University of California Berkeley THE PETER AND ROSELL HARVEY MEMORIAL FUND 50lW."'# DEVIL'S FORD ETC. BRET HARTE'S WORKS. BRET HARTE'S COLLECTED WORKS. Revised by the Author. LIBRARY EDITION, in Nine Volumes, crown 8vo. , cloth extra, 6s. each. Vol. I. Complete Poetical and Dramatic Works. With Steel-plate Portrait. ,, II. The Luck of Roaring Camp Bohemian Papers American Legends. III. Tales of the Argonauts Eastern Sketches. IV. Gabriel Conroy. V. Stories Condensed Novels, etc. VI. Tales of the Pacific Slope. VII. Tales of the Pacific Slope II. With Portrait by JOHN PETTI E, R.A. VIII. Tales of the Pine and the Cypress. IX. Buckeye and Chapparel. The Select Works of Bret Harte, in Prose and Poetry. With In troductory Essay by J. M. BELLEW, Portrait of the Author, and 50 Illustrations. Crown 8vo., cloth extra, 73. 6d. Bret Harte's Poetical Works. Printed on hand-made paper. Crown 8vo., buckram, 43. 6d. The Queen of the Pirate Isle. With 28 Original Drawings by KATE GREENAWAY, reproduced in Colours by EDMUND EVANS. Small 410., cloth, 55. Crown 8vo., cloth extra, 33. 6d. each ; post 8vo., picture boards, 2S. each. A Waif of the Plains. With 62 Illustrations by STANLEY L. WOOD. A Ward of the Golden Gate. With 59 Illustrations by STANLEY L. WOOD. Crown 8vo., cloth extra, 33. 6d. each. A Sappho of Green Springs. With 2 Illustrations by HUME NISBET. Colonel Starbottle's Client, and Some Other People. With a Frontispiece. Susy. A Novel. With a Frontispiece and Vignette by J. A. CHRISTIE. Sally Dows, etc. With 47 Illustrations by W. D. ALMOND and others. A Protegee of Jack Hamlin's. With 26 Illustrations by W. SMALL and others. The Bell-Ringer of Angel's, etc. With 39 Illustrations by DUDLEY HARDY and others. Clarence. A Story of the American War. With 8 Illustrations by A JULE GOODMAN. Devil's Ford, etc. With a Frontispiece. Barker's Luck, etc. With 39 Illustrations by PAUL HARDY, A. FORESTIER, etc. Post 8vo. , illustrated boards, 2s. each. Gabriel Conroy. i The Luck of Roaring Camp, An Heiress of Red Dog, etc. etc. I Californian Stories. Post 8vo., illustrated boards, 2S. each ; cloth, 2S. 6d. each. Flip. | Maruja. | A Phyllis of the Sierras, LONDON : CHATTO & WINDUS. AT THAT MOMENT, THE EXPECTED STAGE-COACH CAME RATTLING BY. DEVIL'S FORD ETC. BY BRET HARTE WITH A FRONTISPIECE BY W. H. OVEREND LONDON CHATTO & WIN BUS 1896 CONTENTS DEVIL'S FORD - - - -, - - - - I SNOW-BOUND AT EAGLE'S - 89 A MILLIONAIRE OF ROUGH-AND-READY - - , - - 223 DEVIL'S FORD DEVIL'S FORD CHAPTER I. IT was a season of unequalled prosperity in Devil's Ford. The half a dozen cabins scattered along the banks of the North Fork, as if by some overflow of that capricious river, had become augmented during a week of fierce excitement by twenty or thirty others, that were huddled together on the narrow gorge of Devil's Spur, or cast up on its steep sides. So sudden and violent had been the change of fortune, that the dwellers in the older cabins had not had time to change with it, but still kept their old habits, customs, and even their old clothes. The flour-pan in which their daily bread was mixed stood on the rude table side by side with the ' pro- specting-pans,' half full of gold washed up from their morning's work ; the front windows of the newer tenements looked upon the one single thoroughfare, but the back-doors opened upon the uncleared wilder ness, still haunted by the misshapen bulk of bear or the nightly gliding of catamount. 4 DEVIL'S FORD Neither had success as yet affected their boyish simplicity and the frankness of old frontier habits ; they played with their new-found riches with the naive delight of children, and rehearsed their glow ing future with the importance and triviality of schoolboys. * I've bin kalklatin',' said Dick Mattingly, leaning on his long-handled shovel with lazy gravity, ' that when I go to Rome this winter, I'll get one o' them marble sharps to chisel me a statoo o' some kind to set up on the spot where we made our big strike. Suthin' to remember it by, you know.' * What kind o' statoo Washington or Webster ?' asked one of the Kearney brothers, without looking up from his work. ' No ; I reckon one o' them fancy groups one o' them Latin goddesses that Fairfax is always gassin' about, sorter leadin', directin', and bossin' us where to dig. 1 1 You'd make a healthy-lookin' rigger in a group,' responded Kearney, critically regarding an enormous patch in Mattingly's trousers. c Why don't you have a fountain instead ?' * Where'll you get the water ?' demanded the first speaker in return. * You know there ain't enough in the North Fork to do a week's washing for the camp to say nothin' of its colour.' ' Leave that to me,' said Kearney, with self- possession. ' When I've built that there reservoir on Devil's Spur, and brought the water over the ridge from Union Ditch, there'll be enough to spare for that.' DEVIL'S FORD 5 ' Better mix it up, I reckon ; have suthin' half statoo, half fountain,' interposed the elder Mattingly, better known as ' Maryland Joe/ ' and set it up afore the Town Hall and Free Library I'm kalklatin' to give. Do that, and you can count on me.' After some further discussion, it was gravely settled that Kearney should furnish water brought from the Union Ditch, twenty miles away, at a cost of two hundred thousand dollars, to feed a memorial fountain erected by Mattingly, worth a hundred thousand dollars, as a crowning finish to public buildings contributed by Maryland Joe, to the extent of half a million more. The disposition of these vast sums by gentlemen wearing patched breeches awakened no sense of the ludicrous, nor did any doubt, reservation, or contingency enter into the plans of the charming enthusiasts themselves. The foundation of their airy castles lay already before them in the strip of rich alluvium on the river-bank, where the North Fork, sharply curving round the base of Devil's Spur, had for centuries swept the detritus of gulch and canon. They had barely crossed the threshold of this treasure-house, to find themselves rich men. What possibilities of affluence might be theirs when they had fully exploited their possessions ? So confident were they of that ulti mate prospect, that the wealth already thus obtained was religiously expended in engines and machinery for the boring of wells and the conveyance of that precious water which the exhausted river had long since ceased to yield. It seemed as if the gold they had taken out was by some ironical compensation 6 DEVIL'S FORD gradually making its way back to the soil again through ditch and flume and reservoir. Such was the position of affairs at Devil's Ford on August 13, 1860. It was noon of a hot day. Whatever movement there was in the stifling air was seen rather than felt in a tremulous, quivering, upward-moving dust along the flank of the moun tain, through which the spires of the pines were faintly visible. There was no water in the bared and burning bars of the river to reflect the vertical sun, but under its direct rays one or two tinned roofs and corrugated zinc cabins struck fire, a few canvas tents became dazzling to the eye, and the white wooded coral of the stage office and hotel insup portable. For two hours no one ventured in the glare of the open, or even to cross the narrow, un shadowed street, whose dull red dust seemed to glow between the lines of straggling houses. The heated shells of these green unseasoned tenements gave out a pungent odour of scorching wood and resin. The usual hurried, feverish toil in the claim was suspended ; the pick and shovel were left sticking in the richest ' pay gravel ' ; the toiling millionaires themselves, ragged, dirty, and perspiring, lay pant ing under the nearest shade, where their pipes went out listlessly, and conversation sank to mono syllables. ' There's Fairfax,' said Dick Mattingly at last, with a lazy effort. His face was turned to the hill side, where a man had just emerged from the woods, and was halting irresolutely before the glaring ex panse of upheaved gravel and glistening boulders DEVIL'S FORD 7 that stretched between him and the shaded group. ' He's going to make a break for it,' he added, as the stranger, throwing his linen coat over his head, sud denly started into an Indian trot through the pelting sunbeams towards them. This strange act was perfectly understood by the group, who knew that in that intensely dry heat the danger of exposure was lessened by active exercise, and the profuse perspi ration that followed it. In another moment the stranger had reached their side, dripping as if rained upon, mopping his damp curls and handsome bearded face with his linen coat, as he threw himself pant- ingly on the ground. ' I struck out over here first, boys, to give you a little warning,' he said, as soon as he had gained breath. ' That engineer will be down here to take charge as soon as the six o'clock stage comes in. He's an oldish chap, has got a family of two daughters, and I am d d if he is not bring ing them down here with him.' ' Oh, go 'long !' exclaimed the five men in one voice, raising themselves on their hands and elbows, and glaring at the speaker. ' Fact, boys ! Soon as I found it out I just waltzed into that Jew shop at the Crossing and bought up all the clothes that would be likely to suit you fellows, before anybody else got a show. I reckon I cleared out the shop. The duds are a little mixed in style, but I reckon they're clean and whole, and a man might face a lady in 'em. I left them round at the old Buckeye Spring, where they're handy without attracting attention. You boys can go there for a 8 DEVIL'S FORD general wash-up, rig yourselves up without saying anything, and then meander back careless and easy in your store clothes, just as the stage is coming in, sabef 'Why didn't you let us know earlier?' asked Mattingly aggrievedly. ' You've been back here at least an hour.' 'I've been getting some place ready for them,' returned the new-comer. ' We might have managed to put the man somewhere, if he'd been alone, but these women want family accommodation. There was nothing left for me to do but to buy up Thomp son's saloon/ ' No !' interrupted his audience, half in incredulity, half in protestation. ' Fact ! You boys will have to take your drinks under canvas again, I reckon ! But I made Thomp son let those gold-framed mirrors that used to stand behind the bar go into the bargain, and they sort of furnish the room. You know the saloon is one of them patent houses you can take to pieces, and I've been reckoning you boys will have to pitch in and help me to take the whole shanty over to the laurel- bushes, and put it up agin Kearney's cabin.' ' What's all that ?' said the younger Kearney, with an odd mingling of astonishment and bashful gratification. 1 Yes, I reckon yours is the cleanest house, be cause it's the newest; so you'll just step out, and let us knock in one of the gables, and clap it on to the saloon and make one house of it don't you see ? There'll be two rooms one for the girls, and the other for the old man/ DEVIL'S FORD 9 The astonishment and bewilderment of the party had gradually given way to a boyish and impatient interest. 1 Hadn't we better do the job at once ?' suggested Dick Mattingly. ' Or throw ourselves into those new clothes, so as to be ready,' added the younger Kearney, looking down at his ragged trousers. ' I say, Fairfax, what are the girls like eh ?' All the others had been dying to ask the question, yet one and all laughed at the conscious manner and blushing cheek of the questioner. * You'll find out quick enough,' returned Fairfax, whose curt carelessness did not, however, prevent a slight increase of colour on his own cheek. ' We'd better get that job off our hands before doing any thing else. So, if you're ready, boys, we'll just waltz down to Thompson's and pack up the shanty. He's out of it by this time, I reckon. You might as well be perspiring to some purpose over there, as gaspin' under this tree. We won't go back to work this afternoon, but knock off now, and call it half a day. Come ! Hump yourselves, gentlemen ! Are you ready ? One, two, three, and away !' In another instant the tree was deserted ; the figures of the five millionaires of Devil's Ford, crossing the fierce glare of the open space with boyish alacrity, glistened in the sunlight, and then disappeared in the nearest fringe of thickets. io DEVIL'S FORD CHAPTER II. Six hours later, when the shadow of Devil's Spur had crossed the river, and spread a slight coolness over the flat beyond, the Pioneer coach, leaving the summit, began also to bathe its heated bulk in the long shadows of the descent. Conspicuous among the dusty passengers, the two pretty and youthful faces of the daughters of Philip Carr, mining super intendent and engineer, looked from the windows with no little anxiety towards their future home in the straggling settlement below, that occasionally came in view at the turns of the long zig-zagging road. A slight look of comical disappointment passed between them as they gazed upon the sterile flat, dotted with unsightly excrescences that stood equally for cabins or mounds of stone and gravel. It was so feeble and inconsistent a culmination to the beautiful scenery they had passed through, so hopeless and imbecile a conclusion to the prepara tion of that long picturesque journey, with its glimpses of sylvan and pastoral glades and canons, that, as the coach swept down the last incline, and the remorseless monotony of the dead level spread out before them, furrowed by ditches and indented by pits, under cover of shielding their cheeks from the impalpable dust that rose beneath their plunging wheels, they buried their faces in their handker chiefs to hide a few half-hysterical tears. Happily, their father, completely absorbed in a practical, scientific, and approving contemplation of the topo- DEVIL'S FORD n graphy and material resources of the scene of his future labours, had no time to notice their defection. It was not until the stage drew up before a rambling tenement bearing the inscription, ' Hotel and Stage Office,' that he became fully aware of it. * We can't stop here, papa,' said Christie Carr decidedly, with a shake of her pretty head. * You can't expect that.' Mr. Carr looked up at the building ; it was half grocery, half saloon. Whatever other accommoda tion it contained must have been hidden in the rear, as the flat roof above was almost level with the raftered ceiling of the shop. 'Certainly,' he replied hurriedly; 'we'll see to that in a moment. I dare say it's all right. I told Fairfax we were coming. Somebody ought to be here.' ' But they're not/ said Jessie Carr indignantly ; ' and the few that were here scampered off like rabbits to their burrows as soon as they saw us get down.' It was true. The little group of loungers before the building had suddenly disappeared. There was the flash of a red shirt vanishing in an adjacent doorway ; the fading apparition of a pair of high boots and blue overalls in another ; the abrupt with drawal of a curly blonde head from a sashless window over the waj'. Even the saloon was deserted, although a back-door in the dim recess seemed to creak mysteriously. The stage-coach, with the other passengers, had already rattled away. 12 DEVIL'S FORD ' I certainly think Fairfax understood that I ' began Mr. Carr. He was interrupted by the pressure of Christie's fingers on his arm, and a subdued exclamation from Jessie, who was staring down the street. ' What are they ?' she whispered in her sister's ear. ' Nigger minstrels, a circus, or what ?' The five millionaires of Devil's Ford had just turned the corner of the straggling street, and were approaching in single file. One glance was suffi cient to show that they had already availed them selves of the new clothing bought by Fairfax, had washed, and one or two had shaved. But the result was startling. Through some fortunate coincidence in size, Dick Mattingly was the only one who had achieved an entire suit. But it was of funereal black cloth, and, although relieved at one extremity by a pair of high riding boots, in which his too short trousers were tucked, and at the other by a tall white hat, and cravat of aggressive yellow, the effect was de pressing. In agreeable contrast, his brother, Maryland Joe, was attired in a thin, fawn-coloured summer over coat, lightly worn open, so as to show the unstarched bosom of a white embroidered shirt, and a pair of nankeen trousers and pumps. The Kearney brothers had divided a suit between them, the elder wearing a tightly-fitting, single-breasted blue frock- coat, and a pair of pink striped cotton trousers, while the younger candidly displayed the trousers of his brother's suit, as a harmonious change to a DEVIL'S FORD 13 shining black alpaca coat and crimson neckerchief. Fairfax, who brought up the rear, had, with charac teristic unselfishness, contented himself with a French workman's blue blouse and a pair of white duck trousers. Had they shown the least conscious ness of their finery, or of its absurdity, they would have seemed despicable. But only one expression beamed on the five sunburnt and shining faces a look of unaffected boyish gratification and unre stricted welcome. They halted before Mr. Carr and his daughters, simultaneously removed their various and remark able head - coverings, and waited until Fairfax advanced and severally presented them. Jessie Carr's half - frightened smile took refuge in the trembling shadows of her dark lashes ; Christie Carr stiffened slightly, and looked straight before her. ' We reckoned that is, we intended to meet you and the young ladies at the grade,' said Fair fax, reddening a little as he endeavoured to conceal his too-ready slang, ' and save you from trapesing from dragging yourselves up-grade again to your house.' ' Then there ^s a house ?' said Jessie, with an alarmingly frank laugh of relief, that was, however, as frankly reflected in the boyishly appreciative eyes of the young men. ' Such as it is,' responded Fairfax, with a shade of anxiety, as he glanced at the fresh and pretty costumes of the young women, and dubiously re garded the two Saratoga trunks resting hopelessly 14 DEVIL'S FORD on the veranda. ' I'm afraid it isn't much, for what you're accustomed to. But,' he added more cheer fully, ' it will do for a day or two, and perhaps you'll give us the pleasure of showing you the way there now ?' The procession was quickly formed. Mr. Carr, alive only to the actual business that had brought him there, at once took possession of Fairfax, and began to disclose his plans for the working of the mine, occasionally halting to look at the work already done in the ditches, and to examine the field of his future operations. Fairfax, not dis pleased at being thus relieved of a lighter attendance on Mr. Carr's daughters, nevertheless from time to time cast a paternal glance backwards upon their escorts, who had each seized a handle of the two trunks, and were carrying them in couples at the young ladies' side. The occupation did not offer much freedom for easy gallantry, but no sign of discomfiture or uneasiness was visible in the grateful faces of the young men. The necessity of changing hands at times with their burdens brought a corre sponding change of cavalier at the lady's side, although it was observed that the younger Kearney, for the sake of continuing a conversation with Miss Jessie, kept his grasp of the handle nearest the young lady until his hand was nearly cut through, and his arm worn out by exhaustion. ' The only thing on wheels in the camp is a mule waggon, and the mules are packin' gravel from the river this afternoon,' explained Dick Mattingly apologetically to Christie, * or we'd have toted I DEVIL'S FORD 15 mean carried you and your baggage up to the shant the your house. Give us two weeks more, Miss Carr only two weeks to wash up our work and realize, and we'll give you a pair of 2-40 steppers and a skeleton buggy to meet you at the top of the hill and drive you over to the cabin. Perhaps you'd prefer a regular carnage ? Some ladies do. And a nigger driver. But what's the use of planning any thing ? Afore that time comes we'll have run you up a house on the hill, and you shall pick out the spot. It wouldn't take long unless you preferred brick. I suppose we could get brick over from La Grange if you cared for it, but it would take longer. If you could put up for a time with something of stained glass and a mahogany veranda ' In spite of her cold indignation, and the fact that she could only understand a part of Mattingly's speech, Christie comprehended enough to make her lift her clear eyes to the speaker as she replied freezingly that she feared she would not trouble them long with her company. ' Oh, you'll get over that,' responded Mattingly, with an exasperated confidence that drove her nearly frantic from the manifest kindliness of intent that made it impossible for her to resent it. ' I felt that way myself at first. Things will look strange and unsociable for a while, until you get the hang of them. You'll naturally stamp round and cuss a little ' He stopped in conscious consternation. With ready tact, and before Christie could reply, 16 DEVIL'S FORD Maryland Joe had put down the trunk and changed hands with his brother. ' You mustn't mind Dick, or he'll go off and kill himself with shame,' he whispered laughingly in her ear. ' He means all right, but he's picked up so much slang here, he's about forgotten how to talk English, and it's nigh on to four years since he's met a young lady.' Christie did not reply. Yet the laughter of her sister in advance with the Kearney brothers seemed to make the reserve with which she tried to crush further familiarity only ridiculous. ' Do you know many operas, Miss Carr?' She looked at the boyish, interested, sunburnt face so near to her own, and hesitated. After all, why should she add to her other real disappoint ments by taking this absurd creature seriously ? * In what way ?' she returned, with a half-smile. ' To play. On the piano of course. There isn't one nearer here than Sacramento ; but I reckon we could get a small one by Thursday. You couldn't do anything on a banjo ?' he added doubtfully ; ' Kearney's got one.' ' I imagine it would be very difficult to carry a piano over those mountains,' said Christie laughingly to avoid the collateral of the banjo. ' We got a billiard-table over from Stockton,' half bashfully interrupted Dick Mattingly, struggling from his end of the trunk to recover his composure, ' and it had to be brought over in sections on the back of a mule, so I don't see why ' He stopped short again in confusion, at a sign from his brother, DEVIL'S FORD 17 and then added : * I mean, of course, that a piano is a heap more delicate and valuable, and all that sort of thing, but it's worth trying for.' ' Fairfax was always saying he'd get one for him self, so I reckon it's possible,' said Joe. * Does he play ?' asked Christie. ' You bet !' said Joe, quite forgetting himself in his enthusiasm. 'He can snatch Mozart and Beet hoven baldheaded.' In the embarrassing silence that followed this speech the fringe of pine-wood nearest the flat was reached. Here there was a rude ' clearing,' and beneath an enormous pine stood the two recently joined tenements. There was no attempt to conceal the point of junction between Kearney's cabin and the newly -transported saloon from the flat no architectural illusion of the palpable collusion of the two buildings, which seemed to be telescoped into each other. The front-room, or living-room, occupied the whole of Kearney's cabin. It con tained, in addition to the necessary articles for housekeeping, a 'bunk' or berth for Mr. Carr, so as to leave the second building entirely to the occupation of his daughters as bedroom and boudoir. There was a half humorous, half apologetic ex hibition of the rude utensils of the living-room, and then the young men turned away as the two girls entered the open door of the second room. Neither Christie nor Jessie could for a moment understand the delicacy which kept these young men from accompanying them into the room they had but a few moments before decorated and arranged with 18 DEVIL'S FORD their own hands, and it was not until they turned to thank their strange entertainers that they found that they were gone. CHAPTER III. THE five impulsive millionaires of Devil's Ford ful filled not a few of their most extravagant promises. In less than six weeks Mr. Carr and his daughters were installed in a new house, built near the site of the double cabin, which was again transferred to the settlement, in order to give greater seclusion to the fair guests. It was a long, roomy, one-storied villa, with a not unpicturesque combination of deep veranda and trellis -work, which relieved the flat monotony of the interior and the barrenness of the freshly-cleared ground. An upright piano, brought from Sacramento, occupied the corner of the parlour. A suite of gorgeous furniture, whose pronounced and extravagant glories the young girls instinctively hid under home-made linen covers, had also been spoils from afar. Elsewhere the house was filled with ornaments and decorations that in their incongruity forcibly recalled the gilded plate-glass mirrors of the bedroom in the old cabin. In the hasty furnishing of this Aladdin's palace, the slaves of the ring had evidently seized upon anything that would add to its glory, without reference always to fitness. ' I wish it didn't look so cussedly like a robber's cave,' said George Kearney, when they were taking a quiet preliminary survey of the unclassified treasures, before the Carrs took possession. DEVIL'S FORD ig ' Or a gambling hell/ said his brother reflectively. ' It's about the same thing, I reckon,' said Dick Mattingly, who was supposed, in his fiery youth, to have encountered the similarity. Nevertheless, the two girls managed to bestow the heterogeneous collection with tasteful adaptation to their needs. A crystal chandelier, which had once lent a fascinating illusion to the game of Monte, hung unlighted in the broad hall, where a few other bizarre and public articles were relegated. A long red sofa or bench, which had done duty beside a billiard- table, found a place here also. Indeed, it is to be feared that some of the more rustic and bashful youths of Devil's Ford, who had felt it incumbent upon them to pay their respects to the new-comers, were more at ease in this vestibule than in the arcana beyond, whose glories they could see through the open door. To others it represented a recognised state of probation before their re-entree into civiliza tion again. ' I reckon, if you don't mind, miss,' said the spokesman of one party, ' ez this is our first call, we'll sorter hang out in the hall yer, until you're used to us.' One another occasion, one Whisky Dick, impelled by a sense of duty, paid a visit to the new house and its fair occupants, in a fashion frankly recounted by him afterwards at the bar of the Tecumseh Saloon. ' You see, boys, I dropped in there the other night, when some of you fellows was doin' the high-toned " thankee, marm," business in the parlour. I just 20 DEVIL'S FORD came to anchor in the corner of the sofy in the hall, without lettin' on to say that I was there, and took up a Webster's Dictionary that was on the table and laid it open keerless like, on my knees, ez if I was sorter consultin' it and kinder dozed off there, listenin' to you fellows gassin' with the young ladies, and that yer Miss Christie just snakin' music outer that pianner, and I reckon I fell asleep. Anyhow, I was there nigh on to two hours. It's mighty soothin', them fashionable calls ; sorter knocks the old camp dust outer a fellow and sets him up again.' It would have been well if the new life of Devil's Ford had shown no other irregularity than the harmless eccentricities of its original locators. But the news of its sudden fortune, magnified by report, began presently to flood the settlement with another class of adventurers. A tide of waifs, strays, and malcontents of old camps along the river began to set towards Devil's Ford, in very much the same fashion as the debris, drift, and alluvium had been carried down in bygone days and cast upon its banks. A few immigrant waggons, diverted from the highways of travel by the fame of the new diggings, halted upon the slopes of Devil's Spur, and on the arid flats of the Ford, and disgorged their sallow freight of alkali-poisoned, prematurely-aged women and children, and maimed and fever-stricken men. Against this rude form of domesticity were opposed the chromo-tinted dresses and extravagant complexions of a few single unattended women happily seen more often at night, and behind gilded DEVIL'S FORD 21 bars, than in the garish light of day and an equal number of pale-faced, dark-moustached, well-dressed, and suspiciously idle men. A dozen rivals of Thompson's Saloon had sprung up along the narrow main street. There were two new hotels one a 'Temperance House,' whose ascetic quality was confined only to the abnegation of whisky ; a rival stage-office, and a small one-storied building, from which the Sierran Banner fluttered weekly, for ' ten dollars a year in advance.' Insufferable in the glare of a Sabbath sun, bleak, windy, and flaring in the gloom of a Sabbath night, and hopelessly depressing on all days of the week, the first Presbyterian Church lifted its blunt steeple from the barrenest area of the flats, and was hideous. The civic improvements so enthusiastically contem plated by the five millionaires in the earlier pages of this veracious chronicle the fountain, reservoir, town-hall, and free library had not yet been erected. Their sites had been anticipated by more urgent buildings and mining works, unfortunately not con sidered in the sanguine dreams of the enthusiasts, and, more significant still, their cost and expense had been also anticipated by the enormous outlay of their earnings in the work upon Devil's Ditch. Nevertheless, the liberal fulfilment of their promise in the new house in the suburbs blinded the young girls' eyes to their shortcomings in the town. Their own remoteness and elevation above its feverish life kept them from the knowledge of much that was strange, and perhaps disturbing to their equanimity. As they did not mix with the immigrant women 22 DEVIL'S FORD Miss Jessie's good-natured intrusion into one of their half-nomadic camps one day having been met with rudeness and suspicion they gradually fell into the way of trusting the responsibility of new acquaint ances to the hands of their original hosts, and of consulting them in the matter of local recreation. It thus occurred that one day the two girls on their way to the main street for an hour's shopping at the Ville de Paris and Variety Store were stopped by Dick Mattingly a few yards from their house, with the remark that, as the county election was then in progress, it would be advisable for them to defer their intention for a few hours. As he did not deem it necessary to add that two citizens, in the exercise of a freeman's franchise, had been supplementing their ballots with bullets, in front of an admiring crowd, they knew nothing of the accident that removed from Devil's Ford an entertaining stranger who had only the night before partaken of their hospitality. A week or two later, returning one morning from a stroll in the forest, Christie and Jessie were way laid by George Kearney and Fairfax, and under pretext of being shown a new and romantic trail, were diverted from the regular path. This enabled Mattingly and Maryland Joe to cut down the body of a man hung by the Vigilance Committee a few hours before on the regular trail, and to remonstrate with the committee on the incompatibility of such exhibitions with a maidenly worship of nature. 