends. You'll never convict him, Milt; but go in again for +another trial, if it will do yo're feelin's any good, with our best wishes. +Only don't let gettin' licked make you so sore! Don't go buttin' yo're haid +at yo're friends! Be a spo't!" + +A half hour ago this appeal might have gained a response if not a practical +effect, but the spiritual transformation in Keith was complete. + +"I'm sorry," he replied simply, "but I must go ahead in my own way." + +Calhoun Bennett's face lost its glow, and his tall figure stiffened. + +"I must wa'n you not to bring my name into this," said he. "I do not intend +to have my reputation sacrificed to yo' strait-laced Yankee conscience. If +my name is ever mentioned, I shall hold you responsible, _personally_ +responsible. You understand, suh?" + +He stood stiff and straight, staring at Keith. Keith did not stir. After a +moment Calhoun Bennett went out. + + + + +XLV + + +After this interview Keith experienced a marked and formal coldness from +nearly all of his old associates, Those with whom he came into direct +personal contact showed him scrupulous politeness, but confined their +conversation to the briefest necessary words, and quit him as soon as +possible. He found himself very much alone, for at this period he had lost +the confidence of one faction and had not yet gained that of the other. + +His investigations encountered always increasing difficulties. In his own +department he could obtain little assistance. A dead inertia opposed all +his efforts. Nevertheless, he went ahead doggedly, using Krafft and some of +Krafft's protégés to considerable effect. + +But soon pressure was brought on him from a new direction: his opponents +struck at him through his home. + +For some days Nan had been aware of a changed atmosphere in the society she +frequented and had heretofore led. The change was subtle, defied analysis, +but was to the woman's sensitive instincts indubitable. At first she had +been inclined to consider it subjective, to imagine that something wrong +with herself must be projecting itself through her imagination; but finally +she realized that the impression was well based. In people's attitude there +was nothing overt; it was rather a withdrawl of intimacy, a puzzling touch +of formality. She seemed overnight to have lost in popularity. + +Truth to tell, she paid little attention to this. By now she was +experienced enough in human nature to understand and to be able to gauge +the slight fluctuations, the ebbs and flows of esteem, the kaleidoscopic +shiftings and realignments of the elements of frivolous and formal society. +Mrs. Brown had hired away Mrs. Smith's best servant; for an hour they +looked askance on Mrs. Brown; then, the episode forgotten, Mrs. Brown's +cork bobbed to the surface company of all the other corks. It was very +trivial. Besides, just at this moment, Nan was wholly occupied with +preparations for her first "afternoon" of the year. She intended as usual +to give three of these formal affairs, and from them the season took its +tone. The list was necessarily far from exclusive, but Nan made up for that +by the care she gave her most original arrangements. She prided herself on +doing things simply, but with a difference, calling heavily on her +resources of correspondence, her memory, and her very good imagination for +some novelty of food or entertainment. At the first of these receptions, +too, she wore always for the first time some new and marvellous toilet +straight from Paris, the style of which had not been shown to even her most +intimate friends. This year, for example, she had done the most obvious +and, therefore, the most unlikely thing: she had turned to the +contemporaneous Spanish for her theme. Nobody had thought of that. The +Colonial, the Moorish, the German, the Russian, the Hungarian--all the rest +of the individual or "picturesque"--but nobody had thought to look next +door. Nan had decorated the rooms with yellow and red, hung the walls with +riatas, strings of red peppers and the like, obtained Spanish guitar +players, and added enough fiery Mexican dishes to the more digestible +refreshments to emphasize the Spanish flavour. She wore a dress of golden +satin, a wreath of coral flowers about her hair, and morocco slippers +matched in hue. + +The afternoon was fine. People were slow in coming. A few of the +nondescripts that must be invited on such occasions put in an appearance, +responded hastily to their hostess's greeting, and wandered about furtively +but interminably. Patricia Sherwood, who had come early, circulated nobly, +trying to break up the frozen little groups, but in vain. The time passed. +More non-descripts--and not a soul else! As five o'clock neared, a cold +fear clutched at Nan's heart. No one was coming! + +She worked hard to cover with light graciousness the cold-hearted dismay +that filled her breast as the party dragged its weary length away. All her +elaborate preparations and decorations seemed to mock her. The Spanish +orchestra tinkled away gayly until she felt she could throw something at +them; the caterer's servants served solemnly the awed nondescripts. Nan's +cheeks burned and her throat choked with unshed tears. She could not bear +to look at Patsy Sherwood, who remained tactfully distant. + +About five-thirty the door opened to admit a little group, at the sight of +whom Nan uttered a short, hysterical chuckle. Then she glided to meet them, +both hands outstretched in welcome, Mrs. Sherwood watched her with +admiration. Nan was game. + +There were three in the party: Mrs. Morrell, Sally Warner, and Mrs. +Scattergood. Sally Warner was of the gushing type of tall, rather +desiccated femininity who always knows you so much better than you know +her, who cultivates you every moment for a week and forgets you for months +on end, who is hard up and worldly and therefore calculating, whose job is +to amuse people and who will therefore sacrifice her best, perhaps not most +useful, friend to an epigram, whose wit is barbed, who has a fine nose for +trouble, and who is always in at the death. Mrs. Scattergood was a small +blond woman, high voiced, precise in manner, very positive in her +statements which she delivered in a drawling tone, humourless, inquisitive +about petty affairs, the sort of "good woman" with whom no fault can be +found, but who drives men to crime. Mrs. Morrell we know. + +These three, after greeting their hostess gushingly, circulated compactly, +talking to each other in low voices. Nan knew they were watching her, and +that they had come for the sole purpose of getting first-hand details of +her fiasco for later recounting in drawing-rooms where, undoubtedly, even +now awaited eager auditors. She came to a decision. The matter could not be +worse. When, the three came to make their farewells, she detained them. + +"No, I'm not going to let you go yet," she told them, perhaps a little +imperiously. "I haven't had half a visit with you. Wait until this rabble +clears out." + +She hesitated a moment over Mrs. Sherwood, but finally let her go without +protest. When the last guest had departed she sank into a chair. As she was +already on the verge of hysterics, she easily kept up an air of gayety. + +"Girls, what an awful party!" she cried. "I could tear my hair! It was a +perfect nightmare." Struggling to control her voice and keep back her +tears, she added abruptly: "Now tell me what it is all about." + +Mrs. Morrell and Sally Warner were plainly uneasy and at a loss how to meet +this situation, but Mrs. Scattergood remained quite composed in her small, +compact way. + +"What's what all about, Nan, dear?" asked Sally Warner in her most +vivacious manner. She keenly felt the dramatic situation and was already +visualizing herself in the role of raconteuse. + +"You know perfectly well. Why this funeral? Where are they all? Why did +they stay away? I have a right to know." + +"I'm sure there's nothing _I_ can think of!" replied Sally artificially. +"The idea!" + +But Mrs. Scattergood, with all the relish of performing a noble and +disagreeable duty, broke in: + +"You know, dear," she said in her didactic, slow voice, "as well as we do, +what the world is. Of course _we_ understand, but people will talk!" + +"In heaven's name what are you driving at? What are they talking about?" +demanded Nan, as Mrs. Scattergood apparently came to a full stop. + +A pause ensued while Sally and Mrs, Scattergood exchanged glances with Mrs. +Morrell. + +"Well," at last said Sally, judicially, buttoning her glove, her head on +one side, "if I had a nice husband like yours, I wouldn't let him run +around getting himself disliked for nothing." + +"You ought to use your influence with him before it is too late," added +Mrs. Morrell. + +Nan looked helplessly from one to the other, too uncertain of her ground +now to risk another step, + +"So that's it," she ventured at last. "Some one has been telling lies about +us!" + +"Oh, dear no!" disclaimed Mrs. Scattergood, "It is only that your friends +cannot understand your taking sides against them. Naturally they feel hurt. +Forgive me, dear--you know I say it with all affection--but don't you think +it a mistake?" + +Nan was thoroughly dazed and mystified, but afraid to press the matter +further. She had a suspicion Mrs. Morrell was again responsible for her +difficulties, but was too uncertain to urge them to stay for further +elucidation. They arose. These were the days of hoop skirts, and the set of +the outer skirt had to be carefully adjusted before going out. As they +posed in turn before the hall pier glass they chattered. "How lovely the +house looks." "You certainly have worked hard, and must be tired, poor +dear!" "Well, we'll see you to-morrow at Mrs. Terry's. You're _not asked_? +Surely there is some mistake! Well, those things always happen in a big +affair, don't they?" "See you soon." "Good-bye." "Good-bye." + +Outside the house they paused at the head of the steps. + +"Well, what do you think of that?" said Sally. "I really believe the poor +thing doesn't know, I believe I'll just drop in for a minute at Mrs. +Caldwell's. Sorry you're not going my way." + +After a fashion Nan felt relieved by this interview, for she thought she +discerned only Mrs. Morrell's influence, and this, she knew, she could +easily overcome. While she waited for Keith's return from whatever +inaccessible fastnesses he always occupied during these big afternoon +receptions, she reviewed the situation, her indignation mounting. +Downstairs, Wing Sam and his temporary assistants were clearing things +away. Usually Nan superintended this, but to-day she did not care. When +Keith finally entered the room, she burst out on him with a rapid and angry +account of the whole situation as she saw it; but to her surprise he did +not rise to it. His weary, spiritless, uninterested: acceptance of it +astonished her to the last degree. To him her entanglement with the Cora +affair--for at once he saw the trend of it all--seemed the last straw. Not +even his own home was sacred. His spirit was so bruised and wearied that he +actually could not rise to an explanation. He seemed to realize an utter +hopelessness of making her see his point of view. This was not so strange +when it is considered that this point of view, however firmly settled, was +still a new and unexplained fact with himself. He contented himself with +saying: "The Morrells had nothing whatever to do with it." It was the only +thing that occurred to him as worth saying; but it was unfortunate, for it +left Nan's irritation without logical support. Naturally that irritation +was promptly transferred to him. + +"Then what, in heaven's name, is it?" she demanded. "My friends are all +treating me as if I had the smallpox." + +"Cheerful lot of friends we've made in this town!" he said bitterly. + +"What is the matter with them?" she persisted. + +"The matter is they've taken me for a fool they could order around to suit +themselves. They found they couldn't. Now they're through with me, even Cal +Bennett," he added in a lower tone that revealed his hurt. + +She paused, biting her underlip. + +"Is the trouble anything to do with this Cora case?" she asked, suddenly +enlightened by some vague, stray recollection. + +"Of course!" he replied crossly, exasperated at the nagging necessity of +arousing himself to explanations. "There's no use arguing about it. I'm +going to see it through in spite of that hound McDougall and his whole pack +of curs!" + +"But why have you turned so against your friends?" she asked more gently, +struck by his careworn look as he sprawled in the easy chair under the +lamp. "I don't see! You'll get yourself disliked!" + +She did not press the matter further for the moment, but three days later +she brought up the topic again. In the interim she had heard considerable +direct and indirect opinion. She selected after dinner as the most +propitious time for discussion. As a matter of fact, earlier in the day +would have been better, before Keith's soul had been rubbed raw by downtown +attrition. + +"I don't believe you quite realize how strongly people feel about the Cora +case," she began. "Isn't it possible to drop it or compromise it or +something, Milton?" + +In the reaction from argument and--coldness downtown he felt he could stand +no more of it at home. + +"I wish you'd let that matter drop!" he said decidedly. "You couldn't +understand it." + +She hesitated. A red spot appeared in either cheek. + +"I must say I _don't_ understand!" she countered. "It is inconceivable to +me that a man like you should turn so easily against his class!" + +"My class?" he echoed wearily. + +"What do such creatures as Cora and Yankee Sullivan amount to?" she cried +hotly, "I suppose you'll say _they_ are in your class next! How you can +consider them of sufficient importance to go dead against your best friends +on their account!" + +"It is because I am right and they are wrong." + +She was a little carried beyond herself. + +"Well, they all think the same way," she pointed out. "Aren't you a little +--a little--" + +"Pig-headed," supplied Keith bitterly. + +"--to put your opinion against theirs?" she finished. + +Keith did not reply. + +This was Nan's last attempt. She did not bring up the subject again. But +she withdrew proudly and completely from all participation in society. She +refused herself to callers. Once the situation was thoroughly defined, she +accepted it. If her husband decided to play the game in this way, she, too, +would follow, whether she approved or not. Nan was loyal and a +thoroughbred. And she was either too proud or too indifferent to fight it +out with the other women, in the rough and tumble of social ambition. + + + + +XLVI + + +In this voluntary seclusion Nan saw laterally only two persons. One of +these was Mrs. Sherwood. The ex-gambler's wife called frequently; and, for +some reason, Nan never refused to see her, although she did not make her +visitor particularly welcome. Often an almost overmastering impulse seized +her to open her soul to this charming, sympathetic, tactful woman, but +something always restrained her. Her heart was too sore. And since an +inhibited impulse usually expresses itself by contraries, her attitude was +of studied and aloof politeness. Mrs. Sherwood never seemed to notice this. +She sat in the high-ceilinged "parlour," with its strange fresco of painted +fish-nets, and chatted on in a cheerful monologue, detailing small gossipy +items of news. She always said goodbye cordially, and went out with a +wonderful assumption of ignorance that anything was wrong. Her visits did +Nan good, although never could the latter break through the ice wall of +reserve. Nan's conscience often hurt her that she could answer this genuine +friendship with so little cordiality. She wondered dully how Mrs. Sherwood +could bring herself to be so good to so cross-grained a creature as +herself. As a matter of fact, the women were marking time in their +relations--Mrs. Sherwood consciously, Nan unconsciously--until better days. + +The other regular caller was Ben Sansome. His attitude was in some sense +detached. He was quietly, deeply sympathetic in his manner, never +obtrusive, never even hinting in words at his knowledge of the state of +affairs, but managing in some subtle manner to convey the impression that +he alone fully understood. Nan found that, without her realization, almost +in spite of herself, Sansome had managed to isolate her with himself on a +little island of mutual understanding, apart from all the rest of the +world. + +Her life was now becoming circumscribed. Household, books, some small +individual charities, and long afternoon walks filled her days. At first +Sansome had accompanied her on these tramps, but the unfailing, almost +uncanny insight of the man told him that at such times her spirit really +craved solitude, so he soon tactfully ceased all attempts to join her. Her +usual walk was over the cliffs toward the bay, where, from some of the +elevations near Russian Hill, she could look out to the Golden Gate, or +across to Tamalpais or the Contra Costa shores. The crawl of the distant +blue water, the flash of wing or sail, the taste of salt rime, the cańon +shadows of the hills, the flying murk, or the last majestic and magnificent +blotting out of the world as the legions of sea fog overtoiled it, all +answered or soothed moods in her spirit. Sometimes she forgot herself and +overstayed the daylight. At such times she scuttled home half fearfully for +the great city, like a jungle beast, was most dangerous at night. + +One evening, returning thus in haste, she was lured aside by the clang of +bells and the glare of a fire. No child ever resisted that combination, and +Nan was still a good deal of a child. Almost before she knew, it she was +wedged fast in a crowd. The pressure was suffocating; and, to her alarm, +she found herself surrounded by a rough-looking set of men. They were +probably harmless workingmen, but Nan did not know that. She became +frightened, and tried to escape, but her strength was not equal to it. +Near the verge of panic, she was fairly on the point of struggling, when +she felt an arm thrown around her shoulder. She looked up with a cry, to +meet Ben Sansome's brown eyes. + +"Don't be afraid; I'm here," he said soothingly. + +In the revulsion Nan fairly thrilled under the touch of his manly, +protection. This impulse was followed instantly, by an instinct of +withdrawal from the embrace about her shoulder, which was in turn succeeded +by a fierce scorn of being prudish in such circumstances. Sansome +masterfully worked her out through the press. At the last tactful moment he +withdrew his arm. She thanked him, still a little frightened. + +"It was certainly lucky you happened to be here!" she ended. + +"Lucky!" he laughed briefly. "I knew that sooner or later you'd need me." + +He stopped at that, but allowed her questions to elicit the fact that every +afternoon he had followed her at a discreet distance, scrupulously +respecting her privacy, but ready for the need that sooner or later must +surely arrive. Nan was touched. + +"You have no right to endanger yourself this way!" he cried, as though +carried away. "It is not just to those who care for you!" and by the tone +of his voice, the look of his eye, the slight emphasizing pressure of his +hand he managed to convey to her, but in a manner to which she could not +possibly object, his belief that his last phrase referred more to himself +than to any one else in the world. + +It was about this period that John Sherwood, dressing for dinner, remarked +to his wife: + +"Patsy, the more I see of you the more I admire you. Do you remember that +Firemen's Ball when you started in to break up that Keith-Morrell affair? +He dropped her so far that I haven't heard her _plunk_ yet! I don't know +what made me think of it--it was a long time ago." + +"Yes, that was all right," she replied thoughtfully, "but I'm not as +pleased as I might be with the Keith situation." + +Sherwood stopped tying his cravat and turned to face her. + +"He's perfectly straight, I assure you," he said earnestly. "I don't +believe he knows that any other woman but his wife exists. I _know_ that. +But I wish he'd go a little easier with the men." + +"Oh, I wasn't thinking of him. She's the culprit now." + +"What!" cried Sherwood, astonished, "that little innocent baby!" + +"That 'little innocent baby' is seeing altogether too much of Ben Sansome." + +Sherwood uttered a snort of masculine scorn. + +"Ho! Ben Sansome?" + +"Yes, Ben Sansome." + +"Why, he's a notorious butterfly." + +"Well, it looks now as though he intended to alight." + +"Seriously?" + +She nodded. Sherwood slowly went on with his dressing. + +"I like that little creature," he said at last. "She's the sort that +strikes me as born to be treated well and to be happy. Some people are that +way, you know; just as others are born painters or plumbers." She nodded in +appreciation. "And if you give the word, Patsy, I'll go around and have a +word with Keith--or spoil Sansome--whichever you say----" + +She laughed. + +"You're a dear, Jack, but if you love me, keep your hands off here." + +"Are you bossing this job?" he asked gravely. + +"I'm bossing this job," she repeated, with equal gravity. + +He said nothing more for a time, but his eyes twinkled. + + + + +XLVII + + +Keith's investigations proceeded until at last he felt justified in +preferring before the Bar Association charges of irregular practice against +James Ware, Bernard Black, and--to his great regret--Calhoun Bennett. He +conceived he had enough evidence to convict these men legally, but he as +yet shrank from asking for an indictment against them, preferring at first +to try for their discipline before their fellow lawyers. If the Bar +Association failed, however, he had every intention of pressing the matter +in the courts. + +Almost immediately after the filing of the complaint he was waited on in +his office by a man only slightly known to him, Major Marmaduke Miles. The +major's occupation in life was obscure. He was a red-faced, tightly +buttoned, full-jowled, choleric Southerner of the ultra-punctilious brand, +always well dressed in quaint and rather old-fashioned garments, with +charming manners, and the reminiscence of good looks lost in a florid and +apoplectic habit. This person entered Keith's office, greeted him formally, +declined a chair. Standing very erect before Keith's desk, his beaver hat +poised on his left forearm, he said: + +"I am requested, suh, to enquiah of yo' the name of a friend with whom I +can confer." + +"If that means a challenge, Major, I must first ask the name of your +principal," returned Keith. + +"I am actin' fo' Mr. Calhoun Bennett, suh," stated the major. + +"Tell Cal Bennett I will not fight him," said Keith quietly. + +The major was plainly flabbergasted, and for a moment puffed his red cheeks +in and out rapidly. + +"You mean to tell me, suh, that yo' refuse the satisfaction due a gentleman +after affrontin' him?" + +"I won't fight Cal Bennett," repeated Keith patiently. + +The major turned even redder, and swelled so visibly that Keith, in spite +of his sad realization of the gravity of the affair, caught himself +guiltily in a boyish anticipation that some of the major's strained buttons +would pop. + +"I shall so repo't to my principal, suh. But I may add, suh, that in my +opinion, suh, yo' are conductin' yo'self in a manner unbecomin' to a +gentleman; and othuh gentlemen will say so, suh! They may go even farthah +and stigmatize yo' conduct as cowardly, suh! And it might even be that I, +suh, would agree with that expression, suh!" + +The major glowered. Keith smiled wearily. It did not to him at the moment +that this would be so great a calamity. + +"I am sorry to have forfeited your good opinion, Major," he contented +himself with saying. + +The major marched straight back to the Monumental, where Bennett and a +number of friends were awaiting the result of his mission. The major's +angry passions had been rising, every foot of the way. + +"He won't fight, suh!" he bellowed, slamming his cane across the table. "He +won't fight! And I stigmatized him to his face as a white-livered hound!" + +Calhoun Bennett sank back pale, and speechless. His companions deluged him +with advice. + +"Horsewhip the craven publicly." "Warn him to go heeled, and then force the +issue!" "Shoot him down like the dog he is!" + +But the major's mighty bellow dominated everything. + +"I claim the privilege!" he roared. "Egad, I _demand_ the privilege! It is +my right! I am insulted by such a rebuff! Now that I have acquitted myself +of Cal's errand, I will call him out myself. Ain't that right, Cal? I'll +make the hound fight!" + +The old major looked redder and fiercer than ever. There could be no doubt +that he would make any one fight, once he started out to do so, and that he +would carry the matter through. He was brave enough. + +But little Jimmy Ware, who had been doing some thinking, here spoke up. It +seemed to him a good chance to get a reputation without any risk. Since +James King of William had uncompromisingly refused to fight duels, his +example had been followed. A strong party of those having conscientious +scruples against the practice had come into being. Keith's refusal to fight +Bennett, to Ware's mind, indicated that he belonged to this class. It +looked safe. + +"Pardon me, Major," he broke in suavely; "but each in turn. I claim the +right. Cal had first chance because he had personally warned the man of the +consequences. But I am equally accused. You must admit my prior claim." + +The major came off the boil. Puffing his red cheeks in and out he +considered. + +"Yo're right, suh," he conceded reluctantly. + +After considerable persuasion, and some flattery as to his familiarity with +the niceties of the Code, the major consented to bear Jimmy's defiance. He +entered Keith's office again, stiffer than a ramrod. Keith smiled at him. + +"There's no use, Major, I won't fight Cal Bennett," he greeted his visitor. + +"I am the bearer of a challenge from Mistah James Ware," he announced. + +"What!" yelled Keith, so suddenly and violently that Major Miles recoiled a +step. + +"From Mistah James Ware," he repeated. + +Keith laughed savagely. + +"Oh, I'll fight him," he growled; "gladly; any time he wants it." + +The major's face lit up. + +"If you'll name yo' friend, suh," he suggested. + +"Friend? Friend? What for? I'm capable of arranging this. I haven't time to +hunt up a friend." + +"It's customary," objected the major. + +"Look here," Keith swept on, "I'm the challenged party and I have the say- +so, haven't I?" + +"Yo' can name the weapons," conceded Major Marmaduke Miles. + +"All right, we'll call this revolvers, navy revolvers--biggest there are, +whatever that is. And close up. None of your half-mile shooting." + +"Ten yards," suggested Major Miles with unholy joy. + +"And right away--this afternoon," went on Keith. "If that little runt wants +trouble, egad he's going to have all his little skin will hold." + +But the major would not have this. It was not done. He waived conducting +his negotiations through a second, but that was as far as his conventional +soul would go. He held out for three o'clock the following afternoon. + +"And I wish to apologize, Mistah Keith," he said, on parting, "fo' my ill- +considered words of a short time ago. I misunderstood yo' reasons fo' +refusin' to fight Mistah Bennett." + +He bowed his rotund, tightly buttoned little figure and departed, to strike +Jimmy Ware with complete consternation. + +Duels in the fifties were almost an acknowledged public institution. +Although technically illegal, no one was ever convicted of any of the +consequences of such encounters. They were conducted quite openly. Indeed, +some of the more famous were actively advertised by steamboat men, who +carried excursions to the field. Keith's acceptance of Ware's challenge +aroused the keenest interest. Outside the prominence of the men involved, a +vague feeling was current that in their persons were symbolized opposing +forces in the city's growth. As yet these forces had not segregated to that +point where champions were demanded, or indeed would be recognized as such, +but vague feelings of antagonism, of alignments, were abroad. Those who +later would constitute the Law and Order class generally sympathized with +Ware; those whom history was to know as the Vigilantes felt stirrings of +partisanship for Keith. Therefore, the following afternoon a small flotilla +set sail for the Contra Costa shore, and a crowd of several hundred +spectators disembarked at the chosen duelling ground. + +Nan knew nothing of all this. Keith was now in such depths of low spirits +that his wearied soul did not much care what became of him. He put his +affairs in shape, shrugged his shoulders, and went to the encounter with +absolute indifference. + +The preliminaries were soon over. Keith found himself facing Jimmy Ware at +the distance he had himself chosen. A double line of spectators stood at a +respectful space on either side. Major Miles and an acquaintance of Keith's +who had volunteered to act for him were posted nearer at hand. Keith had +listened attentively to the instructions. The word was to be given--_one, +two, three. Fire!_ Between the first and last words the duellists were to +discharge the first shot from their weapons. After that they were to fire +at will. One shot would have sufficed Jimmy Ware; but Keith, without +emotion, filed with a dead indifference to any possible danger and a savage +contempt for the whole proceedings, had insisted on the full measure. He +was totally unaccustomed to weapons. At the word of command he raised the +revolver and fired, carelessly but coolly, and without result. One after +the other he discharged the six chambers of his weapon, aiming as well as +he knew how. It did not occur to him that Ware was firing at him. After the +sixth miss he threw the revolver away in cold disgust. + +"This is a farce," said he, "and I'm not going to be fool enough to take +part in it any longer." + +Jimmy Ware, delighted at finding himself unharmed, and confident now that +bluff would go, started to say something lofty and disdainful. Keith +whirled back on him. + +"If you want 'satisfaction,' as you call it, you'll get it, and you'll get +it plenty! I'm sick of being made a fool of. Just open your ugly head to me +again, and I'll knock it off your shoulders!" His eye smouldered +dangerously, and Jimmy Ware, very uncertain in his mind, took refuge in a +haughty look. Keith glared at him moment, then turned to the crowd: "I'll +give all of you fair warning," said he. "I'm going to do my legal duty in +all things; and I'm not going to fight duels. Anybody who interferes with +me is going to get into trouble!" + +An uproar ensued. All this was most irregular, unprecedented, a disgrace to +a gentlemen's meeting. The major roared like a bull. If a man would not +fight, would not defend his actions, how could a gentleman get at him +except by street brawling or assassination, and both of these were +repugnant to finer feelings. A dozen fire-eaters felt themselves personally +insulted. The crowd surrounded Keith, shouting at him, jostling him, +threatening. A cool, somewhat amused voice broke in. + +"Gentlemen," said Talbot Ward, in so decided a tone that they turned to +hear. "I am a neutral non-partisan in this little war, I am for neither +party, for neither opinion, in the matter. I, like Mr, Keith, never fight +duels. But may I suggest--merely in the interest of fair play--that for the +moment you are forgetting yourselves? My opinion coincides with Mr. Keith's +that duelling is a foolish sort of game, but it is a game, and recognized; +and if you are going to play it, why not stick to its rules? Mr. Keith, and +Mr. Ware have exchanged shots. Mr. Ware has therefore had 'satisfaction.' +Now Mr. Keith and I going to walk--quietly--to the boat. We do not expect +to be molested." + +"By God, Tal!" cried Major Miles in astonishment, "ye' don't mean to tell +me yo're linin' yourself up on the side of that blackleg!" + +"Well," put in a new voice, a very cheerful voice, "I don't pretend to be +neutral, and I'd just as lief fight duels as not, and I'm willing to state +to you all that though I don't know a damn thing about this case nor its +merits, I like this man's style. And I'm ready to state that I'll take his +place and fight any--or all of you--right here and now. You, Major?" + +All eyes turned to him. He was a dark, eager youth, standing with his +slouch hat in his hand, his head thrown back, his mop of shiny black hair +tossed from his forehead, his eyes glowing. The major hummed and fussed. + +"I have absolutely no quarrel with you, suh!" he said. + +"Nor with my friend yonder?" insisted the newcomer. + +"I should esteem it beneath my dignity to fight with a craven and a coward, +suh!" the major saved his face. + +The stranger glanced at Keith, an amused light in his eyes. + +"We'll let it go at that," he conceded. "Anybody else?" he challenged, +eying them. + +Every one seemed busy getting ready to go home, and appeared not to hear +him. After a moment he put on his felt hat and joined Keith and Ward, who +were walking slowly toward the landing. + +"Well," remarked a rough-looking Yankee--our old friend Graves of the +Eurekas to his friend Carter--"I didn't know anything would cool off the +major like that!" + +"I reckon the major knew who he was talking to," replied Carter. + +"Who is the cuss? I never saw him before." + +"Don't you know him? I reckon you must have heard of him, anyway. He's just +down from the Sierra. That's the express rider, Johnny Fairfax--Diamond +Jack, they call him." + +Graves whistled an enlightened whistle. + + + + +XLVIII + + +Johnny Fairfax accompanied Keith all the way back to his office, although +Talbot Ward said good-bye at the wharves. He bubbled over with conversation +and enthusiasm, and seemed to have taken a great fancy to the lawyer. The +theme of his glancing talk was the duel, over which he was immensely +amused; but from it he diverged on the slightest occasion to comment on +whatever for the moment struck his notice. + +"That was certainly the rottenest shooting I ever saw!" he exclaimed over +and over, and then would go off into peals of laughter. "I don't see how +twelve shots at that distance could miss! After the second exchange I +concluded even the side line wasn't safe, and I got behind a tree. Pays to +be prompt In your decision; there were a hundred applicants for that tree a +moment later, The bloodless duel as a parlour amusement! You ought to have +charged that large and respectable audience an admission fee! That's a good +idea; I'll present it to you! If you ever have another due, you must have a +good manager! There's money in it!" + +Keith laughed a trifle ruefully, + +"I suppose it was funny," he acknowledged. + +"Now don't get huffy," begged Johnny Fairfax. "What you ought to do is to +learn to shoot. You'll probably need to know how if you keep on living +around here," His eye fell on a shooting gallery. "Come in