1 With the whole county to hang a man in,' ex postulated Joe, ' you might keep clear of Carr's woods.' DEVIL'S FORD 23 It is needless to add that the young girls never knew of this act of violence, or the delicacy that kept them in ignorance of it. Mr. Carr was too absorbed in business to give heed to what he looked upon as a convulsion of society as natural as a geological upheaval, and too prudent to provoke the criticism of his daughters by comment in their presence. An equally unexpected confidence, however, took its place. Mr. Carr, having finished his coffee one morning, lingered a moment over his perfunctory paternal embraces, with the awkwardness of a pre occupied man endeavouring by the assumption of a lighter interest to veil another abstraction. * And what are we doing to-day, Christie ?' he asked, as Jessie left the dining-room. ' Oh, pretty much the usual thing nothing in particular. If George Kearney gets the horses from the summit, we're going to ride over to Indian Spring to picnic. Fairfax Mr. Munroe I always forget that man's real name in this dreadfully familiar country well, he's coming to escort us, and take me, I suppose that is, if Kearney takes Jessie.' ' A very nice arrangement/ returned her father, with a slight nervous contraction of the corners of his mouth and eyelids to indicate mischievousness. ' I've no doubt they'll both be here. You know they usually are ha! ha! And what about the two Mattinglys and Philip Kearney eh ?' he continued ; ' won't they be jealous ?' ' It isn't their turn/ said Christie carelessly ; ' besides, they'll probably be there,' 24 DEVIL'S FORD ' And I suppose they're beginning to be resigned,' said Carr, smiling. ' What on earth are you talking of, father ?' She turned her clear brown eyes upon him, and was regarding him with such manifest unconscious ness of the drift of his speech, and, withal, a little vague impatience of his archness, that Mr. Carr was feebly alarmed. It had the effect of banishing his assumed playfulness, which made his serious ex planation the more irritating. * Well, I rather thought that that young Kearney was paying considerable attention to to to Jessie/ replied her father with hesitating gravity. ' What ! that boy ?' ' Young Kearney is one of the original locators, and an equal partner in the mine. A very enter prising young fellow. In fact, much more advanced and bolder in his conceptions than the others. I find no difficulty with him.' At another time Christie would have questioned the convincing quality of this proof, but she was too much shocked at her father's first suggestion to think of anything else. ' You don't mean to say, father, that you are talk ing seriously of these men your friends whom we see every day and our only company ?' ' No, no !' said Mr. Carr hastily; 'you misunder stand. I don't suppose that Jessie or you ' ' Or me ! am / included ?' ' You don't let me speak, Christie. I mean, I am not talking seriously,' continued Mr. Carr, with his most serious aspect, ' of you and Jessie in this DEVIL'S FORD 25 matter ; but it may be a serious thing to these young men to be thrown continually in the company of two attractive girls.' ' I understand ; you mean that we should not see so much of them,' said Christie, with a frank ex pression of relief so genuine as to utterly discompose her father. ' Perhaps you are right, though I fail to discover anything serious in the attentions of young Kearney to Jessie or whoever it may be to me. But it will be very easy to remedy it, and see less of them. Indeed, we might begin to-day with some excuse.' ' Yes certainly. Of course/ said Mr. Carr, fully convinced of his utter failure, but, like most weak creatures, consoling himself with the reflection that he had not shown his hand or committed himself. ' Yes ; but it would perhaps be just as well for the present to let things go on as they were. We'll talk of it again I'm in a hurry now ;' and edging himself through the door, he slipped away. 'What do you think is father's last idea?' said Christie, with, I fear, a slight lack of reverence in her tone, as her sister re-entered the room. ' He thinks George Kearney is paying you too much attention.' ' No !' said Jessie, replying to her sister's half- interrogative, half-amused glance with a frank, un conscious smile. ' Yes, and he says that Fairfax I think it's Fair fax is equally fascinated with me. 1 Jessie's brow slightly contracted as she looked curiously at her sister. 26 DEVIL'S FORD 1 Of all things !' she said ; * I wonder if anyone has put that idea into his dear old head. He couldn't have thought it himself.' * I don't know,' said Christie musingly ; ' but perhaps it's just as well if we kept a little more to ourselves for a while.' * Did father say so ?' said Jessie quickly. ' No, but that is evidently what he meant/ * Ye-es,' said Jessie slowly, ' unless ' 'Unless what?' said Christie sharply. * Jessie, you don't for a moment mean to say that you could possibly conceive of anything else ?' ' I mean to say,' said Jessie, stealing her arm around her sister's waist demurely, ' that you are perfectly right. We'll keep away from these fasci nating Devil's Forders, and particularly the youngest Kearney. I believe there has been some ill-natured gossip. I remember that the other day, when we passed the shanty of that Pike County family on the slope, there were three women at the door, and one of them said something that made poor little Kearney turn white and pink alternately, and dance with suppressed rage. I suppose the old lady M'Corkle, that's her name would like to have a share of our cavaliers for her Euphemy and Mamie. I dare say it's only right ; I would lend them the cherub occasionally, and you might let them have Mr. Munroe twice a week.' She laughed, but her eyes sought her sister's with a certain watchfulness of expression. Christie shrugged her shoulders with a suggestion of disgust. DEVIL'S FORD 27 ' Don't joke. We ought to have thought of all this before.' * But when we first knew them, in the dear old cabin, there wasn't any other woman and nobody to gossip, and that's what made it so nice. I don't think so very much of civilization, do you ?' said the young lady pertly. Christie did not reply. Perhaps she was thinking the same thing. It certainly had been very pleasant to enjoy the spontaneous and chivalrous homage of these men, with no further suggestion of recompense or responsibility than the permission to be wor shipped ; but beyond that she racked her brain in vain to recall any look or act that proclaimed the lover. These men, whom she had found so relapsed into barbarism that they had forgotten the most ordinary forms of civilization ; these men, even in whose extravagant admiration there was a certain loss of self-respect that, as a woman, she would never forgive ; these men, who seemed to belong to another race impossible ! Yet it was so. ' What construction must they have put upon her father's acceptance of their presents of their company of her freedom in their presence ? No ! They must have understood from the beginning that she and her sister had never looked upon them except as transient hosts and chance acquaint ances. Any other idea was preposterous. And yet ' It was the recurrence of this ' yet ' that alarmed her. For she remembered now that, but for their slavish devotion, they might claim to be her equals. 28 DEVIL'S FORD According to her father's account, they had come from homes as good as her own ; they were certainly more than her equals in fortune ; and her father had come to them as an employe", until they had taken him into partnership. If there had only been sentiment of any kind connected with any of them ! But they were all alike, brave, unselfish, humorous, and often ridiculous. If anything, Dick Mattingly was funniest by nature, and made her laugh more. Maryland Joe, his brother, told better stories (sometimes of Dick), though not so good a mimic as the other Kearney, who had a fairly sympathetic voice in singing. They were all good- looking enough ; perhaps they set store on that men are so vain ! And as for her own rejected suitor, Fairfax Munroe, except for a kind of grave and proper motherliness about his protecting manner, he absolutely was the most indistinctive of them all. He had once brought her some rare tea from the Chinese camp, and had taught her how to make it ; he had cautioned her against sitting under the trees at nightfall ; he had once taken off his coat to wrap around her. Really, if this were the only evidence of devotion that could be shown, she was safe ! 'Well,' said Jessie, ' it amuses you, I see.' Christie checked the smile that had been dimpling the cheek nearest Jessie, and turned upon her the face of an elder sister. ' Tell me, have you noticed this extraordinary attention of Mr. Munroe to me ?' ' Candidly ?' asked Jessie, seating herself comfort- DEVIL'S FORD 29 ably on the table sideways, and endeavouring to pull her skirt over her little feet. * Honest Injun ?' ' Don't be idiotic, and, above all, don't be slangy ! Of course, candidly.' ' Well, no ; I can't say that I have.' 'Then,' said Christie, * why, in the name of all that's preposterous, do they persist in pairing me off with the least interesting man of the lot ?' Jessie leaped from the table. 1 Come, now,' she said, with a little nervous laugh, ' he's not so bad as all that. You don't know him. But what does it matter now, as long as we're not going to see them any more ?' ' They're coming here for the ride to-day/ said Christie resignedly. ' Father thought it better not to break it off at once. 1 'Father thought so!' echoed Jessie, stopping, with her hand on the door. ' Yes ; why do you ask ?' But Jessie had already left the room, and was singing in the hall. CHAPTER IV. THE afternoon did not, however, bring their ex pected visitors. It brought, instead, a brief note by the hands of Whisky Dick from Fairfax, apologizing for some business that kept him and George Kearney from accompanying the ladies. It added that the horses were at the disposal of themselves, and any escort they might select, if they would kindly give the message to Whisky Dick. 30 DEVIL'S FORD The two girls looked at each other awkwardly ; Jessie did not attempt to conceal a slight pout. ' It looks as if they were anticipating us,' she said with a half-forced smile. ' I wonder, now, if there really has been any gossip ? But, no ! They wouldn't have stopped for that, unless ' She looked curiously at her sister. 'Unless what?' repeated Christie. 'You are horribly mysterious this morning.' ' Am I ? It's nothing. But they're wanting an answer. Of course, you'll decline?' ' And intimate we only care for their company ? No ! We'll say we're sorry they can't come, and accept their horses. We can do without an escort, we two.' ' Capital !' said Jessie, clapping her hands. 'We'll show them ' ' We'll show them nothing,' interrupted Christie decidedly. ' In our place there's only the one thing to do. Where is this Whisky Dick ?' ' In the parlour.' ' The parlour !' echoed Christie. ' Whisky Dick ? What is he ' ' Yes ; he's all right,' said Jessie confidently. ' He's been here before, but he stayed in the hall, he was so shy. I don't think you saw him.' ' I should think not ! Whisky Dick !' ' Oh ! you can call him Mr. Hall, if you like,' said Jessie, laughing. ' His real name is Dick Hall. If you want to be funny, you can say Alky Hall, as the others do.' Christie's only reply to this levity was a look of DEVIL'S FORD 31 superior resignation as she crossed the hall and entered the parlour. Then ensued one of those surprising, mystifying, and utterly inexplicable changes that leave the masculine being so helpless in the hands of his feminine master. Before Christie opened the door her face underwent a rapid transformation ; the gentle glow of a refined woman's welcome suddenly beamed in her interested eyes ; the impulsive courtesy of an expectant hostess eagerly seizing a long-looked-for opportunity broke in a smile upon her lips as she swept across the room, and stopped with her two white, outstretched hands before Whisky Dick. It needed only the extravagant contrast presented by that gentleman to complete the tableau. Attired in a suit of shining black alpaca, the visitor had evidently prepared himself with some care for a possible interview. He was seated by the French window opening upon the veranda, as if to secure a retreat in case of an emergency. Scrupulously washed and shaven, some of the soap appeared to have lingered in his eyes and inflamed the lids, even while it lent a sleek and shining lustre, not unlike his coat, to his smooth black hair, Nevertheless, leaning back in his chair, he had allowed a large white handkerchief to depend gracefully from his fingers a pose at once suggesting easy and elegant languor. ' How kind of you to give me an opportunity to make up for my misfortune when you last called ! I was so sorry to have missed you. But was it 32 DEVIL'S FORD entirely my fault ? You were hurried, I think ; you conversed with others in the hall ; you ' She stopped to assist him to pick up the hand kerchief that had fallen, and the Panama hat that had rolled from his lap towards the window, when he had started suddenly to his feet at the apparition of grace and beauty. As he still nervously retained the two hands he had grasped, this would have been a difficult feat, even had he not endeavoured at the same moment by a backward furtive kick to propel the hat out of the window, at which she laughingly broke from his grasp and flew to the rescue. ' Don't mind it, miss,' he said hurriedly. ' It is not worth your demeaning yourself to touch it. Leave it outside thar, miss. I wouldn't have toted it in, anyhow, if some of those high-falutin' fellows hadn't allowed the other night ez it were the reg'lar thing to do ; as if, miss, any gentleman kalkilated to ever put on his hat in the house afore a lady !' . But Christie had already possessed herself of the unlucky object, and had placed it upon the table. This compelled Whisky Dick to rise again, and, as an act of careless good breeding, to drop his hand kerchief in it. He then leaned one elbow upon the piano, and, crossing one foot over the other, remained standing in an attitude he remembered to have seen in the pages of an illustrated paper as portraying the hero in some drawing-room scene. It was easy and effective, but seemed to be more favourable to reverie than conversation. Indeed, he remembered that he had forgotten to consult the letterpress as to what it represented. DEVIL'S FORD 33 ' I see you agree with me that politeness is quite a matter of intention,' said Christie, ' and not of mere fashion and rules. Now, for instance/ she con tinued, with a dazzling smile, ' I suppose, according to the rules, I ought to give you a note to Mr. Munroe, accepting his offer. That is all that is required ; but it seems so much nicer, don't you think, to tell it to you for him, and have the pleasure of your company and a little chat at the same time.' ' That's it, that's just it, Miss Carr; you've hit it in the centre this time,' said Whisky Dick, now quite convinced that his attitude was not intended for eloquence, and shifting back to his own seat, hat and all ; ' that's tantamount to what I said to the boys just now. " You wan't an excuse," sez I, " for not goin' out with the young ladies. So, accorden' to rules, you writes a letter allowin' buzziness and that sorter thing detains you. But wot's the facts ? You're a gentleman, and as gentlemen, you and George comes to the opinion that you're rather playin' it for all its worth in this yer house, you know comin' here night and day, off and on, reg'lar sociable and fam'ly like, and makin' people talk about things they ain't any call to talk about, and what's a darned sight more, you fellows ain't got any right yet to allow 'em to talk about, d'ye see ?" ' He paused, out of breath. It was Miss Christie's turn to move about. In changing her seat to the piano-stool, so as to be nearer her visitor, she brushed down some loose music, which Whisky Dick hastened to pick up. ' Pray don't mind it,' she said, ' pray don't, really 3 34 DEVIL'S FORD let it be ' But Whisky Dick, feeling himself on safe ground in this attention, persisted to the bitter end of a disintegrated and well-worn Trova- tore. ' So that is what Mr. Munroe said,' she remarked quietly. ' Not just then, in course, but it's what's bin on his mind and in his talk for days off and on,' returned Dick, with a knowing smile and a nod of mysterious confidence. ' Bless your soul, Miss Carr, folks like you and me don't need to have them things explained. That's what I said to him sez I, " Don't send no note, but just go up there and hev it out fair and square, and say what you do mean." But they would hev the note, and I kalkilated to bring it. But when I set my eyes on you, and heard you ex press yourself as you did just now, I sez to myself, sez I, " Dick, yer's a young lady, and a fash'nable lady at that, ez don't go foolin' round on rules and etiketts " excuse my freedom, Miss Carr " and you and her," sez I, " kin just discuss this yer matter in a sociable, offhand, fash'nable way." They're a good lot o' boys, Miss Carr a square lot, white men all of 'em ; but they're a little soft and green, maybe, from livin' in these yer pine-woods along o' the other sap. They just worship the ground you and your sister tread on certain ! of course ! of course !' he added hurriedly, recognising Christie's half-con scious, deprecating gesture with more exaggerated deprecation. ' I understand. But what I wanter say is, that they'd be willin' to be that ground, and lie down and let you walk over them, so to speak, Miss Carr so to speak if it would keep the hem of DEVIL'S FORD 35 your gown from gettin 1 soiled in the mud o' the camp. But it wouldn't do for them to make a reg'lar curderoy road o' themselves for the hull camp to trapse over, on the mere chance of your some time passiri' that way, would it, now ?' 'Won't you let me offer you some refreshment, Mr. Hall ?' said Christie, rising, with a slight colour. * I'm really ashamed of my forgetfulness again, but I'm afraid it's partly your fault for entertaining me to the exclusion of yourself. No, thank you, let me fetch it for you.' She turned to a handsome sideboard near the door, and presently faced him again with a decanter of whisky and a glass in her hand, and a return of the bewitching smile she had worn on entering. ' But perhaps you don't take whisky ?' suggested the arch deceiver, with a sudden affected but pretty perplexity of eye, brow, and lips. For the first time in his life Whisky Dick hesitated between two forms of intoxication. But he was still nervous and uneasy ; habit triumphed, and he took the whisky. He, however, wiped his lips with a slight wave of his handkerchief, to support a certain easy elegance which he firmly believed relieved the act of any vulgar quality. * Yes, ma'am,' he continued, after an exhilarated pause, ' ez I said afore, this yer's a matter you and me kin discuss after the fashion o' society. My idea is that these yer boys should kinder let up on you and Miss Jessie for a while, and do a little more permiskus attention round the Ford. There's one or two families yer with grown-up gells ez oughter 36 DEVIL'S FORD be squared ; that is, the boys mighter put in a few fancy touches among them kinder take 'em buggy riding, or to church, once in a while, just to take the pizen outer their tongues, and make a kind o' bluff to the parents d'ye see ? That would sorter divert their own minds ; and even if it didn't, it would kinder get 'em accustomed agin to the old style and their own kind. I want to warn ye agin an idea that might occur to you in a giniral way. I don't say you hev the idea, but it's kind of nat'ral you might be thinkin' of it some time, and I thought I'd warn you agin it.' ' I think we understand each other too well to differ much, Mr. Hall,' said Christie, still smiling; ' but what is the idea ?' The delicate compliment to their confidential rela tions, and the slight stimulus of liquor had tremu lously exalted Whisky Dick. Affecting to look cautiously out of the window and around the room, he ventured to draw nearer the young woman, with a half-paternal, half-timid familiarity. ' It might have occurred to you,' he said, laying his hand lightly, holding his handkerchief as if to veil mere vulgar contact, on Christie's shoulder, ' that it would be a good thing on your side to invite down some of your high-toned gentlemen friends from 'Frisco to visit you and escort you round. It seems quite nat'ral like, and I don't say it ain't, but the boys wouldn't stand it.' In spite of her self-possession, Christie's eyes suddenly darkened, and she involuntarily drew her self up. But Whisky Dick, guiltily attributing the DEVIL'S FORD 37 movement to his own indiscreet gesture, said, ' Excuse me, miss,' and recovered himself by lightly dusting her shoulder with his handkerchief, as if to remove the impression, and her smile returned. ' They wouldn't stand it,' said Dick, ' and there'd be some shooting. Not afore you, miss not afore you, in course. But they'd adjourn to the woods some morning with them city folks, and hev it out with rifles at a hundred yards. Or, seein' ez they're city folks, the boys would do the square thing with pistols at twelve paces. They're good boys, as I said afore ; but they're quick and tetchy. George, being the youngest, nat'rally is the tetchiest. You know how it is, Miss Carr ; his pretty gal-like face and little moustaches has cost him half a dozen scrimmages already. He'z had a fight for every hair that's growed in his moustache since he kem here.' ' Say no more, Mr. Hall,' said Christie, rising and pressing her hands lightly on Dick's tremulous fingers. ' If I ever had any such idea, I should abandon it now ; you are quite right in this as in your other opinions. I shall never cease to be thankful to Mr. Munroe and Mr. Kearney that they entrusted this delicate matter to your hands.' ' Well/ said the gratified and reddening visitor, ' it ain't perhaps the square thing to them or myself to say that they reckoned to have me discuss their delicate affairs for them, but ' * I understand,' interrupted Christie. ' They simply gave you the letter as a friend. It was my good fortune to find you a sympathizing and liberal 38 DEVIL'S FORD man of the world.' The delighted Dick, with con scious vanity beaming from every feature of his shining face, lightly waived the compliment aside with his handkerchief, as she continued : ' But I am forgetting the message. We accept the horses. Of course, we could do without an escort ; but forgive my speaking so frankly are you engaged this after noon ?' ' Excuse me, miss, I don't take ' stammered Dick, scarcely believing his ears. ' Could you give us your company as an escort ?' repeated Christie, with a smile. Was he awake or dreaming, or was this some trick of liquor in his often distorted fancy? He! Whisky Dick ! the butt of his friends, the chartered oracle of the bar-rooms, even in whose wretched vanity there was always the haunting suspicion that he was despised and scorned ! he who had dared so much in speech, and achieved so little in fact ! he, whose habitual weakness had even led him into the wildest indiscretion here ; he now offered a reward for that indiscretion ! He, Whisky Dick, the solicited escort of these two beautiful and peerless girls ! What would they say at the Ford ? What would his friends think ? It would be all over the Ford the next day. His past would be vindicated, his future secured. He grew erect at the thought. It was almost in another voice, and with no trace of his previous exaggeration, that he said : ' With pleasure.' ' Then, if you will bring the horses at once, we shall be ready when you return.' DEVIL'S FORD 39 In another instant he had vanished, as if afraid to trust the reality of his good fortune to the dangers of delay. At the end of half an hour he re-appeared, leading the two horses, himself mounted on a half- broken mustang. A pair of large, jingling silver spurs, and a stiff sombrero, borrowed with the mustang from some mysterious source, were donned to do honour to the occasion. The young girls were not yet ready, but he was shown by the Chinese servant into the parlour to wait for them. The decanter of whisky and glasses were still invitingly there. He was hot, trembling, and flushed with triumph. He walked to the table and laid his hand on the decanter, when an odd thought flashed upon him. He would not drink this time. No, it should not be said that he, the selected escort of the tlite of Devil's Ford, had to fill himself up with whisky before they started. The boys might turn to each other in their astonish ment, as he proudly passed with his fair companions, and say, ' It's Whisky Dick,' but he'd be d d if they should add, ' and full as ever.' No, sir ! Nor when he was riding beside these real ladies, and leaning over them at some confidential moment, should they even know it from his breath. No ... Yet a thimbleful, taken straight only a thimbleful wouldn't be much, and might help to pull him together. He again reached his trembling hand for the decanter, hesitated, and then, turning his back upon it, resolutely walked to the open window. Almost at the same instant he found himself face to face with Christie on the veranda. 4 o DEVIL'S FORD She looked into his bloodshot eyes, and cast a swift glance at the decanter. ' Won't you take something before you go ?' she said sweetly. 'I reckon not, jest now,' stammered Whisky Dick, with an heroic effort. ' You're right,' said Christie. ' I see you are like me. It's too hot for anything fiery. Come with me.' She led him to the dining-room, and pouring out a glass of iced tea, handed it to him. Poor Dick was not prepared for this terrible culmination. Whisky Dick and iced tea ! But under pretence of seeing if it was properly flavoured, Christie raised it to her own lips. ' Try it, to please me.' Pie drained the goblet. * Now then,' said Christie gaily ; ' let's find Jessie, and be off!' CHAPTER V. WHATEVER might have been his other deficiencies as an escort, Whisky Dick was a good horseman, and, in spite of his fractious brute, exhibited such skill and confidence as to at once satisfy the young girls of his value to them in the management of their own horses, to whom side-saddles were still an alarming novelty. Jessie, who had probably already learned from her sister the purport of Dick's con fidences, had received him with equal cordiality and perhaps a more unqualified amusement ; and now, DEVIL'S FORD 41 when fairly lifted into the saddle by his tremulous but respectful hands, made a very charming picture of youthful and rosy satisfaction. And when Christie, more fascinating than ever in her riding-habit, took her place on the other side of Dick as they sallied from the gate, that gentleman felt his cup of happi ness complete. His triumphal entree into the world of civilization and fashion was secure. He did not regret the untasted liquor ; here was an experience in after-years to lean his back against comfortably in bar-rooms, to entrance or defy mankind. He had even got so far as to formulate in fancy the sentence : ' I remember, gentlemen, that one after noon, being on a pasear with two fash'nable young ladies,' etc. At present, however, he was obliged to confine himself to the functions of an elegant guide and cicerone when not engaged in ' having it out ' with his horse. Their way lay along the slope, crossing the highroad at right angles, to reach the deeper woods beyond. Dick would have lingered on the highway, ostensibly to point out to his companions the new flume that had taken the place of the con demned ditch, but really in the hope of exposing himself in his glory to the curious eyes of the way faring world. Unhappily, the road was deserted in the still powerful sunlight, and he was obliged to seek the cover of the woods, with a passing compliment to the parent of his charges. Waving his hand towards the flume, he said : ' Look at that work of your father's. There ain't 42 DEVIL'S FORD no other man in Californy but Philip Carr ez would hev the grit to hold up such a bluff agin natur and agin luck ez that yer flume stands for. I don't say it 'cause you're his daughters, ladies. That ain't the style, ez you know, in sassiety, Miss Carr,' he added, turning to Christie as the more socially ex perienced. ' No ; but there ain't another man to be found ez could do it. It cost already two hundred thousand ; it'll cost five hundred thousand afore it's done, and every cent of it is got out of the yearth beneath it, or hez got to be got out of it. 'Tain't ev'ry man, Miss Carr, ez hev got the pluck to pledge not only what he's got, but what he reckons to git.- ' But suppose he don't get it ?' said Christie, slightly contracting her brows. ' Then there's the flume to show for it,' said Dick. ' But of what use is the flume, if there isn't any more gold ?' continued Christie almost angrily. ' That's good from you, miss,' said Dick, giving way to a fit of hilarity. ' That's good for a fash'n- able young lady own daughter of Philip Carr. She sez, says she,' continued Dick, appealing to the sedate pines for appreciation of Christie's rare humour, ' " Wot's the use of a flume, when gold ain't there ?" I must tell that to the boys.' ' And what's the use of the gold in the ground when the flume isn't there to work it out ?' said Jessie to her sister, with a cautioning glance towards Dick. But Dick did not notice the look that passed DEVIL'S FORD 43 between the sisters. The richer humour of Jessie's retort had thrown him into convulsions of laughter. ' And now she says, " Wot's the use o' the gold without the flume ?" 'Xcuse me, ladies, but that's just puttin' the hull question that's agitatin' this yer camp inter two speeches as clear as crystal. There's the hull crowd outside and some on 'em inside, like Fairfax, hez their doubts ez says with Miss Christie ; and there's all of us inside ez holds Miss Jessie's views.' ' I never heard Mr. Munroe say that the flume was wrong,' said Jessie quickly. ' Not to you, nat'rally,' said Dick, with a confi dential look at Christie; 'but I reckon he'd like some of the money it cost laid out for suthin' else. But what's the odds ? The gold is there, and we're bound to get it.' Dick was the foreman of a gang of paid workmen, who had replaced the millionaires in mere manual labour, and the we was a polite figure of speech. The conversation seemed to have taken an un fortunate turn, and both the girls experienced a feel ing of relief when they entered the long gulch or defile that led to Indian Spring. The track now becoming narrow, they were obliged to pass in single file along the precipitous hillside, led by their escort. This effectually precluded any further speech, and Christie at once surrendered herself to the calm, obliterating influences of the forest. The settlement and its gossip were far behind and forgotten. In the absorption of nature, her companions passed out of her mind, even as they sometimes passed out 44 DEVIL'S FORD of her sight in the windings of the shadowy trail. As she rode alone, the fronds of breast-high ferns seemed to caress her with outstretched and gently- detaining hands ; strange wild flowers sprang up through the parting underbush. Even the granite rocks, that at times pressed closely upon the trail, appeared as if cushioned to her contact with star- rayed mosses, or lightly flung after her long lassoes of delicate vines. She recalled the absolute freedom of their al-fresco life in the old double cabin, when she spent the greater part of her waking hours under the mute trees in the encompassing solitude, and, half regretting the more civilized restraints of this newer and more ambitious abode, forgot that she had ever rebelled against it. The social complication that threatened her now seemed to her rather the outcome of her half-civilized parlour than of the sylvan glade. How easy it would have been to have kept the cabin, and then to have gone away entirely, than for her father to have allowed them to be compromised with the growing fortunes of the settlement. The suspicions and distrust that she had always felt of their fortunes seemed to grow with the involuntary admission of Whisky Dick that they were shared by others who were practical men. She was fain to have recourse to the prospect again to banish these thoughts, and this opened her eyes to the fact that her companions had been missing from the trail ahead of her for some time. She quickened her pace slightly to reach a project- DEVIL'S FORD 45 ing point of rock that gave her a more extended prospect. But they had evidently disappeared. She was neither alarmed nor annoyed. She could easily overtake them soon, for they would miss her, and return or wait for her at the spring. At the worst she would have no difficulty in retracing her steps home. In her present mood, she could readily spare their company ; indeed, she was not sorry that no other being should interrupt that sympathy with the free woods which was beginning to possess her. She was destined, however, to be disappointed. She had not proceeded a hundred yards before she noticed the moving figure of a man beyond her in the hillside chaparal above the trail. He seemed to be going in the same direction as herself, and, as she fancied, endeavouring to avoid her. This excited her curiosity to the point of urging her horse forward until the trail broadened into the level forest again, which she now remembered was a part of the environs of Indian Spring. The stranger hesitated, pausing once or twice with his back towards her, as if engaged in carefully examining the dwarf willows to select a switch. Christie slightly checked her speed as she drew nearer ; when, as if obedient to a sudden resolution, he turned and advanced towards her. She was relieved and yet surprised to recognise the boyish face and figure of George Kearney, He was quite pale and agitated, although attempting, by a jaunty swinging of the switch he had just cut, to assume the appearance of ease and confidence. Here was an opportunity. Christie resolved to 46 DEVIL'S FORD profit by it. She did not doubt that the young fellow had already passed her sister on the trail, but, from bashfulness, had not dared to approach her. By inviting his confidence, she would doubtless draw something from him that would deny or corro borate her father's opinion of his sentiments. If he was really in love with Jessie, she would learn what reasons he had for expecting a serious culmination of his suit, and perhaps she might be able delicately to open his eyes to the truth. If, as she believed, it was only a boyish fancy, she would laugh him out of it with that camaraderie which had always existed between them. A half-motherly sympathy, albeit born quite as much from a contemplation of his beautiful yearning eyes as from his interesting position, lightened the smile with which she greeted him. c So you contrived to throw over your stupid busi ness and join us, after all,' she said ; ' or was it that you changed your mind at the last moment ?' she added mischievously. ' I thought only we women were permitted that.' Indeed, she could not help noticing that there was really a strong feminine suggestion in the shifting colour and slightly conscious eyelids of the young fellow. ' Do young girls always change their minds?' asked George with an embarrassed smile. ' Not always ; but sometimes they don't know their own mind particularly if they're very young. And when they do at last, you clever creatures of men, who have interpreted their ignorance to please yourselves, abuse them for being fickle.' DEVIL'S FORD 47 She stopped to observe the effect of what she believed a rather clear and significant exposition of Jessie's and George's possible situation. But she was not prepared for the look of blank resignation that seemed to drive the colour from his face and moisten the fire of his dark eyes. ' I reckon you're right,' he said, looking down. ' Oh ! we're not accusing you of fickleness,' said Christie gaily ; ' although you didn't come, and we were obliged to ask Mr. Hall to join us. I suppose you found him and Jessie just now ?' But George made no reply. The colour was slowly coming back to his face, which, as she glanced covertly at him, seemed to have grown so much older that his returning blood might have brought two or three years with it. ' Really, Mr. Kearney,' she said dryly, ' one would think that some silly, conceited girl ' she was quite earnest in her epithets, for a sudden angry convic tion of some coquetry and disingenuousness in Jessie had come to her in contemplating its effects upon the young fellow at her side ' some country jilt has been trying her rustic hand upon you.' ' She is not silly, conceited, nor countrified,' said George, slowly raising his beautiful eyes to the young girl half reproachfully. 'It is I who am all that. No, she is right, and you know it.' Much as Christie admired and valued her sister's charms, she thought this was really going too far. What had Jessie ever done what was Jessie, to provoke and remain insensible to such a blind devo- 48 DEVIL'S FORD tion as this ? And really, looking at him now, he was not so very yotmg for Jessie ; whether his unfor tunate passion had brought out all his latent manli ness, or whether he had hitherto kept his serious nature in the background, certainly he was not a boy. And certainly his was not a passion that he could be laughed out of. It was getting very tire some. She wished she had not met him at least, until she had had some clearer understanding with her sister. He was still walking beside her with his hand on her bridle-rein, partly to lead her horse over some boulders in the trail, and partly to conceal his first embarrassment. When they had fairly reached the woods he stopped. ' I am going to say good-bye, Miss Carr.' ' Are you not coming further ? We must be near Indian Spring now. Mr. Hall and and Jessie cannot be far away. You will keep me company until we meet them ?' ' No,' he replied quietly. ' I only stopped you to say good-bye ; I am going away.' * Not from Devil's Ford ?' she asked, in half in credulous astonishment. ' At least, not for long ?' ' I am not coming back,' he replied. * But this is very abrupt,' she said hurriedly, feel ing that in some ridiculous way she had precipitated an equally ridiculous catastrophe. * Surely you are not going away in this fashion, without saying good bye to Jessie and and father ?' * I shall see your father, of course ; and you will give my regards to Miss Jessie ?' He evidently was in earnest. Was there ever DEVIL'S FORD 49 anything so perfectly preposterous ? She became indignant. * Of course,' she said coldly, ' I won't detain you ; your business must be urgent, and I forgot at least, I had forgotten until to-day that you have other duties more important than that of squire of dames. I am afraid this forgetfulness made me think you would not part from us in quite such a business fashion. I presume, if you had not met me just now, we should none of us have seen you again ?' He did not reply. ' Will you say good-bye, Miss Carr ?' He held out his hand. ' One moment, Mr. Kearney. If I have said any thing which you think justifies this very abrupt leave- taking, I beg you will forgive and forget it or, at least, let it have no more weight with you than the idle words of any woman. I only spoke generally. You know I I might be mistaken.' His eyes, which had dilated when she began to speak, darkened ; his colour, which had quickly come, as quickly sank when she had ended. ' Don't say that, Miss Carr. It is not like you, and it is useless. You know what I meant a moment ago. I read it in your reply. You meant that I, like others, had deceived myself. Did you not ?' She could not meet those honest eyes with less than equal honesty. She knew that Jessie did not love him would not marry him whatever coquetry she might have shown. 'I did not mean to offend you,' she said hesi tatingly ; ' I only half suspected it when I spoke.' 4 50 DEVIL'S FORD ' And you wish to spare me the avowal ?' he said bitterly. * To me, perhaps, yes, by anticipating it. I could not tell what ideas you might have gathered from some indiscreet frankness of Jessie or my father,' she added, with almost equal bitterness. ' I have never spoken to either,' he replied quickly. He stopped, and added, after a moment's mortifying reflection, * I've been brought up in the woods, Miss Carr, and I suppose I have followed my feelings, instead of the etiquette of society.' Christie was too relieved at the rehabilitation of Jessie's truthfulness to notice the full significance of his speech. ' Good-bye,' he said again, holding out his hand. ' Good-bye.' She extended her own, ungloved, with a frank smile. He held it for a moment with his eyes fixed upon hers. Then suddenly, as if obeying an uncon trollable impulse, he crushed it like a flower again and again against his burning lips, and darted away. Christie sank back in her saddle with a little cry half of pain and half of frightened surprise. Had the poor boy suddenly gone mad, or was this vicarious farewell a part of the courtship of Devil's Ford ? She looked at her little hand, which had reddened under the pressure, and suddenly felt the flush extending to her cheeks and the roots of her hair. This was intolerable. 1 Christie !' It was her sister emerging from the wood to seek her. In another moment she was at her side. DEVIL'S FORD 51 ' We thought you were following,' said Jessie. ' Good heavens ! how you look ! What has hap pened ?' ' Nothing. I met Mr. Kearney a moment ago on the trail. He is going away, and and ' She stopped, furious and flushing. * And,' said Jessie, with a burst of merriment, ' he told you at last he loved you. Oh, Christie !' CHAPTER VI. THE abrupt departure of George Kearney from Devil's Ford excited but little interest in the com munity, and was soon forgotten. It was generally attributed to differences between himself and his partners on the question of further outlay of their earnings on mining improvements, he and Philip Carr alone representing a sanguine minority whose faith in the future of the mine accepted any risks. It was alleged by some that he had sold out to his brother ; it was believed by others that he had simply gone to Sacramento to borrow money on his share, in order to continue the improvements on his own responsibility. The partners themselves were uncommunicative ; even Whisky Dick, who since his remarkable social elevation had become less oracular, much to his own astonishment, contributed nothing to the gossip except a suggestion that as the fiery temper of George Kearney brooked no opposi tion, even from his brother, it was better they should separate before the estrangement became serious. 52 DEVIL'S FORD Mr. Carr did not disguise his annoyance at the loss of his young disciple and firm ally. But an unlucky allusion to his previous remarks on Kear ney's attentions to Jessie, and a querulous regret that he had permitted a disruption of their social intimacy, brought such an ominous and frigid oppo sition, not only from Christie, but even the frivolous Jessie herself, that Carr sank back in a crushed and terrified silence. ' I only meant to say/ he stammered after a pause, in which he, however, resumed his aggrieved manner, ' that Fairfax seems to come here still, and he is not such a particular friend of mine/ * But he is, and has your interest entirely at heart,' said Jessie stoutly; 'and he only comes here to tell us how things are going on at the works.' ' And criticise your father, I suppose,' said Mr. Carr, with an attempt at jocularity that did not, however, disguise an irritated suspiciousness. * He really seems to have supplanted me as he has poor Kearney in your estimation.' ' Now, father,' said Jessie, suddenly seizing him by the shoulders in affected indignation, but really to conceal a certain embarrassment that sprang quite as much from her sister's quietly observant eye as her father's speech, ' you promised to let this ridi culous discussion drop. You will make me and Christie so nervous that we will not dare to open the door to a visitor, until he declares his innocence of any matrimonial intentions. You don't want to give colour to the gossip that agreement with your DEVIL'S FORD 53 views about the improvements is necessary to getting on with us.' * Who dares talk such rubbish ?' said Carr, reddening ; * is that the kind of gossip that Fairfax brings here ?' ' Hardly, when it's known that he doesn't quite agree with you, and does come here. That's the best denial of the gossip.' Christie, who had of late loftily ignored these discussions, waited until her father had taken his departure. ' Then, that is the reason why you still see Mr. Munroe, after what you said,' she remarked quietly to Jessie. Jessie, who would have liked to escape with her father, was obliged to pause on the threshold of the door, with a pretty assumption of blank forgetfulness in her blue eyes and lifted eyebrows. ' Said what ? when ?' she asked vacantly. ' When when Mr. Kearney that day in the woods went away,' said Christie, faintly colour ing. * Oh ! that day,' said Jessie briskly ' the day he just gloved your hand with kisses, and then fled wildly into the forest to conceal his emotion/ ' The day he behaved very foolishly,' said Christie, with reproachful calmness that did not, however, prevent a suspicion of indignant moisture in her eyes, ' when you explained ' ' That it wasn't meant for me,' interrupted Jessie. ' That it was to you that Mr. Munroe s attentions were directed. And then we agreed that it was 54 DEVIL'S FORD better to prevent any further advances of this kind by avoiding any familiar relations with either of them.' ' Yes,' said Jessie, ' I remember ; but you're not confounding my seeing Fairfax occasionally now with that sort of thing ? He doesn't kiss my hand like anything,' she added, as if in abstract reflec tion. ' Nor run away, either/ suggested the trodden worm, turning. There was an ominous silence. * Do you know we are nearly out of coffee ?' said Jessie, choking, but moving towards the door with Spartan-like calmness. ' Yes ; and something must be done this very day about the washing,' said Christie, with sup pressed emotion, going towards the opposite entrance. Tears stood in the eyes of both with this terrible exchange of domestic confidences. Nevertheless, after a moment's pause, they deliberately turned again, and, facing each other with frightful calmness, left the room by purposeless and deliberate exits other than those they had contemplated a crushing abnegation of self that, to some extent, relieved their surcharged feelings. Meantime the material prosperity of Devil's Ford increased, if a prosperity based upon no visible foundation but the confidence and hopes of its inhabitants could be called material. Few, if any, stopped to consider that the improvements, build ing, and business were simply the outlay of capital DEVIL'S FORD 55 brought from elsewhere, and as yet the settlement or town, as it was now called had neither produced nor exported capital of itself equal to half the amount expended. It was true that some land was cultivated on the further slope, some mills erected, and lumber furnished from the inexhaustible forest ; but the consumers were the inhabitants themselves, who paid for their produce in borrowed capital or unlimited credit. It was never discovered that while all roads led to Devil's Ford, Devil's Ford led to nowhere. The difficulties overcome in getting things into the settlement were never surmounted for getting things out of it. The lumber was practi cally valueless for export to other settlements across the mountain roads, which were equally rich in timber. The theory so enthusiastically held by the original locators that Devil's Ford was a vast sink that had, through ages, exhausted and absorbed the trickling wealth of the adjacent hills and valleys, was suffering an ironical corroboration. One morning it was known that work was stopped at the Devil's Ford Ditch temporarily only, it was alleged, and many of the old workmen simply had their labour for the present transferred to excavating the river-banks, and the collection of vast heaps of ' pay gravel.' Specimens from these mounds, taken from different localities and at different levels, were sent to San Francisco for more rigid assay and analysis. It was believed that this would establish the fact of the permanent richness of the drifts, and not only justify past expenditure, but a renewed outlay of credit and capital. The suspension of 56 DEVIL'S FORD engineering work gave Mr. Carr an opportunity to visit San Francisco on general business of the mine, which would not, however, prevent him from arranging further combinations with capital. His two daughters accompanied him. It offered an admirable opportunity for a shopping expedition, a change of scene, and a peaceful solution of their perplexing and anomalous social relations with Devil's Ford. In the first flush of gratitude to their father for this opportune holiday, something of harmony had been restored to the family circle, which had of late been shaken by discord. But their sanguine hopes of enjoyment were not entirely fulfilled. Both Jessie and Christie were obliged to confess to a certain disappointment in the aspect of the civilization they were now re-enter ing. They at first attributed it to the change in their own habits during the last three months, and their having become barbarous and countrified in their seclusion. Certainly, in the matter of dress they were behind the fashions as revealed in Mont gomery Street. But when the brief solace afforded them by the modiste and dressmaker was past, there seemed little else to be gained. They missed at first, I fear, the chivalrous and loyal devotion that had only amused them at Devil's Ford, and were the more inclined, I think, to distrust the conscious and more civilized gallantry of the better-dressed and more carefully-presented men they met. For it must be admitted that, for obvious reasons, their criticisms were at first confined to the sex they had been most in contact with. DEVIL'S FORD 57 They could not help noticing that the men were more eager, annoyingly feverish, and self-asserting in their superior elegance and external show, than their old associates were in their frank, unre strained habits. It seemed to them that the five millionaires of Devil's Ford, in their radical sim plicity and thoroughness, were perhaps nearer the type of true gentlemanhood than these citizens who imitated a civilization they were unable yet to reach. The women simply frightened them, as being, even more than the men, demonstrative and excessive in their fine looks, their fine dresses, their extravagant demand for excitement. In less than a week they found themselves regretting, not the new villa on the slope of Devil's Ford, which even in its own bizarre fashion was exceeded by the barbarous ostentation of the villas and private houses around them, but the double cabin under the trees, which now seemed to them almost aristocratic in its grave simplicity and abstention. In the mysterious forest of masts that thronged the city's quays they recalled the straight shafts of the pines on Devil's slopes, only to miss the sedate repose and infinite calm that used to environ them. In the feverish, pulsating life of the young metropolis they often stopped oppressed, giddy, and choking. The roar of the streets and thoroughfares was meaningless to them, except to revive strange memories of the deep, unvarying monotone of the evening wind over their humbler roof on the Sierran hillside. City bred and nurtured as they were, 58 DEVIL'S FORD the recurrence of these sensations perplexed and alarmed them. ' It seems so perfectly ridiculous,' said Jessie, 1 for us to feel as out of place here as that Pike County servant-girl in Sacramento who had never seen a steamboat before. Do you know, I quite had a turn the other day at seeing a man on the Stockton wharf in a red shirt, with a rifle on his shoulder.' ' And you wanted to go and speak to him ?' said Christie with a sad smile. ' No, that's just it ; I felt awfully hurt and injured that he did not come up and speak to me! I wonder if we got any fever or that sort of thing up there ? It makes one quite superstitious.' Christie did not reply. More than once before she had felt that inexplicable misgiving. It had sometimes seemed to her that she had never been quite herself since that memorable night when she had slipped out of their sleeping-cabin and stood alone in the gracious and commanding presence of the woods and hills. In the solitude of night, with the hum of the great city rising below her at times even in theatres or crowded assemblies of men and women she forgot herself, and again stood in the weird brilliancy of that moonlight night in mute worship at the foot of that slowly-rising mystic altar of piled terraces, hanging forests, and lifted plateaus that climbed for ever to the lonely skies. Again she felt before her the expanding and opening arms of the protecting woods. Had they really closed upon her in some pantheistic embrace that made her a part of them ? DEVIL'S FORD 59 Had she been baptized in that moonlight as a child of the great forest ? It was easy to believe in the myths of the poets of an idyllic life under those trees, where, free from conventional restrictions, one loved and was loved. If she, with her own worldly experience, could think of this now, why might not George Kearney have thought ? She stopped, and found herself blushing even in the darkness. As the thought and blush were the usual sequel of her reflections, it is to be feared that they may have been at times the impelling cause. Mr. Carr, however, made up for his daughters' want of sympathy with metropolitan life. To their astonishment he not only plunged into the fashion able gaieties and amusements of the town, but in dress and manner assumed the role of a leader of society. The invariable answer to their half-humor ous comment was the necessities of the mine, and the policy of frequenting the company of capitalists, to enlist their support and confidence. There was something in this so unlike their father, that what at any other time they would have hailed as a relief to his habitual abstraction now half alarmed them. Yet he was not dissipated he did not drink nor gamble. There certainly did not seem any harm in his frequenting the society of ladies, with a gallantry that appeared to be forced and a pleasure that to their critical eyes was certainly apocryphal. He did not drag his daughters into the mixed society of that period ; he did not press upon them the company of those he most frequented, and whose 60 DEVIL'S FORD accepted position in that little world of fashion was considered equal to their own. When Jessie strongly objected to the pronounced manners of a certain widow, whose actual present wealth and pecuniary influence condoned for a more uncertain prehistoric past, Mr. Carr did not urge a further acquaintance. ' As long as you're not thinking of marrying again, papa,' Jessie had said finally, ' I don't see the neces sity of our knowing her.' * But suppose I were?' had replied Mr. Carr with affected humour. ' Then you certainly wouldn't care for anyone like her,' his daughter had responded triumphantly. Mr. Carr smiled, and dropped the subject, but it is probable that his daughters' want of sympathy with his acquaintances did not in the least interfere with his social prestige. A gentleman in all his relations, and under all circumstances even his cold scientific abstraction was provocative rich men envied his lofty ignorance of the smaller details of money- making, even while they mistrusted his judgment. A man still well preserved, and free from weakening vices, he was a dangerous rival to younger and faster San Francisco in the eyes of the sex who knew how to value a repose they did not themselves possess. Suddenly Mr. Carr announced his intention of proceeding to Sacramento on further business of the mine, leaving his two daughters in the family of a wealthy friend until he should return for them. He opposed their ready suggestion to return to Devil's Ford with a new and unnecessary inflexibility. DEVIL'S FORD 61 He even met their compromise to accompany him to Sacramento with equal decision. 