here," he urged +impulsively. + +The proprietor was instructed to load his pistols and for a dozen shots +Keith was coached vehemently in the elementals of shooting--taught at least +the theory of pulling steadily, of coordinating various muscles and +psychological processes that were not at all used to coördination. He +learned that mere steady aiming was a small part of it. + +"Anybody can do wonderful shooting with an empty pistol," said Johnny +contemptuously. "And anybody can hold as steady as a rock--until he pulls +the trigger." + +"It's interesting," conceded Keith; "mighty interesting. I didn't know +there was so much to it." + +"Of course it's interesting," said Johnny. "And you're only at the +rudiments. Look here!" + +And, to the astonishment of Keith, the worshipful adoration of the +shooting-gallery proprietor, and the awe of the usual audience that +gathered at the sound of the reports, he proceeded to give an exhibition of +the skill that had made him famous. The shooting galleries of those days +used no puny twenty-twos. Derringers, pocket revolvers, and the huge +"navies" were at hand--with reduced loads, naturally--for those who in +habitual life affected these weapons. Johnny shot with all of them, +displaying the tricks of the gunman with all the naďve enthusiasm of youth. +His manner throughout was that engaging mixture of modesty afraid of being +thought conceited and eager pride in showing his skill so attractive to +everybody. At first he shot deliberately, splitting cards, hitting marbles, +and devastating whole rows of clay pipes. Then he took to secreting the +weapons in various pockets from which he produced and discharged them in +lightning time. His hand darted with the speed and precision of a snake's +head. + +"I've just been fooling with shooting things tossed in the air," he said, +exuberant with enthusiasm. "But I'm afraid we can't try that here." + +"I'm afraid not," agreed the proprietor regretfully. + +"It really isn't very hard, once you get the knack." + +"Oh, no," said the proprietor with elaborate sarcasm. "Say," he went on +earnestly, "I suppose it ain't no use trying to hire you--" + +Johnny shook his head, smiling. + +"I was afraid not," observed the proprietor disappointedly. "You'd be the +making of this place. Drop in any time you want practice. Won't cost you a +cent. Would you mind telling me your name?" + +"Fairfax," replied Johnny, gruffly embarrassed. + +"Not Diamond Jack?" hesitated the proprietor. + +"I'm sometimes called that," conceded Johnny, still more gruffly. "How much +is it?" + +"Not one gosh-danged continental red cent," cried the man, "and I'm pleased +to meet you." + +Johnny shook his extended hand, mumbled something, and bolted for the +street. Keith followed, laughing. + +"It seems you're quite a celebrity," he observed. + +But Johnny refused to pursue that subject. + +"You come with me and buy you a pistol," he growled. "You ought not to be +allowed loose. You're as helpless as a baby." + +Johnny picked out a small .31 calibre revolver and a supply of ammunition. + +"Now you practise!" was his final warning and advice. + +Keith went home with a new glow at his heart. He was ripe for a friend. + +Johnny seemed to have little to do for the moment. He never volunteered +information as to his business or his plans, and Keith never inquired. But +the young express rider fell into the habit of dropping in at Keith's +office. He was always very apologetic and solicitous as to whether or no he +was interrupting, saying that he had stopped for only ten seconds; but he +invariably ended in the swivel chair with a good cigar. Keith was at this +time busy; but he was never too busy for Johnny Fairfax. The latter was a +luxury to which he treated himself. Johnny was not only welcome because he +was practically Keith's only friend, but also his frank and engaging +comments on men and things were gradually giving the harassed lawyer a new +point of view on the society in which he found himself. Keith, as a +newcomer in a community already established, had naturally accepted the +prominent figures in that community as he would have accepted prominent +figures anywhere: that is, as respectable, formidable, admirable, solid, +unquestioned pillars of society. He was of a modest disposition and +disinclined to question. He respected them as any modest young man respects +those older and more successful than himself. For the same reason he +accepted their views and their authority; or, if he questioned them, he did +so sadly, almost guiltily, with many heart-searchings. + +But Johnny Fairfax held no such attitude. Not he! The city's great names +had scant respect from him! Not for an instant did he hesitate to criticise +or analyze the most renowned. It was not long before he learned all about +the Cora trial and Keith's subsequent efforts to discipline McDougall and +his associates. + +"I hope you get 'em!" said he; "the whole lot! I don't know much about this +McDougall; but I do know his friends, and most of 'em aren't worth thinkin' +about. They're big people here, but back where I came from, in old +Virginia, the best of 'em wouldn't be overseers on a plantation. That's why +they like it so much out here. Look at that gang! Casey has been in the +penitentiary, Rowlee ran some little blackleg sheet down South until they +run him out---I tell you, sir, as a Southerner I'm not proud of the +Southerners out here. They're a cheap lot, most of 'em. They were a cheap +lot home. The only difference is that back there everybody knew it, and out +here everybody thinks they're great people because they get up on their +hind legs and say so out loud. That old bluff, Major Miles, he was put out +of a Richmond club, sir, for cheatin' at cards--I know that for a fact!" + +Somehow, this frank criticism was like a breeze of fresh air to Keith: it +put new courage into him. Johnny Fairfax had no interests in the city; he +had no fear; his viewpoint was free from all sham; he was newly in from the +outside. Through his eyes things fell into perspective. Suddenly San +Francisco upper society became to Keith what it really was: a welter of +cheap, bragging, venal, self-seeking men, with here and there an honest +fine character standing high above. And he began, but dimly, to see that +the real men of the place were not--as yet--well known. Probably one of the +most impressive and typical figures of the time was Justice of the Supreme +Court Terry. In the eyes of those too close to events to have a clear sense +of proportion, he was one of the great men of his period. Courtly, +handsome, with haughty manners, of aristocratic bearing, fiercely proud, +touchily quarrelsome on "points of honour," generous but a bitter hater, he +and his equally handsome, proud, and fiery wife were considered by many +people of the time as embodying the ideal of Southern chivalry. But Johnny +Fairfax would have none of it. + +"He a typical Southern gentleman!" he laughed, "As being born in the South +myself, I repudiate that! I know too much about Terry. Why, look here: he's +a good sport, and he's got ability, and he makes friends, and he isn't +afraid of anything, But then you stop. He's not a gentleman! It shows most +particularly when he gets mad. Then he'll throw over anything--anything--to +have his own way. He's a big man now, but he won't be knee-high to a June +bug before he gets done." + +Johnny's prediction was long in fulfilment, but a score of years later it +came to pass, and Judge Terry's reputation has sunk almost to the level of +that of his brother on the bench--Judge "Ned" McGowan. + +"They're all a bad lot," Johnny finished, "and I hope you lick them! You +don't know all the good folks in this town yet!" + + + + +XLIX + + +Calhoun Bennett dropped the matter, and contented himself with cutting +Keith dead whenever they happened to meet. Jimmy Ware and Black were men of +a different sort; indeed McDougall had made them his associates mainly +because of their knowledge of the city's darker phases and their +unscrupulousness. In the admirable organization thus sketched Calhoun +Bennett had acted as a sort of go-between. + +After the duel these two precious citizens held many anxious consultations. +They could not tell just how much evidence Keith had succeeded in +gathering, but they knew that plenty of it existed. If the matter came to +an issue, they suspected the consequences might be serious. Either Keith or +his evidence must in some way be got rid of. Black, who was inclined by +instinct and training to be direct, was in favour of the simple expedient +of hiring assassins. + +"Won't do," negatived the more astute Ware. "The thing will be traced back +to us--not legally, of course, but to a moral certainty, and while they +won't be able to prove anything on us, the state of the public mind is such +that hell would pop." + +"He says he won't fight another duel," said Black doubtfully. + +"No." + +"We've got to kill him in a street quarrel, then." + +"He's got to be killed in a street quarrel," amended Ware, "that's certain; +but nobody even remotely connected with this Cora trial must seem to have +anything to do with it. It must have the appearance of a private quarrel +from away outside. Otherwise----" + +"Got anybody in mind?" asked the practical Black. + +"Yes, and he ought to be here at any moment." + +As though Jimmy Ware's words had been the cue for which he waited, Morrell +here entered the room. + + + + +L + + + +At three o'clock in the afternoon of May 14, 1856, the current issue of the +_Bulletin_ was placed on sale. A very few minutes later a copy found its +way into the hands of James Casey. Casey at that time, in addition to his +political cares, was editor of a small sheet he called the _Sunday Times_. +With this he had strenuously supported the extreme wing of the Law party, +which, as has been explained, comprised also the gambling and lawless +element. It was suspected by some that his paper was more or less +subsidized for the purpose, though the probability is that Casey found his +reward merely in political support. This Casey it was who, to his own vast +surprise, had at a previous election been returned as elected supervisor; +although he was not a candidate, his name was not on the ticket, and no man +could be found who had voted for him. Indeed, he was not even a resident of +the district. However, Yankee Sullivan, who ran the election, said +officially the votes had been cast for him; so elected he was proclaimed. +Undoubtedly he proved useful; he had always proved useful at elections +elsewhere, seldom appearing in person, but adept at selecting suitable +agents. His methods were devious, dishonest, and rough. He was head of the +Crescent Fire Engine Company, and was personally popular. In appearance he +was a short, slight man, with a bright, keen face, a good forehead, a thin +but florid countenance, dark curly hair, and light blue eyes, a type of +unscrupulous Irish adventurer with a dash of romantic ideals. Like all the +gentlemen rovers of his time, he was exceedingly touchy on the subject of +"honour." + +In the _Bulletin_ of the date mentioned James Casey read these words, +apropos of the threat of one Bagby to shoot Casey on sight: + + It does not matter how bad a man Casey had been, or how much benefit + it might be to the public to have him out of the way, we cannot accord + to any one citizen the right to kill him, or even beat him, without + justifiable provocation. The fact that Casey has been an inmate of + Sing Sing prison in New York is no offence against the laws of this + State; nor is the fact of his having stuffed himself through the + ballot box, as elected to the Board of Supervisors from a district + where it is said he was not even a candidate, any justification for + Mr. Bagby to shoot Casey, however richly the latter may deserve to + have his neck stretched for such fraud on the public. + +Casey read this in the full knowledge that thousands of his fellow-citizens +would also read it. His thin face turned white with anger. He crumpled the +paper into a ball and hurled it violently into the gutter, settled his hat +more firmly on his head, and proceeded at once to the _Bulletin_ office +with the full intention of shooting King on sight. Probably he would have +done so, save for the accidental circumstance that King happened to be busy +at a table, his back squarely to the door. Casey could not shoot a man in +the back without a word. He was breathless and stuttering with excitement. +King was alone, but an open door into an adjoining office permitted two +witnesses to see and hear. + +"What do you mean by that article?" cried Casey in a strangled voice. + +King turned slowly, and examined his visitor for a moment. + +"What article?" he inquired at last. + +"That which says I was formerly an inmate of Sing Sing!" + +King gazed at him with a depth of detached, patient sadness in his dark +eyes. + +"Is it not true?" he asked finally. + +"That is not the question," retorted Casey, trying again to work himself up +to the rage in which he had entered. "I do not wish my past acts rated up: +on that point I am sensitive." + +A faint smile came and went on King's lips. + +"Are you done?" he asked still quietly; then, receiving no reply, he +turned in his chair and leaned forward with a sudden intensity. His next +words hit with the impact of bullets: "There's the door! Go! Never show +your face here again!" he commanded. + +Casey found himself moving toward the open door. He did not want to do +this, he wanted to shoot King, or at least to provoke a quarrel, but he was +for the moment overcome by a stronger personality. At the door he gathered +himself together a little. + +"I'll say in my paper what I please!" he asserted, with a show of bravado. + +King was leaning back, watching him steadily. + +"You have a perfect right to do so," he rejoined. "I shall never notice +your paper." + +Casey struck himself on the breast. + +"And if necessary I shall defend myself!" he cried. + +King's passivity broke. He bounded from his seat bristling with anger. + +"Go!" he commanded sharply, and Casey went. + + +LI + + + +People had already read King's article in the _Bulletin_. People had seen +Casey heading for the _Bulletin_ office with blood in his eye. The news had +spread. When the Irishman emerged he found waiting for him a curious crowd. +His friends crowded around asking eager questions. Casey answered with +vague but bloodthirsty generalities: he wasn't a man to be trifled with, +and egad some people had to find that out! blackmailing was not a healthy +occupation when it was aimed at a gentleman! He left the impression that +King had recanted, had apologized, had even begged--there would be no more +trouble. Uttering brags of this sort, Casey led the way to the Bank +Exchange, a fashionable bar near at hand. Here he set up the drinks, and +was treated in turn. His bragging became more boastful. He made a fine +impression, but within his breast the taste of his interview with King +curdled into dangerous bitterness. Casey could never stand much alcohol. +The well-meant admiration and sympathy of his friends served only to +increase his hidden, smouldering rage. His eyes became bloodshot, and he +talked even more at random. + +In the group that surrounded him was our old acquaintance, Judge Edward +McGowan--Ned McGowan--jolly, hard drinking, oily, but not as noisy as +usual. He was watching Casey closely. The Honourable Ned was himself a +fugitive from Pennsylvania justice. By dint of a gay life, a happy +combination of bullying and intrigue, he had made himself a place in the +new city, and at last had "risen" to the bench. He was apparently all on +the surface, but his schemes ran deep. Some historians claim that he had +furnished King the documents proving Casey an ex-convict! Now, when he +considered the moment opportune, he drew Casey from the noisy group at the +bar. + +"All this talk is very well," he said contemptuously to the Irishman, "but +I see through it. What are you going to do about it?" + +"I'll get even with the----, don't you worry about that!" promised Casey, +still blustering. + +This McGowan brushed aside as irrelevant. "Are you armed?" he asked. "No, +that little weapon is too uncertain. Take this." He glanced about him, and +hastily passed to Casey a big "navy" revolver. "You can hide it under your +cloak--so!" He fixed Casey's eyes with his own, and brought to bear on the +little man all the force of his very vital personality, "Listen: King comes +by here every evening. Everybody knows that, and everybody knows what has +happened." + +He stared at Casey significantly for a moment, then turned abruptly away. +Casey, become suddenly quiet, his blustering mood fallen from him, his face +thoughtful and white, his eyes dilated, said nothing. He returned to the +bar, took a solitary drink, and walked out the door, his right hand +concealed beneath his long cloak. McGowan watched him intently, following +to the door, and looking after the other's retreating form. Casey walked +across the street, but stopped behind a wagon, where he stood, apparently +waiting. McGowan, with a grunt of satisfaction, sauntered deliberately to +the corner of the Bank Exchange. There he leaned against the wall, also +waiting. + +For nearly an hoar the two thus remained: Casey shrouded in his cloak, +apparently oblivious to everything except the corner of Merchant and +Montgomery streets, on which he kept his eyes fixed; McGowan lounging +easily, occasionally speaking a low word to a passerby. Invariably the +person so addressed came to a stop. Soon a little group had formed, idling +with Judge McGowan. A small boy happening by was commandeered with a +message for Pete Wrightman, the deputy sheriff, and shortly Pete arrived +out of breath to join the group. + +At just five o'clock the idlers stiffened to attention. King's figure was +seen to turn the corner of Merchant Street into Montgomery. Head bent, he +walked toward the corner of the Bankers' Exchange, the men on the corner +watching him. When nearly at that point he turned to cross the street +diagonally. + +At the same instant Casey stepped forward from behind the wagon, throwing +back his cloak. + + +LII + +The same afternoon Johnny Fairfax and Keith were sitting together in the +Monumental's reading-room. They happened to be the only members in the +building with the exception of Bert Taylor, who was never anywhere else. Of +late Keith had acquired the habit of visiting the reading-room at this +empty hour. He was beginning to shrink from meeting his fellowmen. Johnny +Fairfax was a great comfort to him, for the express rider was never out of +spirits, had a sane outlook, and entertained a genuine friendship for the +young lawyer. Although yet under thirty years of age, he was already an +"old-timer," for he had come out in '49, and knew the city's early history +at first hand. + +"This old bell of yours is historical," he told Keith. "Its tolling called +together the Vigilantes of '51." + +They sat gossiping for an hour, half sleepy with reaction from the fatigues +of the day, smoking slowly, enjoying themselves. Everything was very +peaceful--the long slant of a sunbeam through dust motes, the buzz of an +early bluebottle, the half-heard activities of some of the servants in the +pantry beyond, preparing for the rush of the cocktail hour. Suddenly Johnny +raised his head and pricked up his ears. + +"What the deuce is that!" he exclaimed. + +They listened, then descended to the big open engine-room doors and +listened again. From the direction of Market Street came the dull sounds of +turmoil, shouting, the growl and roar of many people excited by something. +Across the Plaza a man appeared, running. As he came nearer, both could see +that his face had a very grim expression. + + +"Here!" called Johnny, as the man neared them. "Stop a minute! Tell us +what's the matter!" + +The man ceased running, but did not stop. He was panting but evidently very +angry. His words came from between gritted teeth. + +"Fight," he said briefly. "Casey and James King of William. King's shot." + +At the words something seemed to be stilled in Keith's mind. Johnny seized +the man by the sleeve. + +"Hold on," he begged. "I know that kind of a fight. Tell us." + +"Casey went up close to King, said 'come on,' and instantly shot him before +King knew what he was saying." + +"Killed?" + +"Fatally wounded." + +"Where's Casey?" + +"In jail--of course--where he's safe--with his friends." + +"Where you headed for?" + +"I'm going to get my gun!" said the man grimly, and began again to run. + +They watched his receding figure until it swung around the corner and +disappeared. Without warning a white-hot wave of anger swept over Keith. +All the little baffling, annoying delays, enmities, technicalities, +chicaneries, personal antagonisms, evasions that had made up the Cora trial +were in it. He seemed to see clearly the inevitable outcome of this trial +also. It would be another Cora-Richardson case over again. A brave spirit +had been brutally blotted out by an outlaw who relied confidently on the +usual exoneration. With an exclamation Keith darted into the engine house +to where hung the rope ready for an alarm. An instant later the heavy +booming of the Monumental's bell smote the air. + + +LIII + + + +Having given this alarm. Keith, Johnny at his elbow, started toward the +centre of disturbance, From it arose a dull, menacing roar, like the sound +of breakers on a rocky coast. Many people, with much excitement, shouting, +and vituperation, were converging toward the common centre. As this was +approached, it became more difficult, at last impossible, to proceed. The +streets were packed, jammed. All sorts of rumours were abroad--King, was +dead--King was only slightly hurt--Casey was not in jail at all--Casey had +escaped down the Peninsula--the United States warships had anchored off the +foot of Market Street and were preparing to bombard the city. There was +much rushing to and fro without cause. And over all the roar could be +distinguished occasionally single cries, as one may catch fragments of +conversation in a crowded room, and all of these were sinister: "Hang him!" +"Where is he?" "Run him up on a lamp post!" "Bring him out!" "He'll get +away if left to the officers!" And over all the cries, the shouts, the +curses, the noise of shuffling feet, the very sound of heavy breathing-- +that--the numbers of the mob magnified to a muffled, formidable undernote, +pealed louder and louder the Monumental bell, which now Bert Taylor--or +some one else--was ringing like mad. + +Keith's eyes had become grim and inscrutable, and his mouth had settled +into a hard, straight line. Johnny's interest had at first centred in the +mob, but after a few curious glances at his companion he transferred it +entirely to him, Johnny Fairfax was a judge of men and of crises; and now +he was invaded with a great curiosity to see how the one and the other were +here to work out. With a determination that would not be gainsaid, Keith +thrust himself through the crowd until he had gained an elevated coping. +Here he stood watching. Johnny, after a glance at his face, joined him. + +Suddenly in the entrance of Dunbar Alley, next the city jail, a compact +group of men with drawn pistols appeared. They made their way rapidly to a +carriage standing near, jumped in, and the driver whipped up his horses. +With a yell of rage the crowd charged down, but recoiled instinctively +before the presented pistols. The horses reared and plunged, and before +anybody had gathered his wits sufficiently to seize the bridles, the whole +equipage had disappeared around the corner of Kearney Street. + +"I must say that was well done," said Johnny. + +"North and Charles Duane, with Casey, inside," commented Keith, as +dispassionately as though reading from a catalogue. "Billy Mulligan and his +deputies outside. That is to be remembered." + +A great mob had surged after the disappearing vehicle, but at least fifty +yards in the rear. The remainder were following at a more leisurely pace. +Almost immediately the street was empty. Keith climbed slowly down from his +coping. + +"What do you intend doing?" asked Johnny curiously. + +"Nothing yet." + +"But they're getting him away!" + +"No," said Keith, out of his local knowledge. "They're merely taking him to +the county jail; it's stronger." + +They followed the crowd to the wide open space below the county jail. The +latter was at that period a solidly built one-story building situated atop +a low bluff. Below it the marshal had drawn up his officers. They stood +coolly at ease. The mob, very excited, vociferated, surged back and forth. +North and his men, busily and coolly, but emphatically, were warning them, +over and over again, not to approach nearer. A single, concerted rush would +have overwhelmed the few defenders; but the rush was not made. +Nevertheless, it could not be doubted that this time the temper of the +people was very determined. The excitement was growing with every minute. +Cries again took coherence. + +"Hang him!" "Arrest the officers!" "Good, that's it!" "Let's take the +jail!" + +A man burst through the front ranks, clambered up the low bluff on which +stood the jail, turned, and attempted to harangue the crowd. He was +instantly torn down by the officers. He fought like a wild cat, and the +crowd, on the hair trigger as it was, howled and broke forward. But Marshal +North, who really handled the situation intelligently, sharply commanded +his men to desist, and instantly to release the orator. He knew better than +to allow the matter to come to an issue of strength. Intensely excited, the +man shouldered his way through the crowd, and, assisted by many hands, +mounted the balcony of a two-story house. Thence he began to harangue, but +so great was the confusion that he could not be heard. + +"Who is he?" "Who is that man?" voices cried from a dozen points. + +George Frank, a hotel keeper, possessed of a great voice, shouted back: + +"That is Thomas King--" + +An officer seized Frank hastily by the collar. "Stop or I'll arrest you!" +he threatened. + +"--brother of James King of William!" bellowed Frank, undaunted. + +"Bully for you!" muttered Johnny Fairfax, whose eyes were shining. + +Keith was watching the whole scene from beneath the brim of his hat, his +eyes sombre and expressionless. Johnny glanced at him from time to time, +but said nothing. + +From the balcony Thomas King continued to harangue the crowd. Little of +what he said could be heard, but he was at a white heat of excitement, and +those nearest him were greatly aroused. An officer made a movement to +arrest him, but a hasty message from the sapient North restrained that. + +At that moment a great cheer burst out from the lower end of the street. +Over the heads of the crowd could be distinguished the glint of file after +file of bayonets. + +"That's the ticket!" cried an enthusiast near Keith and Johnny. "Here come +the militia boys! Now we'll soon have the jail!" + +The bayonets bobbed steadily through the crowd, deployed in front of the +jail, and turned to face the mob. A great groan went up. + +"Sold!" cried the enthusiast. + +These were volunteers from the Law and Order party, hastily armed from the +militia armouries, and thrown in front of the jail for its protection. + +Immediately they had taken position the jail door opened, and there +appeared a rather short, carefully dressed man, with side whiskers, +carrying his hat in his hand. He stood for a moment, appealing for +attention, one arm upraised. Little by little the noise died down. + +"Who is that?" inquired Johnny. + +He received no reply from Keith, but the enthusiast informed him: + +"That's our beloved mayor--Van Ness," said he. + +When quiet had at length been restored, Van Ness addressed them: + +"You are here creating an excitement," he said, "which may lead to +occurrences this night which will require years to wipe out. You are now +labouring under great excitement, and I advise you quietly to disperse. I +assure you the prisoner is safe. Let the law have its course and justice +will be done." + +Up to this point Van Ness had been listened to with respect, but at the +last word he received such a chorus of jeers and cat calls that he retired +hastily. + +"How about Richardson?" they demanded of him. "Where's the law in Cora's +case?" "To hell with such justice!" + +"Not the popular orator," observed Johnny Fairfax. + +More soldiers came, and then more, at short intervals, until the square was +filled with shining bayonets. Johnny was frankly disgusted. As a man of +action he too well understood that this particular crisis was practically +over. From this mob the jail was safe. + +"They lost their chance talking," he said. "They ought to have rushed the +jail first pop. Now the whole thing will fizzle out slowly. Let's go get +supper." + +Without reply Keith descended from his perch. They hunted some time for a +restaurant. All were closed for the sufficient reason that their staffs +were on the streets. Finally they discovered a Chinese chop house prepared +to serve them, and here they ate. Johnny was voluble in his scorn for the +manner in which a golden opportunity had been allowed to slip by. Keith was +very taciturn. + +"Let's get out of here," he said abruptly at last. "Let's get some news." + +They learned that King was still alive, though badly wounded in the left +breast; that he could not be moved; that he was attended by Dr. Beverly +Cole and a half score of the best surgeons of the city; that a mass meeting +had been called at the Plaza. Indeed, there could be no doubt that the +centre of excitement had been shifted to the Plaza. Men by thousands, all +armed, were marching in that direction. Johnny and Keith found the square +jammed, but the latter led the way by devious alleys to the rear of the +Monumental headquarters, and so out to a little second-story balcony. + +Below them the faces of the packed mass of humanity showed white in the dim +light from the street lamps and the buildings. Arms gleamed. Every roof +top, every window, every balcony was crowded. From the latter vehement +orators held forth. All wanted to talk at once. Some of these people were, +as our chronicler of the time quaintly expresses it, "considerably tight." +Keith looked them all over with an appraising eye, listening at the same +time to incendiary speeches advising the battering down of the jail and the +hanging of all its inmates. Occasionally one of the cooler headed would get +in a few words, but invariably was interrupted by some well-meaning hot +head. + +There seemed to be a great diversity of opinion both among the people on +the balcony and those below. Keith listened attentively for a time, then, +with the abruptness that had characterized his movements and decisions +since the moment he had heard the news of King's assassination, he turned +away. + +"Let's go," he said briefly. + +"Oh, hold on!" cried Johnny, aghast. "It's just the shank of the evening! +We'll miss all the fun." + +"There'll be nothing done," said Keith with decision. + +"I'm more in hopes," persisted Johnny. "I'll bet there are ten thousand men +here, armed and angry, and getting angrier every minute. They could fairly +eat up that lot at the jail." + +"They won't," said Keith. + +"I'll bet one good man could turn them loose in a minute." + +Suddenly Keith's dour taciturnity broke. "You're perfectly right," he +conceded; "but the point is that good men won't lead a rabble. If we're to +have good leaders we must have something for them to lead. If we're to cure +these conditions, we must do things in due order. This cannot be remedied +by mere excitement nor by deeds done under excitement. I have not yet seen +anything that promises either satisfaction or reform." + +"What do you propose doing, then?" asked Johnny, his intuitions again +satisfying him that here was the man to tie to. + +"Walk about," replied Keith. + +They walked about. In the course of the evening they looked in on a dozen +meetings of which they had news--in the Pioneer Club, in rooms over the old +Bella Union, in a saloon off Montgomery Street, at the offices of various +merchants. Keith looked carefully over the personnel of each of these +various meetings, listened a minute or so, and went out. By some of the men +so gathered Johnny was quite impressed, but Keith shook his head. + +"These meetings are being held by clubs or cliques," he explained his +disbelief in them. "They influence a certain following, but not a general +following. This must be a general movement or none at all. The right people +haven't taken hold." + +About midnight he unexpectedly announced that he was going home and to +bed. Johnny was frankly scandalized, + +"I think nothing will happen in this matter," said Keith, + +"The time for mob violence has passed. If an attack were now to be made, I +should consider it unfortunate, and should not want to be mixed up in it, +anyway. A mob attack is nothing but a manifestation of sheer lawlessness." + +"And you're keen for the dear law, of course," said Johnny with sarcasm. + +"There is a difference between mere laws and the law. There is a time-- +either here or coming soon--when laws may be broken that justice may be +done. But no popular movement will succeed unless it has behind it the +solemn, essential human law. Good-night." + +LIV + + + +On this same afternoon of King's assassination Nan Keith, was expecting +Sansome in for tea. Afternoon tea was then an exotic institution, +practically unknown in California society. Ben Sansome was about the only +man of Nan's acquaintance who took it as a matter of course, without either +awkwardness, embarrassment, or ill-timed jest. The day had been fine, and +several times she had regretted her promise as she cast an eye at the glow +over the gilt-edged tops of the western hills. The sunset through the +Golden Gate must to-day be very fine. + +And Ben Sansome had failed her! She had made certain little especial +preparations--picked flowers, herself cut the sandwiches thin, put on her +most becoming tea gown. As time passed she became more and more annoyed. +She was disappointed not so much at the absence of Ben Sansome as a person +as at the waste of her efforts. + +But at six o'clock, when she had given him up, and was about to change from +her tea gown, he came in, full of apologies, very flustered, and bursting +with news. + +"King was shot on the street by Casey," he told her, trying not +unsuccessfully for his habitual detached manner. "I stopped to get the news +for you. King is not dead, but probably fatally wounded. Casey is in jail. +There is a great public excitement--a mob is forming. I've been expecting +something of the sort. King has been pretty free with his comments." + +At seven o'clock Nan jumped to her feet in a sudden panic. + +"Why, I wonder where Milton is!" she cried. "He's never been so late as +this before!" + +"He's probably stayed downtown to follow the course of the excitement. +Naturally he would. He may not get home to supper at all." + +Wing Sam announced supper. He was unheeded. Even Gringo, his ears