'You will only be in my way,' he said curtly. ' Enjoy yourselves here while you can.' Thus, left to themselves, they tried to accept his advice. Possibly some slight reaction to their previous disappointment had already set in ; perhaps they felt any distraction to be a relief to their anxiety about their father. They went out more ; they frequented concerts and parties ; they accepted with their host and his family an invitation to one of those opulent and barbaric entertainments with which a noted San Francisco millionaire dis tracted his rare moments of reflection in his gorgeous palace on the hills. Here they would at least be once more in the country they loved, albeit of a milder and less heroic type, and a little degraded by the overlapping tinsel and scattered spangles of the palace. It was a three days' fete ; the style and choice of amusements left to the guests, and an equal and active participation by no means necessary or in dispensable. Consequently, when Christie and Jessie Carr proposed a ride through the adjacent canon on the second morning, they had no difficulty in finding horses in the well-furnished stables of their opulent entertainers, nor cavaliers among the other guests, who were too happy to find favour in the eyes of two pretty girls who were supposed to be abnormally fastidious and refined. Christie's escort was a good-natured young banker, shrewd enough to avoid demonstrative attentions, and lucky 62 DEVIL'S FORD enough to interest her during the ride with his clear and half-humorous reflections on some of the business speculations of the day. If his ideas were occasion ally too clever, and not always consistent with a high sense of honour, she was none the less interested to know the ethics of that world of speculation into which her father had plunged, and the more con vinced, with a mingled sense of pride and anxiety, that his still dominant gentlemanhood would prevent his coping with it on equal terms. Nor could she help contrasting the conversation of the sharp-witted man at her side with what she still remembered of the vague, touching, boyish enthusiasm of the millionaires of Devil's Ford. Had her escort guessed the result of this contrast, he would hardly have been as gratified as he was with the grave attention of her beautiful eyes. The fascination of a gracious day, and the leafy solitude of the canon, led them to prolong their ride beyond the proposed limit, and it became necessary towards sunset for them to seek some shorter cut home. ' There's a vaquero in yonder field/ said Christie's escort, who was riding with her a little in advance of the others, ' and those fellows know every trail that a horse can follow. I'll ride on, intercept him, and try my Spanish on him. If I miss him, as he's galloping on, you might try your hand on him your self. He'll understand your eyes, Miss Carr, in any language.' As he dashed away, to cover his first audacity of compliment, Christie lifted the eyes thus apostro- DEVIL'S FORD 63 phized to the opposite field. The vaquero, who was chasing some cattle, was evidently too preoccupied to heed the shouts of her companion, and wheeling round suddenly to intercept one of the deviating fugitives, permitted Christie's escort to dash past him before that gentleman could rein in his excited steed. This brought the vaquero directly in her path. Perceiving her, he threw his horse back on its haunches to prevent a collision. Christie rode up to him, suddenly uttered a cry, and halted. For before her, sunburnt in cheek and throat, darker in the free growth of moustache and curling hair, clad in the coarse, picturesque finery of his class, undisguised only in his boyish beauty, sat George Kearney. The blood that had forsaken her astonished face rushed as quickly back. His eyes, which had suddenly sparkled with an electrical glow, sank before hers. His hand dropped, and his cheek flushed with a dark embarrassment. * You here, Mr. Kearney? How strange! but how glad I am to meet you again !' She tried to smile ; her voice trembled, and her little hand shook as she extended it to him. He raised his dark eyes quickly, and impulsively urged his horse to her side. But, as if suddenly awakening to the reality of the situation, he glanced at her hurriedly, down at his barbaric finery, and threw a searching look towards her escort. In an instant Christie saw the infelicity of her position and its dangers. The words of Whisky Dick, ' He wouldn't stand that/ flashed across her 64 DEVIL'S FORD mind. There was no time to lose. The banker had already gained control over his horse, and was approaching them, all unconscious of the fixed stare with which George was regarding him. Christie hastily seized the hand which he had allowed to fall at his side, and said quickly : ' Will you ride with me a little way, Mr. Kearney ?' He turned the same searching look upon her. She met it clearly and steadily; he even thought reproach fully, ' Do !' she said hurriedly. ' I ask it as a favour. I want to speak to you. Jessie and I are here alone. Father is away. You are one of our oldest friends.' He hesitated. She turned to the astonished young banker, who rode up. ' I have just met an old friend. Will you please ride back as quickly as you can, and tell Jessie that Mr. Kearney is here, and ask her to join us ?' She watched her dazed escort, still speechless from the spectacle of the fastidious Miss Carr tete-a-tete with a common Mexican vaquero, gallop off in the direction of the canon, and then turned to George. ' Now take me home, the shortest way, as quick as you can.' ' Home !' echoed George. ' I mean to Mr. Prince's house. Quick ! before they can come up to us.' He mechanically put spurs to his horse; she followed. They presently struck into a trail that soon diverged again into a disused logging track through the woods. DEVIL'S FORD 65 ' This is the short-cut to Prince's, by two miles,' he said, as they entered the woods. As they were still galloping, without exchanging a word, Christie began to slacken her speed ; George did the same. They were safe from intrusion at the present, even if the others had found the short cut. Christie, bold and self-reliant a moment ago, suddenly found herself growing weak and embar rassed. What had she done ? She checked her horse suddenly. ' Perhaps we had better wait for them,' she said timidly. George had not raised his eyes to hers. ' You said you wanted to hurry home,' he replied gently, passing his hand along his mustang's velvety neck, ' and and you had something to say to me.' ' Certainly,' she answered, with a faint laugh ; ' I'm so astonished at meeting you here. I'm quite bewildered. You are living here ; you have forsaken us to buy a ranche?' she continued, looking at him attentively. His brow coloured slightly. ' No, I'm living here, but I have bought no ranche. I'm only a hired man on somebody else's ranche, to look after the cattle.' He saw her beautiful eyes fill with astonishment and something else. His brow cleared ; he went on, with his old boyish laugh : 1 No, Miss Carr. The fact is, I'm dead broke. I've lost everything since I saw you last. But as I know how to ride, and I'm not afraid of work, I manage to keep along.' 5 66 DEVIL'S FORD ' You have lost money in in the mines ?' said Christie suddenly. * No,' he replied quickly, evading her eyes. ' My brother has my interest, you know. I've been foolish on my own account solely. You know I'm rather inclined to that sort of thing. But as long as my folly don't affect others, I can stand it.' 'But it may affect others and they may not think of it as folly.' She stopped short, confused by his brightening colour and eyes. ' I mean Oh, Mr. Kearney, I want you to be frank with me. I know nothing of business, but I know there has been trouble about the mine at Devil's Ford. Tell me honestly, has my father anything to do with it ? If I thought that, through any imprudence of his, you had suffered if I believed that you could trace any misfortune of yours to him to us I should never forgive myself she stopped and flashed a single look at him ' I should never forgive you for aban doning us.' The look of pain which had at first shown itself in his face, which never concealed anything, passed, and a quick smile followed her feminine anticlimax. ' Miss Carr/ he said, with boyish eagerness, * if any man suggested to me that your father wasn't the brightest and best of his kind too wise and clever for the fools about him to understand I'd I'd shoot him.' Confused by his ready and gracious disclaimer of what she had not intended to say, there was nothing left for her but to rush upon what she really intended to say, with what she felt was shameful precipitation. DEVIL'S FORD 67 ' One word more, Mr. Kearney,' she began, looking down, but feeling the colour come to her face as she spoke. ' When you spoke to me the day you left, you must have thought me hard and cruel. When I tell you that I thought you were alluding to Jessie, and some feeling you had for her ' * For Jessie !' echoed George. ' You will understand that that ' ' That what ?' said George, drawing nearer to her. ' That I was only speaking as she might have spoken had you talked to her of me,' added Christie hurriedly, slightly backing her horse away from him. But this was not so easy, as George was the better rider, and by an imperceptible movement of his wrist and foot had glued his horse to her side. * He will go now,' she had thought, but he didn't. ' We must ride on,' she suggested faintly. ' No,' he said, with a sudden dropping of his boyish manner and a slight lifting of his head. ' We must ride together no further, Miss Carr. I must go back to the work I am hired to do, and you must go on with your party, whom I hear coming. But when we part here you must bid me good-bye not as Jessie's sister but as Christie the one the only woman that I love, or that I have ever loved.' He held out his hand. With the recollection of their previous parting, she tremblingly advanced her own. He took it, but did not raise it to his lips. And it was she who found herself half-confusedly retaining his hand in hers until she dropped it with a blush. 68 DEVIL'S FORD ' Then, is this the reason you give for deserting us as you have deserted Devil's Ford ?' she said coldly. He lifted his eyes to her with a strange smile and said ' Yes,' wheeled his horse, and disappeared in the forest. He had left her thus abruptly once before, kissed, blushing, and indignant. He was leaving her now, unkissed, but white and indignant. Yet she was so self-possessed when the party joined her, that the singular rencontre, and her explanation of the stranger's sudden departure, excited no further comment. Only Jessie managed to whisper in her ear: ' I hope you are satisfied now that it wasn't me he mean't ?' ' Not at all,' said Christie coldly. CHAPTER VII. A FEW days after the girls had returned from San Francisco, they received a letter from their father. His business, he wrote, would detain him in Sacramento some days longer. There was no reason why they should return to Devil's Ford in the heat of the summer ; their host had written to beg him to allow them a more extended visit, and if they were enjoying themselves, he thought it would be well not to disoblige an old friend. He had heard they had a pleasant visit to Mr. Prince's place, and that a certain young banker had been very attentive to Christie. DEVIL'S FORD 69 * Do you know what all this means, dear ?' asked Jessie, who had been watching her sister with an unusually grave face. Christie, whose thoughts had wandered from the letter, replied carelessly : ' I suppose it means that we are to wait here until father sends for us.' ' It means a good deal more. It means that papa has had another reverse. It means that the assay has turned out badly for the mine that the further they go from the flat the worse it gets that all the gold they will probably ever see at Devil's Ford is what they have already found or will find on the flat. It means that all Devil's Ford is only a " pocket," and not a "lead."' She stopped, with unexpected tears in her eyes. ' Who told you this ?' asked Christie breathlessly. ' Fairfax Mr. Munroe,' stammered her sister, * writes to me as if we already knew it tells me not to be alarmed that it isn't so bad and all that.' ' How long has this happened, Jessie ?' said Christie, taking her hand with a white but calm face. ' Nearly ever since we've been here, I suppose. It must be so, for he says poor papa is still hopeful of doing something yet.' ' And Mr. Munroe writes to you ?' said Christie abstractedly. ' Of course,' said Jessie quickly. ' He feels inter ested in us.' ' Nobody tells me anything,' said Christie. 70 DEVIL'S FORD Didn't ' ' No/ said Christie bitterly. ' What on earth did you talk about ? But people don't confide in you because they're afraid of you. You're so ' 'So what?' * So gently patronizing, and so " I-don't-suppose- you-can-help-it-poor-thing " in your general style,' said Jessie, kissing her. * There ! I only wish I was like you. What do you say if we wrote to father that we'll go back to Devil's Ford ? Mr. Munroe thinks we will be of service there just now. If the men are dissatisfied, and think we're spending money ' ' I'm afraid Mr. Munroe is hardly a disinterested adviser. At least, I don't think it would look quite decent for you to fly back without your father at his suggestion,' said Christie coldly. * He is not the only partner. We are spending no money. Besides, we have engaged to go to Mr. Prince's again next week.' * As you like, dear,' said Jessie, turning away to hide a faint smile. Nevertheless, when they returned from their visit to Mr. Prince's, and one or two uneventful rides, Christie looked grave. It was only a few days later that Jessie burst upon her one morning. ' You were saying that nobody ever tells you any thing. Well, here's your chance. Whisky Dick is below.' ' Whisky Dick !' repeated Christie. ' What does he want ?' DEVIL'S FORD 71 ' You, love. Who else ? You know he always scorns me as not being high-toned and elegant enough for his social confidences. He asked for you only.' With an uneasy sense of some impending revela tion, Christie descended to the drawing-room. As she opened the door, a strong flavour of that toilet soap and eau de Cologne with which Whisky Dick was in the habit of gracefully effacing the traces of dissipation made known his presence. In spite of a new suit of clothes, whose pristine folds refused to adapt themselves entirely to the contour of his figure, he was somewhat subdued by the unexpected elegance of the drawing-room of Christie's host. But a glance at Christie's sad but gracious face quickly reassured him. Taking from his hat a three-cornered parcel, he unfolded a handsome saffrona rose, which he gravely presented to her. Having thus re-established his position, he sank elegantly into a tete-a-tete ottoman. Finding the position inconvenient to face Christie, who had seated herself on a chair, he transferred himself to the other side of the ottoman, and addressed her over its back as from a pulpit. * Is this really a fortunate accident, Mr. Hall, or did you try to find us ?' said Christie pleasantly. ' Partly promiskuss and partly coincident, Miss Christie one up and t'other down,' said Dick lightly. * Work being slack at present at Devil's Ford, I reck'ned I'd take a pasear down to 'Frisco, and dip into the vortex o' fash'nable society and out again.' He lightly waved a new handkerchief to 72 DEVIL'S FORD illustrate his swallow-like intrusion. * This yer minglin' with the ho-tong is apt to be wearisome, ez you and me knows, unless combined with experience and judgment. So when them boys up there allows that there's a little too much fash'nable society and San Francisco capital and high-falutin' about the future goin' on fer square surface mining, I sez : " Look yere, gentlemen," sez I, "you don't see the p'int. The p'int is to get the pop'lar eye fixed, so to speak, on Devil's Ford. When a fash'nable star rises above the 'Frisco horizon like Miss Carr and, so to speak, dazzles the giniral eye, people want to know who she is. And when people say that's the accomplished daughter o' the accomplished superintendent of the Devil's Ford claim otherwise known as the Star-eyed Goddess o' Devil's Ford every eye is fixed on the mine, and Capital, so to speak, tumbles to her." And when they sez that the old man excuse my freedom, but that's the way the boys talk of your father, meaning no harm the old man, instead o' trying to corral rich widders grass or otherwise to spend their money on the big works for the gold that ain't there yet, should stay in Devil's Ford and put all his sabe and genius into grindin' out the little gold that is there, I sez to them that it ain't your father's style. " His style," sez I, " ez to go in and build them works. When they're done he turns round to Capital, and sez he, * Look yer,' sez he, * thar's all the works you want, first quality cost a million ; thar's all the water you want, onlimited cost another million ; thar's all the pay gravel you want in and outer the ground call it DEVIL'S FORD 73 two millions more. Now, my time's too vally'ble, my professhun's too high-toned, to work mines. I make 'em. Hand me over a cheque for ten millions and call it square, and work it for yourself.' So Capital hands over the money and waltzes down to run the mine, and you original locators walks round with yer hands in yer pockets a-top of your six million profit, and you let's Capital take the work and the responsibility." ' Preposterous as this seemed from the lips of Whisky Dick, Christie had a haunting suspicion that it was not greatly unlike the theories expounded by the clever young banker who had been her escort. She did not interrupt his flow of reminiscent criti cism. When he paused for breath, she said quietly: ' I met Mr. George Kearney the other day in the country.' Whisky Dick stopped awkwardly, glanced hur riedly at Christie, and coughed behind his hand kerchief. ' Mr. Kearney eh er certengly yes er met him, you say ? Was he er er well ?' ' In health, yes ; but otherwise he has lost every thing,' said Christie, fixing her eyes on the embar rassed Dick. * Yes er in course in course/ continued Dick, nervously glancing round the apartment as if en deavouring to find an opening to some less abrupt statement of the fact. ' And actually reduced to take some menial employment/ added Christie, still regarding Dick with her clear glance. 74 DEVIL'S FORD ' That's it that's just it,' said Dick, beaming as he suddenly found his delicate and confidential opportunity. 'That's it, Miss Christie; that's just what I was sayin' to the boys. " Ez it the square thing," sez I, "just because George hez happened to hypothecate every dollar he has, or expects to hev, to put into them works, only to please Mr. Carr, and just because he don't want to distress that intelli gent gentleman by letting him see he's dead broke for him to go and demean himself and Devil's Ford by rushing away and hiring out as a Mexican vaquero on Mexican wages ? Look," says I, " at the disgrace he brings upon a high-toned, fash'nable girl, at whose side he's walked and danced and passed rings, and sentiments, and bokays, in the changes o' the cotillion and the mizzourka. And wot," sez I, "if some day, prancing along in a fash'nable cavalcade, she all of a suddents comes across him drivin' a Mexican steer ?" That's what I said to the boys. And so you met him, Miss Christie, as usual,' continued Dick, endeavouring, under the appearance of a large social experience, to conceal an eager anxiety to know the details ' so you met him ; and, in course, you didn't let on yer knew him, so to speak, nat'rally, or p'raps you kinder like asked him to fix your saddle-girth, and give him a five-dollar piece eh ?' Christie, who had risen and gone to the window, suddenly turned a very pale face and shining eyes on Dick. ' Mr. Hall,' she said, with a faint attempt at a smile, ' we are old friends, and I feel I can ask you DEVIL'S FORD 75 a favour. You once before acted as our escort it was for a short but a happy time will you accept a larger trust ? My father is busy in Sacramento for the mine. Will you, without saying anything to anybody, take Jessie and me back at once to Devil's Ford ?' * Will I ? Miss Christie/ said Dick, choking between an intense gratification and a desire to keep back its vulgar exhibition, ' I shall be proud !' ' When I say keep it a secret ' she hesitated * I don't mean that I object to your letting Mr. Kearney, if you happen to know where he is, understand that we are going back to Devil's Ford.' ' Cert'nly nat'rally,' said Dick, waving his hand gracefully ; * sorter drop him a line, saying that bizness of a social and delicate nature being the escort of Miss Christie and Jessie Carr to Devil's Ford prevents my having the pleasure of calling.' ' That will do very well, Mr. Hall,' said Christie, faintly smiling through her moist eyelashes. * Then, will you go at once and secure tickets for to-night's boat and bring them here? Jessie and I will arrange everything else.' * Cert'nly,' said Dick impulsively, and preparing to take a graceful leave. ' We'll be impatient until you return with the tickets, 1 said Christie graciously. Dick shook hands gravely, got as far as the door, and paused. ' You think it better to take the tickets now ?' he said dubiously. ' By all means,' said Christie impetuously. ' I've 76 DEVIL'S FORD set my heart on going to-night and unless you secure berths early ' ' In course in course,' interrupted Dick nervously. < But ' ' But what ?' said Christie impatiently. Dick hesitated, shut the door carefully, and, look ing round the room, lightly shook out his handker chief, apparently flicked away an embarrassing sug gestion, and said, with a little laugh : ' It's ridiklous, perfectly ridiklous, Miss Christie ; but not bein' in the habit of carryin' ready money, and havin' omitted to cash a draft on Walls, Fargo & Co. ' * Of course,' said Christie rapidly. ' How forgetful I am ! Pray forgive me, Mr. Hall. I didn't think. I'll run up and get it from our host ; he will be glad to be our banker.' ' One moment, Miss Christie,' said Dick lightly, as his thumb and finger relaxed in his waistcoat pocket over the only piece of money in the world that had remained to him after his extravagant purchase of Christie's saffrona rose ' one moment ; in this yer monetary transaction, if you like, you are at liberty to use my name.' CHAPTER VIII. As Christie and Jessie Carr looked from the windows of the coach whose dust-clogged wheels were slowly dragging them, as if reluctant, nearer the last stage of their journey to Devil's Ford, they were conscious of a change in the landscape which they could not DEVIL'S FORD 77 entirely charge upon their changed feelings. The few bared open spaces on the upland, the long stretch of rocky ridge near the summit, so vivid and so velvety during their first journey, were now burnt and yellow ; even the brief openings in the forest were seared as if by a hot iron in the scorching rays of a half-year's sun. The pastoral slopes of the valley below were cloaked in lustreless leather ; the rare watercourses along the road had faded from the waiting eye and ear ; it seemed as if the long and dry summer had even invaded the close-set ranks of pines, and had blown a simoon breath through the densest woods, leaving its charred red ashes on every leaf and spray along the tunnelled shade. As they leaned out of the window and inhaled the half-dead spices of the evergreens, they seemed to have entered the atmosphere of some exhausted passion of some fierce excitement that was even now slowly burning itself out. It was a relief at last to see the straggling houses of Devil's Ford far below come once more into view as they rounded the shoulder of Devil's Spur and began the long descent. But as they entered the town a change more ominous and startling than the desiccation of the landscape forced itself upon them. The town was still there, but where were the inhabi tants ? Four months ago they had left the straggling street thronged with busy citizens groups at every corner, and a chaos of merchandise and traders in the open plaza or square beside the Presbyterian church. Now all was changed. Only a few wayfarers lifted 78 DEVIL'S FORD their heads lazily as the coach rattled by, crossing the deserted square littered with empty boxes, and gliding past empty cabins or vacant shop-windows, from which not only familiar faces, but even the window sashes themselves, were gone. The great unfinished serpent-like flume crossing the river on gigantic trestles had advanced as far as the town, stooping over it like some enormous reptile that had sucked its life-blood, and was gorged with its prey. Whisky Dick, who had left the stage on the summit to avail himself of a shorter foot-trail to the house that would give him half an hour's grace to make preparations, met them at the stage-office with a buggy. A glance at the young girls, perhaps, con vinced him that the graces of elegant worldly con versation were out of place with the revelation he read on their faces. Perhaps he, too, was a trifle indisposed. The short journey to the house was made in profound silence. The villa had been repainted and decorated, and it looked fresher, and, even to their preoccupied minds, appeared more attractive than ever. Thoughtful hands had taken care of the vines and rose-bushes on the trellises ; water that precious element in Devil's Ford had not been spared in keeping green through the long drought the plants which the girls had so tenderly nurtured. It was the one oasis in which the summer still lingered. And yet a singular sense of loss came over the girls as they once more crossed its threshold, It seemed no longer their own. DEVIL'S FORD 79 ' Ef I was you, Miss Christie, I'd keep close to the house for a day or two, until until things is settled,' said Dick. * There's a heap o' tramps and sich cattle trapsin' round. P'raps you wouldn't feel so lonesome if you was nearer town for instance, 'bout wher' you uster live.' ' In the dear old cabin,' said Christie quickly ; ' I remember it ; I wish we were there now.' 'Do you really? Do you?' said Whisky Dick, with suddenly twinkling eyes. ' That's like you to say it. That's what I allus said,' continued Dick, addressing space generally. ' If there's anyone ez knows how to come square down to the bottom rock without flinchin', it's your high-toned, fash'nable gals. But I must meander back to town and let the boys know you're in possession safe and sound. It's right mean that Fairfax and Mattingly had to go down to Lagrange on some low business yesterday, but they'll be back to-morrow. So long.' Left alone, the girls began to realize their strange position. They had conceived no settled plan. The night they left San Francisco they had written an earnest letter to their father, telling him that on learning the truth about the reverses of Devil's Ford, they thought it their duty to return and share them with others, without obliging him to prefer the request, and with as little worry to him as possible. He would find them ready to share his trials, and in what must be the scene of their work here after. ' It will bring father back,' said Christie ; * he won't leave us here alone ; and then together we 8o DEVIL'S FORD must come to some understanding with him with them for somehow I feel as if this house belonged to us no longer.' Her surmise was not far wrong. When Mr. Carr arrived hurriedly from Sacramento the next evening, he found the house deserted. His daughters were gone. There were indications that they had arrived and, for some reason, suddenly departed. The vague fear that had haunted his guilty soul after receiving their letter, and during his breathless journey, now seemed to be realized. He was turning from the empty house, whose reproachful solitude frightened him, when he was confronted on the threshold by the figure of Fairfax Munroe. ' I came to the stage-office to meet you,' he said ; * you must have left the stage at the sum mit.' ' I did,' said Carr angrily. 'I was anxious to meet my daughters quickly, to know the reason of their foolish alarm, and to know also who had been frightening them. Where are they ?' ' They are safe in the old cabin beyond, that has been put up ready to receive them again,' said Fair fax quietly. * But what is the meaning of this ? Why are they not here ?' demanded Carr, hiding his agitation in a burst of querulous rage. ' Do you ask, Mr. Carr ?' said Fairfax sadly. * Did you expect them to remain here until the Sheriff took possession ? No one knows better than yourself that the money advanced you on the deeds of this homestead has never been repaid.' DEVIL'S FORD 81 Carr staggered, but recovered himself with feeble violence. ' Since you know so much of my affairs, how do you know that this claim will ever be pressed for payment ? How do you know it is not the advance of a a friend ?' ' Because I have seen the woman who advanced it,' said Fairfax hopelessly. ' She was here to look at the property before your daughters came/ * Well ?' said Carr nervously. * Well ! You force me to tell you something I should like to forget. You force me to anticipate a disclosure I expected to make to you only when I came to ask permission to woo your daughter Jessie ; and when I tell you what it is, you will understand that I have no right to criticize your conduct. I am only explaining my own.' * Go on,' said Carr impatiently. ' When I first came to this country, there was a woman I loved passionately. She treated me as women of her kind only treat men like me: she ruined me, and left me. That was four years ago. I love your daughter, Mr. Carr, but she has never heard it from my lips. I would not woo her until I had told you all. I have tried to do it ere this, and failed. Perhaps I should not now, but ' ' But what ?' said Carr furiously ; ' speak out !' 'But this. Look !' said Fairfax, producing from his pocket the packet of letters Jessie had found ; 'perhaps you know the handwriting?' ' What do you mean ?' gasped Carr. 6 82 DEVIL'S FORD ' That woman my mistress is the woman who advanced you money, and who claims this house.' ***** The interview, and whatever came of it, remained a secret with the two men. When Mr. Carr ac cepted the hospitality of the old cabin again, it was understood that he had sacrificed the new house and its furniture to some of the more pressing debts of the mine, and the act went far to restore his waning popularity. But a more genuine feeling of relief was experienced by Devil's Ford when it was rumoured that Fairfax Munroe had asked for the hand of Jessie Carr, and that some promise, con tingent upon the equitable adjustment of the affairs of the mine, had been given by Mr. Carr. To the superstitious mind of Devil's Ford and its few remaining locators, this new partnership seemed to promise that unity of interest and stability of fortune that Devil's Ford had lacked. But nothing could be done until the rainy season had set fairly in; until the long - looked - for element that was to magically separate the gold from the dross in those dull mounds of dust and gravel had come of its own free will, and in its own appointed channels, in dependent of the feeble auxiliaries that had hope lessly riven the rocks on the hillside, or hung incomplete and unfinished in lofty scaffoldings above the settlement. The rainy season came early. At first in gathered mists on the higher peaks that were lifted in the morning sun only to show a fresher field of dazzling white below ; in white clouds that at first seemed DEVIL'S FORD 83 to be mere drifts blown across from those fresh snowfields, and obscuring the clear blue above ; in far-off murmurs in the hollow hills and gulches ; in nearer tinkling melody and baby prattling in the leaves. It came with bright flashes of sunlight by day, with deep, monotonous shadow at night ; with the onset of heavy winds, the roar of turbulent woods, the tumultuous tossing of leafy arms, and with what seemed the silent dissolution of the whole land scape in days of steady and uninterrupted downfall. It came extravagantly, for every canon had grown into a torrent, every gulch a waterspout, every watercourse a river, and all pouring into the North Fork, that, rushing past the settlement, seemed to threaten it with lifted crest and flying mane. It came dangerously, for one night the river, leaping the feeble barrier of Devil's Ford, swept away houses and banks, scattered with unconscious irony the laboriously collected heaps of gravel left for hydraulic machinery, and spread out a vast and silent lake across the submerged flat. In the hurry and confusion of that night, the girls had thrown open their cabin to the escaping miners, who hurried along the slope that was now the bank of the river. Suddenly Christie felt her arm grasped, and she was half led, half dragged into the inner room. Her father stood before her. ' Where is George Kearney ?' he asked tremulously. ' George Kearney !' echoed Christie, for a moment believing the excitement had turned her father's brain ; ' you know he is not here ; he is in San Francisco.' 84 DEVIL'S FORD ' He is here, I tell you,' said Carr impatiently ; 1 he has been here ever since the high water, trying to save the flume and reservoir.' ' George here !' Christie could only gasp. 'Yes ! He passed here a few moments ago, to see if you were all safe, and he has gone on towards the flume. But what he is trying to do is madness. If you see him, implore him to do no more. Let him abandon the accursed flume to its fate. It has worked already too much woe upon us all ; why should it carry his brave and youthful soul down with it ?' The words were still ringing in her ears, when he suddenly passed away with the hurrying crowd. Scarcely knowing what she did, she ran out, vaguely intent only on one thought, seeking only the one face lately so dear in recollection that she felt she would die if she never saw it again. Perplexed by confused voices in the woods, she lost track of the crowd until the voices suddenly were raised in one loud outcry, followed by the crashing of timber, the splashing of water, a silence, and then a dull, con tinuous roar. She ran vaguely on in the direction of the reservoir, with her father's injunction still in her mind, until a terrible idea displaced it, and she turned at right angles suddenly, and ran towards the slope leading down to the submerged flat. She had barely left the shelter of the trees behind her, before the roar of water seemed to rise at her very feet. She stopped, dazed, bewildered, and horror-stricken, on the edge of the slope. It was the slope no 1 onger, but the bank of the river itself. DEVIL'S FORD 85 Even in the gray light of early morning, and with inexperienced eyes, she saw all too clearly now. The trestle-work had given way ; the curving mile of flume had fallen into the stream, and, crushed and dammed against the opposite shore, had absolutely turned the whole river through the half-finished ditch and partly excavated mine in its way, a few rods further on, to join the old familiar channel. The bank of the river was changed ; the flat had become an island, between which and the slope where she stood the North Fork was rolling its resistless yellow torrent. As she gazed spell-bound a portion of the slope beneath her suddenly seemed to sink and crumble, and was swallowed up in the rushing stream. She heard a cry of warning behind her, but, rooted to the spot by a fearful fascination, she heeded it not. Again there was a sudden dis ruption, and another part of the slope sank to rise no more ; but this time she felt herself seized by the waist and dragged back. It was her father standing by her side. He was flushed and excited, gazing at the water with a strange exultation. * Do you see it ? Do you know what has happened ?' he asked quickly. ' The flume has fallen and turned the river, 5 said Christie hurriedly. ' But you have seen him ; is he safe ?' ' He who ?' he answered vacantly. ' George Kearney !' ' He is safe,' he said impatiently. * But, do you see, Christie do you know what this means ?' 86 DEVIL'S FORD He pointed with his tremulous hand to the stream before him* * It means we are ruined,' said Christie coldly. ' Nothing of the kind ! It means that the river is doing the work of the flume. It is sluicing off the gravel, deepening the ditch, and altering the slope which was the old bend of the river. It will do in ten minutes the work that would take us a year. If we can stop it in time, or control it, we are safe ; but if we cannot, it will carry away the bed deposit with the rest, and we are ruined again.' With a gesture of impotent fury, he dashed away in the direction of an equally excited crowd, who on a point of the slope nearer the island were gesticu lating and shouting to a second group of men, who on the opposite shore were clambering on over the choked debris of the flume that had dammed and diverted the current. It was evident that the same idea had occurred to them, and they were risking their lives in the attempt to set free the impediments. Shocked and indignant as Christie had been at the degrading absorption of material interests at such a moment, the element of danger lifted the labours of these men into heroism, and she began to feel a strange exultation as she watched them. Under the skilful blows of their axes, in a few moments the vast body of drift began to disintegrate, and then to swing round and move towards the old channel. A cheer went up, but as suddenly died away again. An overlapping fringe of wreckage had caught on the point of the island and arrested the whole mass. The men who had gained the shore with difficulty DEVIL'S FORD 87 looked back with a cry of despair. But the next moment from among them leaped a figure, alert, buoyant, invincible, and, axe in hand, once more essayed the passage. Springing from timber to timber, he at last reached the point of obstruction. A few strokes of the axe were sufficient to clear it ; but at the first stroke it was apparent that the striker was also loosing his hold upon the shore, and that he must inevitably be carried away with the tossing debris. But this consideration did not seem to affect him ; the last blow was struck, and as the freed timbers rolled on over and over, he boldly plunged into the flood. Christie gave a little cry her heart had bounded with him ; it seemed as if his plunge had splashed the water in her eyes. He did not come to the surface until he had passed the point below where her father stood, and then struggled feebly, as if stunned or disabled by a blow. It seemed to her that he was trying to approach the side of the river where she was. Would he do it ? Could she help him ? She was alone ; he was hidden from the view of the men on the point, and no succour could come from them. There was a fringe of alder nearly opposite their cabin that almost overhung the stream. She ran to it, clutched it with a frantic hand, and leaning over the boiling water, uttered for the first time his name. ' George !' As if called to the surface by the magic of her voice, he rose a few yards from her in mid-current, and turned his fading eyes towards the bank. In another moment he would have been swept beyond 88 DEVIL'S FORD her reach, but with a supreme effort he turned on one side ; the current, striking him sideways, threw him towards the bank, and she caught him by his sleeve. For an instant it seemed as if she would be dragged down with him. For one dangerous moment she did not care, and almost yielded to the spell ; but as the rush of water pressed him against the bank, she recovered herself, and managed to lift him beyond its reach. And then she sat down half fainting, with his white face and damp curls upon her breast. ' George, darling, speak to me ! Only one word ! Tell me, have I saved you ?' His eyes opened. A faint twinkle of the old days came to them a boyish smile played upon his lips. ' For yourself or Jessie ?' She looked around her with a little frightened air. They were alone. There was but one way of sealing those mischievous lips, and she found it. * * * $ * ' That's what I allus said, gentlemen,' lazily re marked Whisky Dick a few weeks later, leaning back against the bar with his glass in his hand ; " George," sez I, " it ain't what you say to a fash'nable high-toned young lady it's what you does ez makes or breaks you." And that's what I sez gin'rally o' things in the Ford. It ain't what Carr and you boys allows to do it's the gin'ral average o' things ez iz done that gives tone to the hull, and hez brought this yer new luck to you all !' SNOW-BOUND AT EAGLE'S SNOW-BOUND AT EAGLE'S CHAPTER I. FOR some moments profound silence and darkness had accompanied a Sierran stage-coach towards the summit. The huge, dim bulk of the vehicle, sway ing noiselessly on its straps, glided onward and up ward as if obeying some mysterious impulse from behind, so faint and indefinite appeared its relation to the viewless and silent horses ahead. The shadowy trunks of tall trees that seemed to approach the coach windows, look in, and then move hurriedly away, were the only distinguishable objects. Yet, even these were so vague and unreal that they might have been the mere phantoms of some dream of the half-sleeping passengers ; for the thickly-strewn needles of the pine that choked the way and deadened all sound yielded under the silently crush ing wheels a faint soporific odour that seemed to benumb their senses, already slipping back into un consciousness during the long ascent. Suddenly the stage stopped. 92 SNOW-BOUND AT EAGLE'S Three of the four passengers inside struggled at once into upright wakefulness. The fourth pas senger, John Hale, had not been sleeping, and turned impatiently towards the window. It seemed to him that two of the moving trees had suddenly become motionless outside. One of them moved again, and the door opened quickly but quietly, as of itself. * Git down,' said a voice in the darkness. All the passengers except Hale started. The man next to him moved his right hand suddenly behind him, but as quickly stopped. One of the motionless trees had apparently closed upon the vehicle, and what had seemed to be a bough projecting from it at right angles changed slowly into the faintly shining double-barrels of a gun at the window. ' Drop that I' said the voice, The man who had moved uttered a short laugh, and returned his hand empty to his knees. The two others perceptibly shrugged their shoulders, as over a game that was lost. The remaining passenger, John Hale, fearless by nature, inexperienced by habit, awaking suddenly to the truth, conceived a desperate resistance. But without his making a gesture this was instinctively felt by the others ; the muzzle of the gun turned spontaneously on him, and he was vaguely conscious of a certain contempt and impatience of him in his companions. ' Git down !' repeated the voice imperatively. The three passengers descended. Hale, furious, alert, but helpless of any opportunity, followed. He was surprised to find the stage-driver and express messenger standing beside him ; he had not heard SNOW-BOUND AT EAGLE'S 93 them dismount. He instinctively looked towards the horses. He could see nothing. ' Hold up your hands !' One of the passengers had already lifted his, in a weary, perfunctory way. The others did the same, reluctantly and awkwardly, but apparently more from the consciousness of the ludicrousness of their attitude than from any sense of danger. The rays of a bull's-eye lantern, deftly managed by invisible hands, while it left the intruders in shadow, com pletely illuminated the faces and figures of the passengers. In spite of the majestic obscurity and silence of surrounding nature, the group of humanity thus illuminated was more farcical than dramatic. A scrap of newspaper, part of a sandwich, and an orange-peel that had fallen from the floor of the coach, brought into equal prominence by the search ing light, completed the absurdity. ' There's a man here with a package of greenbacks/ said the voice, with an official coolness that lent a certain suggestion of Custom House inspection to the transaction ' who is it ?' The passengers looked at each other, and their glance finally settled on Hale. * It's not him,' continued the voice, with a slight tinge of contempt on the emphasis. * You'll save time and searching, gentlemen, if you'll tote it out. If we've got to go through every one of you we'll try to make it pay.' The significant threat was not unheeded. The passenger who had first moved when the stage stopped put his hand to his breast. 94 SNOW-BOUND AT EAGLE'S 'T'other pocket first, if you please/ said the voice. The man laughed, drew a pistol from his hip- pocket, and, under the strong light of the lantern, laid it on a spot in the road indicated by the voice. A thick envelope, taken from his breast-pocket, was laid beside it. * I told the d d fools that gave it to me, instead of sending it by express, it would be at their own risk,' he said apologetically. ' As it's going with the express now, it's all the same,' said the inevitable humorist of the occasion, pointing to the despoiled express treasure -box, already in the road. The intention and deliberation of the outrage was plain enough to Hale's inexperience now. Yet he could not understand the cool acquiescence of his fellow-passengers, and was furious. His reflections were interrupted by a voice which seemed to come from a greater distance. He fancied it was even softer in tone, as if a certain austerity was relaxed. * Step in as quick as you like, gentlemen. You've five minutes to wait, Bill.' The passengers re-entered the coach ; the driver and express messenger hurriedly climbed to their places. Hale would have spoken, but an impatient gesture from his companions stopped him. They were evidently listening for something ; he listened too. Yet the silence remained unbroken. It seemed incredible that there should be no indication near or far of that forceful presence which a moment ago SNOW-BOUND AT EAGLE'S 95 had been so dominant. No rustle in the wayside ' brush,' nor echo from the rocky canon below, betrayed a sound of their flight. A faint breeze stirred the tall tips of the pines, a cone dropped on the stage roof, one of the invisible horses, that seemed to be listening too, moved slightly in his harness. But this only appeared to emphasize the profound stillness. The moments were growing interminable, when the voice, so near as to startle Hale, broke once more from the surrounding obscurity. ' Good-night.' It was the signal that they were free. The driver's whip cracked like a pistol-shot, the horses sprang furiously forward, the huge vehicle lurched ahead, and then bounded violently after them. When Hale could make his voice heard in the confusion a con fusion which seemed greater from the colourless intensity of their last few moments' experience he said hurriedly : * Then that fellow was there all the time ?' ' I reckon,' returned his companion, ' he stopped five minutes to cover the driver with his double- barrel, until the two other men got off with the treasure.' ' The two others !' gasped Hale. ' Then there were only three men, and we six. 9 The man shrugged his shoulders. The passenger who had given up the greenbacks drawled, with a slow, irritating tolerance : ' I reckon you're a stranger here ?' ' I am to this sort of thing, certainly, though I 96 SNOW-BOUND AT EAGLE'S live a dozen miles from here, at Eagle's Court,' re turned Hale scornfully. 1 Then you're the chap that's doin' that fancy ranchin' over at Eagle's ?' continued the man lazily. ' Whatever I'm doing at Eagle's Court, I'm not ashamed of it,' said Hale tartly; 'and that's more than I can say of what I've done or haven't done to-night. Pve been one of six men overawed and robbed by three? 1 As to the overawin', ez you call it mebbe you know more about it than us. As to the robbin' ez far as I kin remember, you haven't onloaded much. Ef you're talkin' about what oughter been done, I'll tell you what could have happened. P'r'aps ye noticed that when we pulled up I made a kind of grab for my wepping behind me ?' ' I did ; and you weren't quick enough,' said Hale shortly. ' I wasn't quick enough, and that saved you. For ef I got that pistol out and in sight o' that man that held the gun ' ' Well,' said Hale impatiently, ' he'd have hesi tated.' * He'd hev blown you with both barrels outer the window, and that before I'd got a half-cock on my revolver.' ' But that would have been only one man gone, and there would have been five of you left,' said Hale haughtily. ' That might have been, ef you'd contracted to take the hull charge of two handfuls of buckshot and slugs ; but ez one-eighth o' that amount would have SNOW-BOUND AT EAGLE'S 97 done your business, and yet left enough to have gone round, promiskiss, and satisfied the other pas sengers, it wouldn't do to kalkilate upon.' * But the express messenger and the driver were armed,' continued Hale. ' They were armed, but not fixed ; that makes all the difference.' ' I don't understand.' ' I reckon you know what a duel is ?' 'Yes.' ' Well, the chances agin us was about the same as you'd have ef you was put up agin another chap who was allowed to draw a bead on you, and the signal to fire was your drawin' your weapon. You may be a stranger to this sort o' thing, and p'r'aps you never fought a duel, but even then you wouldn't go foolin' your life away on any such chances.' Something in the man's manner, and in a certain sly amusement the other passengers appeared to extract from the conversation, impressed Hale, already beginning to be conscious of the ludicrous insufficiency of his own grievance beside that of his interlocutor. ' Then you mean to say this thing is inevitable,' said he bitterly, but less aggressively. ' Ez long as they hunt you ; when you hunt them you've got the advantage, allus provided you know how to get at them ez well as they know how to get at you. This yer coach is bound to go reg'lar, and on certain days. They ain't. By the time the Sheriff gets out his posse they've skedaddled, and the leader, like as not, is takin' his quiet cocktail at the Bank 7 98 SNOW-BOUND AT EAGLE'S Exchange, or mebbe losin' his earnings to the Sheriff over draw poker in Sacramento. You see, you can't prove anything agin them unless you take them " on the fly." It may be a part of Joaquin Murietta's band, though I wouldn't swear to it.' ' The leader might have been Gentleman George, from up-country,' interposed a passenger. ' He seemed to throw in a few fancy touches, partic'lerly in that " Good-night." Sorter chucked a little senti ment in it. Didn't seem to be the same thing ez, " Git yer d d suckers," on the other line.' ' Whoever he was, he knew the road and the men who travelled on it. Like ez not, he went over the line beside the driver on the box on the down trip, and took stock of everything. He even knew I had those greenbacks ; though they were handed to me in the bank at Sacramento. He must have been hangin' round there.' For some moments Hale remained silent. He was a city-bred man, with an intense love of law and order ; the kind of man who is the first to take that law and order into his own hands when he does not find it existing to please him. He had a Bostonian's respect for respectability, tradition, and propriety, but was willing to face irregularity and impropriety to create order elsewhere. He was fond of Nature with these limitations, never quite trusting her unguided instincts, and finding her as an instructress greatly inferior to Harvard Uni versity, though possibly not to Cornell. With dauntless enterprise and energy he had built and stocked a charming cottage farm in a nook in the SNOW-BOUND AT EAGLE'S 99 Sierras, whence he opposed, like the lesser English man that he was, his own tastes to those of the alien West. In the present instance he felt it incumbent upon him not only to assert his principles, but to act upon them with his usual energy. How far he was impelled by the half- contemptuous passiveness of his companions it would be difficult to say. ' What is to prevent the pursuit of them at once ?' he asked suddenly. ' We are a few miles from the station, where horses can be procured.' ' Who's to do it ?' replied the other lazily. ' The stage company will lodge the complaint with the authorities, but it will take two days to get the county officers out, and it's nobody else's funeral.' ' I will go for one,' said Hale quietly. * I have a horse waiting for me at the station, and can start at once,' There was an instant of silence. The stage coach had left the obscurity of the forest, and by the stronger light Hale could perceive that his com panion was examining him with two colourless, lazy eyes. Presently he said, meeting Hale's clear glance, but rather as if yielding to a careless reflection : ' It might be done with four men. We oughter raise one man at the station.' He paused. * I don't know ez I'd mind taking a hand myself/ he added, stretching out his legs with a slight yawn. ' Ye can count me in, if you're goin', Kernel. I reckon I'm talkin' to Kernel Clinch,' said the passenger beside Hale with sudden alacrity. ' I'm TOO SNOW-BOUND AT EAGLE'S Rawlins, of Frisco. Heerd of ye afore, Kernel, and kinder spotted you jist now from your talk.' To Hale's surprise the two men, after awkwardly and perfunctorily grasping each other's hands, entered at once into a languid conversation on the recent election at Fresno, without the slightest further reference to the pursuit of the robbers. It was not until the remaining and undenominated passenger turned to Hale and, regretting that he had immediate business at the summit, offered to accompany the party if they would wait a couple of hours, that Colonel Clinch briefly returned to the subject. ' Four men will do, and ez we'll hev to take horses from the station, we'll hev to take the fourth man from there/ With these words he resumed his uninteresting conversation with the equally uninterested Rawlins, and the undenominated passenger subsided into an admiring and dreamy contemplation of them both. With all his principle and really high-minded purpose, Hale could not help feeling constrained and annoyed at the sudden subordinate and auxiliary position to which he, the projector of the enterprise, had been reduced. It was true that he had never offered himself as their leader ; it was true that the principle he wished to uphold, and the effect he sought to obtain, would be equally demonstrated under another; it was true that the execution of his own conception gravitated by some occult impulse to the man who had not sought it, and whom he had always regarded as an incapable. SNOW-BOUND AT EAGLE'S 101 But all this was so unlike precedent or tradition that, after the fashion of conservative men, he was suspicious of it, and only that his honour was now involved he would have withdrawn from the enter prise. There was still a chance of reasserting him self at the station, where he was known, and where some authority might be deputed to him. But even this prospect failed. The station, half hotel and half stable, contained only the landlord, who was also express agent, and the new volunteer whom Clinch had suggested would be found among the stablemen. The nearest justice of the peace was ten miles away, and Hale had to abandon even his hope of being sworn in as a deputy constable. The introduction of a common and illiterate ostler into the party on equal terms with himself did not add to his satisfaction, and a remark from Rawlins seemed to complete his embarrassment. ' Ye had a mighty narrer escape down there just now,' said that gentleman confidentially, as Hale buckled his saddle-girths. ' I thought, as we were not supposed to defend ourselves, there was no danger,' said Hale scorn fully. ' Oh, I don't mean them road agents ; but him. 9 'Who?' ' Kernel Clinch. You jist ez good as allowed he hadn't any grit.' * Whatever I said I suppose I am responsible for it,' answered Hale haughtily. ' That's what gits me,' was the imperturbable reply. ' He's the best shot in Southern California, 102 SNOW-BOUND AT EAGLE'S and hez let daylight through a dozen chaps afore now for half what you said.' ' Indeed!' * Howsumever,' continued Rawlins philosophi cally, ' ez he's concluded to go with ye instead of for ye, you're likely to hev your ideas on this matter carried out up to the handle. He'll make short work of it, you bet. Ef, ez I suspect, the leader is an airy young feller from Frisco, who hez took to the road lately, Clinch hez got a personal grudge agin him from a quarrel over draw poker.' This was the last blow to Hale's ideal crusade. Here he was an honest, respectable citizen en gaged as simple accessory to a lawless vendetta origi nating at a gambling-table ! When the first shock was over, that grim philosophy which is the reaction of all imaginative and sensitive natures came to his aid. He felt better ; oddly enough, he began to be conscious that he was thinking and acting like his companions. With this feeling a vague sympathy, before absent, faintly showed itself in their actions. The Sharpe's rifle put into his hands by the stable man was accompanied by a familiar word of sugges tion, as to an equal, which he was ashamed to find flattered him. He was able to continue the conver sation with Rawlins more coolly. ' Then you suspect who is the leader ?' ' Only on giniral principles. There was a finer touch, so to speak, in this yer robbery that wasn't in the old-fashioned style. Down in my country they hed crude ideas about them things used to strip the passengers of everything, includin' their SNOW-BOUND AT EAGLE'S 103 clothes. They say that at the station hotels, when the coach came in, the folks used to stand round with blankets to wrap up the passengers so ez not to skeer thewimen. Thar's a story that the driver and express manager drove up one day with only a copy of the Ally Californy wrapped around 'em; but thin,' added Rawlins grimly, 'there was folks ez said the hull story was only an advertisement got up for the Ally: ' Time's up !' 'Are you ready, gentlemen ?' said Colonel Clinch. Hale started. He had forgotten his wife and family at Eagle's Court, ten miles away. They would be alarmed at his absence, would perhaps hear some exaggerated version of the stage-coach robbery, and fear the worst. ' Is there any way I could send a line to Eagle's Court before daybreak ?' he asked eagerly. The station was already drained of its spare men and horses. The undenominated passenger stepped forward and offered to take it himself when his busi ness, which he would despatch as quickly as possible, was concluded. ' That ain't a bad idea,' said Clinch reflectively ; 'for ef yer hurry you'll head 'em off in case they scent us, and try to double back on the North Ridge. They'll fight shy of the trail if they see anybody on it, and one man's as good as a dozen.' Hale could not help thinking that he might have been that one man, and had his opportunity for independent action but for his rash proposal ; but it was too late to withdraw now. He hastily scribbled 104 SNOW-BOUND AT EAGLE'S a few lines to his wife on a sheet of the station paper, handed it to the man, and took his place in the little cavalcade as it filed silently down the road. They had ridden in silence for nearly an hour, and had passed the scene of the robbery by a higher track. Morning had long ago advanced its colours on the cold white peaks to their right, and was taking possession of the spur where they rode. ' It looks like snow,' said Rawlins quietly. Hale turned towards him in astonishment. Nothing on earth or sky looked less likely. It had been cold, but that might have been only a current from the frozen peaks beyond reaching the lower valley. The ridge on which they had halted was still thick with yellowish-green summer foliage, mingled with the darker evergreen of pine and fir. Oven-like canons in the long flanks of the mountain seemed still to glow with the heat of yesterday's noon ; the breathless air yet trembled and quivered over stifling gorges and passes in the granite rocks, while far at their feet sixty miles of perpetual summer stretched away over the winding American River, now and then lost in a gossamer haze. It was scarcely ripe October where they stood ; they could see the pleni tude of August still lingering in the valleys. ' I've seen Thompson's Pass choked up with fifteen feet o' snow earlier than this/ said Rawlins, answer ing Hale's gaze ; ' and last September the passengers sledded over the road we came last night, and all the time Thompson, a mile lower down over the ridge in the hollow, smoking his pipe under roses in his piazzy ! Mountains is mighty uncertain ; they SNOW-BOUND AT EAGLE'S 105 make their own weather ez they want it. I reckon you ain't wintered here yet.' Hale was obliged to admit that he had only taken Eagle's Court in the early spring. * Oh, you're all right at Eagle's when you're there ! But it's like Thompson's : it's the gettin' there that Hallo ! What's that ?' A shot, distant but distinct, had rung through the keen air. It was followed by another so alike as to seem an echo. ' That's over yon, on the North Ridge/ said the ostler ; ' about two miles as the crow flies and five by the trail. Somebody's shootin' b'ar.' ' Not with a shot gun,' said Clinch, quickly wheel ing his horse with a gesture that electrified them. * It's them, and they've doubled on us ! To the North Ridge, gentlemen, and ride all you know !' It needed no second challenge to completely transform that quiet cavalcade. The wild man- hunting instinct, inseparable to most humanity, rose at their leader's look and word. With an incoherent and unintelligible cry, giving voice to the chase like the commonest hound of their fields, the order-loving Hale and the philosophical Rawlins wheeled with the others, and in another instant the little band swept out of sight in the forest. An immense and immeasurable quiet succeeded. The sunlight glistened silently on cliff and scar, the vast distance below seemed to stretch out and broaden into repose. It might have been fancy, but over the sharp line of the North Ridge a light smoke lifted as of an escaping soul. io6 SNOW-BOUND AT EAGLE'S CHAPTER II. EAGLE'S COURT, one of the highest canons of the Sierras, was in reality a plateau of tableland, em bayed like a green lake in a semicircular sweep of granite that, lifting itself three thousand feet higher, became a foundation for the eternal snows. The mountain genii of space and atmosphere jealously guarded its seclusion and surrounded it with illu sions ; it never looked to be exactly what it was : the traveller who saw it from the North Ridge appa rently at his feet, in descending found himself sepa rated from it by a mile-long abyss and a rushing river ; those who sought it by a seeming direct trail, at the end of an hour lost sight of it completely, or, abandoning the quest and retracing their steps, suddenly