cocked, +watched the door, getting up uneasily, whining, sniffing inquiringly, and +lying down again. At half-past seven Sansome firmly intervened. + +"You're going to make yourself ill," he insisted, "if you don't eat +something. I am hungry, anyway, and I'm not going to leave you until he +comes back." + +"Oh, you must be starved! How thoughtless I am!" she cried. + +Sansome, who, it must be confessed, had been somewhat chagrined at the +apparent intensity of her anxiety, was, within the next two hours, +considerably reassured. Nan never did things halfway. For the moment she +had forgotten her guest. He was certainly very kind, very thoughtful--as +always--to stay here with her. She must not oppress his spirits. But the +inner tension was terrible. She felt that shortly something must snap. And +after supper, when they had returned to the drawing-room, a queer, low, +growling, distant roar, borne on a chance shift of wind, broke one of her +sentences in the middle. + +"What's that?" she cried, but before Sansome had replied, she knew what It +was, the roar of the mob! And Milton was somewhere there! + +Suddenly a wave of reaction swept her, of anger. Why was he there? Why +wasn't he at home? Why had he made no attempt to relieve her cruel anxiety? +A messenger--it would have been very simple! And Ben Sansome was so kind-- +as always. She turned to him with a new decision. + +"I know you are dying to go see what is going on," she said. "You simply +must not stay here any longer on my account. I insist! Indeed, I think I'll +go to bed." But Ben Sansome, his manner becoming almost caressingly +protective, would not listen. + +"It isn't safe to leave you alone," he told her. "All the worst elements of +the city will be out. No woman should be left alone in times of such +danger. I should feel most uneasy at leaving you before your husband comes +in." + +His words were correct enough, but he managed to convey his opinion that he +was only fulfilling what should have been Keith's first and manifest duty. +She made no reply. The conversation languished and died. They sat in the +lamplight opposite each other, occasionally exchanging a word or so. +Sansome was content and enjoying himself. He conceived that the stars were +fighting for him, and he was enjoying the hour. Nan, a prey alternately to +almost uncontrollable fits of anxiety and flaming resentment, could hardly +sit still. + +About midnight Gringo pricked up his ears and barked sharply. A moment +later Keith came in. + +He was evidently dead tired and wholly preoccupied. He hung up his hat +absently. Nan had sprung to her feet. + +"Oh, how could you!" she cried, the pent exasperation in her voice. "I've +been so anxious! I didn't know what might have happened!" + +"I'm all right," replied Keith briefly. "Sorry you were worried. No chance +to send you word." + +His apparent indifference added fuel to Nan's irritation. + +"If it hadn't been for Ben, I should have been stark, staring crazy, here +all alone!". + +Keith for the first time appeared to notice Sansome's presence. He nodded +at him wearily. + +"Mighty good of you," said he. "I appreciate it." + +"I thought _some_ man ought to be in the house at a time of such public +excitement," rejoined Sansome significantly. + +Keith failed to catch, or elected not to notice, the implication. Nan's +cheeks turned red. + +Without further remark Keith walked across to lock the window; returning, +he extinguished a small lamp on the side table. He was tired out, knew he +must be up early, and wanted above everything to get to bed. The hint was +sufficiently obvious. Sansome rose. Nan's flush deepened with +mortification. + +"Well, I'll just run along," said Sansome cheerfully. He did not ask for +news of the evening, nor did Keith volunteer it. Keith nodded at him +briefly and indifferently. He did not mean to be rude, but his wearied mind +was filled to the exclusion of everything else with the significance of +this day. + +Nan, feeling that she must make amends, followed Sansome into the hall. Her +anxiety for Keith's safety relieved, her whole reaction was indignantly +toward Sansome. + +"I'm sorry to have you go," she said, with a feeling that other +circumstances could not have called out, "I don't know what I'd have done +without you!" + +Sansome's sensitive intuitions thrilled to the feeling. + +"Your husband is here to take care of you--now," he murmured. "I must be +off." He took her hand, and bent over her, gazing into her eyes with the +concentration of a professional hypnotist, "Good-night," he said, with a +world of unexpressed meaning. "Try to get some sleep--Nan," He said her +name in a lower tone, almost lingeringly, then turned abruptly and went +out. + +Nan stood looking for a moment at the closed door. The effect of his +personality was on her spirit, the mantle of his care for her, his +consideration for her every mood, wrapped her about gratefully. + +She found the lights all out, and Keith already half undressed. + +"I must say, Milton," she said, "you might have been a little less rude to +Mr. Sansome. It would have only been decent after he had sat up here until +all hours." + +Keith, whose wide eyes would have showed him to be wholly preoccupied with +some inner vision or problem, answered impatiently from the surface of his +mind: + +"What in the world did I do to Sansome?" + +"You didn't do anything, that's the trouble. Do you realize he waited here +over six hours for you to come in?" + +"Oh, I guess he'll pull through," said Keith a little contemptuously. + +Nan became indignant. + +"At least," she retorted, "you ought to be grateful that he stayed to +protect the place!" + +"The place was in no danger," said Keith, yawning. + +She checked herself, and made a fresh start. + +"What's it all about? What's happened? Where have you been?" she asked. + +Keith roused himself with an effort. + +"I've been a little of everywhere. Lord, I'm tired! There's a mob about +trying to get up nerve to hang Casey. I suppose you've heard that Casey +shot King this afternoon?" + +"Yes, I heard that." + +"Well, when I saw nothing was going to happen, I came home, though I'm not +sure the trouble is over." + +Having said this, Keith fell gratefully to his pillow. Nan was nervous, +wide-awake, curious. She asked a number of questions. Keith answered with +extreme brevity. He was temporarily exhausted. Shortly he fell asleep +between two sentences. + + + +LV + + + +The following morning Keith woke early, slipped to the kitchen where he was +fed by Wing Sam, and was downtown before Nan, who had not so promptly +fallen asleep, had yet stirred. Even at that hour the streets were crowded. +Many--and the majority of these were "considerably tight," or otherwise +looking the worse for wear--had been up all night, unable to tear +themselves away from the fascinating centres of excitement. The majority, +however, had, like Keith, snatched some repose, and now were out eager to +discover what a new day might bring forth. + +The morning newspapers had been issued. Each man held a copy of one of them +open at the editorial column, and others tucked away under his arm. Never +had there been such a circulation; and in the case of the _Herald_ never +would so many be sold again. For that ill-starred sheet, mistaking utterly +the times, held boldly along the way of its sympathies. It spoke of the +assassination as an "affray"; held forth violently against the mob spirit +of the evening before; and stated vehemently its opinion that, now that +"Justice is regularly administered" there was no excuse for even the threat +of public violence. If there had been any doubt as to the depth to which +public opinion was at last stirred, the reception of the _Herald's_ +editorial would have settled it. Actually, for the moment, indignation +seemed to run more strongly against that sheet than against Casey himself. + +Keith glanced over this editorial with a half smile, tossed the paper in +the gutter, and opened the _Alta_ for news. King, still living, had been +removed from the office of the Express Company to a room in the Montgomery +Block. There, attended by his wife, Dr. Beverly Cole, and a whole corps of +volunteer physicians, he was making a fight for life. The bullet had +penetrated his left breast. That was all that was to be reported at +present. Keith glanced at the third page. His eye was caught by this +notice: + +THE VIGILANCE COMMITTEE + +The members of the Vigilance Committee in good standing will please meet at +No. 105-1/2 Sacramento Street, this day, Thursday, 15th instant, at nine +o'clock A.M. + +By order of the + +COMMITTEE OF THIRTEEN. + +While he was still gazing thoughtfully at this Johnny Fairfax, fresh as the +morning, appeared at his elbow. + +"Hello, wise man," he greeted him cheerily. "You were a good prophet--and +you got some sleep. I hung around all night, but nothing new was done." + +"Look here," said Keith, placing his finger on the notice, "do you suppose +this genuine?" + +Johnny read the notice. + +"Couldn't say." + +"Because if this is actually the old Committee of '51, it means business." + +"There's one way to find out." + +"How's that?" + +"Go and see," advised Johnny. + +Number 105-1/2 Sacramento Street proved to be a big three-storied barnlike +structure that had been built by a short-lived political party called the +Know Nothings. Already the hall was packed to its full capacity, the +entrance ways jammed, and a big crowd had gathered in the streets. + +"Fine chance we have here!" observed Johnny ruefully. + +They stood well free of the press for a few moments, watching. More men +were coming from all directions. But Johnny was resourceful, and likewise +restless. + +"Let's prowl around a little," he suggested to his companion. + +They prowled to such good purpose that they discovered, at the rear of the +building, opening into a blind alley, a narrow wooden stairway. It was +unguarded and untenanted. + +"Here we are," pronounced Johnny. + +They ascended it, and immediately found themselves In a small room back of +the stage or speaker's platform, It contained about a score of men. Their +aspect was earnest, serious, grave. Although there was a sufficiency of +chairs, they were all afoot, gathered in a loose group, in whose centre +stood William Coleman, his massive shoulders squared, his large bony, hands +clenched at his side, his florid complexion even more flushed than usual, +his steady eye travelling slowly from one face to another, Again the +strange contradictions in, his appearance struck Keith with the impact of a +distinct shock--the low smoothed hair, the sweeping blue-black moustache, +the vivid colour, and high cheek bones of the typical gambler--the clear +eye, firm mouth, incisive, deliberate speech, the emanation of personality +that inspired confidence. Next him, talking earnestly, stood Clancey +Dempster, a small man, mild of manner, blue eyed, with light, smooth hair, +the last man in the room one would have picked for great firmness and +courage, yet destined to play one of the leading rôles in this crisis. The +gigantic merchant, Truett, towered above him, he who had calmly held two +fighting teamsters apart by their collars; and homely, stubborn, honest +Farwell, direct, uncompromising, inspired with tremendous single-minded +earnestness, but tender as a girl to any under dog; and James Dows, rough +and ready, humorous, blasphemous, absolutely direct, endowed with "horse +sense," eccentric, but of fundamentally good judgment: Hossfros of '51; Dr. +Beverly Cole, high spirited, distinguished looking, courtly; the excitable, +active, nervous, talkative, but staunch Tom Smiley, Isaac Blucome whose +signature as "33, Secretary" was to become terrible; fiery little George +Ward, willing--but unable--to whip his weight in wild cats. As Keith +recognized these men, and others of their stamp, he nodded his head +contentedly. + +Johnny Fairfax must have caught the same impression, for he leaned across +to whisper to Keith, his eyes shining: + +"We've hit it!" + +Their entrance had passed unnoticed in the absorption of discussion. +Coleman was speaking, evidently in final decision. + +"It is a serious business," said he. "It is no child's play. It may prove +very serious. We may get through quickly, so safely, or we may so involve +ourselves as never to get through." + +"The issue is not of choice, but of expediency," urged Dempster. "Shall we +have vigilance with order or a mob with anarchy?" + +Coleman pondered a moment, then threw up his head. + +"On two conditions I will accept the responsibility--absolute obedience, +absolute secrecy." + +Without waiting for a reply to this he threw open a door, and followed by +the others, stepped out on the platform. A roar greeted their appearance. +Johnny and Keith, remaining modestly in the background, lingered near the +open door. + +The hall was filled to its utmost capacity. Every inch of floor space was +occupied, and men perched on sills, clung to beams. Coleman raised his hand +and obtained an immediate dead silence. + +"In view of the miscarriage of justice in the courts," he announced +briefly, "it has been thought expedient to revive the Vigilance Committee. +An Executive Council was chosen by a representative of the whole body. I +have been asked to take charge. I will do so, but must stipulate that I am +to be free to choose the first council myself. Is that agreed?" + +A roar of assent answered him. + +"Very well, gentlemen. I shall request you to vacate the hall. In a short +time the books will be open for enrollment." + +He turned and reëntered the anteroom followed by the others. In so doing he +came face to face with the intruders. + +"This is not your place, gentlemen," he told them courteously. + +They retired down the narrow back stairs and joined the huge throng that +filled the streets, waiting patiently and quietly, its eyes fixed on the +closed doors of the hall. In a remarkably short time these doors were +thrown open. Those nearest surged forward. Inside the passage were twelve +men, later to be known as the Executive Committee. These held back the +rush, admitting but one man at a time. The crowd immediately caught the +idea. There was absolutely no excitement. Every man was grimly in earnest. +Cries of "Order! Order! Line up!" came from different parts of the throng. +A rough quadruple queue was formed extending down the street. There was no +talk nor smiles, none of the usual rough joking. Each waited his turn +without impatience. + +Johnny Fairfax and Keith, owing to the chance that they had, entered the +crowd from the nearby alley and found themselves close to the head of the +line. As they neared the entrance, and so could hear what was there going +on, they found that each applicant was being closely scrutinized and +interrogated. The great majority passed this ordeal, but several men were +peremtorily turned back with a warning not to try again. + +Keith's turn came. He was conscious of the scrutiny of many eyes; he heard +the word "pass" pronounced by some one in the background, and climbed the +stairs. At the top he was directed to an anteroom at the left. Here behind +a table sat Coleman, Dempster, and a third man unknown to him. To them he +repeated the words of an oath of secrecy, and then was passed into another +room where Isaac Bluxome sat behind a ledger. In this he wrote his name. + +"Your number is 178," said Bluxome to him, "By that number, and not by your +name, you are henceforth to be known here. Never use names, always their +numbers, in referring to other members." + +Thence Keith was directed to the main hall where were those already +admitted. These were gathered in groups discussing the situation. In a +moment Johnny Fairfax joined him. + +"179, I am," said Johnny. His eyes swept the hall. "Not much mob spirit +about this; it looks like business." + +They hung around for an hour. The hall slowly filled. Finally, learning +that nothing further was to be done until the enrollment had finished, they +wandered out again into the street. The unbroken lines of applicants +extended as far down the street as the eye could see. + +All that day the applicants, orderly and grim with purpose, were passed +through in line. By mid-day it was seen that the Know-Nothing Hall was +going to be too small for the meeting that would later take place. +Therefore, a move was made to the Turnverein Hall. After enrolling, no man +departed from the vicinity for long. Short absences for hastily snatched +meals were followed by hurried returns lest something be missed. From time +to time reports were circulated as to the activities of the Executive +Committee, which had been in continuous session since its appointment. Thus +it was said that an Examining Committee had been appointed to scrutinize +the applicants; that the members of the Executive Committee had been raised +to twenty-six, that Oscar Smith had been appointed chief of police. The +latter rumour was immediately verified by the energetic activities of that +able citizen. He, or his messengers, darted here and there searching for +individuals wanted as doorkeepers, guards, or police officers. His +regulations also began to be felt. By evening only registered members of +the committee were allowed on the floor of the hall, even the expostulating +reporters being gently but firmly ejected. + +Nobody manifested the least excitement or impatience. At eight o'clock +Coleman came out of one of the side rooms, and, mounting a table, called +for order. + +"A military organization is deemed necessary," he said crisply. "Numbers +one to one hundred will please assemble in the southwest corner of the +room; numbers one hundred and one to two hundred will take the first +window; numbers two hundred and one to three hundred the second window, and +so on." He hesitated and looked over the assembly. "_Que les Français, se +mettent au centre_," he ended. + +This command in a foreign language was made necessary by the extraordinary +number of Frenchmen who had first answered the call of gold in the El +Dorado of '49; and then with equal enthusiasm responded to this demand for +essential justice. + +Coleman waited while the multitude shifted here and there. When the +component parts had again come to rest he made his next announcement: + +"Now each company will elect its own officers, but those officers are +subject to the orders of the Executive Committee." + +Numbers one hundred and one to two hundred inclusive, the company in which +Keith and Johnny Fairfax found themselves, were for the most part strangers +to one another, They exchanged glances, hesitating as to how to begin. Then +a small, spectacled, man spoke up. + +"Gentlemen," said he, "we must get organized as rapidly as possible, Mr, +Coleman is waiting. We need for a leader a man who is experienced in active +life. I nominate John Fairfax as captain of this company." + +Johnny gasped and turned red. + +"Who's your little friend?" Keith whispered. + +"Never saw him before in my life," replied Johnny. + +The announcement was received with indecision. Nobody immediately replied +or commented aloud on the nomination, but men were asking each other in +undertones. The little spectacled man saw this, and spoke up again: + +"Perhaps I should say that Mr. Fairfax is better known as Diamond Jack." + +Faces cleared, heads nodded. A murmur of recognition replaced the puzzled +frowning, "Good man," "The express rider," "Danny Randall's man," they told +each other. + +"I do not know Mr. Fairfax," the spectacled man was saying, "but I saw his +name just before mine on the register." + +"This is Fairfax," said Keith, thrusting the reluctant Johnny forward. + +He was elected to the post by acclamation. + +"Nominations for a lieutenant?" suggested the spectacled man, but Keith +interrupted. + +"If you all have as much confidence in Mr. Fairfax as I have," said he, +"perhaps you'll give him free hand and let him pick his own officers." + +This seemed a good idea, and was instantly adopted. + +"Well, I thank you, gentlemen," said Johnny, "and we'll do our best to +become efficient. Report your names and addresses to this gentleman here--" + +"Willey," supplied the little man. + +"We shall drill to-morrow at eight sharp. Bring whatever weapons----" + +But Coleman was again speaking and on this very subject: + +"The committee have arranged with George Law," he was saying, "to supply or +hire muskets to the number of several thousands. These weapons will be at +this hall to-morrow morning early. Company captains can then make their +requisitions." + +A murmur of inquiry swept the hall. "George Law? Where did _he_ get several +thousand muskets?" And the counter current of information making its way +slowly--they were only flintlocks, perfectly efficient though, had +bayonets--superseded government arms--brought out some time ago by Law to +arm some mysterious filibustering expedition that had fizzled. + +In this manner, without confusion, an organization of two thousand men was +formed, sixteen military companies officered and armed. + +Shortly after Coleman dismissed the meeting. Its members dispersed to their +homes. Absolute quiet descended on the city, which slept under the moon. + + + + + +LVI + +To the thoughtful bystander all this preparation had its significance and +its portent, which became the stronger when he contemplated the +dispositions of the Law and Order party. The latter had been not less +vigorous, and its strength could not be doubted. The same day that marked +the organization of the Vigilantes saw the regular police force largely +increased. In addition, the sheriff issued thousands of summonses to +citizens, calling on them for service on a _posse_. These were in due form +of the law. To refuse them meant to put one's self outside the law. A great +many of them were responded to, for this reason only, by men not wholly in +sympathy with either side. Once the oath was administered, these new +deputies were confronted by the choice between perjury and service. To be +sure the issuance of these summonses forced many of the neutral minded into +the ranks of the Vigilantes. The refusal to act placed them on the wrong +side of the law; and they felt that joining a party pledged to what +practically amounted to civil war was only a short step farther. The +various military companies were mustered, reminded of their oaths, called +upon solemnly to fulfil their sworn duty, and marched to various strategic +points about the jail and elsewhere. Parenthetically, their every +appearance on the streets was well hissed by the populace. The governor was +informally notified of a state of insurrection, and requested to send in +the State militia. By evening all the forces of organized society were +under arms. The leaders of the Law and Order party were jubilant. Their +position appeared to be impregnable. They felt that back of them was all +the weight of constituted authority, reaching, if need be, to the Federal +Government at Washington. Opposed to them was lawlessness. Lawlessness had +occasionally become dignified revolution, to be sure, but only when a race +took its stand on a great issue; never when a handful espoused a local +quarrel. Civil war it might be; but civil war, the wise politicians argued, +must spread to become effective; and how could a civil war based on the +shooting of an obscure editor in a three-year-old frontier town spread +anywhere? Especially such an editor as James King of William. + +For King had made many bitter enemies. In attacking individual members of a +class he had often unreasonably antagonized the whole class. Thus he had +justly castigated the _Times_ and other venal newspapers; but in so doing +had by his too general statements drawn the fire of every other journal in +town. He had with entire reason attacked a certain scalawag of a Roman +Catholic priest--a man the church itself must soon have taken in hand--but +had somehow managed to offend all Roman Catholics in doing so; likewise, +there could be no question that his bitter scorn for "the chivalry" was +well justified, but the manner of its expression offended also the decent +Southerners. And all these people saw the Vigilantes, not as a protest +against a condition that had become intolerable, but as the personal +champions of King. The enemies of King, many of them worthy citizens, quite +out of sympathy with the present methods of administering the law, became +the enemies of the Vigilantes. + +No wonder the Law and Order party felt no uneasiness. They did not +underestimate the determination of their opponents. It was felt that +fighting, severe fighting, was perhaps inevitable. The Law and Order party +loved fighting. They had chosen as their commander William Tecumseh +Sherman, later to gain his fame as a great soldier. His greatness in a +military capacity seems to have been exceeded only by his inability to +remember facts proved elsewhere by original historical documents. This is +the only possible explanation for the hash of misstatements comprising +those chapters in his "Memoirs" dealing with this time. In writing them the +worthy general evidently forgot that original documents existed, or that +statements concerning historical events can often be checked. + +And as a final source of satisfaction, the Vigilantes had placed themselves +on record. Every man could be apprehended and made to feel the weight of +the law. A mob is irresponsible and anonymous. These fools had written down +their names in books! + + + + +LVII + +Now a new element was injected into the situation in the person of the +governor of the State, one J. Neely Johnson, a politician who would long +since have been utterly forgotten had not his unlucky star risen just at +this unlucky time. A more unfortunate man for a crisis it would have been +difficult to find. His whole life had been one of trimming; he had made his +way by trimming; he had gained the governor's chair by yielding to the +opinions of others. This training combined perfectly with the natural +disposition of a chameleon. He was, or became, a sincere trimmer, taking +his colour and his temporary beliefs from those with whom he happened to +be. His judgment often stuck at trifles, and his opinions were quickly +heated but as quickly cooled. His private morals were none of the best, +which gave certain men an added hold. + +On receipt of the message sent by the Law and Order party--but not, be it +noted, by the proper authorities--requesting the State militia, Governor +Johnson came down post-haste from Sacramento. Immediately on arriving in +the city he sent word to Coleman requesting an interview. Coleman at once +followed the messenger to the Continental Hotel. He was shown to a private +room where he found Johnson pacing up and down alone. Coleman bowed gravely +in response to the governor's airy greeting. Johnson sat down, offered +cigars, made every effort to appear amiable and conciliatory. + +"This is bad; this is bad, Coleman," he began the interview. "What is it +you want?" + +"Peace," replied Coleman, "and if possible without a struggle." + +"That's all very well," said Johnson pettishly, "to talk about peace with +an army of insurrection newly raised. But what is it you actually wish to +accomplish?" + +Coleman looked at him steadily, then leaned forward. + +"The law is crippled," he told the governor in measured tones. "We want +merely to accomplish what the crippled law should do but cannot. This done, +we will gladly retire. Now, Governor, you have been asked by the mayor, and +certain others, to bring out the militia and crush this movement. I assure +you, it cannot be done; and if you attempt it, it will cause you and us +great trouble. Do as Governor McDougall did in '51. See in this movement +what he saw in that: a local movement for a local reform, in which the +State is not concerned. We are not a mob; we demand no overthrow of +institutions. We ask not a single court to adjourn; we ask not a single +officer to vacate his position; we demand only the enforcement of the law-- +which, after all, we have made!" He extended his strong fist and laid it on +the table. "If you deem it the conscientious duty of your office to +discountenance these proceedings--as perhaps you well may--then let your +opposition be in appearance only. In your heart you must know the necessity +of this measure; you know the standing of the men managing it, You know +that this is no mob, no distempered faction. It is San Francisco herself +who speaks! Let California stand aside; let her leave us to our shame and +sorrow; for, as God lives, we will cleanse this city of her corruption or +perish with her! So we have sworn!" + +This long speech, delivered with the solemnity of absolute conviction, +profoundly impressed Johnson's volatile nature. + +"But," he objected uncertainly, "Coleman, you must understand! This is +against the law--and I have sworn to uphold the law!" + +"That is a matter for your own conscience," rejoined Coleman a little +impatiently. "Issue your proclamation, if you feel that the dignity of the +law may be best maintained by frowning on justice--but confine yourself to +that! Leave us alone in our righteous purposes!" + +Johnson, his chameleon soul aglow with enthusiasm, leaped to his feet and +seized Coleman's two hands. In his eye stood a tear. + +"Sir," he cried, "go on with your work! Let it be done as speedily as +possible! You have my best wishes!" + +Coleman did not relax his formal gravity. + +"I am glad you feel that way, and that we understand each other," he +contented himself with saying. + +The heroic moment past, Johnson's restless mind began to glance among +anxieties. + +"But hasten the undertaking as much as you can," he begged. "The opposition +is stronger than you suppose. The pressure on me is going to be terrible. +What about the prisoners in the jail?" asked Johnson anxiously. "What is +your immediate plan?" + +"That is in the hands of the committee," evaded Coleman. + +He left the governor, again pacing up and down. + + + + +LVIII + + +Coleman returned at once to the hall to resume his interrupted labours with +the committee. The results of his conference with the governor seemed very +satisfactory, + +"We can now go ahead with free minds," said Clancey Dempster. + +The business was astonishingly varied in scope. Charles Doane--not to be +confused with Duane, the ex-fire chief--was appointed military commander- +in-chief; Colonel Johns, captain of artillery; Olney was given the task of +guarding the jail from the outside "with a force numerous enough to prevent +escape." After considerable discussion Aaron Burns was made head of a +civilian committee to take charge of all prisoners. It was moved and +carried that no city or county official should be admitted to membership, a +striking commentary on the disesteem in which such men were held. Permanent +headquarters were arranged for; committees appointed for the solicitation +of funds. A dozen other matters of similar detail were taken up, +intelligently discussed, and provided for with the celerity of men trained +in crises of business or life. At length it was moved the "committee, as a +body, shall visit the county jail at such time as the Executive Committee +might direct; and take thence James P. Casey and Charles Cora, give them a +fair trial, and administer such punishment as justice shall demand." + +This was the real business, for the transaction of which all these lesser +businesses had been prepared. A slight pause followed its introduction, as +though each member present were savouring the significance of the moment. + +"Are you ready for the question?" asked Coleman in grave tones. "Those in +favour----" + +"Aye," came the instant response from every man present. + +A messenger opened the door to announce that Governor Johnson was in the +anteroom requesting speech with Coleman. The latter, handing his gavel to +Dempster, immediately answered the summons. + +He found Johnson, accompanied by Sherman, Garrison, and two strangers, +lounging in the anteroom. The governor sprawled in a chair, his hat pulled +over his eyes, a cigar in the corner of his mouth. His companions arose and +bowed gravely as Coleman entered the room, but he remained seated, nodding +at Coleman with an air of cavalier bravado that was plainly intended to +conceal his nervousness. Without waiting for the exchange of spoken +greetings, he burst out: + +"We have come to ask what you intend to do," he demanded truculently of +Coleman, as though he had never seen or talked to him before. + +Coleman stared at him for an instant, completely surprised; read him; set +his mouth grimly. + +"Outrages are of constant occurrence," he recited briefly; "our suffrages +are profaned, our fellow-citizens shot down in the street, our courts +afford us no redress, we will endure it no longer." + +"I agree with you as to the grievances," rejoined the governor, almost as +though reciting a learned lesson; "but I think the courts are the proper +remedy. The judges are good men, and there is no necessity for the people +to turn themselves into a mob and obstruct the execution of the laws." + +A flush mounted Coleman's cheek. + +"Sir!" he cried indignantly, "this is no mob! You know this is no mob!" + +Johnson looked at him from between half-closed lids, as though from a great +distance. + +"The opposition is stronger than you imagine," he said. "There is danger to +the city--great danger of bloodshed--which should be prevented if +possible." He paused, focussed his whole attention on Coleman, and went on +with deliberate significance: _"It may be necessary to bring out all the +force at my command._ I strongly advise you to leave the case of Casey to +the courts; and I pledge myself to his fair and speedy trial." + +Although realizing fully what a formidable element this change of front +threw into the situation, Coleman's expression did not change: Sherman, +watching him closely, could not see that his eyes even flickered, + +"That will not satisfy the people," he told the governor, coldly and +formally. "However they might consider your intention, they will doubt your +ability to keep such a promise," He was going to say more, but checked, +himself abruptly. The silent but intent attitude of the governor's four +companions had struck his attention. "They are present as witnesses!" he +told himself. Aloud he said, "Sir, I will report your remarks to my +associates," Coleman wanted witnesses, too. + +He returned to the committee, interrupting the proceedings, + +"The governor has flopped over the fence." he informed them. "He is out +there with Sherman and some others threatening to bring in the State troops +unless we turn Casey over to the courts and disband. He personally +guarantees a fair and speedy trial." + +"What did you tell him?" demanded Hossfros. + +"I haven't told him anything. It suddenly occurred to me that I ought to +have witnesses for my side of the conversation, What do you think?" + +"Same as I've always thought," replied Ward. + +A murmur of assent greeted this. + +After a remarkably brief discussion, considering the delicacy of the +crisis, Coleman with others returned to the anteroom. + +"Sorry to