came upon the gap through which it was entered. That which from the Ridge appeared to be a copse of bushes beside the tiny dwelling were trees three hundred feet high ; the cultivated lawn before it, which might have been covered by the traveller's handkerchief, was a field of a thousand acres. The house itself was a long, low, irregular struc ture, chiefly of roof and veranda, picturesquely upheld by rustic pillars of pine, with the bark still adhering, and covered with vines and trailing roses. Yet it was evident that the coolness produced by this vast extent of cover was more than the archi tect, who had planned it under the influence of a staring and bewildering sky, had trustfully conceived, SNOW-BOUND AT EAGLE'S 107 for it had to be mitigated by blazing fires in open hearths when the thermometer marked a hundred degrees in the field beyond. The dry, restless wind that continually rocked the tall masts of the pines with a sound like the distant sea, while it stimulated outdoor physical exertion and defied fatigue, left the sedentary dwellers in these altitudes chilled in the shade they courted, or scorched them with heat when they ventured to bask supinely in the sun. White muslin curtains at the French windows, and rugs, skins, and heavy furs dispersed in the interior, with certain other charming but incongruous details of furniture, marked the inconsistencies of the climate. There was a coquettish indication of this in the costume of Miss Kate Scott as she stepped out on the veranda that morning. A man's broad-brimmed Panama hat, partly unsexed by a twisted gaily- coloured scarf, but retaining enough character to give piquancy to the pretty curves of the face be neath, protected her from the sun ; a red flannel shirt another spoil from the enemy and a thick jacket shielded her from the austerities of the morn ing breeze. But the next inconsistency was pecu liarly her own. Miss Kate always wore the freshest and lightest of white cambric skirts, without the least reference to the temperature. To the practical sanatory remonstrances of her brother-in-law, and to the conventional criticism of her sister, she opposed the same defence : ' How else is one to tell when it is summer in this ridiculous climate? And then, W 7 oollen is stuffy, colour draws the sun, and one at io8 SNOW-BOUND AT EAGLE'S least knows when one is clean or dirty.' Artistically the result was far from unsatisfactory. It was a pretty figure under the sombre pines, against the gray granite and the steely sky, and seemed to lend the yellowing fields, from which the flowers had already fled, a floral relief of colour. I do not think the few masculine wayfarers of that locality objected to it ; indeed, some had betrayed an indiscreet admiration, and had curiously followed the invita tion of Miss Kate's warmly-coloured figure until they had encountered the invincible indifference of Miss Kate's cold gray eyes. With these manifesta tions her brother-in-law did not concern himself; he had perfect confidence in her unqualified dis interest in the neighbouring humanity, and permitted her to wander in her solitary picturesqueness, or accompanied her when she rode in her dark-green habit, with equal freedom from anxiety. For Miss Scott, although only twenty, had already subjected most of her maidenly illusions to mature critical analysis. She had voluntarily accompanied her sister and mother to California, in the earnest hope that Nature contained something worth saying to her, and was disappointed to find she had already discounted its value in the pages of books. She hoped to find a vague freedom in this unconven tional life thus opened to her, or rather to show others that she knew how intelligently to appreciate it ; but as yet she was only able to express it in the one detail of dress already alluded to. Some of the men, and nearly all the women, she had met thus far, she was amazed to find, valued the conven- SNOW-BOUND AT EAGLE'S 109 tionalities she believed she despised, and were voluntarily assuming the chains she thought she had thrown off. Instead of learning anything from them, these children of Nature had bored her with eager questionings regarding the civilization she had abandoned, or irritated her with crude imitations of it for her benefit. ' Fancy,' she had written to a friend in Boston, ' my calling on Sue Murphy, who remembered the Donner tragedy, and who once shot a grizzly that was prowling round her cabin, and think of her begging me to lend her my saque for a pattern, and wanting to know if " polonays " were still worn.' She remembered more bitterly the romance that had tickled her earlier fancy, told of two college friends of her brother-in-law who were living the ' perfect life ' in the mines, labouring in the ditches with a copy of Homer in their pockets, and writing letters of the purest philosophy under the free air of the pines. How, coming unexpectedly on them in their Arcadia, the party found them un presentable through dirt, and thenceforth unknow able through domestic complications that had filled their Arcadian cabin with half-breed children. Much of this disillusion she had kept within her own heart, from a feeling of pride, or only lightly touched upon it in her relations with her mother and sister. For Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Scott had no idols to shatter, no enthusiasm to subdue. Firmly and unalterably conscious of their own superiority to the life they led, and the community that surrounded them, they accepted their duties cheerfully, and per formed them conscientiously. Those duties were no SNOW-BOUND AT EAGLE'S loyalty to Hale's interests and a vague missionary work among the neighbours, which, like most missionary work, consisted rather in making their own ideas understood than in understanding the ideas of their audience. Old Mrs. Scott's zeal was partly religious, an inheritance from her Puritan ancestry ; Mrs. Hale's was the affability of a gentle woman, and the obligation of her position. To this was added the slight languor of the cultivated American wife, whose health has been affected by the birth of her first child, and whose views of marriage and maternity were slightly tinged with gentle scepticism. She, like the rest of his *' women folk,' was sincerely attached to her husband, ' who dominated the household ' with the faint conscious ness of that division of service which renders the position of the sultan of a seraglio at once so promi nent and so precarious. The attitude of John Hale in his family circle was dominant because it had never been subjected to criticism or comparison ; and perilous for the same reason. Mrs. Hale presently joined her sister in the veranda, arid shading her eyes with a narrow white hand, glanced on the prospect with a polite interest and ladylike urbanity. The searching sun, which, as Miss Kate once intimated, was ' vulgarity itself,' stared at her in return, but could not call a blush to her somewhat sallow cheek. Neither could it detract, however, from the delicate prettiness of her refined face with its soft gray shadows, or the dark, gentle eyes, whose blue-veined lids were just then wrinkled into coquettishly mischievous lines by the strong SNOW-BOUND AT EAGLE'S in light. She was taller and thinner than Kate, and had at times a certain shy, coy sinuosity of movement which gave her a more virginal suggestion than her unmarried sister. For Miss Kate, from her earliest youth, had been distinguished by that matronly sedateness of voice and step, and completeness of figure, which indicates some members of the gallin aceous tribe from their callow infancy. ' I suppose John must have stopped at the summit on some business,' said Mrs. Hale, ' or he would have been here already. It's scarcely worth while waiting for him, unless you choose to ride over and meet him. You might change your dress,' she continued, looking doubtfully at Kate's costume. ' Put on your riding-habit, and take Manuel with you.' ' And take the only man we have, and leave you alone ?' returned Kate slowly. ' No !' ' There are the Chinese field hands,' said Mrs. Hale. ' You must correct your ideas, and really allow them some humanity, Kate. John says they have a very good compulsory school system in their own country, and can read and write.' ' That would be of little use to you here alone if if ' Kate hesitated. ' If what ?' said Mrs. Hale, smiling. ' Are you thinking of Manuel's dreadful story of the grizzly tracks across the fields this morning ? I promise you that neither I, nor mother, nor Minnie shall stir out of the house until you return, if you wish it.' ' I wasn't thinking of that,' said Kate ; ' though I ii2 SNOW-BOUND AT EAGLE'S don't believe the beating of a gong and the using of strong language is the best way to frighten a grizzly from the house. Besides, the Chinese are going down the river to-day to a funeral, or a wedding, or a feast of stolen chickens they're all the same and won't be here.' 'Then take Manuel,' repeated Mrs. Hale. 'We have the Chinese servants and Indian Molly in the house to protect us from Heaven knows what ! I have the greatest confidence in Chy-Lee as a warrior, and in Chinese warfare generally. One has only to hear him pipe in time of peace to imagine what a terror he might become in war-time. Indeed, any thing more deadly and soul-harrowing than that love-song he sang for us last night I cannot conceive. But really, Kate, I am not afraid to stay alone. You know what John says : we ought to be always pre pared for anything that might happen.' ' My dear Josie,' returned Kate, putting her arm around her sister's waist, ' I am perfectly convinced that if Three-fingered Jack or Two-toed Bill, or even Joaquin Murietta himself should step, red-handed, on that veranda, you would gently invite him to take a cup of tea, inquire about the state of the road, and refrain delicately from any allusions to the Sheriff. But I shan't take Manuel from you. I really cannot undertake to look after his morals at the station, and keep him from drinking aguardiente with sus picious characters at the bar. It is true he " kisses my hand " in his speech, even when it is thickest, and offers his back to me for a horse-block, but I think I prefer the sober and honest familiarity of SNOW-BOUND AT EAGLE'S 113 even that Pike County landlord who is satisfied to say : " Jump, girl, and I'll ketch ye !" ' ' I hope you didn't change your manner to either of them for that,' said Mrs. Hale with a faint sigh. ' John wants to be good friends with them, and they are behaving quite decently lately, considering that they can't speak a grammatical sentence, nor know the use of a fork.' ' And now the man puts on gloves and a tall hat to come here on Sundays, and the woman won't call until you've called first,' retorted Kate. ' Perhaps you call that improvement. The fact is, Josephine,' continued the young girl, folding her arms demurely, 'we might as well admit it at once these people don't like us.' 'That's impossible !' said Mrs. Hale, with sublime simplicity. ' You don't like them, you mean.' ' I like them better than you do, Josie, and that's the reason why / feel it andyou don't.' She checked herself, and, after a pause, resumed in a lighter tone : * No ; I shan't go to the station. I'll commune with Nature to-day, and won't " take any humanity in mine, thank you," as Bill the driver says. Adios.' ' I wish Kate would not use that dreadful slang, even in jest,' said Mrs. Scott in her rocking-chair at the French window, when Josephine re-entered the parlour as her sister walked briskly away. ' I am afraid she is being infected by the people at the station. She ought to have a change.' 1 I was just thinking,' said Josephine, looking abstractedly at her mother, ' that I would try to get John to take her to San Francisco this winter. The 8 H4 SNOW-BOUND AT EAGLE'S Careys are expected, you know. She might visit them.' ' I'm afraid, if she stays here much longer, she won't care to see them at all. She seems to care for nothing now that she ever liked before,' returned the old lady ominously. Meantime the subject of these criticisms was carrying away her own reflections tightly buttoned up in her short jacket. She had driven back her dog Spot another one of her disillusions, who, giving way to his lower nature, had once killed a sheep as she did not wish her Jaques-like con templation of any wounded deer to be inconsistently interrupted by a fresh outrage from her companion. The air was really very chilly, and for the first time in her mountain experience the direct rays of the sun seemed to be shorn of their power. This com pelled her to walk more briskly than she was con scious of, for in less than an hour she came suddenly and breathlessly upon the mouth of the canon, or natural gateway to Eagle's Court. To her always a profound spectacle of mountain magnificence, it seemed to-day almost terrible in its cold, strong grandeur. The narrowing pass was choked for a moment between two gigantic buttresses of granite, approaching each other so closely at their towering summits that trees growing in opposite clefts of the rock intermingled their branches, and pointed the soaring Gothic arch of a stupendous gateway. She raised her eyes with a quickly beating heart. She knew that the interlacing trees above her were as large as those she had just quitted ; she knew also SNOW-BOUND AT EAGLE'S 115 that the point where they met was only half-way up the cliff, for she had once gazed down upon them, dwindled to shrubs, from the airy summit ; she knew that their shaken cones fell a thousand feet perpen dicularly, or bounded like shot from the scarred walls they bombarded. She remembered that one of these pines, dislodged from its high foundations, had once dropped like a portcullis in the archway, blocking the pass, and was only carried afterwards by assault of steel and fire. Bending her head mechanically, she ran swiftly through the shadowy passage, and halted only at the beginning of the ascent on the other side. It was here that the actual position of the plateau, so indefinite of approach, began to be realized. It now appeared an independent elevation, surrounded on three sides by gorges and watercourses, so narrow as to be overlooked from the principal mountain range, with which it was connected by a long canon that led to the Ridge. At the outlet of this canon in bygone ages a mighty river it had the appearance of having been slowly raised by the diluvium of that river, and the debris washed down from above ; a suggestion repeated in miniature by the artificial plateaus of excavated soil raised before the mouths of mining tunnels in the lower flanks of the moun tain. It was the realization of a fact often forgotten by the dwellers in Eagle's Court that the valley below them, which was their connecting link with the sur rounding world, was only reached by ascending the mountain, and the nearest road was over the higher n6 SNOW-BOUND AT EAGLE'S mountain ridge. Never before had this impressed itself so strongly upon the young girl as when she turned that morning to look upon the plateau below her. It seemed to illustrate the conviction that had been slowly shaping itself out of her reflections on the conversation of that morning. It was possible that the perfect understanding of a higher life was only reached from a height still greater, while to those only half-way up the mountain the summit was never as truthfully revealed as to the humbler dwellers in the valley. 1 do not know that these profound truths prevented her from gathering some quaint ferns and berries, or from keeping her calm gray eyes open to certain practical changes that were taking place around her. She had noticed a singular thickening in the atmo sphere that seemed to prevent the passage of the sun's rays, yet without diminishing the transparent quality of the air. The distant snow-peaks were as plainly seen, though they appeared as if in moon light. This seemed due to no cloud or mist, but rather to a fading of the sun itself. The occasional flurry of wings overhead, the whirring of larger birds in the cover, and a frequent rustling in the under growth, as of the passage of some stealthy animal, began equally to attract her attention. It was so different from the habitual silence of these sedate solitudes. Kate had no vague fear of wild beasts ; she had been long enough a mountaineer to understand the general immunity enjoyed by the unmolesting way farer, and kept her way undismayed. She was SNOW-BOUND AT EAGLE'S 117 descending an abrupt trail, when she was stopped by a sudden crash in the bushes. It seemed to come from the opposite incline, directly in a line with her, and apparently on the very trail that she was pur suing. The crash was then repeated again and again lower down, as of a descending body. Expect ing the apparition of some fallen tree, or detached boulder bursting through the thicket on its way to the bottom of the gulch, she waited. The foliage was suddenly brushed aside, and a large grizzly bear half rolled, half waddled into the trail on the oppo site side of the hill. A few moments more would have brought them face to face at the foot of the gulch ; when she stopped there were not fifty yards between them. She did not scream, she did not faint, she was not even frightened. There did not seem to be anything terrifying in this huge stupid beast, who, arrested by the rustle of a stone displaced by her descending feet, rose slowly on his haunches and gazed at her with small, wondering eyes. Nor did it seem strange to her, seeing that he was in her way, to pick up a stone, throw it in his direction, and say simply, ' Sho ! get away !' as she would have done to an intruding cow. Nor did it seem odd that he should actually 'go away ' as he did, scrambling back into the bushes again, and disappearing like some grotesque figure in a transformation scene. It was not until after he had gone that she was taken with a slight nervousness and giddiness, and retraced her steps somewhat hurriedly, shying a little at every rustle in the thicket. By the time she had n8 SNOW-BOUND AT EAGLE'S reached the great gateway she was doubtful whether to be pleased or frightened at the incident, but she concluded to keep it to herself. It was still intensely cold. The light of the mid-day sun had decreased still more, and on reach ing the plateau again she saw that a dark cloud, not unlike the precursor of a thunderstorm, was brooding over the snowy peaks beyond. In spite of the cold, this singular suggestion of summer phenomena was still borne out by the distant smiling valley, and even in the soft grasses at her feet. It seemed to her the crowning inconsistency of the climate, and with a half serious, half playful protest on her lips she hurried forward to seek the shelter of the house. CHAPTER III. To Kate's surprise the lower part of the house was deserted, but there was an unusual activity on the floor above, and the sound of heavy steps. There were alien marks of dusty feet on the scrupulously clean passage, and on the first step of the stairs a spot of blood. With a sudden genuine alarm that drove her previous adventure from her mind, she impatiently called her sister's name. There was a hasty yet subdued rustle of skirts on the staircase, and Mrs. Hale, with her finger on her lip, swept Kate unceremoniously into the sitting-room, closed the door, and leaned back against it, with a faint smile. She had a crumpled paper in her hand. ' Don't be alarmed, but read that first,' she said, SNOW-BOUND AT EAGLE'S 119 handing her sister the paper. * It was brought just now.' Kate instantly recognised her brother's distinct hand. She read hurriedly : * The coach was robbed last night ; nobody hurt. I've lost nothing but a day's time, as this business will keep me here until to-morrow, when Manuel can join me with a fresh horse. No cause for alarm. As the bearer goes out of his way to bring you this, see that he wants for nothing.' ' Well,' said Kate expectantly. ' Well, the " bearer " was fired upon by the robbers, who were lurking on the Ridge. He was wounded in the leg. Luckily he was picked up by his friend, who was coming to meet him, and brought here as the nearest place. He's upstairs in the spare bed in the spare room with his friend, who won't leave his side. He won't even have mother in the room. They've stopped the bleeding with John's ambulance things, and now, Kate, here's a chance for you to show the value of your education in the ambulance class. The ball has got to be extracted. Here's your opportunity.' Kate looked at her sister curiously. There was a faint pink flush on her pale cheeks, and her eyes were gently sparkling. She had never seen her look so pretty before. ' Why not have sent Manuel for a doctor at once?' asked Kate. ' The nearest doctor is fifteen miles away, and Manuel is nowhere to be found. Perhaps he's gone 120 SNOW-BOUND AT EAGLE'S to look after the stock. There's some talk of snow ; imagine the absurdity of it.' ' But who are they ?' ' They speak of themselves as " friends," as if it were a profession. The wounded one was a passenger, I suppose.' ' But what are they like ?' continued Kate. ' I suppose'they're like them all ?' Mrs. Hale shrugged her shoulders. ' The wounded one, when he's not fainting away, is laughing. The other is a creature with a moustache, and gloomy beyond expression.' ' What are you going to do with them ?' said Kate. ' What should I do ? Even without John's letter I could not refuse the shelter of my house to a wounded and helpless man. I shall keep him, of course, until John comes. Why, Kate, I really believe you are so prejudiced against these people you'd like to turn them out. But I forget ! It's because you like them so well. Well, you need not fear to expose yourself to the fascinations of the wounded Christy Minstrel I'm sure he's that or to the unspeakable one, who is shyness itself, and would not dare to raise his eyes to you.' There was a timid, hesitating step in the passage. It paused before the door, moved away, returned, and finally asserted its intentions in the gentlest of taps. ' It's he ; I'm sure of it/ said Mrs. Hale, with a suppressed smile. Kate threw open the door smartly, to the extreme SNOW-BOUND AT EAGLE'S 121 discomfiture of a tall, dark figure that already had slunk away from it. For all that, he was a good- looking enough fellow, with a moustache as long and almost as flexible as a ringlet. Kate could not help noticing also that his hand, which was nervously pulling the moustache, was white and thin. * Excuse me,' he stammered, without raising his eyes, ' I was looking for for the old lady. I I beg your pardon. I didn't know that you the young ladies company were here. I intended I only wanted to say that my friend ' He stopped at the slight smile that passed quickly over Mrs. Hale's mouth, and his pale face reddened with an angry flush. ' I hope he is not worse/ said Mrs. Hale, with more than her usual languid gentleness. ' My mother is not here at present. Can I can we this is my sister do as well ?' Without looking up he made a constrained recog nition of Kate's presence, that, embarrassed and curt as it was, had none of the awkwardness of rusticity. ' Thank you ; you're very kind. But my friend is a little stronger, and, if you can lend me an extra horse, I'll try to get him on the summit to-night.' ' But you surely will not take him away from us so soon ?' said Mrs. Hale, with a languid look of alarm, in which Kate, however, detected a certain real feel ing. ' Wait at least until my husband returns to morrow.' ' He won't be here to-morrow,' said the stranger hastily. He stopped, and as quickly corrected him- 122 SNOW-BOUND AT EAGLE'S self. * That is, his business is so very uncertain, my friend says.' Only Kate noticed the slip ; but she noticed also that her sister was apparently unconscious of it. ' You think,' she said, * that Mr. Hale may be delayed ?' He turned upon her almost brusquely. ' I mean that it is already snowing up there.' He pointed through the window to the cloud Kate had noticed. * If it comes down lower in the pass the roads will be blocked up. That is why it would be better for us to try and get on at once.' * But if Mr. Hale is likely to be stopped by snow, so are you/ said Mrs. Hale playfully ; ' and you had better let us try to make your friend comfortable here, rather than expose him to that uncertainty in his weak condition. We will do our best for him. My sister is dying for an opportunity to show her skill in surgery,' she continued, with an unexpected mis- chievousness that only added to Kate's surprised embarrassment. * Aren't you, Kate ?' Equivocal as the young girl knew her silence appeared, she was unable to utter the simplest polite evasion. Some unaccountable impulse kept her constrained and speechless. The stranger did not, however, wait for her reply, but, casting a swift, hurried glance around the room, said : ' It's impossible. We must go. In fact, I've already taken the liberty to order the horses round. They are at the door now. You may be certain,' he added with quick earnestness, suddenly lifting his SNOW-BOUND AT EAGLE'S 123 dark eyes to Mrs. Hale, and as rapidly withdrawing them, ' that your horse will be returned at once, and and we won't forget your kindness.' He stopped, and turned towards the hall. ' I I have brought my friend downstairs. He wants to thank you before he goes.' As he remained standing in the hall the two women stepped to the door. To their surprise, half reclining on a cane sofa was the wounded man, and what could be seen of his slight figure was wrapped in a dark serape. His beardless face gave him a quaint boyishness quite inconsistent with the mature lines of his temples and forehead. Pale and in pain as he evidently was, his blue eyes twinkled with intense amusement. Not only did his manner offer a marked contrast to the sombre uneasiness of his companion, but he seemed to be the only one perfectly at his ease in the group around him. ' It's rather rough making you come out here to see me off,' he said, with a not unmusical laugh that was very infectious ; ' but Ned there, who carried me downstairs, wanted to tote me round the house in his arms like a baby to say ta-ta to you all. Excuse my not rising, but I feel as uncertain below as a mermaid, and as out of my element,' he added, with a mischievous glance at his friend. ' Ned con cluded I must go on. But I must say good-bye to the old lady, first. Ah! here she is,' To Kate's complete bewilderment, not only did the utter familiarity of this speech pass unnoticed and unrebuked by her sister, but actually her own mother advanced quickly with every expression of i2 4 SNOW-BOUND AT EAGLE'S lively sympathy, and with the authority of her years, and an almost maternal anxiety, endeavoured to dissuade the invalid from going. * This is not my house,' she said, looking at her daughter, * but if it were, I should not hear of your leaving, not only to-night, but until you were out of danger. Josephine ! Kate ! What are you think ing of to permit it ? Well, then, / forbid it there !' Had they become suddenly insane, or were they bewitched by this morose intruder and his insuffer ably familiar confidant ? The man was wounded, it was true ; they might have to put him up in common humanity. But here was her austere mother, who wouldn't come in the room when Whisky Dick called on business, actually pressing both of the invalid's hands, while her sister, who never extended a finger to the ordinary visiting humanity of the neighbour hood, looked on with evident complacency. The wounded man suddenly raised Mrs. Scott's hand to his lips, kissed it gently, and with his smile quite vanished, endeavoured to rise to his feet. ' It's of no use we must go. Give me your arm, Ned. Quick ! Are the horses there ?' ' Dear me !' said Mrs. Scott quickly, ' I forgot to say the horse cannot be found anywhere. Manuel must have taken him this morning to look up the stock. But he will be back to-night certainty, and if to-morrow ' The wounded man sank back to a sitting position. * Is Manuel your man ?' he asked grimly. ' Yes.' SNOW-BOUND AT EAGLE'S 125 The two men exchanged glances. ' Marked on his left cheek and drinks a good deal ?' ' Yes,' said Kate, finding her voice. ' Why ?' The amused look came back to the man's eyes. ' That kind of man isn't safe to wait for. We must take our own horse, Ned. Are you ready ?' ' Yes.' The wounded man again attempted to rise. He fell back, but this time quite heavily. He had fainted. Involuntarily and simultaneously the three women rushed to his side. ' He cannot go,' said Kate suddenly. ' He will be better in a moment.' * But only for a moment. Will nothing induce you to change your mind ?' As if in reply a sudden gust of wind brought a volley of rain against the window. * That will,' said the stranger bitterly. ' The rain ?' ' A mile from here it is snow ; and before we could reach the summit with these horses the road would be impassable.' He made a slight gesture to hi-mself, as if accept ing an inevitable defeat, and turned to his com panion, who was slowly reviving under the active ministration of the two women. The wounded man looked around with a weak smile. ' This is one way of going off,' he said faintly, ' but I could do this sort of thing as well on the road.' 'You can do nothing now,' said his friend de- 126 SNOW-BOUND AT EAGLES cidedly. ' Before we get to the Gate the road will be impassable for our horses.' ' For any horses ?' asked Kate. f For any horses. For any man or beast, I might say. Where we cannot get out, no one can get in/ he added, as if answering her thoughts. ' I am afraid that you won't see your brother to-morrow morning. But I'll reconnoitre as soon as I can do so without torturing him? he said, looking anxiously at the helpless man ; ' he's got about his share of pain, I reckon, and the first thing is to get him easier.' It was the longest speech he had made to her ; it was the first time he had fairly looked her in the face. His shy restlessness had suddenly given way to dogged resignation, less abstracted, but scarcely more flattering to his entertainers. Lifting his companion gently in his arms, as if he had been a child, he re-ascended the staircase, Mrs. Scott and the hastily-summoned Molly following with over flowing solicitude. As soon as they were alone in the parlour Mrs. Hale turned to her sister : ' Only that our guests seemed to be as anxious to go just now as you were to pack them off, I should have been shocked at your inhospitality. What has come over you, Kate? These are the very people you have reproached me so often with not being civil enough to.' ' But who are they?' ' How do I know ? There is your brother's letter/ She usually spoke of her husband as 'John.' This slight shifting of relationship and responsi SNOW-BOUND AT EAGLE'S 127 bility to the feminine mind was significant. Kate was a little frightened and remorseful. ' I only meant you don't even know their names.' ' That wasn't necessary for giving them a bed and bandages. Do you suppose the good Samaritan ever asked the wounded Jew's name, and that the Levite did not excuse himself because the thieves had taken the poor man's card-case ? Do the directions " In case of accident " in your ambulance rules read : " First lay the sufferer on his back and inquire his name and family connections "? Besides, you can call one " Ned " and the other " George," if you like.' ' Oh, you know what I mean,' said Kate irre levantly. ' Which is George ?' ' George is the wounded man,' said Mrs. Hale ; ' not the one who talked to you more than he did to anyone else. I suppose the poor man was frightened and read dismissal in your eyes.' ' I wish John were here.' ' I don't think we have anything to fear in his absence from men whose only wish is to get away from us. If it is a question of propriety, my dear Kate, surely there is the presence of mother to prevent any scandal although really her own con duct with the wounded one is not above suspicion,' she added, with that novel mischievousness that seemed a return of her lost girlhood. ' We must try to do the best we can with them and for them,' she said decidedly, ' and meantime I'll see if I can't arrange John's room for them.' ' John's room ?' 128 SNOW-BOUND AT EAGLE'S ' Oh, mother is perfectly satisfied ; indeed, sug gested it. It's larger, and will hold two beds, for " Ned," the friend, must attend to him at night. And, Kate, don't you think, if you're not going out again, you might change your costume ? It does very well while we are alone ' ' Well,' said Kate indignantly, ' as I am not going into his room ' ' I am not so sure about that, if we can't get a regular doctor. But he is very restless, and wanders all over the house like a timid and apologetic spaniel.' 'Who?' ' Why " Ned." But I must go and look after the patient. I suppose they've got him safe in his bed again ;' and with a nod to her sister she tripped upstairs. Uncomfortable and embarrassed, she knew not why, Kate sought her mother. But that good lady was already in attendance on the patient, and Kate hurried past that baleful centre of attraction with a feeling of loneliness and strangeness she had never experienced before. Entering her own room, she went to the window that first and last refuge of the troubled mind and gazed out. Turning her eyes in the direction of her morning's walk, she started back with a sense of being dazzled. She rubbed first her eyes and then the rain-dimmed pane. It was no illusion ! The whole landscape, so familiar to her, was one vast field of dead colourless white ! Trees, rocks, even distance itself, had vanished in those few hours. An even, shadowless, SNOW-BOUND AT EAGLE'S 129 motionless white sea filled the horizon. On either side a vast wall of snow seemed to shut out the world like a shroud. Only the green plateau before her, with its sloping meadows and fringe of pines and cotton-wood, lay alone like a summer island in this frozen sea. A sudden desire to view this phenomenon more closely, and to learn for herself the limits of this new tethered life, completely possessed her, and, accustomed to act upon her independent impulses, she seized a hooded waterproof cloak, and slipped out of the house unperceived. The rain was falling steadily along the descending trail where she walked, but beyond, scarcely a mile across the chasm, the wintry distance began to confuse her brain with the inextricable swarming of snow. Hurrying down with feverish excitement, she at last came in sight of the arching granite portals of their domain. But her first glance through the gateway showed it closed as if with a white portcullis. Kate re membered that the trail began to ascend beyond the arch, and knew that what she saw was only the mountain-side she had partly climbed this morning. But the snow had already crept down its flank, and the exit by trail was practically closed. Breathlessly making her way back to the highest part of the plateau the cliff behind the house that here descended abruptly to the rain-dimmed valley she gazed at the dizzy depths in vain for some undis covered or forgotten trail along its face. But a single glance convinced her of its inaccessibility. The gateway was indeed their only outlet to the 9 130 SNOW-BOUND AT EAGLE'S plain below. She looked back at the falling snow beyond until she fancied she could see in the cross ing and recrossing lines the moving meshes of a fateful web woven around them by viewless but in exorable fingers. Half frightened, she was turning away, when she perceived, a few paces distant, the figure of the stranger, ' Ned,' also apparently absorbed in the gloomy prospect. He was wrapped in the clinging folds of a black serape braided with silver ; the broad flap of a slouched hat beaten back by the wind ex posed the dark glistening curls on his white forehead. He was certainly very handsome and picturesque, and that apparently without effort or consciousness. Neither was there anything in his costume or ap pearance inconsistent with his surroundings, or even with what Kate could judge were his habits or position. Nevertheless, she instantly decided that he was too handsome and too picturesque, without suspecting that her ideas of the limits of masculine beauty were merely personal experience. As he turned away from the cliff they were brought face to face. ' It doesn't look very encouraging over there,' he said quietly, as if the inevitableness of the situation had relieved him of his previous shyness and effort ; ' it's even worse than I expected. The snow must have begun there last night, and it looks as if it meant to stay.' He stopped for a moment, and then, lifting his eyes to her, said : ' I suppose you know what this means ?' ' I don't understand you.' SNOW-BOUND AT EAGLE'S 131 * I thought not. Well, it means that you are absolutely cut off here from any communication or intercourse with anyone outside of that canon. By this time the snow is five feet deep over the only trail by which one can pass in and out of that gate way. I am not alarming you, 1 hope, for there is no real physical danger; a place like this ought to be well garrisoned, and certainly is self-supporting so far as the mere necessities and even comforts are concerned. You have wood, water, cattle, and game at your command, but for two weeks, at least, you are completely isolated.' ' For two weeks,' said Kate, growing pale ' and my brother ?' ' He knows all by this time, and is probably as assured as I am of the safety of his family.' ' For two weeks,' continued Kate ; ' impossible ! You don't know my brother. He will find some way to get to us. 5 * I hope so,' returned the stranger gravely, ' for what is possible for him is possible for us.' ' Then, you are anxious to get away,' Kate could not help saying. ' Very.' The reply was not discourteous in manner, but was so far from gallant that Kate felt a new and inconsistent resentment. Before she could say anything he added : * And I hope you will remember, whatever may happen, that I did my best to avoid staying here longer than was necessary to keep my friend from bleeding to death in the road.' 132 SNOW-BOUND AT EAGLE'S ' Certainly,' said Kate ; then added awkwardly, ' I hope he'll be better soon.' She was silent, and then, quickening her pace, said hurriedly, ' I must tell my sister this dreadful news.' ' I think she is prepared for it. If there is any thing I can do to help you I hope you will let me know. Perhaps I may be of some service. I shall begin by exploring the trails to-morrow, for the best service we can do you possibly is to take ourselves off; but I can carry a gun, and the woods are full of game driven down from the mountains. Let me show you something you may not have noticed.' He stopped, and pointed to a small knoll of sheltered shrubbery and granite on the opposite mountain, which still remained black against the surrounding snow. It seemed to be thickly covered with moving objects. 'They are wild animals driven out of the snow,' said the stranger. ' That larger one is a grizzly; there is a panther, wolves, wild cats, a fox, and some mountain goats.' ' An ill-assorted party/ said the young girl. ' 111 luck makes them companions. They are too frightened to hurt one another now.' * But they will eat each other later on/ said Kate, stealing a glance at her companion. He lifted his long lashes and met her eyes. ' Not on a haven of refuge.' SNOW-BOUND AT EAGLE'S 133 CHAPTER IV. KATE found her sister, as the stranger had intimated, fully prepared. A hasty inventory of provisions and means of subsistence showed that they had ample resources for a much longer isolation. ' They tell me it is by no means an uncommon case, Kate ; somebody over at somebody's place was snowed in for four weeks, and now it appears that even the Summit House is not always accessible. John ought to have known it when he bought the place in fact, I am ashamed to admit that he did not. But that is like John to prefer his own theories to the experience of others. However, I don't suppose we should even notice the privation except for the mails. It will be a lesson to John, though. As Mr. Lee says, he is on the outside, and can probably go wherever he likes from the summit except to come here.' 1 Mr. Lee ?' echoed Kate. ' Yes, the wounded one ; and the other's name is Falkner. I asked them in order that you might be properly introduced. There were very respectable Falkners in Charlestown, you remember ; I thought you might warm to the name, and perhaps trace the connection, now that you are such good friends. It's providential they are here, as we haven't got a horse or a man in the place since Manuel disappeared, though Mr. Falkner says he can't be far away, or 134 SNOW-BOUND AT EAGLE'S they would have met him on the trail if he had gone towards the summit.' ' Did they say anything more of Manuel ?' ' Nothing ; though I am inclined to agree with you that he isn't trustworthy. But that again is the result of John's idea of employing native skill at the expense of retaining native habits.' The evening closed early, and with no diminution in the falling rain and rising wind. Falkner kept his word, and unostentatiously performed the outdoor work in the barn and stables, assisted by the only Chinese servant remaining, and under the advice and supervision of Kate. Although he seemed to understand horses, she was surprised to find that he betrayed a civic ignorance of the ordinary details of the farm and rustic household. It was quite impos sible that she should retain her distrustful attitude or he his reserve in their enforced companionship. They talked freely of subjects suggested by the situa tion, Falkner exhibiting a general knowledge and intuition of things without parade or dogmatism. Doubtful of all versatility as Kate was, she could not help admitting to herself that his truths were none the less true for their quantity, or that he got at them without ostentatious processes. His talk certainly was more picturesque than her brother's, and less subduing to her faculties. John had always crushed her. When they returned to the house he did not linger in the parlour or sitting-room, but at once rejoined his friend. When dinner was ready in the dining- room, a little more deliberately arranged and orna- SNOW-BOUND AT EAGLE'S 135 mented than usual, the two women were somewhat surprised to receive an excuse from Falkner, begging them to allow him for the present to take his meals with the patient, and thus save the necessity of another attendant. ' It is all shyness, Kate,' said Mrs. Hale confi dently, ' and must not be permitted for a moment.' ' I'm sure I should be quite willing to stay with the poor boy myself/ said Mrs. Scott simply, ' and take Mr. Falkner's place while he dines.' * You are too willing, mother,' said Mrs. Hale pertly, ' and your " poor boy," as you call him, will never see thirty-five again.' t He will never see any other birthday,' retorted her mother, ' unless you keep him more quiet. He only talks when you're in the room.' ' He wants some relief to his friend's long face and moustaches that make him look prematurely in mourning,' said Mrs. Hale with a slight increase of animation. ' I don't propose to leave them too much together. After dinner we'll adjourn to their room and lighten it up a little. You must come, Kate, to look at the patient, and counteract the baleful effects of my frivolity.' Mrs. Hale's instincts were truer than her mother's experience ; not only that the wounded man's eyes became brighter under the provocation of her presence ; but it was evident that his naturally exuberant spirits were a part of his vital strength, and were absolutely essential to his quick re covery. Encouraged by Falkner's grave and practical 136 SNOW-BOUND AT EAGLE'S assistance, which she could not ignore, Kate ven tured to make an examination of Lee's wound. Even to her unpractised eye it was less serious than at first appeared. The great loss of blood had been due to the laceration of certain small vessels below the knee, but neither artery nor bone was injured. A recurrence of the haemorrhage or fever were the only things to be feared, and these could be averted by bandaging, repose, and simple nursing. The unfailing good-humour of the patient under this manipulation, the quaint originality of his speech, the freedom of his fancy, which was, however, always controlled by a certain instinctive tact, began to affect Kate nearly as they did the others. She found herself laughing over the work she had under taken in a pure sense of duty ; she joined in the hilarity produced by Lee's affected terror of her surgical mania, and offered to undo the bandages in search of the thimble he declared she had left in the wound with a view to further experiments. ' You ought to broaden your practice,' he suggested. ' A good deal might be made out of Ned and a piece of soap left carelessly on the first step of the staircase, while mountains of surgical opportunities lie in a humble orange-peel judiciously exposed. Only I warn you that you wouldn't find him as docile as I am. Decoyed into a snowdrift and frozen, you might get some valuable experiences in resuscitation by thawing him.' ' I fancied you had done that already, Kate,' whispered Mrs. Hale. ' Freezing is the new suggestion for painless SNOW-BOUND AT EAGLE'S 137 surgery,' said Lee, coming to Kate's relief with ready tact, ' only the knowledge should be more generally spread. There was a man up at Straw berry fell under a sledge-load of wood in the snow. Stunned by the shock, he was slowly freezing to death, when, with a tremendous effort, he succeeded in freeing himself all but his right leg, pinned down by a small log. His axe happened to have fallen within reach, and a few blows on the log freed him.' 'And saved the poor fellow's life,' said Mrs Scott, who was listening with sympathizing in tensity. ' At the expense of his left leg, which he had un knowingly cut off under the pleasing supposition that it was a log,' returned Lee demurely. Nevertheless, in a few moments he managed to divert the slightly shocked susceptibilities of the old lady with some raillery of himself, and did not again interrupt the even good-humoured communion of the party. The rain beating against the windows and the fire sparkling on the hearth seemed to lend a charm to their peculiar isolation, and it was not until Mrs. Scott rose with a warning that they were trespassing upon the rest of their patient that they discovered that the evening had slipped by unnoticed. When the door at last closed on the bright sym pathetic eyes of the two young women, and the motherly benediction of the elder, Falkner walked to the window, and remained silent, looking into the darkness. Suddenly he turned bitterly to his com panion : * This is just h 11, George.' 138 SNOW-BOUND AT EAGLE'S George Lee, with a smile still on his boyish face, lazily moved his head. ' I don't know ! If it wasn't for the old woman, who is the one solid chunk of absolute goodness here, expecting nothing, wanting nothing, it would be good fun enough ! These two women, cooped up in this house, wanted excitement. They've got it ! That man Hale wanted to show off by going for us ; he's had his chance, and will have it again before I've done with him. That d d fool of a messenger wanted to go out of his way to exchange shots with me ; I reckon he's the most satisfied of the lot ! I don't know why you should growl. You did your level best to get away from here, and the result is, that little Puritan is ready to worship you.' ' Yes but this playing it on them George this ' ' Who's playing it ? Not you ; I see you've given away our names already.' ' I couldn't lie, and they know nothing by that.' ' Do you think they would be happier by knowing it ? Do you think that soft little creature would be as happy as she was to-night if she knew that her husband had been indirectly the means of laying me by the heels here ? Where is the swindle ? This hole in my leg? If you had been five minutes under that girl's d d sympathetic fingers you'd have thought it was genuine. Is it in our trying to get away ? Do you call that ten-feet drift in the pass a swindle ? Is it in the chance of Hale getting back while we're here ? that's real enough, isn't it ? I SNOW-BOUND AT EAGLE'S 139 say, Ned, did you ever give your unfettered intellect to the contemplation of that ?' Falkner did not reply. There was an interval of silence, but he could see from the movement of George's shoulders that he was shaking with sup pressed laughter. ' Fancy Mrs. Hale archly introducing her husband ! My offering him a chair, but being all the time obliged to cover him with a derringer under the bedclothes. Your rushing in from your peaceful pastoral pursuits in the barn, with a pitchfork in one hand and the girl in the other, and dear old mammy sympathizing all round and trying to make everything comfortable.' * I should not be alive to see it, George,' said Falkner gloomily. ' You'd manage to pitchfork me and those two women on Kale's horse and ride away ; that's what you'd do, or I don't know you ! Look here, Ned,' he added more seriously, ' the only swindling was our bringing that note here. That was your idea. You thought it would remove suspicion, and as you believed I was bleeding to death, you played that game for all it was worth to save me. You might have done what I asked you to do propped me up in the bushes, and got away yourself. I was good for a couple of shots yet, and after that what mattered ? That night, the next day, the next time I take the road, or a year hence ? It will come when it will come, all the same !' He did not speak bitterly, nor relax his smile. Falkner, without speaking, slid his hand along the 140 SNOW-BOUND AT EAGLE'S coverlet. Lee grasped it, and their hands remained clasped together for a few moments in silence. ' How is this to end ? We cannot go on here in this way,' said Falkner suddenly. ' If we cannot get away it must go on. Look here, Ned. I don't reckon to take anything out of this house that I didn't bring in it, or isn't freely offered to me ; yet I don't otherwise, you understand, intend making myself out a d d bit better than I am. That's the only excuse I have for not making myself out just what I am. I don't know the fellow who's oblige to tell everyone the last company he was in, or the last thing he did ! Do you suppose even these pretty little women tell us their whole story ? Do you fancy that this St. John in the wilderness is canonized in his family ? Perhaps, when I take the liberty to intrude in his affairs, as he has in mine, he'll see he isn't. I don't blame you for being sensi tive, Ned. It's natural. When a man lives outside the revised statutes of his own State he is apt to be awfully fine on points of etiquette in his own house hold. As for me, I find it rather comfortable here. The beds of other people's making strike me as being more satisfactory than my own. Good night.' In a few moments he was sleeping the peaceful sleep of that youth which seemed to be his own dominant quality. Falkner stood for a little space and watched him, following the boyish lines of his cheek on the pillow, from the shadow of the light- brown lashes under his closed lids to the lifting of his short upper lip over his white teeth, with his SNOW-BOUND AT EAGLE'S 141 regular respiration. Only a sharp accenting of the line of nostril and jaw, and a faint depression of the temple, betrayed his already tried man hood. The house had long sunk to repose when Falkner returned to the window, and remained looking out upon the storm. Suddenly he extinguished the light, and passing quickly to the bed, laid his hand upon the sleeper. Lee opened his eyes instantly. ' Are you awake ?' ' Perfectly.' * Somebody is trying to get into the house !' ' Not him eh ?' said Lee gaily. ' No ; two men. Mexicans, I think. One looks like Manuel.' 'Ah,' said Lee, drawing himself up to a sitting posture. 'Well?' ' Don't you see ? He believes the women are alone.' The d d hound I' ' Speak respectfully of one of my people, if you please, and hand me my derringer. Light the candle again, and open the door. Let them get in quietly. They'll come here first. It's his room, you understand, and if there's any money it's here. Any way, they must pass here to get to the women's rooms. Leave Manuel to me, and you take care of the other.' ' I see.' ' Manuel knows the house, and will come first. 142 SNOW-BOUND AT EAGLE'S When he's fairly in the room shut the door and go for the other. But no noise. This is just one of the sw-eetest things out if it's done properly.' ' But you, George ?' ' If I couldn't manage that fellow without turning down the bedclothes I'd kick myself. Hush! Steady now !' He lay down and shut his eyes as if in natural re pose. Only his right hand carelessly placed under his pillow closed on the handle of his pistol. Falkner quietly slipped into the passage. The light of the candle faintly illuminated the floor and opposite wall, but left it on either side in pitchy obscurity. For some moments the silence was broken only by the sound of the rain without. The recumbent figure in bed seemed to have actually succumbed to sleep. The multitudinous small noises of a house in repose might have been misinterpreted by ears less keen than the sleeper's ; but when the apparent creaking of a far-off shutter was followed by the sliding apparition of a dark head of tangled hair at the door, Lee had not been deceived, and was as prepared as if he had seen it. Another step, and the figure entered the room. The door closed in stantly behind it. The sound of a heavy body struggling against the partition outside followed, and then suddenly ceased. The intruder turned, and violently grasped the handle of the door, but recoiled at a quiet voice from the bed. * Drop that, and come here.' He started back with an exclamation. The SNOW-BOUND AT EAGLE'S 143 sleeper's eyes were wide open ; the sleeper's ex tended arm and pistol covered him. ' Silence ! or I'll let that candle shine through you.' ' Yes, captain !' growled the astounded and fright ened half-breed. ' I didn't know you were here.' Lee raised himself, and grasped the long whip in his left hand and whirled it round his head. * Will you dry up ?' The man sank back against the wall in silent terror. ' Open that door now softly.' Manuel obeyed with trembling fingers. * Ned,' said Lee in a low voice, 'bring him in here quick !' There was a slight rustle, and Falkner appeared, backing in another gasping figure, whose eyes were starting under the strong grasp of the captor at his throat. ' Silence,' said Lee, ' all of you.' There was a breathless pause. The sound of a door hesitatingly opened in the passage broke the stillness, followed by the gentle voice of Mrs. Scott. * Is anything the matter ?' Lee made a slight gesture of warning to Falkner of menace to the others. ' Everything's the matter/ he called out cheerily. ' Ned's managed to half pull down the house trying to get at something from my saddle-bags.' 'I hope he has not hurt himself,' broke in another voice mischievously. ' Answer, you clumsy villain,' whispered Lee, with twinkling eyes. 144 SNOW-BOUND AT EAGLE'S ' I'm all right, thank you,' responded Falkner, with unaffected awkwardness. There was a slight murmuring of voices, and then the door was heard to close. Lee turned to Falkner. * Disarm that hound and turn him loose outside, and make no noise. And you, Manuel, tell him what his and your chances are if he shows his black face here again.' Manuel cast a single, terrified, supplicating glance, more suggestive than words, at his confederate, as Falkner shoved him before him from the room. The next moment they were silently descending the stairs. * May I go too, captain ?' entreated Manuel. *' I swear to God ' ' Shut the door !' The man obeyed. ' Now, then,' said Lee, with a broad, gratified smile, laying down his whip and pistol within reach, and comfortably settling the pillows behind his back, ' we'll have a quiet confab a sort of old-fashioned talk, eh ? You're not looking well, Manuel. You're drinking too much again. It spoils your com plexion.' ' Let me go, captain,' pleaded the man, emboldened by the good-humoured voice, but not near enough to notice a peculiar light in the speaker's eye. 'You've only just come, Manuel, and at consider able trouble, too. Well, what have you got to say ? What's all this about ? What are you doing here ?' The captured man shuffled his feet nervously, and only uttered an uneasy laugh of coarse discomfiture. SNOW-BOUND AT EAGLE'S 145 ' I see : you're bashful. Well, I'll help you along. Come ! You knew that Hale was away, and these women were here without a man to help them. You thought you'd find some money here, and have your own way generally, eh ?' The tone of Lee's voice inspired him to confi dence ; unfortunately, it inspired him with familiarity also. ' I reckoned I had the right to a little fun on my own account, cap. I reckoned ez one gentleman in the profession wouldn't interfere with another gentle man's little game,' he continued coarsely. 'Stand up!' 'Wot for?' 'Up, I say!' Manuel stood up and glanced at him. ' Utter a cry that might frighten these women, and by the living God they'll rush in here only to find you lying dead on the floor of the house you'd have polluted.' He grasped the whip, and laid the lash of it heavily twice over the ruffian's shoulders. Writhing in suppressed agony, the man fell imploringly on his knees. ' Now listen !' said Lee, softly twirling the whip in the air. ' I want to refresh your memory. Did you ever learn, when you were with me before I was obliged to kick you out of gentlemen's company to break into a private house ? Answer !' 1 No,' stammered the wretch. ' Did you ever learn to rob a woman, a child, or any but a man, and that face to face ?' 10 146 SNOW-BOUND AT EAGLE'S ' No/ repeated Manuel. ' Did you ever learn from me to lay a ringer upon a woman, old or young, in anger or kindness ?' ' No.' ' Then, my poor Manuel, it's as I feared : civiliza tion has ruined you. Farming and a simple bucolic life have perverted your morals. So you were running off with the stock and that mustang, when you got stuck in the snow, and the luminous idea of this little game struck you? Eh? That was another mistake, Manuel ; I never allowed you to think when you were with me.' ' No, captain.' ' Who's your friend ?' ' A d d cowardly nigger from the summit.' ' I agree with you for once ; but he hasn't had a very brilliant example. Where's he gone now ?' ' To h 11, for all I care !' ' Then I want you to go with him. Listen ! If there's a way out of the place, you know it, or can find it. I give you two days to do it you and he. At the end of that time the order will be to shoot you on sight. Now take off your boots.' The man's dark face visibly whitened ; his teeth chattered in superstitious terror. ' I'm not going to shoot you now,' said Lee smiling, ' so you will have a chance to die with your boots on,* if you are superstitious. I only want you to exchange them for that pair of Hale's * ' To die with one's boots on.' A synonym for death by violence, popular among South-western desperadoes, and the subject of superstitious dread. SNOW-BOUND AT EAGLE'S 147 in the corner. The fact is, I have taken a fancy to yours. That fashion of wearing the stockings outside strikes me as one of the neatest things out.' Manuel sullenly drew off his boots with their muffled covering, and put on the ones designated. ' Now open the door.' He did so. Falkner was already waiting at the threshold. * Turn Manuel loose with the other, Ned, but disarm him first ; they might quarrel. The habit of carrying arms, Manuel,' added Lee, as Falkner took a pistol and bowie-knife from the half-breed, ' is of itself provocative of violence, and inconsistent with a bucolic and pastoral life.' When Falkner returned, he said hurriedly to his companion : ' Do you think it wise, George, to let those hell hounds loose ? Good God ! I could scarcely let my grip of his throat go, when I thought of what they were hunting.' * My dear Ned,' said Lee, luxuriously ensconcing himself under the bedclothes again with a slight shiver of delicious warmth, * I must warn you against allowing the natural pride of a higher walk to pre judice you against the general level of our profession. Indeed, I was quite struck with the justice of Manuel's protest that I was interfering with certain rude processes of his own towards results aimed at by others.' ' George !' interrupted Falkner, almost savagely. ' Well, I admit it's getting rather late in the even- 148 SNOW-BOUND AT EAGLE'S ing for pure philosophical inquiry, and you are tired. Practically, then, it was wise to let them get away before they discovered two things. One, our exact relations here with these women, and the other, how many of us were here. At present they think we are three or four in possession, and with the consent of the women.' 