have kept you waiting," he said blandly, "but some consideration +of the question was necessary. Let us understand each other clearly. As I +understand your proposal, it is that, if we make no move, you guarantee no +escape, immediate trial, and instant execution?" + +"That is it," agreed Johnson, after a moment's focussing of his mind. For +the first time it became evident to Coleman that the man had a trifle too +much aboard. + +"We doubt your ability to do this," went on Coleman, "but we are ready to +meet you halfway. This is what we will promise: we will take no steps +without first giving you notice. But in return we insist that ten men of +our own selection shall be added to the sheriff's force within the jail." + +"And," added Isaac Bluxome, "that they be fed and kept and treated well. +That's part of the bargain." + +"Why, that sounds fair and reasonable, gentlemen!" the governor cried +heartily. "I see no objection to that! I was sure we could come to an +agreement!" + +He was suddenly all cordiality, all smiles, shaking each man's hand in +turn. His companions retained their manner of glacial formality, however. +He shortly withdrew, full of spirits, very much relieved at the lifting of +what seemed to him a cloud of unjust oppression for a poor official who +merely wanted peace. The real situation, evident enough to the keener +brains on either side, was veiled to him. For poor Johnson had thus far +stepped from one blunder into another. If Coleman were completely outside +the law, then he, as an executive of the law, had no business treating or +making agreements with him at all. Furthermore, as executive of the State, +he had no legal right to interfere with city affairs unless formally +summoned by the authorities--a procedure that had not been adopted. And to +cap it all, he had for the second time treated with "rebels" and to their +advantage. For, as the astute Coleman well knew, the final agreement was +all to the benefit of the committee. They gained the right to place a +personal guard over the prisoners; they gave, practically, only a promise +to withdraw that guard before attacking the jail--a procedure eminently +sensible if they cared anything for the guard. + +This little weakness was immediately and vigorously pointed out to Johnson +when he returned triumphantly to his hotel. Keen minds were plenty in the +Law and Order party. Johnson was crestfallen. Like all men of little +calibre elevated by expediency to high office, he wanted above everything +to have peace, to leave things as they were, to avoid friction. + +"Upon my word, gentlemen!" cried the governor, dismayed, "I did it for the +best; and I assure you I am still convinced that this agreement--entered +into in all faith, and sincerity----" + +"Bosh!" boomed Judge Caldwell. + +"I beg your pardon!" said Johnson, flushing. + +"I said 'bosh,'" repeated the judge, bringing the point of his cane against +the floor. "You've muddied it, as every sensible man can see. Best thing is +to put a bold face on it. Take it for granted that the committee has +promised to surrender all right of action, and that they have promised +definitely to leave the case to the courts." + +"I hardly think they intended that," murmured Johnson. + +"Meant!" snorted the judge. "The words will bear that interpretation, won't +they? Who cares what they meant!" + +The following morning this version was industriously passed about. When +Coleman heard of it he pulled his long moustache, + +"The time has come," he said with decision. "After that, it is either +ourselves or a mob." + +He went immediately to the hall. + +"Call Olney," he told a messenger. The head of the guard was soon before +him. + +"Olney," said his chief, "will you accept the command of a picked company +in an important but somewhat perilous movement?" + +Olney's tall form stiffened with pleasure. + +"I will--with thanks!" + +"Well, then, pick out from all the forces, of whatever companies, sixty +men. Accept none but men--of the very highest bravery. Let them know that +they are chosen for the post of danger, which is the post of honour, and +permit none to serve who does not so esteem it." + +Olney saluted, and went at once to the main floor, which, for drilling +purposes, was shared by four companies. He stood still until his eye fell +on Johnny Fairfax--him he called aside. + +"You can get the whole sixty right here if you want to," Johnny told him. +"But if you want to distribute things----" + +"I do," said Olney. + +"Then I'd take Keith, Carter, that teamster McGlynn, and Salisbury." + +Together they went the rounds of the impromptu armouries, going carefully +over the rolls, picking a man here and there. By eight o'clock the sixty, +informed, equipped, and ready, were gathered at the hall. Olney dismissed +all others, and set himself to drilling his picked body. + +"I don't care whether you can do 'shoulder arms' or not," he said, "but +you've got to learn simple evolutions so I can handle you. And you must +learn one another's faces. Now, come on!" + +At two o'clock in the morning he expressed himself as satisfied. From the +stock of blankets with which the headquarters were already provided they +selected, bedding, and turned in on the floor. At six o'clock Olney began +to send out detachments for breakfast. + +"Feed up," he advised them. "I don't know what this is all about, but it +pays to eat well." + +By eight o'clock every man was in his place, lined up to rigid attention as +Coleman entered the building. + +"There they are!" said Olney proudly. "Every man of them of good, tough +courage, and you can handle them as well as any old soldiers!" + +Other men came into the hall, some of them in ranks, as they had fallen in +at their own company headquarters outside, others singly or in groups. +Doorkeepers prevented all exit; once a man was in, he was not permitted to +go out. Some of the leaders and captains, among whom were Doane, Olney, and +Talbot Ward, were summoned to Coleman's room. Shortly they emerged, and +circulated through the hall giving to each captain of a company detailed +and explicit directions. Each was instructed as to what hour he and his +command were to start; from what given point; along exactly what route; and +at exactly what time he was to arrive at another given point--not a moment +sooner or later. Each was ignorant as to the instructions given the others. +Never was a plan better laid out for concerted action, and probably never +before had such a plan been so well carried out. Each captain listened +attentively, returned to head his company, thoughtful with responsibility. + +Olney gave the orders to his picked, company in person. They were told to +leave their muskets. Armed only with pistols, they were to make their way +by different routes to the jail. + +Keith, and Johnny Fairfax started out together, "This is a mistake, as far +as I am concerned," observed Keith to his companion. "I can't shoot a +pistol. I ought to be in the rank and file, not with this picked lot. They +chose me merely because I was your friend." + +"You can make a noise, anyway," replied Johnny, whose eyes were alight with +excitement. "I wonder what's up? This looks like business! I wouldn't miss +it for a million dollars!" + +Apparently the general populace had no inkling that anything was forward. +The streets were much as usual except that an inordinate amount of street- +corner discussion seemed to be going on; but that in view of the +circumstances was normal. A broad-beamed Irish woman, under full sail alone +accosted them. Her face Keith vaguely recognized, but he could not have +told where he had seen it. + +"I hear Mr. King, God rest him, is better," she said. "And what are the men +going to do with that villain, Casey? If the men don't hang him, the women +will!". + +A little farther Keith stopped short at sight of two men hurrying by. + +"Hold on, Watkins!" he called. + +The four of them drew aside a little, out of the way. + +"Weren't you in the jail guard?" asked Keith. + +Watkins nodded. + +"How does it happen you're outside?" + +"The committee sent notice that the truce was over." + +Johnny uttered an exultant yell, which he cut short shamefacedly when a +dozen passersby looked around. + + + + +LIX + + +It happened on this day that Nan Keith had refused an invitation to ride +with Ben Sansome, but had agreed as a compromise to give him a cup of tea +late in the afternoon. Nan's mood was latterly becoming more and more +restless. It was an unconscious reflection of the times, unconscious +because she had no real conception of what was going on. In obedience to +Keith's positively expressed request she had kept away from the downtown +districts, leaving the necessary marketing to Wing Sam. For the moment, as +has been explained, her points of touch with society were limited. It +happened that before the trouble began the Keiths had been subscribers to +the Bulletin and the Herald, and these two journals continued to be +delivered. Neither of them gave her much idea of what was really going on. +For a moment her imagination was touched by the blank space of white paper +the Bulletin left where King's editorials had usually been printed, but +Thomas King's subsequent violence had repelled her. The Herald, after +rashly treating the "affray" as a street brawl, lost hundreds of +subscribers and most of its advertising. It shrunk to a sheet a quarter of +its usual size. Naturally, its editor, John Nugent, was the more solidly +and bitterly aligned with the Law and Order party. The true importance of +the revolt, either as an ethical movement or merely as regards its +physical size, did not get to Nan at all. She knew the time was one of +turmoils and excitements. She believed the city in danger of mobs. Her +attitude might be described as a mixture of fastidious disapproval and a +sympathetic restlessness. + +About the middle of the afternoon Mrs. Sherwood came up the front walk and +rang the bell. Nan, sitting behind lace curtains, was impressed by her air +of controlled excitement. Mrs. Sherwood hurried. She hurried gracefully, +to be sure, and with a reminiscence of her usual feline indolence; but she +hurried, nevertheless. Therefore, Nan herself answered the bell, instead +of awaiting the deliberate Wing Sam. + +"My dear," cried Mrs. Sherwood, "get your mantle, and come with me. +There's something going to happen-something big!" + +She refused to answer Nan's questions. + +"You'll see," was all the reply she vouchsafed. "Hurry!" + +They crossed by the new graded streets where the sand hills had been, and +soon found themselves on the low elevations above the county jail. Mrs. +Sherwood led the way to the porch of a onestory wooden house that appeared +to be unoccupied. + +"This is fine!" she said with satisfaction. + +The jail was just below them, and they looked directly across the open +square in front of it and the convergence of two streets. The jail was +buzzing like a hive: men were coming and going busily, running away as +though on errands, or darting in through the open door. Armed men were +taking their places on the flat roof. + +In contrast to this one little spot of excited activity, the rest of the +scene was almost superlatively peaceful. People were drifting in from all +the side streets, but they were sauntering slowly, as though without +particular interest; they might have been going to or coming from church. +A warm, basking, Sunday feel was in the sunshine. There was not the +faintest breeze. Distant sounds carried clearly, as the barking of a dog-- +it might have been Gringo shut up at home--or the crowing of a distant +cock. From the square below arose the murmur of a multitude talking. The +groups of people increased in frequency, in numbers. Black forms began to +appear on roof tops all about; white faces at windows. It would have been +impossible to say when the scattered groups became a crowd; when the side +of the square filled; when the converging streets became black with +closely packed people; when the windows and doors and balconies, the +copings and railings, the slopes of the hills were all occupied, but so it +was. Before she fairly realized that many were gathering, Nan looked down +on twenty thousand people. They took their positions quietly, and waited. +There was no shouting, no demonstration, so little talking that the low +murmur never rendered inaudible the barking of the dog or the crowing of +the distant cock. The doors of the jail had closed. Men ceased going in +and out. The armed forces on the roof were increased. + +Nan had left off asking questions of Mrs. Sherwood, who answered none. The +feeling of tense expectation filled her also. What was forward? Was this a +mob? Why were these people gathered? Somehow they gave her the impression +that they, too, like Mrs. Sherwood and herself, were waiting to see. + +After a long time she saw the closely packed crowd down the vista of one +of the converging streets move in the agitation of some disturbance. A +moment later the sun caught files of bayonets. At the same instant the +same thing happened at the end of the other converging street. The armed +columns came steadily forward, the people giving way. Their men were +dressed in sober citizens' clothes. The shining steel of the bayonets +furnished the only touch of uniform. Quietly and steadily they came +forward, the snake of steel undulating and twisting like a living thing. +The two columns reached the convergence of the street together. As they +entered the square before the jail, a third and fourth column debouched +from side streets, and others deployed into view on the hills behind. The +timing was perfect. One minute the prospect was empty of all but +spectators, the next it was filled with grim and silent armed men. + +Near the two women and among chance spectators on the piazza of the +deserted house a well-known character of the times leaned against one of +the pillars. This was Colonel Gift. Our chronicler, who has an eye for the +telling phrase, describes him as "a tall, lank, empty-bowelled, tobacco- +spurting Southerner, with eyes like burning black balls, who could talk a +company of listeners into an insane asylum quicker than any man in +California, and whose blasphemy could not be equalled, either in quantity +or quality, by the most profane of any age or nation." In this crisis +Colonel Gift's sympathies may be guessed. He watched the scene below him +with a sardonic eye. As the armed columns wheeled into place and stood at +attention, he turned to a man standing near. + +"I tell you, stranger," said he, "when you see those damned psalm-singing +Yankees turn out of their churches, shoulder their guns, and march away of +a Sunday, you may know that hell is going to crack shortly!" + +Mrs. Sherwood turned an amused eye in his direction. The colonel, for the +first time becoming aware of her presence, swept off his black slouch hat +and apologized profusely for the "damn." + +The armed men stood rigid, four deep all around the square. Behind them +the masses of the people watched. Even the murmur died. Again everybody +waited. + +Now, at a command, the ranks fell apart and from the side street marched +the sixty men chosen by Olney dragging a field gun at the end of a rope. +Their preliminary task of watching the jail for a possible escape +finished, they had been again gathered. With beautiful military precision +they wheeled and came to rest facing the frowning walls of the jail, the +cannon pointed at the door. + +Nan gasped sharply, and seized Mrs. Sherwood's arm with both hands. She +had recognized Keith standing by the right wheel of the cannon. He was +looking straight ahead, and the expression on his face was one she had +never seen there before. Suddenly something swelled up within her breast +and choked her. The tears rushed to her eyes. + +Quite deliberately, each motion in plain sight, the cannon was loaded with +powder and ball. A man lit a slow match, blew it painstakingly to a glow, +then took his position at the breech. The slight innumerable sounds of +these activities died. The bustle of men moving imperceptibly fell. Not +even the coughing and sneezing usual to a gathering of people paying +attention was heard, for the intense interest inhibited these nervous +symptoms. Probably never have twenty thousand people, gathered in one +place, made their presence so little evident. A deep, solemn stillness +brooded over them. The spring sun lay warm and grateful on men's +shoulders; the doves and birds, the distant dogs and roosters, cooed and +twittered, barked and crowed. + +Nothing happened for full ten minutes. The picked men stood rigid by the +gun in the middle of the square; the slow match burned sleepily, a tiny +thread of smoke rising in the still air; the sunlight gleamed from the +ranks of bayonets; the vast multitude held its breath, the walls of the +jail remained blank and inscrutable. + +Then a man on horseback was seen pushing his way through the crowd. He rode +directly up to the jail door, on which he rapped thrice with the handle of +his riding whip. Against the silence these taps, but gently delivered, +sounded sharp and staccato. After a moment the wicket opened. The rider, +without dismounting, handed through it a note; then, with a superb display +of the old-fashioned horsemanship, backed his horse half the length of the +square where he, too, came to rest. + +"Who is he?" whispered Nan. Why she whispered she could not have told. + +"Charles Doane," answered Mrs. Sherwood, in the same voice. + +Another commotion down the street. Again the ranks parted and closed again, +this time to admit three carriages driven rapidly. As they came to a stop +the muskets all around the square leaped to the "present." So disconcerting +was this sudden slap and rattle of arms after the tenseness of the last +half hour, that men dodged back as though from a blow. With admirable +precision, Olney's men, obeying a series of commands, moved forward from +the gun to form a hollow square around the carriages. Only the man with the +burning slow match was left standing by the breech. + +From the carriages then descended Coleman, Truett, Talbot Ward, Smiley, and +two other men whom neither Nan nor Mrs. Sherwood recognized. Amid the dead +silence they walked directly to the jail door, Olney's Sixty breaking the +square and deploying close at their heels. A low colloquy through the +wicket now took place. At length the door swung slowly open. The committee +entered. The door swung shut after them. Again the people waited, but now +once more arose the murmur of low-toned conversation. + + + + +LX + + +Up to this day Casey had been very content with his situation. His quarters +were the best the place afforded, and they had been made more comfortable. +Scores of friends had visited him, hailing him as their champion. He had +been made to feel quite a hero. To be sure it was a nuisance to be so +confined; but when he shot King, he had anticipated undergoing some +inconvenience. It was a price to pay. He understood that there was some +public excitement, and that it was well to lie low for a little until that +had died down. The momentary annoyance would be more than offset by later +prestige. Casey did not in the least fear the courts. He had before his +eyes too many reassuring examples. His friends were rallying nobly to his +defence. Over the wines and cigars, with which he was liberally supplied, +they boasted of their strength and their dispositions--the whole police +force of the city, the militia companies sworn, to act in just such +emergencies, hundreds of volunteers, if necessary the whole power of the +State of California called to put down this affronting of duly constituted +law! + +But this Sunday morning Casey was uneasy. There seemed to be much +whispering in corners, much bustling to and fro. He paced back and forth, +fretting, interrogating those about him. But they could or would tell him +little--there was trouble;--and they fussed away, leaving Casey alone. As a +matter of fact, the withdrawal of the committee's guard of ten, and the +formal notice that the truce was thus promptly ended, had caught the Law +and Order party unprepared. With five hours' notice--or indeed by next day, +even were no notice given--the jail would have been impregnably defended. +The sudden move of the committee won; as prompt, decisive moves will. + +The bustling of the people in the jail suddenly died. Casey heard no +shuffle of feet, no whisper of conversation. The building might have been +empty save for himself. But he did hear outside the steady rhythmic tramp +of feet. + +Sheriff Scannell stood before him, the Vigilantes' written communication in +his hand. Casey, looking up from the bed on which he had fallen in sudden +shrinking, saw on his face an expression that made him cower. For the +first time realization came to him of the straits he was in. His vivid +Irish imagination leaped instantaneously from the complacence of absolute +safety to the depths of terror. He sprang to his feet. + +"You aren't going to betray me! You aren't going to give me up!" he cried, +wringing his hands. + +"James," replied' Scannell solemnly, "there are three thousand armed men +coming for you, and I have not now thirty supporters around the jail." + +"Not thirty!" cried. Casey, astonished. For a moment he appeared crushed; +then leaped to his feet flourishing a long knife he had drawn from his +boot. "I'll, not be taken from this place alive!" he shrieked, beside +himself with hysteria. "Where are all you brave fellows who were going to +see me through this?" + +Scannell looked at him sadly. In the pause came a sharp knocking at the +door of the jail. The sheriff turned away. A moment later Casey, listening +intently, heard the door open and close, heard the sound of talking. He +fairly darted to his table, scrawled a paper, and called to attract +attention. Marshal North, answered the summons. + +"Give this to them--to the Vigilantes," urged Casey, thrusting the paper +into his hands. North glanced through the note. + +TO THE VIGILANT COMMITTEE. Gentlemen: I am willing to go before you if you +will let me speak but ten minutes. I do not wish the blood of any man upon +my head. + +JAS. CASEY + +But after North had gone to deliver this, Casey again sprang to his feet, +again flourished his bowie knife, again ramped up and down, again swore he +would never be taken alive. A deputy passed the door. Casey's demeanour +collapsed again. + +"Tell them," he begged this man earnestly; "tell them if two respectable +citizens will promise me gentlemanly treatment, I'll go peaceably! I will +not be dragged through the streets like a dog! If they will give me a fair +trial and allow me to summon my witnesses, I'll yield!" + +And the deputy left him pacing up and down, waving his knife, muttering +wildly to, himself. + +On entering the jail door Coleman and his companions bowed formally to the +sheriff. + +"We have come for the prisoner, Casey," said Coleman. "We ask that he be +peaceably delivered us handcuffed, at the door, immediately." + +"Under existing circumstances," replied Scannell, "I shall make no +resistance. The prison and its contents are yours." + +But Truett interrupted pointedly: + +"We want only the man Casey, at present," he said. "For the rest we hold +you strictly accountable." + +Scannell bowed without reply. North and the deputy came in succession to +deliver Casey's messages, and to report his apparent determination. The +committee offered no comment. They penetrated to the ulterior of the jail. +Many men, apparently unarmed, idling about as though merely spectators, +looked at them curiously as they passed. Casey heard them, coming and +sprang back from the door, holding his long knife dramatically poised. +Coleman walked directly to the door, where he stopped, looking Casey coldly +in the eye. The seconds, passed. Neither man stirred. At the end of a full +minute Coleman said sharply: + +"Lay down that knife!" + +As though his incisive tones had broken the spell, Casey moved. He looked +wildly to right and to left; then flung the knife from him and buried his +face in his hands. + +"Your requests are granted," said Coleman shortly; then to Marshal North: +"Open the door and bring him out." + + + + +LXI + + +On the veranda of the unoccupied house above the jail Nan Keith stood +rigid, her hand upon her heart. During the period of the committee's +absence inside the jail she did not alter her position by a hair's breadth. +She was in the hypnosis of a portentous waiting. Time fell into the abyss +of eternity: whether it were ten minutes or ten hours did not matter in the +least. + +For this was to Nan in the nature of a revelation so sudden and so complete +that it filled her whole soul. Had she known what Mrs. Sherwood was taking +her to see, she would have pre-visualized a drunken, disorderly, howling, +bloodthirsty mob; a huge composite of brawling antagonisms, of blind fury, +of vulgar irrationalisms. Here were men filled with purpose; This was what +caught at her breath--the grim silent purpose of it! The orderly +progression of events, moving with the certainty of a fate, was like the +steady crescendo of solemn music. And this crescendo rose in her as a tide +of emotion that overflowed and drowned her. The right and wrong--as she had +examined them intellectually or through, the darkened glasses of her caste +prejudices--were quite lost. This was merely something primitive, +wonderful, beautiful. The spectacle was at the moment of suspense, yet she +felt so impatience--the wheel must turn in its own majestic circle--but +only an intense expectation. And in this she felt, subconsciously, that she +was one with the multitude. + +The jail door swung open. The committee came out. In the middle of their +compact group walked a stranger. + +"Casey!" breathed a vast voice from the crowd. + +An indescribable burst of grateful relief fluttered across the upturned +faces as a breeze across water. It was almost timid at first, but gathered +strength as it spread. It rolled up the hillside. A great, deep breath +seemed to fill the lungs of the throng. The murmur swelled suddenly, was on +the point of bursting into the frantic cheering of twenty thousand men. + +But Coleman, his hat removed, raised his hand. In obedience to the simple +gesture the cheer was stifled. In an instant all was still. The little +group entered the carriages, which immediately wheeled and drove away. + +Nan, standing bolt upright, her attitude still unchanged, caught her breath +at the inhibition of the cheer. She did not even try to wink away the tears +that rolled down her cheeks. Through them she saw the troops wheel with the +precision of veterans, and march away after the carriages. The crowd melted +slowly. Soon were left only the inscrutable jail, the gun still pointed at +its door, the rigid ranks of Olney's Sixty, who had evidently been left on +guard, and a few stragglers. + +Suddenly she turned and walked away. Mrs. Sherwood followed her as rapidly +as she could, but did not succeed in catching up with her. At the corner +below the Keiths' house she stopped, watched until Nan had gained her own +dooryard, then turned toward home, a smile sketching her lips, a light in +her eyes. + +Nan flung open her door and went directly to the parlour. She stood in the +doorway contemplating the scene. It was very cozy. The afternoon sun +slanted through the high-narrow windows of the period, gilding the dust +motes floating lazily to and fro. The tea table, set with a snowy doth, +glittered invitingly, its silver and porcelain, its plates of dainty +sandwiches and thin waferlike cookies--Wing Sam's specialty--enticingly +displayed. Two easy chairs had been drawn close, and, before the unoccupied +one a low footstool had been placed. Ben Sansome sat in the other. He was, +as usual, exquisitely dressed. All his little appointments were not only +correct but worn easily. The varicoloured waistcoat, the sparkling studs +and cravat pins, the bright, soft silk tie, were all subdued from their +ordinary too-vivid effect by the grace with which they were carried. Nan +saw all this, and appreciated it dispassionately, appraising him anew +through clarified vision. Especially she noticed the waxed ends of his +small moustache. He had, at the sound of her entrance, lighted the tea +kettle; and as she came in he smiled up at her brightly. + +"You see," he cried gayly, "I am doing your task for you! I have the lamp +all lit!" + +She paid no attention to this, but advanced two steps into the room. + +"Which side are you on, anyway?" she asked abruptly and a little harshly. + +Sansome raised his eyebrows in faint and fastidious surprise. + +"Dear lady, what do you mean?" + +"The only thing I can mean in these times: are you with the Law and Order, +or with the Committee of Vigilance?" + +Sansome shrugged his shoulders whimsically and sank back into his chair. + +"How can you ask that, dear lady?" he begged pathetically. "You would not +class me with the rabble, I hope." + +But Nan did not in the slightest degree respond to the lightness of his +tone. Her own was cold and detached. + +"I do not know how to class you," she said. "But I asked you a question." + +Sansome arose to his feet again. His manner now became sympathetic, but +into it had crept the least hint of resentment, + +"I don't understand your mood" he told her. "You are overwrought." + +Nan's self-control slipped by ever so little. She did not actually stamp +her foot, but her delivery of her next speech achieved that for her. + +"Will you answer me?" she demanded. "Which side, are you on?" + +"I am on the side every gentleman is on," replied Sansome, a trifle stung. +"The side of the law." + +"Then," she cried, with a sudden intensity, "why weren't you there--on your +side--defending the jail?' Why are you here?" + +Ben Sansome's knowledge of women was wide, and he therefore imagined it +profound. Here he recognized the symptoms of hysteria; cause unknown. He +adopted the lightly soothing. + +"I thought I was asked here!" he cried with quizzical mock pathos. + +She stared at him a contemplative instant so steadily that he coloured. She +was not seeing him, however; she was seeing Keith, standing with his +fellows in the open, under the walls of the jail and its hidden guns. With +a short laugh she turned away. + +"You were," said she. "Help yourself to tea. As you say, I am overwrought. +I am going to lie down." + +Her one compelling instinct now was to get away from him before something +in her brain snapped. He became soothing. + +"Won't you have a cup of tea first?" he urged. "It will do you good." + +"A cup of tea!" she repeated with deadly calm. It seemed such an ending to +such a day! She tried to laugh, but strangled in her throat; and she bolted +wildly from the room, leaving Ben Sansome staring. + + + + +LXII + + +Nan's high exaltation of spirit, which still soared at the altitude to +which the events of the afternoon had lifted it, next expressed itself in a +characteristically feminine manner: she picked flowers in the garden, +arranged them, placed them effectively, set the table herself, lighted the +lamps, touched a match to the wood fire always comfortable in San Francisco +evenings, slightly altered the position of the chairs, visited Wing Sam +with fresh instructions. Gringo, who looked on all this as for his especial +benefit, took his place luxuriously before the grate. It was a cozy, +homelike scene. Then she dressed slowly and carefully in her most becoming +gown--the only gown Keith had ever definitely singled out for individual +praise--took especial pains with her hair, and finally descended to join +Gringo. The latter, as a greeting intended to show his entire confidence, +promptly rolled over to expose his vitals to her should it be her pleasure +to hurt a poor defenceless dog. He was a ridiculous sight, upside down, his +tongue lolling out, his eye rolled up at her adoringly. She laughed at him +a little, then leaned swiftly over to confide something in his ear. + +But that evening Keith was late. The clock on the mantel chimed clearly the +hour, then the quarter and the half. Wing Sam came to protest aggreivedly +that "him glub catchum cold--you no wait!" Nan was severe with Wing Sam and +his suggestion--so unwontedly severe that Wing Sam returned to the kitchen +muttering darkly. He had caught the atmosphere of celebration, somehow, and +on his own-initiative had frosted with wonderful white a cake not yet cut, +and on the cake had carefully traced pink legends in Chinese and English +characters. The former was one of those conventional mottoes seen on every +laundry, club, and temple which would have translated "Health, long life, +and happiness"; the other Wing Sam had copied from a lithograph he much +admired. It read "Use Rising Sun Stove Polish." Glowering with resentment, +Wing Sam scraped the frosting from the cake. + +At eight o'clock a small boy delivered a note at the door and scuttled back +to the centre of excitement. It was a scrawl from Keith, saying that he was +detained, would not be home to dinner, might not be in at all. Nan sat down +to a cold, belated meal served by a loftily disapproving Chinaman. She +tried to think of her pride in Keith, and the work he, in company with his +fellows, was doing for the city; to recall some of her exaltation of the +afternoon; but it was very difficult. Her little preparations were so much +nearer. The table, the flowers, the shaded lamps, the fire on the hearth, +her gown, the twist of her hair, all mocked her anticipations. In spite of +herself her spirits went down to zero. She could not eat, she could not +even sit at the table through the service of the various courses. Midway in +the meal she threw aside her napkin and returned abruptly to the drawing- +room. The fire was snapping merrily on the hearth. Gringo opened his eyes +at her entrance, recognized his beloved mistress, and rolled over as usual, +all four legs in the air, his tender stomach confidingly exposed, for Who +could be so brutal as to hurt a poor, defenceless dog? Nan kicked him +pettishly in the ribs. Gringo stopped panting, and drew in his tongue, but +otherwise did not shift his posture. This was, of course, a mistake. Nan +kicked him again. Gringo rose deliberately and retired with dignity to the +coldest, darkest, most cheerless corner he could find, where he sat and +looked dejected. + +"You look such a silly fool!" Nan told him relentlessly. + +Thus passed the moment of exaltation and expansion. If Keith had come home +to dine, it is probable that the barrier between them--of which he was only +dimly conscious--would have been broken. But by midnight Nan had, as she +imagined, "thought out" the situation. She was able to see him now through +eyes purged of self-pity or self-thought. She came to full realization, +which she formulated to herself, that she was not now the central point of +his interest--that she was "no longer" the central point, as she expressed +it. She was right also in her conclusion that all day long he hardly gave +her more than a perfunctory thought. So far, her facts were absolutely +correct. But Nan was, in spite of her natural good mind and married +experience, too ignorant of man psychology to draw the true conclusion. +Indeed, very few women ever realize man's possibilities of single-minded +purpose and concentration to the temporary exclusion of other things. +Keith's whole being was carried by this moral movement in which he was +involved. He simply took Nan for granted; and that is something a woman +never gets used to, and always misinterprets. + +"He no longer loves me!" she said to herself, in this hour of plain +thinking. She faced it squarely; and her heart sank to the depths; for she +still loved him, and the sight of him that afternoon amid the guns had told +her how much. + +But her next thought was not of herself, but of him, and the situation in +which, he was working out his destiny. "How can I best help?" she asked +herself, which showed that the spirit aroused in her that afternoon had not +in reality died. And her intellect relentlessly pointed out to her that her +only aid would come from her self-effacement, her standing one side. When +the great work was done, then, perhaps-- + +So affairs in the Keith household went on exactly as before. Nobody but +Gringo knew that anything had happened; and he only realized that the +universe had suffered an upheaval, so that now mistresses might kick their +poor defenceless dogs in the stomach. + + + + +LXIII + + +Casey was safely in custody. Cora also had been taken on a second trip to +the jail. They had been escorted into the headquarters, the doors of which +had closed behind them and behind the armed men who guarded them. The +streets were filled with an orderly crowd. They waited with that same +absence of excitement, impatience, or tumult so characteristic of all the +popular gatherings of that earnest time, save when the upholders of the law +were gathered. After a long interval one of the committeemen, Dows by name, +appeared at an upper window. He did not have to appeal for attention, and +had barely to raise his voice. + +"It is not the intention of the committee to be hasty," he announced. +"Nothing more will be done to-day." + +Silence greeted this statement. At last some one spoke up: + +"Where are Casey and Cora?" he asked. + +"The committee holds possession of the jail; all are safe," replied Dows. + +With this assurance the crowd was completely satisfied, as it proved by +dispersing quietly and at once. + +Of the three thousand enrolled men, three hundred were retained under arms +at headquarters; a hundred surrounded and watched the jail; the rest were +dismissed. About midnight a dense fog descended on the city. The streets +were deserted. But on the roofs of the jail and the adjacent buildings +indistinct figures stalked to and fro in the misty moonlight. + +All next day, which was Monday, headquarters remained inscrutable. Small +activities went forward. Guards and patrols were changed. The cannon was +brought from before the jail. Early in the day a huge crowd gathered, +packing the adjacent streets, watching patiently far into the night to see +what would happen. Nothing happened. + +But about the city at large patrols of armed men moved on mysterious +business. Gun shops were picketed, and their owners forbidden to sell +weapons. Evidently the committee was carrying out a considered plan. + +Toward evening the weather thickened and a rain came on. It turned colder. +Still the crowd did not disperse. It stood in its sodden shoes, hugging its +sodden cloaks to its shoulders, humped over, waiting. About eight o'clock +several companies in rigid marching formation appeared. A stir of interest, +shivered through the crowd, but died as it became evident that this was +only a general relief for those on duty during the day. At midnight, or +thereabouts, the crowd went home; but again by first daylight the streets +for blocks were jammed full. Still it rained with a sullen, persistence. +Still nothing happened. + +And all over the city business was practically at a stand. Knots of men +stood conferring on every corner. Conversation in mixed company was very +wary indeed. No man dared express himself too openly. The courts were +empty. Some actually closed, on one excuse or another, but most went +through a form of business. Some judges took the occasion to go to White +Sulphur Springs on vacations, long contemplated, they said. These things +occasioned lively comment. It was generally known that the Sacramento +steamer of the evening before had carried several hundred passengers, all +with pressing business at the capitol, or somewhere else. As our chronicler +tells it: "A good many who had things on their minds left for the country." +Still it rained; still the crowd waited; still the headquarters of the +Committee of Vigilance remained closed and inscrutable. + + + + +LXIV + + +During all this time the Executive Committee sat in continuous session, for +it had been agreed that no recess of more than thirty minutes should be +taken until a decision had been reached. The room in which they sat was a +large one, lighted by windows on one side only. Coleman sat behind a raised +desk at one end. Below it stood a small table accommodating two. On either +side six small tables completed three sides of a hollow square. No +ornament, no especial comforts--the desk, the thirteen pine tables, the +twenty-eight pine chairs, the wooden walls, the oil lamps, the four long +windows--that was all. + +The prisoners, who, when they had seen the thousands before the jail, had +expected nothing less than instant execution by lynch law, began to take +heart. After a man has faced what he thinks is the prospect of immediate +and unavoidable death, such treatment as this arouses real hope. The +prisoners were strictly guarded and closely confined, it is true, but they +understood they were to have a fair trial "according to law." That last +phrase cheered them immensely. They knew the law. Nor were they entirely +cut off from the outside. Casey was allowed to see several men in regard to +certain pressing business matters, and was permitted to talk to them +freely, although always in the presence of a member of the committee. Cora +received visits from Belle. She had spent thousands in his legal defence; +now she came to see him faithfully, and tried to cheer him, but was plainly +cowed. Her self-control had vanished. She clung to him passionately, +weeping. He was forced to what should have been her rôle; and in cheering +her he managed to gain a modicum of self-confidence for himself. She left +him at midnight, much reassured. + +But on Monday morning Cora's cell door was thrown open, and he was motioned +forth by a grave man, who conducted him through echoing gloomy corridors to +the committee room, where he was left facing the tables and the men who sat +behind them. Cora's natural buoyancy vanished. The men before him met his +gaze with rigid, unbending solemnity. The rain beat mournfully against the +windows, blurring the glass, casting the high apartment in a half gloom. +Nobody moved or spoke. All looked at him. The echo of his footsteps died, +and the room was cast in stillness except for the soft dashing of the +storm. + +"Charles Cora," at last pronounced Coleman in measured tones, "you are here +on trial for your life, accused with the murder of United States Marshal +Richardson." + +Cora, who was a plucky man, had recovered his wits. He must have realized +that he was in a tight place, but he kept his head admirably. His demeanour +took on alertness, his manner throughout was respectful, and his voice low. + +"Do I get no counsel?" he inquired. + +"Counsel will be given you." + +He put in an earnest plea for counsel outside the tribunal--impartial +counsel. + +"Our members are impartial," Coleman told him. + +Cora hesitated; locking about him. + +"If Mr. Truett will act for me," he suggested; "and I beg you earnestly, +gentlemen, that the excitement of the time may not be prejudicial to my +interests, that I may have a chance for my life!" + +"Your trial will be fair," he was assured. + +"I shall undertake the defence," Truett agreed briefly; "and petition that +Mr. Smiley be appointed as my assistant." + +This being granted, the three men drew one side for a consultation. In a +short time Truett handed to the sergeant-at-arms--the same man who had +conducted Cora to the tribunal--a list of the witnesses Cora wished to +summon. These were at once sought by a subcommittee outside. In the +meantime, witnesses for the prosecution were one by one admitted, sworn, +and examined. All ordinary forms of law were closely followed. All +essential facts were separately brought out. It was the historic Cora trial +over again, with one difference--gone were the technical delays. By dusk +Keith, who had been called at three, had all but completed the long tale of +his testimony, had finished recounting, not only what he had seen of the +quarrel and the subsequent shooting, but also a detailed account of the +trial, the adverse influences brought to bear on the prosecution, and his +investigations into the question of "undue influence." No attempt was made +to confine the investigation to the technical trial. + +Keith was the last witness for the prosecution. And the witnesses for the +defence, where were they? Of the list submitted by Cora not one could be +found! In hiding, afraid, the perjurers would not appear! + +The dusk was falling in earnest now. The corners of the room were in +darkness. Beneath Coleman's desk Bluxome, the secretary, had lighted an oil +lamp the better to see his notes. In the interest of Keith's testimony the +general illumination had not been ordered. Outside the tiny patch of yellow +light the men of Vigilance sat motionless, listening, their shadows dim and +huge against the wall. + +The door opened, and Charles Doane, the Grand Marshal of the Vigilantes, +advanced three steps into the room. + +"Mr. President," he said clearly, his voice cutting the stillness, "I am +instructed to announce that James King of William is dead." + + + + +LXV + + +Thursday noon was set for the funeral of the man who had given his life +that a city might live. In the room where he had made his brave fight +against death he now lay in state. On Wednesday ten thousand people visited +him there. Early Thursday morning his remains were transferred to the +Unitarian Church where, early as it was, a great multitude had gathered to +do him honour. Now through the long morning hours it sat with him silently. +The church was soon filled to over-flowing; the streets in all directions +became crowded with sober-faced men and women. They knew they would be +unable to get into the church, to attend nearer his last communion with his +fellowmen, but they stayed, feeling vaguely that their mere presence +helped--as, indeed, perhaps it did. Marching bodies from every guild or +society in the city stood in rank after rank, extending down the street as +far as the eye could reach. Hundreds of horsemen, carriages, foot marchers, +quietly, orderly, were already getting into line. They, too, were excluded +from the funeral ceremonies by lack of room; they, too, waited to do honour +to the cortege. This procession was over two miles in length. Each man wore +a band of crčpe around his left arm. The time set for the funeral ceremony +was yet hours distant. + +It seemed that all the city must be there. But those who, hurrying to the +scene, had occasion to pass near the Vigilante headquarters found the +vacant square guarded on all sides by a triple line of armed men. The side +streets, also, were filled with them. They stood in exact alignment, rigid, +bayonets fixed, their eyes straight ahead. Three thousand of them were +there. Hour after hour they stood, untiring, staring at the building, which +gave no sign; just as the other multitude, only a few squares away, stood +hour after hour, patiently waiting in the bright sun. + +At quarter before one the upper windows of the headquarters building were +thrown open, and small platforms, extending about three feet, were thrust +from two of them. An instant later two heavy beams were shoved out from the +flat roof directly over the platforms. From the ends of the beams dangled +nooses of rope. A dead wait ensued. Across the silence could be heard +faintly from the open windows of the distant church the chords of an organ, +the rise and fall of a hymn, then the measured cadence of oration. The +funeral services had begun. + +As though this were a signal, the blinds that had partly closed the window +openings were swung back, and Charles Cora was conducted to the end of one +of the little platforms. His face was covered with a white handkerchief, +and his arms and legs were bound with cords. The attendant adjusted the +noose, then left him. An instant later Casey appeared. He had petitioned +not to be blindfolded, so his face was bare. Cora stood bolt upright, +motionless as a stone. Casey's nerve had left him; his face was pale and +his eyes bloodshot. As the attendant placed the noose, the murderer's eyes +darted here and there over the square. Did he still expect that the +boastful promises of his friends would be fulfilled, did he still hope for +rescue? If so, that hope must have died as he looked down on those set, +grim faces staring straight ahead, on that sinister ring of steel. He began +to babble. + +"Gentlemen!" he cried at them, "I am not a murderer! I do not feel afraid +to meet my God on a charge of murder! I have done nothing but what I +thought was right! To-morrow let no editor dare call me a murderer! +Whenever I was injured I have resented it. It has been part of my education +during twenty-nine years! Gentlemen, I forgive you this persecution! O God! +My poor mother! O God!" + +Not one word of contrition; not one word for the man who lay yonder in the +church; not one syllable for the heartbroken wife kneeling at the coffin! +He ceased. And his words went out into the void and found no echo against +that wall of steel. + +They waited. For what? Across the intervening housetops the sound of +speaking ceased to carry. The last orator had given place. At the door of +the sanctuary was visible a slight, commotion: the coffin was being carried +out. It was placed in the hearse. Every head was bared. There ensued a +slight pause; then from overhead the great bell boomed once. Another bell +in the next block answered. A third, more distant, chimed in. From all +parts of the city tolled the solemn requiem. + +At the first stroke the long cortčge moved forward toward Lone Mountain; at +the first stroke the Vigilantes, as one man, presented arms; at the first +stroke the platforms dropped and Casey and Cora fell into the abyss of +eternity. + + + + +LXVI + + +This execution occasioned a great storm of indignation among the adherents +of law and order. Serious-minded men, like Judge Shattuck, admitted the +essential justice rendered, but condemned strongly the method. + +"Of course they were murderers," cried the judge, "and of course they +should have been hung, and of course the city is better off without either +of them. I'm not afraid of their friends, and I don't care who knows what I +think! And some very worthy citizens, wrongly, are involved in this, some +citizens whom otherwise I greatly respect. It is better that a hundred +criminals should escape than that the whole law of California should be +outraged by an act that denies at once the value and the authority of our +government. The energy, the talent for organization, that this committee +has displayed in the exercise of usurped authority, might have been +directed in aid of the courts, consistently with the constitution and the +laws, with, equal if not greater efficiency." + +But very few were able to see it in this calm spirit. The ruling class, the +"chivalry," the best element of the city had been slapped in the face. And +by whom? By a lot of "Yankee shopkeepers," assisted by renegades like +Keith, Talbot Ward, and others. The committee was a lot of stranglers; they +ought to be punished as murderers; they ought to be shot down, egad, as +revolutionaries! It was realized that street shooting had temporarily +become unsafe; otherwise, there is no doubt that the hotheads would have +gone forth deliberately abrawling. There were many threats made against +individuals, many condign--and lawless--punishments promised them. + +As an undercurrent, nowhere expressed or even acknowledged, was a strong +feeling of relief. Any Law and Order would have fought at the mere +suggestion; but every one of them felt it. After all, the law had been +surprised and overpowered. It had yielded only to overwhelming odds. With +the execution of Cora and Casey accomplished, the committee might be +expected to disband. And, of course, when it did disband, then the law +would have its innings. Its forces would be better organized and +consolidated, its power assured. It could then apprehend and bring to +justice the ringleaders of this unwarranted undertaking. Like dogs at the +heels of a retreating foe, the hotheads became bolder as this secret +conviction gained strength. They were in favour of using an armed force to +take Coleman and his fellow-conspirators into the custody of the law. +Calmer spirits held this scheme in check. + +"Let them have rope," advised Blatchford. "I know mobs. Now that they've +hung somebody, their spirit will die down. Give them a few days." + +But to the surprise, and indignation of these people, the Vigilantes showed +no of an intention to disband. On the contrary, their activities extended +and their organization tightened. The various companies drilled daily until +they went through evolutions and the manual of arms with all the perfection +of regular troops. The committee's books remained open; by the last of the +week over seven thousand men had signed the rolls. Vanloads of furniture +and various supplies were backed up before the doors of headquarters, and +were carried within by members of the organization--no non-member ever saw +the inside of the building while it was occupied by the Vigilantes. The +character of these furnishings and supplies would seem to argue an +intention of permanence. Stoves, cooking utensils, cot beds, provisions, +blankets, bulletin boards, arms, chairs, tables, field guns, ammunition, +were only some items. Doorkeepers were always in attendance. Sentinels +patrolled the streets and the roof. The great warehouse took on an +exceedingly animated appearance. + +The Executive Committee was in session all of each day. It became known +that a "black list" of some sort was in preparation. On the heels of this +orders came for the Vigilante police, instructing them to arrest certain +men and to warn certain others to leave town immediately. It was evident +that a clean sweep was contemplated. + +Among the first of those arrested was the notorious Yankee Sullivan, an ex- +prize fighter, ward heeler, ballot-box staffer, and shoulder striker. He +had always been a pillar of strength to those engaged in corrupt practices. +This man went to pieces completely. He confessed the details of many of his +own crimes but, what was more important, implicated many others as well. +His testimony was invaluable, not necessarily as final proof against those +whom he accused, but as indications for thorough investigations. Finally, +unexpectedly, he committed suicide in his cell. It seems he had been +accustomed to from sixty to eighty drinks of whiskey a day, and the sudden, +complete deprivation had destroyed him. Warned by this, the committee +henceforward issued regular rations of whiskey to its prisoners! + +Trials in due order, with counsel for defence and ample opportunity to call +witnesses, went on briskly. Those who anticipated more hangings were +disappointed. It became known that the committee had set for itself the +rule that capital punishment would be inflicted only for crimes so +punishable by the regular law. But each outgoing ship carried crowds of +those on whom had been passed the sentence of banishment. The majority of +these were, of course, low thugs, "Sydney ducks," hangers on; but a very +large proportion were taken from what had been known as the city's best. In +the law courts these men would in many cases have been declared as white as +the driven snow. But they were undesirable citizens; the committee so +decided them; and bade them begone. Charles Duane, Wooley Kearney, William +Carr, Edward Bulger, Philander Brace, William McLean, J.D. Musgrave, and +Peter Wightman were well-known and influential names found on the "black +list," Peter Wightman, James White, and our old friend, Ned McGowan, ran +away. Hundreds of others left the city. A terror spread among the ignorant +and vicious of the underworld. Some of the minor offenders brought in by +the Vigilante police were by the Executive Committee turned over to the +regular law courts. _Every one of such cases was promptly convicted by +those courts_! + +This did not look much like disbanding, nor did any opportunity for +wholesale arrest of the anarchists seem imminent. The leaders of the Law +and Order faction were at last aroused. + +"This is more than anarchy; it is revolution," said Judge Caldwell. "It is +a successful revolution because it is organized. The people of this city +are scattered and powerless. They in turn should be organized to combat the +forces of disorder." + +In pursuance of this belief--that the public at large needed only to be +called together in order to defend its institutions--handbills were printed +and newspaper notices published calling a meeting for June and in +Portsmouth Square. Elaborate secret preparations, involving certain +distributions of armed men were made to prevent what was considered +certain interference. This was useless. Immediately after the appearance of +the notice the Committee of Vigilance issued orders that the meeting was in +no manner to be disturbed, and hung out placards reading: + +"Members of the Vigilance Committee: Order must be maintained." + +"Friends of the Vigilance Committee: Keep out of the Square," etc. + +The meeting was well attended. Enormous crowds gathered, not only in and +around the square itself, but in balconies and windows and on housetops. It +was a ribald, disrespectful crowd, evidently out for a good time, calling +back and forth, shouting question or comment at the men gathered about the +speaker's platform. + +"What kind of a circus do you call this show, anyway?" roared a huge, bare- +armed miner in red shirt. + +"This is the Law and Murder meeting," instantly answered some one from a +balcony. + +This phrase tickled the crowd hugely. The words were passed from man to +man. Eventually they became the stereotyped retort. "Stranglers!" sneered +one faction. "Law and Murder!" flung back the other. + +On the platform stood or sat the owners of many of the city's proud names-- +judges, jurists, merchants, holders of high political office, men whose +influence a month ago had been paramount and irresistible. Among them were +famed orators, men who had never failed to hold and influence a crowd. But +two hundred feet away little could be heard. It early became evident that, +though there would be no interference, the sentiment of the crowd was +against them. And, what was particularly maddening, the sentiment was good- +humoured. Even the compliment of being taken seriously was denied them! + +Colonel Ed Baker came forward to speak. The colonel's gift of eloquence was +such that, in spite of his known principles, his lack of scruple, his +insincerity, he won his way to a picturesque popularity and fame. Later he +delivered a funeral oration over the remains of David Broderick that has +gone far to invest the memory of that hard-headed, venal, unscrupulous +politician with an aura of romance. But the crowd would have little of him +this day. An almost continuous uproar drowned his efforts. Catch words such +as liberty, constitution, _ habeas corpus_, trial by jury, freedom, etc., +occasionally became audible. The people were not interested. + +"See Cora's defender!" cried someone, voicing the general suspicion that +Baker had been one of the little gambler's hidden counsel. "Cora!" "Ed +Baker!" "Ten thousand dollars!" "Out of that, you old reprobate!" jeered +the audience. He spoke ten minutes against the storm, then yielded, red +faced and angry. Others tried in vain. A Southerner named Benham, while +deploring passionately the condition of the city which had been seized by a +mob, robbed of its sacred rights, etc., happened inadvertently to throw +back his coat, thus revealing the butt of a Colt's revolver. The bystanders +caught the point at once. + +"There's a pretty Law and Order man!" they shrieked. "Hey, Benham! Don't +you know it's against the law to go armed?" + +"I carry this weapon," shrieked Benham, passionately shaking his fist, "not +as an instrument to overthrow the law, but to uphold it!" + +A clear, steady voice from a nearby balcony made itself distinctly heard: + +"In other words, sir, you break the law in order to uphold the law," it +said. "What more are the Vigilantes doing?" + +The crowd went wild over this repartee. The confusion became worse. Old +Judge Campbell was thrust forward, in the hope that his age and his senior +judgeship would command respect. He was unable to utter consecutive +sentences. + +"I once thought," he interrupted himself piteously, "that I was the free +citizen of a free country, but recent occurrences have convinced me that I +am a slave; a slave, gentlemen, more a slave than any on a Southern +plantation for they know their masters, but I know not mine!" + +But his auditors refused to be affected. + +"Oh, yes, you do!" they informed him. "You know your masters as well as +anybody--two of them were hung the other day!" + +After this the meeting broke up. The most ardent Law and Order man could +not deny that as a popular demonstration it had been a fizzle. + +But if this attempt at home to gain coherence failed, up river the +partisans had better luck. A hasty messenger with tidings for the ear of +the Executive Committee only was followed by rapidly spreading rumours. +Five hundred men with two pieces of artillery were coming down from +Sacramento to liberate the prisoners, especially Billy Mulligan, or die in +the attempt. They were reported to be men from the southeast: Texans, +Carolinians, crackers from Pike County, all fire-eaters, reckless, sure to +make trouble. Their numbers were not in themselves formidable, but every +man knew the city still to be full of scattered warriors needing only +leaders and a rallying point. The materials for a very pretty civil war +were laid for the match. An uneasiness pervaded headquarters, not for the +outcome, but for the unavoidable fighting and bloodshed. + +Therefore, when Olney hastily entered the main hall early in the evening, +and in a loud voice called for "two hundred men with side arms for especial +duty," there was a veritable scramble to enlist. Olney picked out the +required number, selecting, it was afterward noticed, only the big men +physically. They fell in, and were marched quickly out Market Street. It +was dark. Expectations were high. Just beyond Second Street, dimly visible +against the sky or in the faint starlight, they saw a mysterious force +opposing them, men on foot, horses, the wheels of guns. Each man gripped +his revolver and set his teeth. Here, evidently, from this ordinarily +deserted and distant part of town, a flanking attack was to have been +delivered. As they drew nearer they made out wagons; and nearer still-bale +upon bale of gunny sacks, and shovels! + +The truth dawned on them, and a great laugh went up. "Sold! Sold! Sold!" +they cried. + +But they set to work with a will, filled the gunny sacks with sand, piled +them on the wagons; and so by morning Fort Gunnybags, as headquarters was +thenceforth called, came into existence. Cannon were mounted, breastworks +piled, embrasures planned. + +The five hundred fire-eaters were no myth. They disembarked, greeted the +horde of friends who had come to meet them, marched to Fort Gunnybags, +looked it over, thrust their hands in their pockets, and walked peacefully +away to the nearest barrooms! + +Wise men. By now the Vigilante dispositions were so complete that in the +mere interest of examining so sudden yet so thorough an organization, a +paragraph or so may profitably be spent on it. Behind headquarters was a +long shed stable in which were to be found at all hours saddle horses and +artillery horses, all saddled and bridled, ready for instant use. Twenty- +six pieces of artillery, mostly sent in by captains of merchant vessels in +the harbour, were here parked. Other cannon were mounted for the defence of +Fort Gunnybags. Muskets, rifles, and sabres enough to arm 6,000 men had +been accumulated--and there were 6,000 men to use them! A French portable +barricade had been constructed in the event of possible street fighting, a +sort of wheeled framework that could be transformed into litters or scaling +ladders. Sutlers' offices and kitchens could feed a small army. Flags and +painted signs carrying the emblematic open eye of vigilance decorated the +rooms, A huge alarm bell had been mounted on the roof. The mattresses, +beds, cots, blankets, and other furniture necessary to sleep four companies +on the premises had been provided. A completely equipped armourer's shop +and a hospital with all supplies occupied the third story. The forces were +divided into four companies of artillery, one squadron and two troops of +cavalry, four regiments, and thirty-two companies of infantry; besides the +small but efficient police organization. A tap on the bell gathered these +men in an incredibly short space of time. "As a rule," says Bancroft, +"within fifteen minutes from the time the bell was tapped, on any occasion, +seven-tenths of the entire Vigilante forces would be in their places armed +ready for battle." + +Another corps, not as heroic, but quite as necessary, it was found +advisable to appoint. The sacking of which Fort Gunnybags was made was of +very coarse texture. When dry, the sand filling tended to run out! +Therefore, those bags had to be kept constantly wet, and somebody had to do +it. Enemies sneeringly remarked that Fort Gunnybags consumed much more +water without than within; but this joke lost its point when it became +known that the committee, decades in advance of its period, had prohibited +alcohol absolutely! + +Realizing from the two lamentable fiascos just recounted that little could +be accomplished by private initiative, the upholders of the law turned +their attention to Sacramento. Here they had every reason to hope for +success. No matter how well organized the Vigilantes might be, or how +thoroughly they carried the sympathies of the local public, there could be +no doubt that they were acting in defiance of the law, were, in fact, no +better than rebels. It was not only within the power, it was the duty of +the governor of the State to declare the city in a condition of +insurrection. + +This being accomplished, it followed logically that the State troops must +put down the insurrection; and if they failed, there was still the immense +power of the republic to call upon. After all, when you look at it that +way, this handful of disturbers amounted to very little. + +The first step was to win over the governor. Without him the next step +could not be taken. Accordingly all the big guns of San Francisco took the +_Senator_ for Sacramento. There they met Terry, Volney Howard, and others +of the same ilk. No governor of Johnson's sort could long withstand such +pressure. He promised to issue the proclamation of insurrection as soon as +it was "legally proved" that the committee had acted outside the law. The +mere fact that it had already hanged two men and deported a great number of +others meant nothing. That, apparently, was not legal proof. + +In order that all things should be legal, then, Terry issued a writ of +_habeas corpus_ for the body of one William Mulligan, and gave it into the +hands of Deputy-sheriff Harrison for service on the committee. Nobody +expected the latter to deliver over Mulligan. + +"But they'll deny the writ," said Terry, "and that will constitute a legal +defiance of the State. The governor will then be legally justified in +issuing his proclamation, and ordering out the State troops to enforce the +writ." + +If the State troops proved inadequate, the plan was then to call on the +United States--as locally represented by General Wool and Captain David +Farragut--for assistance. With this armed backing three times the Vigilante +force could be quickly subdued. As it was all legal, it could not fail. + +Harrison took the writ of _habeas corpus_ and proceeded to San Francisco. +He presented himself at headquarters, produced his writ, and had himself +announced to the Executive Committee then in session. + +"Tell him to go to hell!" growled someone. + +But a half-dozen members saw through the ruse, and interposed vigorous +objections. + +"I move," said Dempster solemnly, "that our police be permitted to remove +all prisoners for a few hours." + +This was carried, and put into immediate effect. Deputy Harrison was then +politely received, his writ fully acknowledged, and he was allowed to +search the premises. Of course he found nothing, and departed much +crestfallen. The scheme had failed. The committee had in no way denied his +authority or his writ. Harrison was no fool. He saw clearly what he had +been expected to do. On his way back to Sacramento he did some thinking. To +Terry he unblushingly returned the writ endorsed: "Prevented from service +by armed men." For the sake of the cause Harrison had lied! + +Johnson immediately issued his proclamation. The leaders turned with +confidence to the Federal authorities for assistance. To their blank dismay +General Wool refused to furnish arms. His position was that he had no +authority to do so without orders from Washington. The sympathies of this +doughty old soldier were not with this attempt. Colonel Baker and Volney +Howard waited on him, and after considerable conversation made the mistake +of threatening to report him to Washington for refusing to uphold the law. + +"I think, gentlemen," flashed back the veteran, "I know my duty, and in its +performance dread no responsibility." + +So saying he bowed them from the room. Farragut equally could not clearly +see why he should train the guns of his ship on the city. With this fiasco +the opposition for the moment died. The Executive Committee went on +patiently working down through its black list. It announced that after June +24th no new cases would be taken, A few days later it proclaimed an +"adjournment parade" on July 5th. It considered its work done. The city had +become safe. + + + + +LXVII + + +But this peaceful outcome did not suit the aristocratic wing of the Law and +Order party in the least. The haughty, supremely individualistic, bold, +forceful, often charming coterie of fire-eaters had, in their opinion, been +insulted, and they wanted reprisal, punishment, blood. Terry, Baker, +Bennett, Miles, Webb, Nugent, Blatchford, Rowlee, Caldwell, Broderick, +Ware, Volney Howard, Black--to mention only a few--chafed intolerably. Such +men were accustomed to have their own way, to cherish an ultra-sensitive +"honour," to be looked up to; had come to consider themselves as especially +privileged, to look upon themselves as direct representatives of the only +proper government and administration of law. This revolt of the "lower +classes," the "smug, psalm-singing Yankees," the "shopkeepers," was +intolerable impudence. Because of a series of accidents, proper resentment +of such impudence, due punishment of such denial of the law had been +postponed. It was not, therefore, abrogated. + +When, therefore, the committee announced July 5th as a definite date for +disbanding, the lawful authorities and their upholders, blinded by their +passions, were distinctly disappointed. Where the common citizen perceived +only the welcome end of a necessary job well done, they saw slipping away +the last chance for a clash of arms that should teach these rebels their +place. It was all very well to talk of arresting the ringleaders and +bringing them to justice. In the present lamentable demoralization of the +courts it might not work; and even if it did work, the punishment of +ringleaders was small satisfaction as compared to triumphant vindication in +pitched battle. + +Sherman had resigned command of the military in disgust when he found that +General Wool and Captain Farragut had no intention of supplying him Federal +arms, thus closing--save for later inaccurate writing in his "Memoirs"--an +unfortunate phase of his career. In his stead had been chosen General +Volney Howard. Howard was a rather fat, very pompous, wholly conceited +bombastes furioso with apparently remarkable lack of judgment or grasp of a +situation. In the committee's action looking toward adjournment he actually +thought he saw a sign of weakening! + +"Now is the moment for us to show our power!" he said. + +In this he gained the zealous support of Judge Terry and Major Marmaduke +Miles, two others with more zeal than discretion. These three managed to +persuade Governor Johnson to order a parade of State troops in the streets +of San Francisco. Their argument was that such a parade--of legally +organized forces--would overawe the citizens; their secret hope, however, +was that such a show would provoke the desired conflict. This hope they +shared with Howard, after the governor's order had been obtained. Howard's +vanity and inclinations jumped together. He consented. Altogether, it was a +very pretty little plot. + +By now the Law and Order forces had become numerically formidable. The +bobtail and rag-tag, ejected either by force or by fright, flocked to the +colours. A certain proportion of the militia remained in the ranks, though +a majority had resigned. A large contingent of reckless, wild young men, +without a care or a tie in the world, with no interest in the rights of the +case, or, indeed, in themselves, avid only for adventure, offered +themselves as soon as the prospects for a real fight became good. And there +were always the five hundred discomfited Texans. + +Nor were arms now lacking. Contrary to all expectation, the committee had +scrupulously refrained from meddling with the State armouries. All militia +muskets were available. In addition the State had now the right to a +certain quota of Federal arms, stored in the arsenal at Benicia. These +could be requisitioned. + + +At this point in the planning weasly little Jimmy Ware had a bright idea. + +"Look here!" he cried, "how many of those Benicia muskets are there?" + +"About a hundred and fifty stand, sir," Howard told him. + +"Now they can't help us a whole lot," propounded Ware. "They are too few. +But why can't we use them for bait, to get those people on the wrong side +of the fence?" + +"What do you mean?" asked Terry, who knew Ware intimately. + +"Suppose they are shipped from Benicia to the armouries in the city; they +are legally Federal property until they are delivered, aren't they?" + +"Certainly." + +"Well, if the Stranglers should happen to seize them while they're still +Federal property, they've committed a definite offence against the United +States, haven't they?" + +"What do we care about that now?" asked Major Marmaduke Miles, to whom this +seemed irrelevant. + +But Judge Terry's legal mind was struck with the beauty and simplicity of +this ruse. + +"Hold on!" he cried. "If we ship them in a boat, the seizure will be +piracy. If they intercept those arms, they're pirates, and we can legally +call on the Federal forces--_and they'll be compelled to respond, egad!_" + +"They're pretty smart; suppose they smell a rat?" asked Miles doubtfully. + +"Then we'll have the muskets where we want them, anyway. It's worth +trying," replied Ware. + +"I know just the man," put in Terry. "I'll send for him." + +Shortly appeared a saturnine, lank, bibulous individual known as Rube +Maloney. To him Terry explained. He was to charter a sloop, take the +muskets aboard--and get caught. + +"No resistance, mind you!" warned Terry. + +"Trust me for that," grinned Rube. "I ain't anxious for no punctured skin, +nor yit a stretched neck." + +"Pick your men carefully." + +"I'll take Jack Phillips and Jim McNab," said Rube, after a moment's +thought, "and possibly a few refreshments?" he suggested. + +Terry reached into his pocket. + +"Certainly, certainly," said he. "Treat yourself well." + +There remained only to see that the accurate details should get to the +Committee of Vigilance, but in such a manner as to avoid suspicion that the +information had been "planted." + +"Is there anybody we can trust on their rolls?" asked Terry. + +But it was reluctantly conceded that the Vigilantes had pretty well cleaned +out the doubtful ones. Here again, the resourceful Jimmy Ware came to the +rescue. + +"I know your man--Morrell. He'll get it to them. As far as anybody knows, +he hasn't taken sides at all." + +"Will you see him?" asked Terry. + +"I'll see him," promised Jimmy Ware. + + + + +LXVIII + + +By this time the Vigilante organization had pretty well succeeded in +eliminating the few Law and Order sympathizers who had been bold enough to +attempt to play the part of spy by signing the rolls. These had not been +many, and their warning had been sufficient. But Morrell had, in a measure, +escaped distrust even if he had not gained confidence. He had had the sense +not to join the organization; and his attitude of the slightly +supercilious, veiledly contemptuous Britisher, scorning all things about +him, was sufficient guarantee of his neutrality. This breed was then very +common. He left his conference with Jimmy Ware thoroughly instructed, quite +acquiescent, but revolving matters in his own mind to see if somehow he +could not turn them to his advantage. For Morrell was, as always, in need +of money. In addition, he had a personal score to settle with Keith for, +although he had apparently forgotten their last interview regarding +"loans," the memory rankled. And Morrell had not forgotten that before all +this Vigilante business broke he had been made a good offer by Cora's +counsel to get Keith out of the way. Cora was now very dead, to be sure; +but on sounding Jimmy Ware, Morrell learned that Keith's removal would +still be pleasant to the powers that pay. + +If he could work these things all in together--Cogitating absorbedly, he +glanced up to see Ben Sansome sauntering down the street, his malacca cane +at the proper angle, his cylindrical hat resting lightly on his sleek +locks, his whole person spick with the indescribably complete appointment +of the dandy. Sansome was mixed up with the Keiths--perhaps he could be +used--On impulse Morrell hailed him genially, and invited him to take a +drink. The exquisite brightened, and perceptibly hastened his step. +Morrell's rather ultra-Anglicism always fascinated him. They turned in at +the El Dorado, and there seated themselves at the most remote of the small +tables. + +"Well," said Morrell cheerfully, after preliminary small talk had been +disposed of, "how goes the fair Nancy?" + +Sansome's effeminately handsome face darkened. Things had in reality gone +very badly with the fair Nancy. Her revulsion against Sansome at the time +of the capture of the jail had been complete; and as is the case with real +revulsions, she had not attempted to conceal it. Sansome's careful +structure, which had gained so lofty an elevation, had collapsed like the +proverbial house of cards. His vanity had been cruelly rasped. And what had +been more or less merely a dilettante's attraction had been thereby changed +into a thwarted passion. + +"Damn the fair Nancy!" he cried, in answer to Morrell's question. + +Morrell's eyes narrowed, and he motioned quietly to the waiting black to +replenish the glasses. + +"With all my heart, damn her!" said he. "I agree with you; she's a snippy, +cold little piece. Not my style at all. Not worth the serious attention of +a man like yourself. Who is it now, you sly dog?" + +Sansome sipped at his drink; sighed sentimentally. + +"Cold--yes--but if the right man could awaken her--" he murmured. + +"Look here, Sansome, do you want that woman?" + +Sansome looked at his companion haughtily; his eye fell; he drew circles +with the bottom of his glass. + +"By gad!" he cried with a sudden queer burst of fire; "I've got to have +her!" + +And then he turned slowly red, actually started to wriggle, concealed his +embarrassment under cover of his cigar. + +"H'm," observed Morrell speculatively, without looking across at Sansome. +"Tell me, Ben, does she still care for her husband?" + +"No; that I'll swear!" replied Sansome eagerly. + +"If you're sure of that one essential little fact, and you really want her, +why don't you take her?" + +"Damn it, ain't I telling you? She won't see me." + +"Tell me about it," urged Morrell, settling back, and again motioning for +fresh drinks. + +Sansome, whose soul was ripe for sympathy, needed little more urging. He +poured out his tale, sometimes rushingly and passionately, again, as his +submerged but still conventional self-consciousness straggled to the +surface, with shamefaced bravado. "By Gad!" he finished. "You know, I feel +like a raw schoolboy, talkin' like this!" + +Morrell leaned forward, his reserve of manner laid aside, his whole being +radiating sympathetic charm. + +"My dear chap, don't," he begged, laying his hand on Sansome's forearm. "A +genuine passion is the most glorious thing on earth even in callow youth! +But when we old men of the world--" The pause was eloquent. "She's a +headstrong filly," he went on in a more matter-of-fact tone, after a +moment, "takes a bit of handling. You'll pardon me, old chap, if I suggest +that you've gone about things a bit wrong." + +"How is that?" asked Sansome. Under the influence of drinks, confession, +and sympathy, he was in a glow of fellow-feeling. + +"Believe me, I know women and horses! You've ridden this one too much on +the snaffle. Try the curb. That high-spirited sort takes a bit of handling. +They like to feel themselves dominated. You've been too gentle, too +refined. She's gentle and refined for two. What she wants is the brute-- +'Rape of the Sabines' principle. Savage her a bit, and she'll come to heel +like a dog. Not at once, perhaps. Give her a week." + +"That's all very well," objected Sansome, whose eyes were shining, "but how +about that week? She'll run to that beast of a husband with her story--" + +"And be sorry for it afterward--" + +"Too late." + +Morrell appeared to think. + +"There's something in that. But suppose we arranged to get the husband out +of the way, where she couldn't run to him at once--" he suggested. + +They had more drinks. At first Morrell was only sardonically amused; but as +his imagination got to working and the creative power awoke, his interest +became more genuine. It was all too wildly improbable for words--and yet, +was anything improbable in this impossible place? At least it was amusing, +the whole thing was amusing--this super-refined exquisite awakened, to an +emotion so genuine that what judgment he had was now obscured by the +eagerness of his passion; the situation apparently so easily malleable; the +beautiful safety of it all for himself. And it did not really matter if the +whole fantastic plot failed! + +"I tell you, no," he broke his thoughts to reply to some ill-considered +suggestion, "The good old simple methods are the best--they're all laid out +for us by the Drury Lane melodramas. You leave it to me to get rid of him. +Then we'll send the usual message to her that he is lying wounded +somewhere--say at Jake's road house--" + +"Won't that get her to thinking too much of him?" interrupted Sansome +anxiously. + +Morrell, momentarily taken aback, gained time for a reply by pouring +Sansome another drink, "He's more sense left than I thought," he said to +himself; and aloud: "All you want is to get her out to Jake's. She'll go +simply as a matter of wifely duty, and all that. Don't worry. Once she's +there, it's your affair; and unless I mistake my man, I believe you'll know +how to manage the situation"--he winked slyly--"she's really mad about you, +but, like most women, she's hemmed in by convention. Boldly break through +the convention, and she'll come around." + +Sansome was plainly fascinated by the idea, but in a trepidation of doubt, +nevertheless. + +"But suppose she doesn't come around?" he objected vaguely. + +Morrell threw aside his cigarette and arose with an air of decision. + +"I thought you were so crazy mad about her?" he said in tones that cut. +"What are you wasting my time for?" + +"No, no! Hold on!" cried Sansome, at once all fire again. "I'll do it--hold +on!" + +"As a matter of fact," observed Morrell, reseating himself, and speaking as +though there had been no interruption, "I imagine you have little to fear +from that." + +He went into the street a little later, his vision somewhat blurred, but +his mind clear. Sansome, by now very pot-valiant, swaggered alongside. + +"By the way, Ben," said Morrell suddenly, "I hope you go armed--these are +bad times." + +"I have always carried a derringer--and I can use it, too!" boasted +Sansome, swinging his cane. + +Morrell, left alone, stood on the corner for some time diligently engaged +in getting control of himself. He laughed a little. + +"Regular bally melodrama, conspiracy and all, right off the blood-and- +thunder stage," said he. "Wonder if it works in real life? We'll see." + +After his head had cleared, he set to work methodically to find Keith, but +when he finally met that individual it was most casually. Morrell was +apparently in a hurry, but as he saw Keith he appeared to hesitate, then, +making up his mind, he approached the young lawyer. + +"Look here, Keith, a word with you," he said. "I have stumbled on some +information which may be important. I was on my way to the committee with +it, but I'm in a hurry. The governor is shipping arms into the city to- +morrow night from Benicia, by a small sloop." + +"Are you sure of this?" asked Keith. + +"Certain." + +"Where did you get the information?" + +"That I cannot tell you." + +Keith still hesitated; Morrell turned on his heel. + +"Well, I've told you. You can do as you please, but you'd better let the +committee decide whether to take the tip or not." He walked away without +once looking back, certain that Keith would end by reporting the +information, + +"Chances are he'll go with the capturing party," ran the trend of his +thoughts, "and so he'll be out of reach of this little abduction. But I +don't care much. If he follows them out to Jake's by any chance, Sansome +will shoot him--or he'll shoot Sansome. Doesn't matter which. Shootin's +none too healthy these days _for either side!_ Oh, Lord, most amusin'!" + +He thought a while, then turned up the hill toward his own house. A new +refinement of the plot had occurred to the artist's soul too much drink had +released in him. + +Mrs. Morrell was vastly surprised to see him. She was clad in a formless +pink silk wrapper, was reclining on a sofa, and was settling down to +relaxation of mind and body by means of French novels and cigarettes, + +"Well, what are you doing here at this time of day?" was her greeting. + +"Came to bask in the light of your smiles, my dear," he replied with +elephantine irony. + +"Nonsense!" she rejoined sharply, "You've been drinking again!" + +"To be sure; but not enough to hurt." His manner suddenly became +businesslike, "Look here," he asked her, "are you game to make a tidy bit +of money?" + +"Always!" she replied promptly, also becoming businesslike. + +He explained in detail. She listened in silence at first with a slight +smile of contempt on her lips. As he progressed, however, the smile faded. + +"Where do I come in?" she asked finally. + +"You must be there when the message comes to her. She might not go out to +Jake's alone--probably wouldn't. I don't know her well enough to judge. +Hurry her into it." + +"I see." She laughed suddenly. "Lord, she'll be surprised when I call on +her! Take some doing, that!" She thought a few moments. "My appearance will +connect us with it. Won't do." + +"If the thing goes through we won't be here," he pointed out. "If it +doesn't go through all right, we'll arrange a little comedy. Have you bound +and gagged--before her eyes--or something like that." + +"Thanks," she replied to this. + +Morrell was not entirely open. He did not tell her that money or no money, +plot or no plot, he had resolved to flee the city, at least for a time. +Investigations were getting too close to some of his past activities. He +did not offer in words what he nevertheless knew to be the most potent of +his arguments--namely, the implacable hate Mrs. Morrell bore Keith. +Morrell's knowledge of this hate was accurate, though his analysis of its +cause was faulty. He thought his wife to be Keith's discarded mistress, and +did not greatly care. Nor did he mention the possibility which, however, +Mrs. Morrell now voiced. + +"Suppose Keith follows them out to Jake's?" she suggested. + +"One of them will kill, and the Stranglers will hang the other," he said +briefly. + +She looked up. + +"I don't care for that!" + +"In that event, you will not be present. Your job will be to duck out." He +paused, then went on slowly: "Would you grieve at the demise of either--or +all three?" + +Her face hardened. + +"But," he went on slowly, "the chances of it are very remote. If there is +any killing, it will come later. Keith will be kept out of the way." + +"And after?" + +"You hint of an assignation. I will arrange for witnesses." + +"Where does the money come in?" she demanded. Morrell floundered for a +moment. He had lost sight of the money. + +"It comes from certain parties who want Keith put out of the way," he said. + +"And suppose Keith is not put out of the way?" she began, her facile mind +pouncing on the weakness of this statement. "Never mind," she interrupted +herself. "I'll do it!" Her face had hardened again, "Can you depend on +Sansome to go through with it?" + +"Only if he's fairly drunk." + +"Yes?" + +"I'll attend to that. That is my job. You may not see me to-morrow; but go +in the evening to call on her." + +"It looks absolutely preposterous," she said at last, "but it may work. +And, if any part of it works, that'll be enough." + +"Yes," said he. + +They had both forgotten the money. + + + + +LXIX + + +As Morrell had surmised, Keith decided to pass on the news for what it was +worth. The committee believed it, and was filled with consternation at the +incredible folly of the projected show of armed force. + +"This is not peace, but war," said Coleman, "which we are trying to avert!" + +The Executive Committee went into immediate session. It was now evident +that the disbanding would have to be indefinitely postponed. An +extraordinary program to meet the emergency was discussed piecemeal. One of +its details had to do with the shipment of arms from Benicia. The committee +here fell neatly into the trap prepared for it. In all probability no one +clearly realized the legal status of the muskets, but all supposed them +already to belong to the State that was threatening to use them. Charles +Doane, instructed to take the steps necessary to their capture, called to +him the chief of the harbour police. + +"Have you a small vessel ready for immediate service?" he asked this man. + +"Yes, a sloop, at the foot of this street." + +"Be ready to sail in half an hour." + +Doane then turned the job over to a trustworthy, quick-witted man named +John Durkee. The latter selected twelve to assist him, among whom was +Keith, at the latter's especial request. Morrell, loitering near, saw this +band depart for the water front, and followed them far enough to watch them +embark, to witness the hoisting of the sloop's sails, and to see the craft +heel to the evening breeze and slip away around the point. All things were +going well. The committee suspected nothing of the plot to fasten the crime +of piracy on it; Keith was out of the way. Morrell turned on his heel and +walked rapidly to his rendezvous with Sansome. + +Durkee and his sloop beat for some hours against wind and tide; but +finally, so strong were both, he was forced to anchor in San Pablo Bay +until conditions had somewhat modified. Finally, he was able to get under +way again, A number of craft were sailing about, and one by one these were +overhauled, commanded to lay to, and boarded in true piratical style. It +was fun for everybody. The breeze blew in strongly from the Golden Gate, +the waves chopped and danced merrily, the little sloop dipped her rail and +flew along at a speed that justified her reputation as a racer, gulls +followed curiously. But there were no practical results. Every sailing +craft they overhauled proved innocent, and either indignant or sarcastic. +The sun dipped, and the short twilight of this latitude was almost +immediately succeeded by a brilliant night. Slowly the breeze died, until +the little sloop could just crawl along. It grew chilly, and there was no +food aboard. A less persistent man than John Durkee would have felt +justified in giving it up and heading for home; but John had been +instructed to cruise until he captured the arms; and he profanely announced +his intention of so doing. + +In this he was more faithful to his superiors than the notorious Rube +Maloney to his employers. It was to the interest of the Law and Order party +that Rube and his precious crew should be promptly and easily captured. +They had been instructed to carry boldly and flagrantly, in full daylight, +down the middle of the bay. But Terry's permission, to lay in +"refreshments" at cost of the conspirators had been liberally interpreted. +By six o'clock Rube had just sense enough left to drop anchor off Pueblo +Point. There the three jolly mariners proceeded to celebrate; and there +they would probably have lain undiscovered had less of a bulldog than +Durkee been sent after them. + +As it was, midnight had passed before Durkee's keen eyes caught the loom of +some object in the black mist close under the point. Quietly he eased off +the sheet and bore down on it. As soon as he ascertained definitely that +the object was indeed a boat, he ran alongside. The twelve men boarded with +a rush: they found themselves in possession of an empty deck. From the +hatch came the reek of alcohol and the sound of hearty snoring. The capture +was made. + +In a half hour the transfer of the muskets and the three prisoners was +accomplished. The latter offered no resistance, but seemed cross at being +awakened. Leaving the vessel anchored off the point, the little sloop stood +away again for San Francisco, reaching the California Street wharf shortly +after daylight. Here she was moored, and one of the crew was dispatched to +the committee for further instructions and grub. He returned after an hour, +but was preceded somewhat by the grub. + +"They say to deliver the muskets at headquarters," he reported, "but to +turn the prisoners loose." + +"Turn them loose!" cried Durkee, astonished. + +"That's what they said," repeated the messenger. "And here's written +orders," and he displayed a paper signed by the well-known "33, Secretary," +and bearing the Vigilante seal of the open eye. + +"All right," acquiesced Durkee. "Now, you mangy hounds, you've got just +about twenty-eight seconds to make yourselves as scarce as your virtues. +Scat!" + +Rube and his two companions had several of the twenty-eight seconds to +spare; but once they had lost sight of their captors, they moderated their +pace. They had been much depressed, but now they cheered up and swaggered. +A few drinks restored them to normal, and they were able to put a good face +on the report they now made to their employers, all of whom, including +Terry, had gathered thus early to receive them. After all, things had gone +well: they had been actually captured, which was the essential thing, and +it did not seem necessary to go into extraneous details. + +"Good!" cried Terry, who had come down from Sacramento personally to +superintend the working out of this latest ruse. + + +He was illegally absent from his court, meddling illegally with matters not +in his jurisdiction. "Now we must get a warrant for piracy into the hands +of the United States Marshal. Send him alone, with no deputies. When he +makes his deposition of resistance, then we shall see!" + +The marshal found Durkee still at the wharf, seated on an upturned cask. + +"I have this warrant for your arrest!" he proclaimed in a voice purposely +loud. + +"Yes? Let's see it," rejoined Durkee, lazily reaching out his hand. + +He read the document through leisurely. His features betrayed no hint of +his thoughts, but nevertheless his brain was very active. He read that he +was accused of piracy against the might and majesty of the United States +Government; and as his eyes slowly followed the involved and redundant +legal phraseology, he reviewed the situation. The nature, of the trap +became to him, partly evident. There was no doubt that technically he was a +pirate, if these arms--as it seemed--belonged to the Government and not to +the State. The punishment of piracy was death. Without appreciation of the +fact, the committee had made him liable to the death penalty. And he had no +doubt that the Federal Courts of California, as then constituted, would +visit that penalty on him. He raised his head and looked about him. Within +call were lounging a dozen resolute men belonging to the Committee of +Vigilance. He had but to raise his voice to bring them to his assistance. +Once inside Fort Gunnybags he knew that the committee would stand behind +him to the last man. + +But John Durkee had imagination as well as bulldog persistency. His mind +flashed ahead into the future, envisaging the remoter consequences. He saw +the majesty of the law's forces invoked to back this warrant which the +tremendous power of the disciplined Vigilantes would repulse; he saw +reinforcements, summoned. What reinforcements? A smile flitted across his +lips, and he glanced up at the warship _John Adams_ riding at anchor +outside, her guns, their tampons in place, staring blackly at the city. He +saw the whole plot. + +"That's all right," he told the waiting marshal, folding the warrant and +returning it to him. "Put your paper in your pocket. I'll go with you." + +By this quietly courageous and intelligent deed John Durkee completely +frustrated the fourth and most dangerous effort of the Law and Order party. +There was no legal excuse for calling on Federal forces to take one man-- +who peaceably surrendered! + +Undoubtedly, had not matters taken the decided and critical turn soon to be +detailed, Durkee would have been immediately brought to trial, and perhaps +executed. As it was, even the most rabid of the Law and Order party agreed +it was inexpedient to press matters. The case was postponed again and +again, and did not come to trial until several months, by which time the +Vigilantes had practically finished their work. The law finally saved its +face by charging the jury that "if they believed the prisoners took the +arms with the intention of appropriating them to their own use and +permanently depriving the owner of them, then they were guilty. But if they +took them only for the purpose of preventing their being used against +themselves and their associates, then they were not guilty." Under which +hair-splitting and convenient interpretation the "pirates" went free, and +everybody was satisfied! + + + + +LXX + + +After leaving the office where they had made their report to their +employers, Rube Maloney and his two friends visited all the saloons. There +they found sympathetic and admiring audiences. They reviled the committee +collectively and singly; bragged that they would shoot Coleman, Truett, +Durkee, and some others at sight; flourished weapons, and otherwise became +so publicly and noisily obstreperous that the committee decided they needed +a lesson. Accordingly they instructed Sterling Hopkins, with four others, +to rearrest the lot and bring them in. Hopkins was a bulldog, pertinacious, +rough, a faithful creature. + +News of these orders ran ahead of their performance. Rube and his +satellites dropped everything and fled to their masters like threatened +dogs. Their masters, who included Terry, Bowie, Major Marmaduke Miles, and +a few others, happened to be discussing the situation in the office of +Richard Ashe, a Texan, and an active member of "the chivalry." The three +redoubtables burst in on this gathering, wild-eyed, scared, with, the +statement that a thousand stranglers were at their heels. + +"Better hide 'em," suggested Bowie. + +But hot-headed Terry, seconded by equally hot-headed Ashe, would have none +of this. + +"By gad, let them try it!" cried the judge. "I've been aching for this +chance!" + +Therefore when Hopkins, having left his small _posse_ at the foot of the +stairs, knocked and entered, he was faced by the muzzles of half a dozen +pistols, and profanely told to get out of there. He was no fool, so he +obeyed. If Terry had possessed the sense of a rooster, or a single quality +of leadership, he would have seen that this was not the moment to +precipitate a crisis. The forces of his own party were neither armed nor +ready. But here, as in all other important actions of his career, he was +governed by the haughty and headstrong passions of the moment--as when +later he justified himself in attempting to shoot down an old and unarmed +man. Hopkins left his men at the foot of the stairs, borrowed a horse from +Dr. Beverly Cole, who was passing, and galloped to headquarters. There he +was instructed to return, to keep watch, that reinforcements would follow. +He arrived at the building in which Ashe's office was located, in time to +see Maloney, Terry, Ashe, McNabb, Bowie, and Rowe all armed with shotguns, +just turning the far corner. He dismounted and called on his men to follow. +The little _posse_ dogged the judge's party for some distance. For a time +no attention was paid to them, but as they pressed closer Terry, Ashe, and +Maloney whirled and presented their shotguns. The movement was probably +intended only as a threat; but Hopkins, always bold to the point of +rashness, made a sudden rush at Maloney. Judge Terry thrust his gun at the +Vigilante officer who seized it by the barrel. At the same instant Ashe +pressed the muzzle of his weapon against one Bovee's breast, but hesitated +to pull the trigger. It was getting to be unhealthy to shoot men in the +open street. + +"Are you a friend?" he faltered. + +"Yes," replied Bovee, and by a rapid motion struck the barrel aside. + +Another of the Vigilantes named Barry covered Rowe with a pistol. Rowe's +"chivalry" oozed. He dropped his gun and fled toward the armoury. The +others struggled for possession of weapons, but nobody fired. Suddenly +Terry whipped out a knife and plunged it into Hopkins's neck. Hopkins +relaxed his hold on Terry's shotgun and staggered back. + +"I am stabbed! Take them, Vigilantes!" he cried. + +He sank to the pavement. Terry and his friends dropped everything and ran +toward the armoury. Of the Vigilante _posse_ only Bovee and Barry remained, +but these two pursued the fleeing Law and Order men to the very portals of +the armoury itself. When the door was slammed in their faces, they took up +their stand outside, they two holding within several hundred men! At the +end of ten minutes a pompous, portly individual came up under full sail, +cast a detached and haughty glance at the two quiet men lounging +unwarrantedly in his path, and attempted to pass inside. + +"You cannot enter here," said Bovee grimly, as they barred his way. + +The pompous man turned purple. + +"Do you know who I am?" he demanded. + +"I don't give a damn who you are," replied Bovee, still quietly. + +"I am Major-General Volney E. Howard!" + +"You cannot enter here," repeated Bovee, and this time he said it in a tone +of voice that sent the major-general scurrying away. + +After a short interval another man dashed up very much in a hurry. +Mistaking Bovee and Barry for sentinels, he cried as he ran up: + +"I am a lieutenant in Calhoun Bennett's company, and I have been sent here +to--" + +"I am a member of the Committee of Vigilance," interrupted Barry, "and you +cannot enter." + +"What!" cried the officer, in astonishment. "Have the Vigilance Committee +possession of this building?" + +"They have," was the reply of the dauntless two. + +The lieutenant rolled up his eyes and darted away faster than he had come. +A few moments later, doubtless to the vast relief of the "outside garrison" +of the armoury within which five or six hundred men were held close by this +magnificent bluff, the great Vigilante bell boomed out: _one, two, three_, +rest; then _one, two, three_, rest; and repeat. + +Immediately the streets were alive with men. Merchants left their +customers, clerks their books, mechanics their tools. Dray-men stripped +their horses of harness, abandoned their wagons where they stood, and rode +away to their cavalry. Clancey Dempster's office was only four blocks from +headquarters. At the first stroke of the bell he leaped from his desk, ran +down the stairs, and jumped into his buggy. Yet he could drive only three +of the four blocks, so dense already was the crowd. He abandoned his rig in +the middle of the street and forced his way through afoot. Two days later +he recovered his rig. In the building he found the companies, silently, +without confusion, falling into line. + +"All right!" he called encouragingly. "Keep cool! Take your time about it!" + +"Ah, Mr. Dempster," they replied, "we've waited long! This is the clean +sweep!" + +James Olney was lying in bed with a badly sprained ankle when the alarm +bell began to toll. He commandeered one boot from a fellow-boarder with +extremely large feet, and hobbled to the street. There he seized by force +of arms the passing delivery wagon of a kerosene dealer, climbed to the +seat, and lashed the astonished horse to a run. San Francisco streets ran +to chuck holes and ruts in those days, and the vehicle lurched and banged +with a grand rattle and scatteration of tins and measures. The terrified +driver at last mustered courage to protest. + +"You are spilling my kerosene!" he wailed. + +"Damn your kerosene, sir!" bellowed the general; then relenting: "I will +pay you for your kerosene!" + +Up to headquarters he sailed full tilt, and how he got through the crowd +without committing manslaughter no one tells. There he was greeted by wild +cheering, and was at once lifted bodily to the back of a white horse, the +conspicuous colour of which made it an excellent rallying point. + +Within an incredibly brief space of time they were off for the armoury; the +military companies marching like veterans; the artillery rumbling over the +rude pavements; the cavalry jogging along to cover the rear. A huge roaring +mob accompanied them, followed them, raced up the parallel streets to +arrive before the armoury at the same moment as the first files. + +The armoury square was found to be deserted except for the intrepid Barry +and Bovee, who still marched back and forth before the closed door. No one +had entered or left the building. + +Inside the armoury the first spirit of bravado and fight-to-the-last-ditch +had died to a sullen stubbornness. Nobody had much, to say. Terry was very +contrite as well he might be. A judge of the Supreme Court, who had no +business being in San Francisco at all, sworn to uphold the law, had +stepped out from his jurisdiction to commit as lawless and idiotic a deed +of passion as could have been imagined! Whatever chances the Law and Order +party might have had, could they have mobilized their forces, were +dissipated. Their troops were scattered in small units; their rank and file +were heaven knew where; their enemies, fully organized, had been mustered +by the alarm bell to full alertness and compactness. And Terry's was the +hand that had struck that bell! For the only time in his recorded history +David Terry's ungoverned spirit was humbled. Until he found that nothing +immediate was going to happen to him, and while under the silent but +scathing disapprobation of his companions, he actually talked of resigning! +Parenthetically, the fit did not last long, and he soon reared, his haughty +crest as high as ever. But now, listening to the roar of the mob outside, +peeping at the grim thousands of armed men deploying before the armoury, he +regretted his deed. + +"This is very unfortunate; very unfortunate!" he said, "But you shall not +imperil your lives for me. It is I they want. I will surrender to them." + +Instead of the prompt expostulation he expected, a dead silence greeted +these words. + +"There is nothing else to do," agreed Ashe at last. + +An officer was sent to negotiate. + +"We will deliver up the armoury if you will agree not to give us over to +the mob," he told the committee. + +"We hold, and intend to hold, the mob under absolute control. We have +nothing in common with mobs," was Coleman's reply. + +The doors were then thrown open, and a company of the Vigilante troops +marched in. Within ten minutes, the streets were cleared. The six hundred +prisoners, surrounded by a solid body of infantry with cavalry on the +flanks, were marched to headquarters. The city was jubilant. This, at last, +was the clean sweep! Men went about with shining faces, slapping each other +on the back. And Coleman, the wise general, realizing that compromises were +useless, peace impossible, came to a decision. Shortly from headquarters +the entire Vigilante forces moved in four divisions toward the cardinal +points of the compass. From them small squads were from time to time +detached and sent out to right or left. The main divisions surrounded the +remaining four big armouries; the smaller squads combed the city house by +house for arms. In the early morning the armouries capitulated. By sun-up +every weapon in the city had been taken to Fort Gunnybags. + + + + +LXXI + + +Up to this time Nan Keith had undergone the experience of nine out of ten +married women in early California: that is, she had been neglected. Neglect +in some form or other was the common lot of the legally attached feminine. +How could it logically be otherwise? In the turbulent, varied, restless, +intensely interesting, deeply exciting life of the pioneer city only a +poor-spirited, bloodless, nerveless man would have thought to settle down +to domesticity. A quiet evening at home stands small chance, even in an +old-established community, against a dog fight on the corner or a fire in +the next block; and here were men fights instead, and a great, splendid, +conflagration of desires, appetites, and passions, a grand clash of +interests and wills that burned out men's lives in the space of a few +years. It was a restless time, full of neglected women. This neglect varied +in degree to be sure. Nan was lucky there. No other woman had thrust her +way in, no other attraction lured Keith from her, as had happened to so +many others. She possessed all his interest. But at present that interest +seemed so attenuated, so remote! + +After her revulsion of feeing the afternoon the Vigilantes first rose in +their might, she withdrew within her pride. Nan was no meek and humble +spirit. But the scales had dropped from her eyes as to affairs about her. +San Francisco suddenly became something besides a crude collection of +buildings. For the first time she saw it as a living entity, strong in the +throes of growth. She devoured eagerly all the newspapers, collected avidly +all the rumours. Whenever possible, she discussed the state of affairs; but +this was difficult, for nearly every one was strongly partisan for one side +or another, and incapable of anything but excitement and vituperation. The +Sherwoods were a great comfort to her here. While approving of the new +movement, they nevertheless refused to become heated, and retained a spirit +of humour. Sherwood was not a member of the Committee of Vigilance, but he +had subscribed heavily--and openly--to its funds; he had assisted it with +his counsels; and it was hinted that, sub-rosa, he had taken part in some +of the more obscure but dangerous operations. + +"I am an elderly, peace-loving, respectable citizen," he told Nan, "and I +stand unequivocably for law and order and for justice, for the orderly +doing of things; and against violence, mob spirit, and high-handedness." + +"Why, John Sherwood!" cried Nan, up in arms at once. "I'd never have +believed you could be on the side of Judge Terry and that stripe." + +"Oho!" cried Sherwood, delighted to have drawn her. "Now we have it! But +what made you think I was on that side?" + +"Why--didn't you just say--" + +"Oh," said Sherwood comfortably, "I was using real meanings, not just word +tags. In my opinion real law and order, orderly doing of things, _et +cetera_, are all on the other side." + +"And the men--" cried Nan, aglow. + +"The men are of course all noble, self-sacrificing, patriotic, immaculate +demigods who--" He broke off, chuckling at Nan's expression. "No, +seriously, I think they are doing a fine work, and that they'll go down in +history." + +"You're an old dear!" cried Nan, impulsively kissing his cheek. + +"Take care," he warned, "you're endangering my glasses and making my wife +jealous." + +Nan drew back, a little ashamed at having shown her feelings; and rather +astonished herself at their intensity. + +In the course of these conversations the pendulum with her began again to +quiver at the descent. Through the calmly philosophical eye of the ex- +gambler, John Sherwood, she partly envisaged the significance of what was +happening--the struggling forth of real government from the sham. Her own +troubles grew small by comparison. She began to feel nearer Keith in spirit +than for some time past, to understand him better, even--though this was +difficult--to get occasionally a glimpse of his relations toward herself. +It was all very inchoate, instinctive, unformed; rather an instinct than a +clear view. She became restless; for she had no outlet either for her own +excitement or the communicated excitement of the times. It was difficult to +wait, and yet wait she must. For what? She did not know! + +On the crucial June evening she sat by the lamp trying in vain to +concentrate her attention on a book. The sound of the door bell made her +jump. She heard Wing Sam's shuffle, and his cheerful greeting which all her +training had been unable to eliminate. Wing Sam always met every caller +with a smiling "Hello!" A moment later she arose in some surprise as Mrs. +Morrell entered the room. + +Relations between the women had never been broken off, though the pretence +of ordinary cordiality had long since been dropped. When Mrs. Morrell found +it expedient to make this call, she spent several hours trying to invent a +plausible excuse. She was unable to do so. Finally she gave it up in angry +despair. + +"As long as it is not too bald, what difference does it make?" she said to +herself cynically. + +And out of this desperation, and by no means from cleverness, she hit on +the cleverest thing possible. Instead of coming to make a friendly call, +she pretended to be on an errand of protest. + +"It's about your dog," she told Nan, "he's a dear good dog, and a great +friend of ours. But cannot you shut him up nights? He's inclined to prowl +around under my windows, and just the sound of him there keeps me awake. I +know it's foolish; but I am so nervous these days--" + +"Why, of course," said Nan with real contrition. "I'd no idea--" + +Gringo was at the moment ingratiating himself with Wing Sam _in re_ one +soup bone of no use to anybody but dogs. If he could have heard Mrs. +Morrell's indictment, he would have been both grieved and surprised: Gringo +never prowled anywhere. Like most rather meaty individuals, he was a very +sound sleeper; and in the morning he often felt a little uneasy in his +conscience as to the matter of stray trespassing cats or such small fry. He +had every confidence that his instincts would warn him of really important +things, like burglars. Still, the important things are not all of life, nor +burglars all the duty of a dog. + +Having slandered the innocent Gringo, Mrs. Morrell stayed for a chat. +Apparently she was always just on the point of departure, but never went. +Nan, being, as she thought, in the wrong as to the worthy Gringo, tried her +best to be polite, but was miserably conscious of being snippy. + +At the end of an hour the door bell rang again. If Nan had been watching, +she might have seen Mrs. Morrell's body relax as though from a tension. +After a moment Wing Sam shuffled into the room carrying a soiled folded +paper. + +"Man he tell you lead this chop-chop," said he. + +Murmuring an apology, Nan opened the paper. With a cry she sprang to her +feet. Her face had gone white. + +"What is it?" cried Mrs. Morrell in apparent anxiety. + +Without a word Nan extended the paper. Written in pencil were these words: + + MADAM: Your husband has been injured in an attempt at arrest. He wants + me to tell you he is at Jake's Place hurt bad. With respects. JOHN Q. + ALDER. + +For an instant Mrs. Morrell did not dare look up. She was thoroughly angry +at what she thought to be her husband's stupidity. + +"Why, that wouldn't deceive a child!" she thought contemptuously. + +"How dreadful! Who is Alder?" she said, merely to say something. + +Nan shook her head. + +"I don't know," she replied rather wildly. "One of the Vigilantes, I +suppose. I must go out there. At once!" + +She ran to the hall where she began to rummage for cloaks. Mrs. Morrell +followed her in wonderment. She was going to take this crude bait after +all! Mrs. Morrell had not the slightest idea Nan still loved her husband. + +"You can't go alone!" she cried in apparent sympathy. "You poor child! +Jake's Place--at this time of night!" + +"I'd go to hell if he needed me there!" cried Nan. + +Mrs. Morrell became suddenly capable and commanding. + +"Then I shall go with you," she announced firmly. + +"Oh, you're good to me!" cried Nan, full of contrition, and feeling, +beneath her anxiety, that she had misjudged her neighbour's heart. + +Mrs. Morrell took charge. She lit the lantern, led the way to the stable, +did the most toward harnessing the horse. They made rather a mess of it, +but the horse was gentle and reliable. When they had backed the buggy out +of the barn, she insisted on driving. + +"You're in no fit condition," she told Nan, and Nan obediently climbed in +beside her. + +The drive was made in silence, except that occasionally Nan urged hurry. +She sat bolt upright, her hands clasped in her lap, her figure rigid, +trying to keep hold of herself. At Jake's Place a surly hostler appeared +and led away their horse. Jake's Place was in darkness save for one lighted +room on the ground floor and a dimly illuminated bar at the other end. + +It is but just to a celebrated resort that had seen and was still to see +much of life to say that it knew nothing of the plot. Sansome had engaged +the ground-floor parlour, and ordered a fire and drinks. Morrell had +commanded a little supper for later. Now two ladies appeared. This was all +normal. Without drinks, little suppers, and the subsequent appearance of +ladies, Jake's Place would soon have languished. + +Nan leaped over the wheel to the ground as soon as the buggy had stopped, +and before the dilatory hostler had cramped aside the wheel. + +"Where is he?" she demanded breathlessly. The hostler jerked a thumb at the +lighted windows. Without a word Nan ran up the steps and to the door. The +hostler looked after her flying figure, then grinned up at Mrs. Morrell. + +"Yum! yum!" said he, "but she's the eager little piece!" + +Mrs. Morrell gave him a coin, and as he moved away with the horse, she, +too, ran up the steps. Nan had entered the parlour door, leaving it open +behind her. Mrs. Morrell closed it again, and locked it. Then, with a +certainty that proved her familiarity with the place, she walked down the +length of the veranda to a hall, which she entered. + +Nan had burst into a parlour with an open fire. Before it stood a small +table crowded with bottles and glasses. Sansome rose, rather unsteadily, +from one of the easy chairs. Nan uttered an exclamation of relief as she +recognized him. + +"Oh, I'm glad you're here!" she cried. "This is kind! How is he? Where is +he?" + + + + +LXXII + + +Morrell had no easy day with Ben Sansome. He had been forced to spend the +whole of it with his protégé, save for the hour he had devoted to seeing +Keith off on the piratical expedition. It was a terrible bore. In turn he +had played on the youth's pique, the supposed insult to his manhood, his +desire for the woman. Sansome was not naturally a valiant adventurer; but +he had an exceedingly touchy vanity, which, with a little coddling, +answered nearly as well. Morrell took the confident attitude that, of +course, Sansome was not afraid; therefore Sansome was ashamed to be afraid. + +"For the moment," said the Englishman, "she's carried away by the glamour +of this Vigilante movement. They seem to her strong men. She contrasts them +with us men of the world, and as she cannot see that a polished exterior is +not incompatible with strength, she has a faint growing contempt for us. +Women like strength, masterfulness. It is the chance of your life to show +her that a man _comme il faut_ is the equal of these squalid brutes in that +respect. She is in love with you already, but she doesn't know it. All that +is necessary is a show of masterfulness to make her realize it." He stifled +a yawn. "Lord, what dreary piffle!" he confided to himself. He painted +Keith as a contemptible renegade from his own class, currying favour with +those below him, a cheap demagogue, a turncoat avid for popular power. + +"At heart he's a coward--all such men are. And he's so wrapped up in his +ambition that his wife is a small matter to him. There's no danger from +him, for he's away; and after the first flare-up we'll be able to handle +him among us, never fear!" But after impressing this point, Morrell always +was most careful to interpose the warning: "If it should come to trouble, +don't let him get near you! He's absolutely rotten with a gun--you saw him +in that farce of a duel--but he's a strong beggar. Don't let him get his +hands on you!" + +"I won't," promised Sansome, a trifle shakily. + +Then Morrell, lighting a fresh cigar and fortifying his bored soul with +another drink, skilfully outlined a portrait of Sansome himself as a hero, +a dashing man of the world, a real devil among the ladies, the haughty and +proud exponent of aristocratic high-handedness. He laid this on pretty +thick, but Sansome had by now consumed a vast number of drinks, and was +ready to swallow almost anything in addition. Morrell's customary demeanour +was rather stolid, silent, and stupid; but when he was really interested +and cared to exert himself, he became unexpectedly voluble and plausible. +Mid-evening he drove this creature of his own fashioning out to Jake's +Place, and deposited him in the parlour with the open fire, the table of +drinks, and the easy chairs. + +His plans from this point on were based on the fact that he had started +Keith out on an expedition that should last all night. Had there been the +slightest chance that the injured husband could appear, you may be sure +Morrell would not have been present. Of course witnesses were necessary to +the meeting at the road house. With Keith imminent, hirelings would have +been arranged for. With Keith safety away, Morrell saw no reason why he +should not enjoy the situation himself. Therefore he had arranged a little +supper party. Teeny McFarlane and Jimmy Ware were his first thought. Then +he added Pop McFarlane. If he wanted Teeny as a witness, the party must be +respectable! + +At the sound of wheels outside Morrell arose and slipped out the back door +of the parlour. + +"Now, remember!" he told Sansome from the doorway. "Now's the chance of +your life! You've got her love, and you must keep her. She'll cut up rough +at first. That's when you must show what's in you. Go right after her!" + +As Nan burst into the room by one door he softly closed--and locked--the +other behind him. + + + + +LXXIII + + +But Sansome, although he had put up a brave front to the last moment, was +not in reality feeling near the hero of romance he looked. In spite of +Morrell's cleverness, the Englishman had failed to observe that Sansome had +touched the fringe of that second stage of semi-drunkenness when the +"drinks were dying on him." While outwardly fairly sober, inwardly he was +verging toward the incoherent. First one phase or mood would come to the +top, then another, without order; sequence, or logical reason. He was +momentarily dangerous or harmless. Nan's abrupt entrance scattered his last +coherences. For the moment he fell back on habit, and habit was with him +conventional He smiled his best smile. + +"Do sit down," he urged in his most society manner. + +This immediately convinced Nan that Keith must be badly hurt. + +"Tell me at once!" she demanded "Where is Milton? Is he--is--" + +"As far as I know," replied Sansome, still in his courtly manner, "Mr. +Keith is in perfect health. As to where he is"--he waved an airy hand--"I +do not know. It does not matter, does it? The point is we are cozy here +together. Do sit down." + +"I don't understand," said she, advancing a step nearer, her brows knit, +"Don't put me off. I got a note saying--" + +"I know; I wrote it," boasted Sansome fatuously. + +The blood mounted her face, her fists clenched, she advanced several steps +fearlessly. + +"I don't, quite understand," she repeated, in hard, crisp tones. "You wrote +it?' Isn't it true? What did you do such a thing for?" + +"To get you here, my dear, of course," rejoined Sansome gallantly. "I knew +your puritanical scruples--I love them every one--but--" + +"Do you mean to say you dared decoy me here!" challenged Nan, all aflame. +Her whole emotion was one of rage. It did not occur to her to be afraid of +Ben Sansome, the conventional, the dilettante exquisite, without the +gumption to say boo to a goose! + +This Sansome answered her, the habit of society strong within him. He +became deprecatory, pleading, almost apologetic. His manners were on top +and his rather weak nature quailed before the blaze of her anger. + +"I know it was inexcusable," he babbled, "but what could I do? I am mad +about you! Do forgive me! Just sit down for a few moments. I don't blame +you for being angry--any one is angry at being deceived--but do forgive me. +If you'll only consider why I did it, you won't be angry. That's right," he +ended soothingly, seeing that she neither spoke nor moved, "Just sit right +down here and be comfortable. It must be cold driving. Let me give you a +glass of sherry." He fussed about, shoving forward an armchair, arranging +pillows, unstopping the decanter. + +"You fool!" she ejaculated in a low voice. She looked him all up and down, +and turned to go. + +The door was locked! For the first time she noticed that Mrs. Morrell had +not followed her in. Her heart fluttered in sudden panic, which she +subdued. She moved toward the other door. + +The words, and especially the frustration of her intention, brought another +mood to the surface of Sansome's intoxication. The polished society man +with the habit of external unselfishness disappeared. Another Sansome, whom +Nan did not recognize, sprang to take his place. + +"No, you don't!" he snarled. "That door's locked, too. You don't get out of +here until I choose to let you out!" + +"You'll let me out; and you'll let me out right now, or I'll call for +help," said Nan determinedly. + +Sansome deliberately seated himself, stretching his legs out straight +before him, his hands in his pockets. This was the masterful role he had +seen himself playing, and he instinctively took the attitude approved by +the best melodramatic masters. + +"Call all you please," he sneered. "Nobody's going to pay any attention to +your calls at Jake's Place!" + +Nan's heart went cold as she realized the complete truth of this. She was +beginning to know fear. This was a new sort of creature before her, one +with which she was acquainted only by instinct. She did not know what to do +next, except that she saw surely that open opposition would only aggravate +the situation. + +"I must gain time!" she told herself, though to what end she could not have +said. + +Her pulses beat wildly, but she forced herself to a specious calmness. + +"But Ben," she said as naturally as she could, "why did you do so foolish a +thing as this? It might make all kinds of trouble. You can always see me at +the house; you know that. Why did you get me out on this mad expedition? If +we were to be seen here by anybody we would be deeply compromised." + +The words reminded her of Mrs. Morrell; but out of sheer terror she +resolutely thrust that idea from her mind. At this appeal Sansome suddenly +became maudlin. + +"You've treated me like a dog lately--a yellow dog!" he mourned. "What good +did it do to go to your house and be treated like a yellow dog?" + +Nan's faculties were beginning to rally after the first panic. Her heart +was still thumping violently, but her eyes were bright, and her fighting +courage was flowing back. For the first time his obvious condition +registered on her brain. + +"He's drunk!" she thought. + +This discovery at first induced in her another, small panic. Then her +courage boldly took it as a point of attack. The man was drunk and +dangerous; very well, let us make him more drunk and less dangerous. That +was a desperate enough expedient, but at least it was definite. She crossed +deliberately to the other easy chair, and sat down. + +"Well, let's sit down," she agreed. "No!" more decidedly, "you sit there, +on the other side. It's more cozy," she continued, at just the right moment +to get her effect on his instinct of good manners. "Now, I will have that +sherry. No, don't bother; it is next my hand. You must drink with me. Let +me pour it for you--with my own hands--aren't you flattered?" + +She smiled across at him. This sudden reversion to an easy every-day plane +had brought Sansome's first mood again to the surface. In this atmosphere +of orderly tęte-ŕ-tęte he was again the society man. Nan breathed freer. He +murmured something inane and conventional about Hebe. + +"Meaning you're a little tin god?" she chaffed. + +He said something still more involved, to the effect that her presence +would make a god out of the most unworthy mortal. It was all vapid, unreal, +elaborate, artificial. + +"If I can only keep him at this!" thought she desperately. + +She had drunk her glass of sherry because she felt she needed it. Now she +poured another, and without comment, refilled Sansome's whiskey glass. + +"Here's to us!" she cried, lifting her glass. + +Nan's plan of getting him so drunk that he would not interfere with her +escape had the merit of simplicity, and also of endorsement by such +excellent authority as melodrama and the novel. It had the defect of being +entirely theoretical. Nan's innocence of the matter in hand had not taken +into account the intermediate stages of drunkenness, nor did she realize +the strength inherent in the association of ideas. As she leaned forward to +fill the glasses, Sansome's eyes brightened. He had seen women pouring wine +many times before. The picture before him reminded him of a dozen similar +pictures taken from the gallery of his rather disreputable past. His +elaborate complimentary mood vanished. He pledged her ardently, and deep in +his eyes began to burn a secret covetous flame. Nan poured her, sherry +under the table. + +"This really is a cozy party!" she cried. "Will you have another with me?" + +The third glass of neat whiskey whirled in Sansome's head. He was verging +toward complete drunkenness, but in the meantime became amorous. His eyes +burned, his lips fell apart. Nan tried in desperation to keep on a plane of +light persiflage, to hold him to his chair and to the impersonal. Deep fear +entered her. She urged more drink on him, hoping that he would be +overpowered. It was like a desperate race between this man's passions and +the deep oblivion that reached for them. Her mouth was dry, and her brain +whirled. Only by the greatest effort could she prevent herself from flying +to pieces. Sansome hardly appeared to hear her. He wagged his head at her, +looking upon her with swimming, benevolent eyes. Suddenly, without warning, +he sprang up, overturning with a crash the small table and the bottles and +glasses. + +"By God, you're the most beautiful woman I ever saw!" he cried. "Come +here!" + +He advanced on her, his eyes alight. She saw that the crisis had come, and +threw aside all pretence. + +"Keep away! Keep away!" she warned him through, gritted teeth; then, as he +continued to stumble toward her, she struck at him viciously again and +again with one of the small light chairs. + +For a moment or so she actually managed to beat him off; but he lunged +through the blows and seized her around the shoulders. + +"Reg'lar little tiger cat!" he murmured with fond admiration. + +His reeking breath was on her neck as he sought her mouth. She threw her +head back and to one side, fighting desperately and silently, tearing at +him with her hands, writhing her body, lowering her head as he forced her +around, kicking at his shin. The man's strength was as horrible as it was +unexpected. The efforts to which she was giving her every ounce did not +appear to have the slightest effect on him, His handsome weak face +continued to smile foolishly and fondly down on her. + +"Reg'lar little tiger cat!" he repeated over and over. + +The terrible realization dawned on her that he was too much for her. Her +body suddenly went lax. She threw back her and screamed. + + + + +LXXIV + + +The plot which Morrell had first suggested idly and as sort of a joke, but +which later he had entered into with growing belief, was quite perfect in +all details but one: he assumed that Keith had accompanied Durkee's +expedition, and was sure that he had seen the young lawyer off. As a matter +of fact, Keith had been recalled. A messenger had at the very last moment +handed him an order sealed with the well-known open eye, and signed "33 +Secretary." It commanded him to proceed with certain designated men to the +arrest of certain others inscribed on the black list. This was a direct +order, whereas the present expedition was wholly a voluntary affair. Keith +had no alternative but to obey, though he did so reluctantly, for this +search for arms had promised sport. Therefore, he stepped ashore at the +last instant; a proceeding unobserved by Morrell, who was surveying the +scene from a distance, and who turned away once the sails were hoisted. + +The duty to which Keith had been assigned took some time. The men had to be +searched out one by one, escorted to headquarters, and the usual +formalities there accomplished. It was late in the evening before he was +free to go home. He let himself in with his latchkey, and had just turned +up the low-burning gas in the hall when the sound of hurrying feet brought +him back to the door. He flung it open to confront Mrs. Sherwood and +Krafft. They were both panting as though they had run some distance and +Krafft's usually precise attire was dishevelled and awry, as though it had +been hastily put on. + +"Nan!" gasped Mrs. Sherwood. "Is she here?" + +Keith, with instant decision, asking no questions, threw open the parlour +door, glanced within, ran upstairs three steps at a time, but almost +immediately returned after a hasty inspection of the upper story. His face +had gone very pale, but he had himself in perfect control. + +"Well?" he demanded crisply, looking from one to the other. + +But Mrs. Sherwood did not stop to answer. With a stifled exclamation she +darted from the house. Krafft looked after her, bewildered. Keith shook him +savagely by the shoulder. + +"Speak up, man! Quick! What is it?" demanded Keith. His voice was vibrant +with suppressed excitement, but he held himself outwardly calm, and waited +immobile until the end of Krafft's story. It was characteristic of him as +of all strong men in a crisis that he made no move whatever until he was +sure he had grasped the whole situation. + +Krafft was just going to bed--he always retired early--when he was called +to the door by Mex Ryan. Mex had never come to his house before. He was a +shoulder striker and a thug; but he had one sure streak of loyalty in that +nothing could ever induce him to go back on a pal. For various reasons he +considered Krafft a pal. He was very much troubled. + +"Look here, boss," he said to Krafft, "It just come to my mind a while ago: +what was the name of that bloke you told me to keep off'n? The Cora trial +man, I mean." + +Krafft recalled the circumstance, and named Keith. + +Mex slapped his head. + +"That's right! It come to me afterward. Well, there's dirty work with his +wife. That's where I see the name, on the outside of the note. I just give +her a fake letter that says her husband is shot, and she's to go to him." + +"How did he know what the letter said?" interjected Keith at this point. + +"He'd read anything given him, of course. Mex knew the letter was false. I +came up to find your house. I didn't know where you lived, so I stopped at +John Sherwood's to inquire. Mrs. Sherwood was home alone. She came with +me." + +"Where did this letter say I was supposed to be?" asked Keith, + +"Jake's Place." + +"My God!" cried Keith, and leaped for the door. At the same instant Mrs. +Sherwood's voice was heard from the darkness. + +"Come here," she cried, "I have a rig." + +They found her seated in a buggy. Both climbed in beside her. Keith took +the reins, and lashed the horse with the light whip. The astonished animal +leaped; the buggy jerked forward. + +Then began a wild, careering, bumpy ride into the night. The road was +fearful and all but invisible. The carriage swayed and swung dangerously. +Keith drove, every faculty concentrated. No one spoke. The dim and ghostly +half-guessed forms of things at night streamed past. + +"Who sent that letter?" demanded Keith finally. + +"Mex wouldn't tell me," replied Krafft. + +"How long ago did he deliver it?" + +"About an hour." + +The horse plunged frantically under the lash as this reply reached Keith. +The buggy was all but overturned. He pulled the frantic animal down to a +slower pace, and with an obvious effort regained control of himself. + +"Can't afford an accident!" he warned himself. + +"Are you armed?" Mrs. Sherwood asked him suddenly. + +"Yes--no, I left my gun at headquarters--that doesn't matter." + +Mrs. Sherwood made no comment. The wind caught her hair and whipped it +about. In the distance now twinkled the lights of Jake's Place. Keith took +a firmer grip on the reins, and again applied the whip. They swept into the +gravelled driveway on two wheels, righted themselves, and rounded to the +veranda. Keith pulled up and leaped to the ground. Nobody was visible. From +the veranda he turned on them. + +"Here, you!" he commanded Mrs. Sherwood sharply, "I can't have you in this +row! Stay here, outside. You take care of her," he told Krafft. "No, I mean +it!" + +On his words a scream burst from the lighted room. Keith sprang to the +door, found it locked, and drew back. With a low mighty rush he thrust his +shoulder against the panel near the lock. The wood splintered. He sprang +forward into the room. + + + + +LXXV + + +After turning the key in the lock outside the parlour door Mrs. Morrell +slipped along the dark veranda, passed through a narrow hall, and entered a +small back sitting-room. Jake's Place especially abounded in sitting-rooms. +This particular one was next the parlour, so that one listening intently +could be more or less aware of what was going on in the larger room. Here +Morrell was already seated, a bottle of beer next his hand. He raised his +eyebrows on her entrance, and she nodded back reassuringly. She, too, sat +down and helped herself to beer. Both smoked. For a long time neither said +anything. + +"Don't hear much in there," observed Mrs. Morrell finally, in a low guarded +tone. + +"Not a sound," agreed Morrell. "You don't suppose she--" + +"No, I don't think so." + +"Then I don't see what ails that fool, Sansome! It'd be just like him to +jib." + +"What does it matter?" observed Mrs. Morrell philosophically, "We don't +care what is happening inside as long as those two doors stay locked until +Teeny and Jimmy Ware get here." + +As has been mentioned, Pop McFarlane was also of the party; but, +characteristically, neither would have thought that fact worth mentioning. + +"Just the same, as a matter of academic interest, I'd have expected her to +make more of a row," said Morrell. "I'll wager for all her airs she runs +the same gait as all the rest of you." + +"Do you mean me?" demanded Mrs. Morrell, her eyes flashing dangerously. + +"Moderate your voice, my dear," advised he. "My remark was wholly general +of your charming sex." + +From the parlour now they heard faintly the first sounds of struggle. + +"That's more like," he said with satisfaction. "I hate to have my ideals +shattered." + +Wheels became audible. + +"There's Teeny, now," he observed, arising. He sauntered down the hall and +looked out. "Keith!" he whispered back over his shoulder. "Where in hell +did he come from?" He continued to peer into the darkness. "There's two +others. Well, at any rate, we have plenty of witnesses!" He turned to Mrs. +Morrell. "You'd better make yourself scarce. You locked that door, you +know!" + +"Scarce!" she repeated, staring at him. "Where? How?" + +He looked at her through narrowed lids. + +"Get a horse of Jake," he said at last. "I'll meet you--oh, at the house. +We'll arrange later." + +He watched her rather opulent figure steal down the dim hallway. A cynical +smile flashed under his moustache. He turned back to the drama before him. +The buggy had disappeared; the veranda was apparently empty. + +"Now I wonder who will shoot who?" speculated Morrell. + +He stole to the first of the windows. The lower blinds were drawn, but the +upper half of the window was clear. Morrell cautiously placed a stool +nearby, and mounted it so he could see into the room. For several minutes +he watched. Then his hand stole to his pocket. He produced a revolver. + + + + +LXXVI + + +Blinded by the light, Keith stood for a barely appreciable moment in the +wrecked doorway. Sansome, startled by the crash, relaxed his efforts. Nan +thrust him from her so strongly that he staggered back. Keith's vision +cleared. He appreciated the meaning of the tableau, uttered a choked growl, +and advanced. + +Immediately Sansome drew and presented his weapon. He was shocked far +toward sobriety, but the residue of the whiskey fumes in combination with a +sudden sick and guilty panic imbued him with a sort of desperation. Sansome +was a bold and dashing villain only as long as things came his way. His +amours had always been of the safe rather than the wildly adventurous sort. +Sansome had no morals; but being found out produced effects so closely +resembling those of conscience that they could not be distinguished. In the +chaotic collapse of this heroic episode he managed to cling to but one +thing. That was Morrell's often reiterated warning: "Don't let Keith get +his hands on you!" + +At the sight of his levelled weapon, Nan, who was nearest, uttered a +stifled cry and made as though to throw herself on him. + +"Stop!" commanded Keith, without looking toward her. But so quietly +authoritative was his voice and manner that in spite of herself her impulse +was checked. She remained rigid. + +Keith advanced steadily on Sansome, his hands clenched at his side, his +eye's fixed frowningly and contemptuously on those of the other man. The +pistol barrel was held on his breast. Sansome fully intended to shoot, but +found himself unable to pull the trigger. This is a condition every +rifleman knows well by experience; he calls it being "frozen on the bull's +eye," when, the alignment perfect, his rifle steady as a rock, he +nevertheless cannot transmit just the little nerve power necessary to crook +the forefinger. Three times Sansome sent the message to his trigger finger; +three times the impulse died before it had compassed the distance between +his brain and his hand. This was partly because his correlations had been +weakened by the drink; partly because his fuddled mind was divided between +fear, guilt, despair, and a rage at himself for having got into such a +mess; but principally because he was hypnotically dominated by the other +man's stronger personality. + +So evident was this that a sudden feeling of confidence replaced in Nan the +sick terror at the sight of the weapon. She seemed to know positively that +here was no real peril. A wave of contempt for Sansome, even as a dangerous +creature, mingled with a passionate admiration for the man who thus +dominated him unarmed. + +Sansome's nerve broke. He dropped his hand, looked to right and left +frantically like a rat in a corner, uttered a very ratty squeak. Suddenly +he hurled the loaded pistol blindly at Keith, and plunged bodily, with an +immense crash of breaking glass, through the closed window. Keith, with a +snarl of baffled rage, dashed forward. + +The sight seemed to touch Nan's sense of humour. She laughed at the +picture, caught her breath, gasped. Keith whirled and snatched her fiercely +in his arms. + +"Nan!" he cried in an agony, "are you all right? What did that beast--" + +She clung to him, still choking, on the edge of hysterics. In a moment of +illumination she realized that the intangible barrier these past years had +so slowly built between them had gone crashing down before the assault of +the old love triumphant. + +"I'm all right, dear," she gasped; "really all right. And I never was so +happy in my life!" + +They clung together frantically, he patting her shoulder, her cheek against +his own, murmuring broken, soothing little phrases. The time and the place +did not exist for them. + +A scuffle outside, which they had only vaguely sensed, and which had not at +all penetrated to their understandings, came to an end. Mrs. Sherwood +appeared in the doorway. Her dress was torn and dishevelled, a strand of +her smooth hair had fallen across her forehead, an angry red mark showed on +one cheek. But she was in high spirits. Her customary quiet poise had given +place to a vibrant, birdlike, vital, quivering eagerness. To the two in the +centre of the room, still clasped in each other's arms, came the same +thought: that never, in spite of her ruffled plumes, in spite of the cheek +already beginning to swell, had this extraordinary woman looked so +beautiful! Then Keith realized that she was panting heavily, and was +clinging to the doorway. He sprang to her assistance. + +"What is it? Where is Krafft?" he asked. + +She laughed a little, and permitted him to help her to an armchair into +which she sank. She waved aside Keith's attempts to find a whole glass in +the wreckage of the table. + +"I'm all right," she said, "and isn't this a nice little party?" + +"What has happened? Where is Krafft?" repeated Keith. + +"I sent him to the stable for help. There didn't seem to be anybody about +the place." + +"But what happened to you? Did that brute Sansome--" + +"Sansome? was that Sansome? the one who came through the window?" She +dabbed at her cheek. "You might wet me a handkerchief or a towel or +something," she suggested. "No, he didn't stop!" she laughed again. "Are +you all right?" she asked anxiously of Nan. + +"Yes. But tell us--" + +"Well, children, I was waiting on the veranda, obeying orders like a good +girl, when, in the dim light I saw a man mount a stool and look into the +room. He was very much interested. I crept up quite close to him without +his knowing it. I heard him mutter to himself something about a 'weak kneed +fool.' Then he drew a revolver. He looked quite determined and heroic"--she +giggled reminiscently--"so I kicked the stool out from under him! About +that time there was a most terrific crash, and somebody came out through +the window." + +"But your cheek, your hair--" + +"I tried to hold him, but he was too strong for me. He hit me in the face, +wrenched himself free, and ran. That was all; except that he dropped the +pistol, and I'm going to keep it as a trophy." + +Keith was looking at her, deep in thought. + +"I don't understand," he said slowly. "Who could it have been?" + +Mrs. Sherwood shook her head. + +"Somebody about to shoot a pistol; that's all I know. I couldn't see his +face." + +"Whoever it was, you saved one or both of us," said Keith, "there's no +doubt in my mind of that. Let's see the pistol." + +It proved to be one of the smaller Colt's models, about 31 calibre, cap and +ball, silver plated, with polished rosewood handles, and heavily engraved +with scrollwork. Turning it over, Keith finally discovered on the bottom of +the butt frame two letters scratched rudely, apparently with the point of a +knife. He took it closer to the light. + +"I have it," said he. "Here are the letters C.M." + +"Charles Morrell!" cried both women in a breath. + +At this moment appeared Krafft, somewhat out of wind, followed by the surly +and reluctant proprietor from whom the place took its name. Jake had been +liberally paid to keep himself and his staff out of the way. Now finding +that he was not wanted, he promptly disappeared. + +"Let's get to the bottom of this thing," said Keith decisively. "If those +are really meant for Morrell's initials, what was he doing here?" + +"Mrs. Morrell came out with me," put in Nan. + +"Jake told me there was to be a supper party later," said Krafft. + +"It's clear enough," contributed Mrs. Sherwood. "The whole thing is a plot +to murder or do worse. I've been through '50 and '51, and I know." + +"I can't believe yet that Sansome--" said Keith doubtfully. + +"Oh, Sansome is merely a tool, I don't doubt," replied Mrs. Sherwood. + +"I can find out to-morrow from Mex Ryan who sent the note," said Krafft. + +"Let's get out of this horrible place!" cried Nan with a convulsive shiver. + +Again they had great difficulty in finding any one to get their rigs, but +finally repeated calls brought the hostler and Jake himself. The latter +made some growl about payment for the entertainment, but at this Keith +turned on him with such concentrated fury that he muttered something and +slouched away. It was agreed that Krafft should conduct Mrs. Sherwood. They +clambered into the two buggies and drove away. + + + + +LXXVII + + +The horse plodded slowly down the gravelled drive of the road house and +turned into the main highway. It was very dark on earth, and very bright in +the heavens. The afternoon fog had cleared away, dissipated in the warm air +from the sand hills, for the day had been hot. Overhead flared thousands of +stars, throwing the world small. Nan, shivering in reaction, nestled +against her husband. He drew her close. She rested her cheek against his +shoulder and sighed happily. Neither spoke. + +At first Keith's whole being was filled with rage. His mind whirled with +plans for revenge. On the morrow he would hunt down Morrell and Sansome. At +the thought of what he would do to them, his teeth clamped and his muscles +stiffened. Then he became wholly preoccupied with Nan's narrow escape. His +quick mind visualized a hundred possibilities--suppose he had gone on +Durkee's expedition? Suppose Mex Ryan had not happened to remember his +name? Suppose Mrs. Sherwood and Krafft had not found him? Suppose they had +been an hour later? Suppose--He leaned over tenderly to draw the lap robe +closer about her. She had stopped shivering and was nestling contentedly +against him. + +But gradually the storm in Keith's soul fell. The great and solemn night +stood over against his vision, and at last he could not but look. The +splendour of the magnificent skies, the dreamy peace of the velvet-black +earth lying supine like a weary creature at rest--these two simple +infinities of space and of promise took him to themselves. An eager glad +chorus of frogs came from some invisible pool. The slithering sound of the +sand dividing before the buggy wheels whispered. Every once in a while the +plodding horse sighed deeply. + +With the warm cozy feel of the woman, his woman, in the hollow of his arm, +his spirit stilled and uplifted by the simple yet august and eternal things +before him, Keith fell into inchoate rumination. The fever of activity in +the city, the clash of men's interests, greeds, and passions, the tumult +and striving, the sweat and dust of the arena fell to nothing about his +feet. He cleared his vision of the small necessary unessentials, and stared +forth wide-eyed at the big simplicities of life--truth as one sees it, +loyalty to one's ideal, charity toward one's beaten enemy, a steadfast +front toward one's unbeaten enemy, scorn of pettiness, to be unafraid. +Unless the struggle is for and by these things, it is useless, meaningless. +And one's possessions--Keith's left arm tightened convulsively. He had come +near to losing the only possession worth while. At the pressure Nan stirred +sleepily. + +"Are we there, dear?" she inquired, raising her head. + +Keith had reined in the horse, and was peering into the surrounding +darkness. He laughed. + +"No, we seem to be here," he replied, "And I'm blest if I know where 'here' +is! I've been day-dreaming!" + +"I believe I've been asleep," confessed Nan. + +They both stared about them, but could discern nothing familiar in the dim +outlines of the hills. Not a light flickered. + +"Perhaps if you'd give the horse his head, he'd take us home. I've heard, +they would," suggested Nan. + +"He's had his head completely for the last two hours. That theory is +exploded. We must have turned wrong after leaving Jake's Place." + +"Well, we're on a road. It must go somewhere." + +Keith, with some difficulty, managed to awaken the horse. It sighed and +resumed its plodding. + +"I'm afraid we're lost," confessed Keith. + +"I don't much care," confessed Nan. + +"He seems to be a perfectly safe horse," said he. + +By way of answer to this she passed her arms gently about his neck and bent +his lips to hers. The horse immediately stopped. + +"Seems a fairly intelligent brute, too," observed Keith, after a few +moments. + +"Did you ever see so many stars?" said she. + +The buggy moved slowly, on through the night. They did not talk. +Explanations and narrative could wait until the morrow--a distant morrow +only dimly foreseen, across this vast ocean of night. All sense of tune or +direction left them; they were wandering irresponsibly, without thought of +why, as children wander and get lost. After a long time they saw a silver +gleam far ahead and below them. + +"That must be the bay," said Keith. "If we turn to the right we ought to +get back to town." + +"I suppose so," said Nan. + +A very long time later the horse stopped short with an air of finality, and +refused absolutely to proceed. Keith descended to see what was the matter. + +"The road seems to end here," he told her. "There's a steep descent just +ahead." + +"What now?" + +"Nothing," he replied, climbing back into the buggy. + +The horse slumbered profoundly. They wrapped the lap robe around +themselves. For a tune they whispered little half-forgotten things to each +other. The pauses grew longer and longer. With an effort she roused herself +to press her lips again to his. They, too, slept. And as dawn slowly +lighted the world, they must have presented a strange and bizarre +silhouette atop the hill against the paling sky--the old sagging buggy, the +horse with head down and ears adroop, the lovers clasped in each other's +arms. + +Silently all about them the new day was preparing its great spectacle. The +stars were growing dim; the masses of eastern hills were becoming visible. +A full rich life was swelling through the world, quietly, stealthily, as +though under cover of darkness multitudes were stealing to their posts. +Shortly, when the signal was given, the curtain would roll up, the fanfare +of trumpets would resound--A meadow lark chirped low out of the blackness. +And another, boldly, with full throat, uttered its liquid, joyous song. +This was apparently the signal. The east turned gray. Mt. Tamalpais caught +the first ghostly light. And ecstatically the birds and the insects and the +flying and crawling and creeping things awakened, and each in his own voice +and manner devoutly welcomed the brand-new day with its fresh, clean +chances of life and its forgetfulness of old, disagreeable things. The +meadow larks became hundreds, the song sparrows trilled, distant cocks +crowed, and a dog barked exuberantly far away. + +Keith stirred and looked about him. Objects were already becoming dimly +visible. Suddenly something attracted his attention. He held his head +sideways, listening. Faintly down the little land breeze came the sound of +a bell. It was the Vigilante tocsin. Nan sat up, blinking and putting her +hair back from her eyes. She laughed a little happily. + +"Why, it's the dawn!" she cried, "We've been out all night!" + +"The dawn," repeated Keith, his arm about her, but his ear attuned to the +beat of the distant bell. "The gray dawn of better things." + + + + +LXXVIII + + +As the Keiths, on the way, drove across what is now Harbour View, they +stopped to watch a bark standing out through the Golden Gate before the +gentle morning land breeze. She made a pretty sight, for the new-risen sun +whitened her sails. Aboard her was the arch-plotter, Morrell. Had they +known of that fact, it is to be doubted whether they would have felt any +great disappointment over his escape, or any deep animosity at all. The +outcome of his efforts had been clarifying. The bark was bound for the +Sandwich Islands. Morrell's dispositions for flight at a moment's notice +had been made long since; in fact, since the first days of Vigilante +activity. He lingered in the islands for some years, at first cutting quite +a dash; then, as his money dwindled and his schemes failed, he degenerated +slowly. His latter end was probably as a small copra trader in the South +Seas; but that is unknown. Mrs. Morrell--if indeed she was the man's legal +wife at all--thus frankly abandoned, put a bold front on the whole matter. +She returned to her house. As the Keiths in no manner molested her, she +took heart. With no resources other than heavily mortgaged real property, +she found herself forced to do something for a living. In the course of +events we see Mrs. Morrell keeping a flashy boarding-house, hanging +precariously on the outer fringe of the lax society of the times, frowned +upon by the respectable, but more or less sought by the fast men and young +girls only too numerous among the idle of that day. + +Ben Sansome went south. For twenty years he lived in Los Angeles, where he +cut a figure, but from which he always cast longing eyes back upon San +Francisco. He had a furtive lookout for arrivals from the north. One day, +however, he came face to face with Keith. As the latter did not annihilate +him on the spot, Sansome plucked up courage. He returned to San Francisco, +There in time he attained a position dear to his heart; he became an "old +beau," frequenting the teas and balls, appraising the débutantes, giving +his opinion on vintage wines, leading a comfortable, idle, selfish, +useless, graceful life. His only discomfort was his occasional encounters +with the Keiths. Mrs. Keith never distinguished him from thin air unless +others were present. Keith had always in his eye a gleam of contempt which, +perhaps, Sansome acknowledged, was natural; but it was a contempt with a +dash of amusement in it, and that galled. Still--Ben was satisfied. He +gained the distinction of having discovered the epicurean value of sand- +dabs. + +The Sherwoods founded the family of that name. + +Terry, arrested for the stabbing of Hopkins, was at first very humble, +promising to resign his Supreme Court Judgeship. As time went on he became +arrogant. The Committee of Vigilance was rather at a loss. If Hopkins died, +they could do no less than hang Terry: and they realized fully that in +executing a Justice of the Supreme Court they were entering deep waters. To +the relief of everybody Hopkins fully recovered. After being held closely +in custody, Terry was finally released, with a resolution that he be +declared unfit for office. Once free, however, he revised his intention of +resigning. His subsequent career proved as lawless and undisciplined as its +earlier promise. Finally he was killed while in the act of attempting to +assassinate Justice Stephen Field, an old, weak, helpless, and unarmed man. +If Terry holds any significance in history, it is that of being the +strongest factor in the complete wrecking of the Law and Order party! + +For with the capture of the arsenals, and all their arms, open opposition +to the Committee of Vigilance came to an end. The Executive Committee +continued its work. Numberless malefactors and suspects were banished; two +more men, Hetherington and Brace, were solemnly hanged. On the 8th. of +August the cells were practically empty. It was determined to disband on +the 21st. + +That ceremony was signalized by a parade on the 18th. Four regiments of +infantry, two squadrons of cavalry, a battalion of riflemen, a battalion of +pistol men, and a battalion of police were in line. The entire city turned +out to cheer. + +As for the effects of this movement, the reader must be referred to the +historians. It is sufficient to say that for years San Francisco enjoyed a +model government and almost complete immunity from crime. + +One evening about twilight two men stood in the gathering shadows of the +Plaza. They were old friends, but had in times of stress stood on opposite +sides. The elder man shook his head skeptically. + +"That is all very well," said he, "but where are your Vigilantes now?" + +The other raised his hand toward the great bell of the Monumental +silhouetted against the afterglow in the sky. + +"Toll that bell, sir, and you will see!" replied Coleman solemnly. + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Gray Dawn, by Stewart Edward White + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE GRAY DAWN *** + +This file should be named 8gdwn10.txt or 8gdwn10.zip +Corrected EDITIONS of our eBooks get a new NUMBER, 8gdwn11.txt +VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, 8gdwn10a.txt + +Produced by C. Aldarondo, T. Vergon, J. Fairbanks +and Online Distributed Proofreaders + +Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US +unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we usually do not +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + +We are now trying to release all our eBooks one year in advance +of the official release dates, leaving time for better editing. +Please be encouraged to tell us about any error or corrections, +even years after the official publication date. + +Please note neither this listing nor its contents are final til +midnight of the last day of the month of any such announcement. +The official release date of all Project Gutenberg eBooks is at +Midnight, Central Time, of the last day of the stated month. A +preliminary version may often be posted for suggestion, comment +and editing by those who wish to do so. + +Most people start at our Web sites at: +http://gutenberg.net or +http://promo.net/pg + +These Web sites include award-winning information about Project +Gutenberg, including how to donate, how to help produce our new +eBooks, and how to subscribe to our email newsletter (free!). + + +Those of you who want to download any eBook before announcement +can get to them as follows, and just download by date. This is +also a good way to get them instantly upon announcement, as the +indexes our cataloguers produce obviously take a while after an +announcement goes out in the Project Gutenberg Newsletter. + +http://www.ibiblio.org/gutenberg/etext03 or +ftp://ftp.ibiblio.org/pub/docs/books/gutenberg/etext03 + +Or /etext02, 01, 00, 99, 98, 97, 96, 95, 94, 93, 92, 92, 91 or 90 + +Just search by the first five letters of the filename you want, +as it appears in our Newsletters. + + +Information about Project Gutenberg (one page) + +We produce about two million dollars for each hour we work. The +time it takes us, a rather conservative estimate, is fifty hours +to get any eBook selected, entered, proofread, edited, copyright +searched and analyzed, the copyright letters written, etc. Our +projected audience is one hundred million readers. If the value +per text is nominally estimated at one dollar then we produce $2 +million dollars per hour in 2002 as we release over 100 new text +files per month: 1240 more eBooks in 2001 for a total of 4000+ +We are already on our way to trying for 2000 more eBooks in 2002 +If they reach just 1-2% of the world's population then the total +will reach over half a trillion eBooks given away by year's end. + +The Goal of Project Gutenberg is to Give Away 1 Trillion eBooks! +This is ten thousand titles each to one hundred million readers, +which is only about 4% of the present number of computer users. + +Here is the briefest record of our progress (* means estimated): + +eBooks Year Month + + 1 1971 July + 10 1991 January + 100 1994 January + 1000 1997 August + 1500 1998 October + 2000 1999 December + 2500 2000 December + 3000 2001 November + 4000 2001 October/November + 6000 2002 December* + 9000 2003 November* +10000 2004 January* + + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation has been created +to secure a future for Project Gutenberg into the next millennium. + +We need your donations more than ever! + +As of February, 2002, contributions are being solicited from people +and organizations in: Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Connecticut, +Delaware, District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois, +Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Massachusetts, +Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New +Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, +Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South +Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, West +Virginia, Wisconsin, and Wyoming. + +We have filed in all 50 states now, but these are the only ones +that have responded. + +As the requirements for other states are met, additions to this list +will be made and fund raising will begin in the additional states. +Please feel free to ask to check the status of your state. + +In answer to various questions we have received on this: + +We are constantly working on finishing the paperwork to legally +request donations in all 50 states. If your state is not listed and +you would like to know if we have added it since the list you have, +just ask. + +While we cannot solicit donations from people in states where we are +not yet registered, we know of no prohibition against accepting +donations from donors in these states who approach us with an offer to +donate. + +International donations are accepted, but we don't know ANYTHING about +how to make them tax-deductible, or even if they CAN be made +deductible, and don't have the staff to handle it even if there are +ways. + +Donations by check or money order may be sent to: + +Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation +PMB 113 +1739 University Ave. +Oxford, MS 38655-4109 + +Contact us if you want to arrange for a wire transfer or payment +method other than by check or money order. + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation has been approved by +the US Internal Revenue Service as a 501(c)(3) organization with EIN +[Employee Identification Number] 64-622154. Donations are +tax-deductible to the maximum extent permitted by law. As fund-raising +requirements for other states are met, additions to this list will be +made and fund-raising will begin in the additional states. + +We need your donations more than ever! + +You can get up to date donation information online at: + +http://www.gutenberg.net/donation.html + + +*** + +If you can't reach Project Gutenberg, +you can always email directly to: + +Michael S. Hart <hart@pobox.com> + +Prof. Hart will answer or forward your message. + +We would prefer to send you information by email. + + +**The Legal Small Print** + + +(Three Pages) + +***START**THE SMALL PRINT!**FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN EBOOKS**START*** +Why is this "Small Print!" statement here? You know: lawyers. +They tell us you might sue us if there is something wrong with +your copy of this eBook, even if you got it for free from +someone other than us, and even if what's wrong is not our +fault. So, among other things, this "Small Print!" statement +disclaims most of our liability to you. It also tells you how +you may distribute copies of this eBook if you want to. + +*BEFORE!* YOU USE OR READ THIS EBOOK +By using or reading any part of this PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm +eBook, you indicate that you understand, agree to and accept +this "Small Print!" statement. If you do not, you can receive +a refund of the money (if any) you paid for this eBook by +sending a request within 30 days of receiving it to the person +you got it from. If you received this eBook on a physical +medium (such as a disk), you must return it with your request. + +ABOUT PROJECT GUTENBERG-TM EBOOKS +This PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm eBook, like most PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm eBooks, +is a "public domain" work distributed by Professor Michael S. Hart +through the Project Gutenberg Association (the "Project"). +Among other things, this means that no one owns a United States copyright +on or for this work, so the Project (and you!) can copy and +distribute it in the United States without permission and +without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, set forth +below, apply if you wish to copy and distribute this eBook +under the "PROJECT GUTENBERG" trademark. + +Please do not use the "PROJECT GUTENBERG" trademark to market +any commercial products without permission. + +To create these eBooks, the Project expends considerable +efforts to identify, transcribe and proofread public domain +works. Despite these efforts, the Project's eBooks and any +medium they may be on may contain "Defects". Among other +things, Defects may take the form of incomplete, inaccurate or +corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other +intellectual property infringement, a defective or damaged +disk or other eBook medium, a computer virus, or computer +codes that damage or cannot be read by your equipment. + +LIMITED WARRANTY; DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES +But for the "Right of Replacement or Refund" described below, +[1] Michael Hart and the Foundation (and any other party you may +receive this eBook from as a PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm eBook) disclaims +all liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including +legal fees, and [2] YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE OR +UNDER STRICT LIABILITY, OR FOR BREACH OF WARRANTY OR CONTRACT, +INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE +OR INCIDENTAL DAMAGES, EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE +POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES. + +If you discover a Defect in this eBook within 90 days of +receiving it, you can receive a refund of the money (if any) +you paid for it by sending an explanatory note within that +time to the person you received it from. If you received it +on a physical medium, you must return it with your note, and +such person may choose to alternatively give you a replacement +copy. If you received it electronically, such person may +choose to alternatively give you a second opportunity to +receive it electronically. + +THIS EBOOK IS OTHERWISE PROVIDED TO YOU "AS-IS". NO OTHER +WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, ARE MADE TO YOU AS +TO THE EBOOK OR ANY MEDIUM IT MAY BE ON, INCLUDING BUT NOT +LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A +PARTICULAR PURPOSE. + +Some states do not allow disclaimers of implied warranties or +the exclusion or limitation of consequential damages, so the +above disclaimers and exclusions may not apply to you, and you +may have other legal rights. + +INDEMNITY +You will indemnify and hold Michael Hart, the Foundation, +and its trustees and agents, and any volunteers associated +with the production and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm +texts harmless, from all liability, cost and expense, including +legal fees, that arise directly or indirectly from any of the +following that you do or cause: [1] distribution of this eBook, +[2] alteration, modification, or addition to the eBook, +or [3] any Defect. + +DISTRIBUTION UNDER "PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm" +You may distribute copies of this eBook electronically, or by +disk, book or any other medium if you either delete this +"Small Print!" and all other references to Project Gutenberg, +or: + +[1] Only give exact copies of it. Among other things, this + requires that you do not remove, alter or modify the + eBook or this "small print!" statement. You may however, + if you wish, distribute this eBook in machine readable + binary, compressed, mark-up, or proprietary form, + including any form resulting from conversion by word + processing or hypertext software, but only so long as + *EITHER*: + + [*] The eBook, when displayed, is clearly readable, and + does *not* contain characters other than those + intended by the author of the work, although tilde + (~), asterisk (*) and underline (_) characters may + be used to convey punctuation intended by the + author, and additional characters may be used to + indicate hypertext links; OR + + [*] The eBook may be readily converted by the reader at + no expense into plain ASCII, EBCDIC or equivalent + form by the program that displays the eBook (as is + the case, for instance, with most word processors); + OR + + [*] You provide, or agree to also provide on request at + no additional cost, fee or expense, a copy of the + eBook in its original plain ASCII form (or in EBCDIC + or other equivalent proprietary form). + +[2] Honor the eBook refund and replacement provisions of this + "Small Print!" statement. + +[3] Pay a trademark license fee to the Foundation of 20% of the + gross profits you derive calculated using the method you + already use to calculate your applicable taxes. If you + don't derive profits, no royalty is due. Royalties are + payable to "Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation" + the 60 days following each date you prepare (or were + legally required to prepare) your annual (or equivalent + periodic) tax return. Please contact us beforehand to + let us know your plans and to work out the details. + +WHAT IF YOU *WANT* TO SEND MONEY EVEN IF YOU DON'T HAVE TO? +Project Gutenberg is dedicated to increasing the number of +public domain and licensed works that can be freely distributed +in machine readable form. + +The Project gratefully accepts contributions of money, time, +public domain materials, or royalty free copyright licenses. +Money should be paid to the: +"Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation." + +If you are interested in contributing scanning equipment or +software or other items, please contact Michael Hart at: +hart@pobox.com + +[Portions of this eBook's header and trailer may be reprinted only +when distributed free of all fees. Copyright (C) 2001, 2002 by +Michael S. Hart. Project Gutenberg is a TradeMark and may not be +used in any sales of Project Gutenberg eBooks or other materials be +they hardware or software or any other related product without +express permission.] + +*END THE SMALL PRINT! FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN EBOOKS*Ver.02/11/02*END* + diff --git a/old/8gdwn10.zip b/old/8gdwn10.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..888616a --- /dev/null +++ b/old/8gdwn10.zip |