'The dogs!' * They are paying us the highest compliment they can conceive of by supposing us cleverer scoundrels than themselves. You are very unjust, Ned.' ' If they escape and tell their story ?' ' We shall have the rare pleasure of knowing we are better than people believe us. And now, put those boots away somewhere where we can produce them, if necessary, as evidence of Manuel's evening call. At present we'll keep the thing quiet, and in the early morning you can find out where they got in and remove any traces they have left. It is no use to frighten the women. There's no fear of their returning.' ' And if they get away ?' ' We can follow in their tracks.' ' If Manuel gives the alarm ?' ' With his burglarious boots left behind in the house ? Not much ! Good-night, Ned ! Go to bed.' With these words Lee turned on his side and quietly resumed his interrupted slumber. Falkner did not, however, follow this sensible advice. When he was satisfied that his friend was sleeping, he SNOW-BOUND AT EAGLE'S 149 opened the door softly and looked out. He did not appear to be listening, for his eyes were fixed upon a small pencil of light that stole across the passage from the foot of Kate's door. He watched it until it suddenly disappeared, when, leaving the door partly open, he threw him self on his couch without removing his clothes. The slight movement awakened the sleeper, who was beginning to feel the accession of fever. He moved restlessly. ' George/ said Falkner softly. < Yes.' * Where was it we passed that old mission church on the road one dark night, and saw the light burn ing before the figure of the Virgin through the window ?' There was a moment of crushing silence. ' Does that mean you're wanting to light the candle again ?' 1 No.' ' Then, don't lie there inventing sacrilegious co nundrums, but go to sleep.' Nevertheless, in the morning his fever was slightly worse. Mrs. Hale, offering her condolence, said : ' I know that you have not been resting well, for even after your friend met with that mishap in the hall I heard your voices, and Kate says your door was open all night. You have a little fever, too, Mr. Falkner.' George looked curiously at Falkner's pale face it was burning. 150 SNOW-BOUND AT EAGLE'S CHAPTER V. THE speed and fury with which Clinch's cavalcade swept on in the direction of the mysterious shot left Hale no chance for reflection. He was conscious of shouting incoherently with the others, of urging his horse irresistibly forward, of momentarily expecting to meet or overtake something, but without any further thought. The figures of Clinch and Rawlins immediately before him shut out the prospect of the narrowing trail. Once only, taking advantage of a sudden halt that threw them confusedly together, he managed to ask a question. ' Lost their track found it again,' shouted the ostler, as Clinch, with a cry like the baying of a hound, again darted forward. Their horses were panting and trembling under them, the ascent seemed to be growing steeper, a singular darkness, which even the density of the wood did not sufficiently account for, surrounded them, but still their leader madly urged them on. To Hale's returning senses they did not seem in a condition to engage a single resolute man, who might have ambushed in the woods or beaten them in detail in the narrow gorge ; but in another instant the reason of their furious haste was manifest. Spurring his horse ahead, Clinch dashed out into the open with a cheering shout a shout that as quickly changed to a yell of imprecation. They were on the ridge in a blinding snowstorm ! The road had already vanished under their feet, and with it the fresh trail SNOW-BOUND AT EAGLE'S 151 they had so closely followed ! They stood help lessly on the shore of a trackless white sea, blank and spotless of any trace or sign of the fugitives. ' 'Pears to me, boys,' said the ostler, suddenly ranging before them, " ef you're not kalkilatin' on gittin' another party to dig ye out, ye'd better be huntin' fodder and cover instead of road agents. 'Skuse me, gentlemen, but I'm responsible for the bosses, and this ain't no time for circus ridin'. We're a matter o' six miles from the station in a bee line.' ' Back to the trail, then,' said Clinch, wheel ing his horse towards the road they had just quitted. ' 'Skuse me, Kernel,' said the ostler, laying his hand on Clinch's rein, ' but that way only brings us back the road we kem the stage-road three miles further from home. That three miles is on the divide, and by the time we get there it will be snowed up worse nor this. The shortest cut is along the Ridge. If we hump ourselves we ken cross the divide afore the road is blocked. And that, 'skuse me, gentlemen, is my road.' There was no time for discussion. The road was already palpably thickening under their feet. Hale's arm was stiffened to his side by a wet, clinging snow- wreath. The figures of the others were almost obliterated and shapeless. It was not snowing it was snowballing ! The huge flakes, shaken like enormous feathers out of a vast blue-black cloud, commingled and fell in sprays and patches. All idea of their former pursuit was forgotten ; the 152 SNOW-BOUND AT EAGLE'S blind rage and enthusiasm that had possessed them was gone. They dashed after their new leader with only an instinct for shelter and succour. They had not ridden long when fortunately, as it seemed to Hale, the character of the storm changed. The snow no longer fell in such large flakes, nor as heavily. A bitter wind succeeded ; the soft snow began to stiffen and crackle under the horses' hoofs, they were no longer weighted and encumbered by the drifts upon their bodies, the smaller flakes now rustled and rasped against them like sand or bounded from them like hail. They seemed to be moving more easily and rapidly, their spirits were rising with the stimulus of cold and motion, when suddenly their leader halted. ' It's no use, boys. It can't be done ! This is no blizzard but a regular two days' snifter ! It's no longer meltin', but packin' and driftin' now. Even if we get over the divide, we're sure to be blocked up in the pass.' It was true ! To their bitter disappointment they could now see that the snow had not really diminished in quantity, but that the now finely- powdered particles were rapidly filling all inequalities of the surface, packing closely against projec tions and swirling in long furrows across the levels. They looked with anxiety at their self-constituted leader. ' We must make a break to get down in the woods again before it's too late/ he said briefly. But they had already drifted away from the fringe of larches and dwarf pines that marked the sides of SNOW-BOUND AT EAGLE'S 153 the Ridge, and lower down merged into the dense forest that clothed the flank of the mountain they had lately climbed, and it was with the greatest difficulty that they again reached it, only to find that at that point it was too precipitous for the descent of their horses. Benumbed and speechless, they continued to toil on, opposed to the full fury of the stinging snow, and at times obliged to turn their horses to the blast to keep from being blown over the Ridge. At the end of half an hour the ostler dismounted, and beckoning to the others, took his horse by the bridle, and began the descent. When it came to Kale's turn to dismount he could not help at first recoiling from the prospect before him. The trail if it could be so called was merely the track or furrow of some fallen tree dragged, by accident or design, diagonally across the sides of the mountain. At times it appeared scarcely a foot in width ; at other times a mere crumbling gully or a narrow shelf made by the projections of dead boughs and collected debris. It seemed perilous for a foot passenger ; it appeared impossible for a horse. Nevertheless, he had taken a step forward when Clinch laid his hand on his arm. ' You'll bring up the rear,' he said, not unkindly, * ez you're a stranger here. Wait until we sing out to you.' ' But if I prefer to take the same risks as you all?' said Hale stiffly. ' You kin,' said Clinch grimly. ' But I reckoned, as you weren't familiar with this sort o' thing, you wouldn't keer, by any foolishness o' yours, to stam- 154 SNOW-BOUND AT EAGLE'S pede the rocks ahead of us, and break down the trail, or send down an avalanche on top of us. But jest ez you like.' ' I will wait, then,' said Hale hastily. The rebuke, however, did him good service. It preoccupied his mind, so that it remained unaffected by the dizzy depths, and enabled him to abandon himself mechanically to the sagacity of his horse, who was contented simply to follow the hoof-prints of the preceding animal, and in a few moments they reached the broader trail below without a mishap. A discussion regarding their future movements was already taking place. The impossibility of regaining the station at the summit was admitted ; the way down the mountain to the next settlement was still left to them, or the adjacent woods if they wished for an encampment. The ostler once more assumed authority. "Skuse me, gentlemen, but them bosses don't take no pasear down the mountain to-night. The stage road ain't a mile off, and I kalkilate to wait here till the up stage comes. She's bound to stop, on account of the snow ; and I've done my dooty when I hand the bosses over to the driver.' ' But if she hears of the block up yer, and waits at the lower station ?' said Rawlins. ' Then I've done my dooty all the same. 'Skuse me, gentlemen, but them ez hez their own bosses kin do ez they like.' As this clearly pointed to Hale, he briefly assured his companions that he had no intention of desert ing them. SNOW-BOUND AT EAGLE'S 155 ' If I cannot reach Eagle's Court, I shall at least keep as near it as possible. I suppose any messenger from my house to the summit will learn where I am, and why I am delayed ?' * Messenger from your house.!' gasped Rawlins. * Are you crazy, stranger ? Only a bird would get outer Eagle's now ; and it would hev to be an eagle at that ! Between your house and the summit the snow must be ten feet by this time, to say nothing of the drift in the pass.' Hale felt it was the truth. At any other time he would have worried over this unexpected situation, and utter violation of all his traditions. He was past that now, and even felt a certain relief. He knew his family were safe ; it was enough. That they were locked up securely, and incapable of inter fering with him, seemed to enhance his new, half- conscious, half-shy enjoyment of an adventurous existence. The ostler, who had been apparently lost in con templation of the steep trail he had just descended, suddenly clapped his hand to his leg with an ejacu lation of gratified astonishment. ' Waal, darn my skin, ef that ain't Hennicker's "slide" all the time! I heard it was somewhat about here.' Rawlins briefly explained to Hale that a slide was a rude incline for the transit of heavy goods that could not be carried down a trail. ' And Hennicker's,' continued the man, ' ain't more nor a mile away. Ye might try Hennicker's at a push eh ?' 156 SNOW-BOUND AT EAGLE'S By a common instinct the whole party looked dubiously at Hale. 'Who's Hennicker ?' he felt compelled to ask. The ostler hesitated, and glanced at the others to reply. 'There are folks,' he said lazily, at last, * ez be lieves that Hennicker ain't much better nor the crowd we're hunting ; but they don't say it to Hen nicker. We needn't let on what we're after.' ' I for one,' said Hale stoutly, ' decidedly object to any concealment of our purpose/ ' It don't follow/ said Rawlins carelessly, ' that Hennicker even knows of this yer robbery. It's his gineral gait we refer to. Ef yer think it more polite, and it makes it more sociable to discuss this matter afore him, I'm agreed.' ' Hale means,' said Clinch, * that it wouldn't be on the square to take and make use of any points we might pick up there agin the road agents.' * Certainly,' said Hale. It was not at all what he had meant, but he felt singularly relieved at the compromise. ' And ez I reckon Hennicker ain't such a fool ez not to know who we are and what we're out for,' continued Clinch, ' I reckon there ain't any conceal ment.' ' Then it's Hennicker's ?' said the ostler, with swift deduction. ' Hennicker's it is ! Lead on.' The ostler remounted his horse, and the others followed. The trail presently turned into a broader track, that bore some signs of approaching habita- SNOW-BOUND AT EAGLE'S 157 tion, and at the end of five minutes they came upon a clearing. It was part of one of the fragmentary mountain terraces, and formed by itself a vast niche, or bracketed shelf, in the hollow flank of the mountain that, to Hale's first glance, bore a rude resemblance to Eagle's Court. But there was neither meadow nor open field ; the few acres of ground had been wrested from the forest by axe and fire, and unsightly stumps everywhere marked the rude and difficult attempts at cultivation. Two or three rough buildings of unplaned and unpainted boards, connected by rambling sheds, stood in the centre of the amphitheatre. Far from being pro tected by the encircling rampart, it seemed to be the selected arena for the combating elements. A whirlwind from the outer abyss continually filled this cave of ^Eolus with driving snow, which, how ever, melted as it fell, or was quickly whirled away again. A few dogs barked and ran out to meet the cavalcade, but there was no other sign of any life disturbed or concerned at their approach. ' I reckon Hennicker ain't home, or he'd hev been on the look-out afore this/ said the ostler, dis mounting and rapping at the door. After a silence, a female voice, unintelligible to the others, apparently had some colloquy with the ostler, who returned to the party. * Must go in through the kitchin can't open the door for the wind.' Leaving their horses in the shed, they entered the kitchen which communicated, and presently came 158 SNOW-BOUND AT EAGLE'S upon a square room filled with smoke from a fire of green pine logs. The doors and windows were tightly fastened ; the only air came in through the large-throated chimney in voluminous gusts, which seemed to make the hollow shell of the apartment swell and expand to the point of bursting. Despite the stinging of the resinous smoke the temperature was grateful to the benumbed travellers. Several cushionless arm-chairs, such as were used in bar rooms, two tables, a sideboard, half bar and half cupboard, and a rocking-chair, comprised the furni ture, and a few bear and buffalo skins covered the floor. Hale sank into one of the arm-chairs, and, with a lazy satisfaction, partly born of his fatigue, and partly from some newly-discovered appreciative faculty, gazed around the room, and then at the mistress of the house, with whom the others were talking. She was tall, gaunt, and withered ; in spite of her evident years her twisted hair was still dark and full, and her eyes bright and piercing ; her com plexion and teeth had long since succumbed to the vitiating effects of frontier cookery, and her lips were stained with the yellow juice of a briar-wood pipe she held in her mouth. The ostler had explained their intrusion, and veiled their character under the vague epithet of a ' hunting party,' and was now evidently describing them personally. In Hale's new-found philosophy the fact that the interest of his hostess seemed to be excited only by the names of his companions, that he himself was care lessly, and even deprecatingly, alluded to as the SNOW-BOUND AT EAGLE'S 159 ' stranger from Eagle's ' by the ostler, and com pletely overlooked by the old woman, gave him no concern. ' You'll have to talk to Zenobia yourself. Dod rot ef I'm gine to interfere. She knows Hennicker's ways, and if she chooses to take in transients, it ain't no funeral o' mine. Zeenie ! You, Zeenie ! Look yer !' A tall, lazy-looking, handsome girl appeared on the threshold of the next room, and with a hand on each doorpost slowly swung herself backwards and forwards, without entering. 'Well, maw?' The old woman briefly and unalluringly pictured the condition of the travellers. ' Paw ain't here/ began the girl doubtfully, ' and how dy, Dick ! is that you ?' The interruption was caused by her recognition of the ostler, and she lounged into the room. In spite of a skimp, slatternly gown, whose straight skirt clung to her lower limbs, there was a quaint, nymph- like contour to her figure. Whether from languor, ill-health, or more probably from a morbid con sciousness of her own height, she moved with a slightly affected stoop that had become a habit. It did not seem ungraceful to Hale, already attracted by her delicate profile, her large dark eyes, and a certain weird resemblance she had to some half- domesticated Dryad. 1 That'll do, maw, J she said, dismissing her parent with a nod. ' I'll talk to Dick.' As the door closed on the old woman, Zenobia 160 SNOW-BOUND AT EAGLE'S leaned her hands on the back of a chair, and con fronted the admiring eyes of Dick with a goddess- like indifference. ' Now, wot's the use of your playin' this yer game on me, Dick ? Wot's the good of your ladlin' out that hog- wash about huntin' ? Huntin' ! I'll tell yer the huntin' you-uns hev been at ! You've been huntin' George Lee and his boys since an hour before sun-up. You've been followin' a blind trail up to the Ridge, until the snow got up and hunted you right here ! You've been whoopin' and yellin' and circus ridin' on the roads like ez yer wos Comanches, and frightening all the women-folk within miles that's your huntin' ! You've been climbin' down paw's old slide at last, and makin' tracks for here to save the skins of them condemned Government horses of the Kempany ! And that's your huntin' !' To Kale's surprise a burst of laughter from the party followed this speech. He tried to join in, but this ridiculous summary of the result of his enthusiastic sense of duty left him the only earnest believer mortified and embarrassed. Nor was he the less concerned as he found the girl's dark eyes had rested once or twice upon him curiously. Zenobia laughed too, and lazily turning the chair round, dropped into it. * And by this time George Lee's loungin' back in his chyar and smokin' his cigyar somewhar in Sacra mento,' she added, stretching her feet out to the fire, and suiting the action to the word with an imaginary SNOW-BOUND AT EAGLE'S 161 cigar between the long fingers of a thin and not over-clean hand. 'We cave, Zeenie,' said Rawlins, when their hilarity had subsided to a more subdued and scarcely less flattering admiration of the unconcerned goddess before them. * That's about the size of it. You kin rake down the pile. I forgot you're an old friend of George's.' ' He's a white man!' said the girl decidedly. ' Ye used to know him ?' continued Rawlins. ' Once. Paw ain't in that line now,' she said simply. There was such a sublime unconsciousness of any moral degradation involved in this allusion that even Hale accepted it without a shock. She rose presently, and, going to the little sideboard, brought out a number of glasses ; these she handed to each of the party, and then, producing a demijohn of whisky, slung it dexterously and gracefully over her arm, so that it rested in her elbow as in a cradle, and, going to each one in succession, filled their glasses. It obliged each one to rise to accept the libation, and as Hale did so in his turn, he met the dark eyes of the girl full on his own. There was a pleased curiosity in her glance that made this married man of thirty-five colour as awkwardly as a boy. The tender of refreshment being understood as a tacit recognition of their claims to a larger hospitaliy, all further restraint was removed. Zenobia resumed her seat, and placing her elbow on the arm of her 162 SNOW-BOUND AT EAGLE'S chair, and her small round chin in her hand, looked thoughtfully into the fire. ' When I say George Lee's a white man, it ain't because I know him. It's his giniral gait. Wot's he ever done that's underhanded or mean? Nothin'! You can't show the poor man he's ever took a picay une from. When he's helped himself to a pile it's been outer them banks or them express companies, that think it mighty fine to bust up themselves, and swindle the poor folks o' their last cent, and nobody talks o' huntin' them ! And does he keep their money ? No ; he passes it round among the boys that help him, and they put it in circulation, He don't keep it for himself; he ain't got fine houses in Frisco ; he don't keep fast horses for show. Like ez not the critter he did that job with ef it was him none of you boys would have rid. And he takes all the risks himself; you ken bet your life that every man with him was safe and away afore he turned his back on you uns.' ' He certainly drops a little of his money at draw poker, Zeenie,' said Clinch, laughing. ' He lost five thousand dollars to Sheriff Kelly last week.' ' Well, I don't hear of the Sheriff huntin' him to give it back, nor do I reckon Kelly handed it over to the express it was taken from. I heard you won suthin' from him a spell ago. I reckon you've been huntin' him to find out whar you should return it.' The laugh was clearly against Clinch. He was about to make some rallying rejoinder, when the young girl suddenly interrupted him. SNOW-BOUND AT EAGLE'S 163 * Ef you're wantin' to hunt somebody, why don't you take higher game ? Thar's that Jim Harkins go for him, and I'll join you.' * Harkins !' exclaimed Clinch and Hale simul taneously. ' Yes, Jim Harkins do you know him ?' she said, glancing from the one to the other. ' One of my friends do,' said Clinch, laughing ; ' but don't let that stop you.' ' And you over there?' continued Zenobia, bend ing her head and eyes towards Hale. ' The fact is, I believe he was my banker,' said Hale with a smile. ' I don't know him person ally. 5 'Then, you'd better hunt him before he does you.' ' What's he done, Zeenie ?' asked Rawlins, keenly enjoying the discomfiture of the others. ' What ?' She stopped, threw her long black braids over her shoulder, clasped her knee with her hands, and rocking backwards and forwards, sublimely uncon scious of the apparition of a slim ankle and half dropped off slipper from under her shortened gown, continued : ' It mightn't please him, 1 she said slyly, nodding towards Hale. ' Pray don't mind me,' said Hale, with unnecessary eagerness. ' Well,' said Zenobia, c I reckon you all know Ned Falkner and the Excelsior Ditch ?' 'Yes, Falkner's the superintendent of it,' said 164 SNOW-BOUND AT EAGLE'S Rawlins ; * and a square man, too. Thar ain't any thing mean about him.' * Shake !' said Zenobia, extending her hand. Rawlins shook the proffered hand with eager spon- taneousness, and the girl resumed : ' Pie's about ez good ez they make 'em you bet. Well, you know Ned has put all his money, and all his strength, and all his sabe, and ' ' His good looks,' added Clinch mischievously. * Into that Ditch/ continued Zenobia, ignoring the interruption. ' It's his mother, it's his sweet heart, it's his everything ! When other chaps of his age was cavortin' round Frisco, and havin' high jinks, Ned was in his Ditch. "Wait till the Ditch is done," he used to say. " Wait till she begins to boom, and then you just stand round." Mor'n that, he got all the boys to put in their last cent for they loved Ned, and love him now, like ez if he was a woman.' ' That's so,' said Clinch and Rawlins simul taneously, ' and he's worth it.' 1 Well,' continued Zenobia, ' the Ditch didn't boom ez soon ez they kalkilated. And then the boys kept gettin' poorer and poorer, and Ned he kept gettin' poorer and poorer in everything but his hopefulness and grit. Then he looks round for more capital. And about this time, that coyote Harkins smelt suthin' nice up there, and he gits Ned to give him control of it, and he'll lend him his name and fix up a company. Soon ez he gets control, the first thing he does is to say that it wants half a million o' money to make it pay, and levies an assessment of two SNOW-BOUND AT EAGLE'S 165 hundred dollars a share. That's nothin' for them rich fellows to pay, or pretend to pay, but for boys on grub wages it meant only ruin. They couldn't pay, and had to forfeit their shares for next to nothing. And Ned made one more desperate attempt to save them and himself by borrowing money on his shares, when that hound Harkins got wind of it, and let it be buzzed around that the Ditch is a failure, and that he was goin' out of it. That brought the shares down to nothing. As Ned couldn't raise a dollar, the new company swooped down on his shares for the debts they had put up, and left him and the boys to help themselves. Ned couldn't bear to face the boys that he'd helped to ruin, and put out and ain't been heard from since. After Harkins had got rid of Ned and the boys, he manages to pay off that wonderful debt, and sells out for a hundred thousand dollars. That money Ned's money he sends to Sacramento, for he don't dare to travel with it himself, and is kalkilatin' to leave the kentry, for some of the boys allow to kill him on sight. So ef you're wantin' to hunt suthin', thar's yer chance, and you needn't go inter the snow to do it.' * But surely the law can recover this money ?' said Hale indignantly. ' It is as infamous a robbery a c ' do He stopped as he caught Zenobia's eye. ' Ez last night's, you were going to say. I'll call it more. Them road agents don't pretend to be your friend, but take yer money and run their risks. For ez to the law that can't help yer.' 166 SNOW-BOUND AT EAGLE'S * It's a skin game, and you might ez well expect to recover a gambling debt from a short card sharp,' explained Clinch. ' Falkner oughter shot him on sight.' ' Or the boys lynch him,' suggested Rawlins. ' I think,' said Hale, more reflectively, ' that in the absence of legal remedy, a man of that kind should have been forced under strong physical menace to give up his ill-gotten gains. The money was the primary object, and if that could be got without bloodshed which seems to me a useless crime it would be quite as effective. Of course, if there was resistance or retaliation, it might be necessary to kill him.' He had unconsciously fallen into his old didactic and dogmatic habit of speech, and, perhaps, under the spur of Zenobia's eyes, he had given it some natural emphasis. A dead silence followed, in which the others regarded him with amused and gratified surprise, and it was broken only by Zenobia rising and holding out her hand. ' Shake!' Hale raised it gallantly and pressed his lips on the one spotless finger. ' That's gospel truth and you ain't the first white man to say it.' ' Indeed,' laughed Hale. ' Who was the other ?' ' George Lee !' SNOW-BOUND AT EAGLE'S 167 CHAPTER VI. THE laughter that followed was interrupted by a sudden barking of the dogs in the outer clearing. Zenobia rose lazily, and strode to the window. It relieved Hale of certain embarrassing reflections suggested by her comment. ' Ef it ain't that God-forsaken fool Dick bringing up passengers from the snow-bound up-stage in the road. I reckon Fve got suthin to say to that !' But the later appearance of the apologetic Dick, with the assurance that the party carried a permission from her father, granted at the lower station in view of such an emergency, checked her active opposi tion. ' That's like paw,' she soliloquized aggrievedly; ' shuttin' us up and settin' dogs on everybody for a week, and then lettin' the whole stage service pass through one door and out at another. Well, it's his house and his whisky ; and they kin take it, but they don't get me to help 'em.' They certainly were not a prepossessing or good- natured acquisition to the party. Apart from the natural antagonism which, on such occasions, those in possession always feel towards the new-comer, they were strongly inclined to resist the dissatisfied querulousness and aggressive attitude of these fresh applicants for hospitality. The most offensive one was a person who appeared to exercise some autho rity over the others. He was loud, assuming, and dressed with vulgar pretension. He quickly dis- 168 SNOW-BOUND AT EAGLE'S posed himself in the chair vacated by Zenobia, and called for some liquor. ' I reckon you'll hev to help yourself,' said Raw- lins dryly, as the summons met with no response. ' There are only two women in the house, and I reckon their hands are full already/ * I call it d d uncivil treatment !' said the man, raising his voice ; ' and Hennicker had better sing smaller if he don't want his old den pulled down some day. He ain't any better than men that hev been picked up afore now.' ' You oughter told him that, and mebbe he'd hev come over with yer,' returned Rawlins. ' He's a mild, soft, easy-going man, is Hennicker ! Ain't he, Colonel Clinch ?' The casual mention of Clinch's name produced the effect which the speaker probably intended. The stranger stared at Clinch, who, apparently oblivious of the conversation, was blinking his cold gray eyes at the fire. Dropping his aggressive tone to mere querulousness, the man sought the whisky demijohn, and helped himself and his companions. Fortified by liquor, he returned to the fire. ' I reckon you've heard about this yer robbery, Colonel ?' he said, addressing Clinch, with an attempt at easy familiarity. Without raising his eyes from the fire, Clinch briefly assented, ' I reckon.' ' I'm up yer examining into it for the express.' ' Lost much ?' asked Rawlins. ' Not so much ez they might hev. That fool Harkins had a hundred thousand dollars in green- SNOW-BOUND AT EAGLE'S 169 backs sealed up like an ordinary package of a thou sand dollars, and gave it to a friend, Bill Guthrie, in the bank, to pick out some unlikely chap among the passengers to take charge of it to Reno. He wouldn't trust the express. Ha ! ha !' The dead oppressive silence that followed his empty laughter made it seem almost artificial. Rawlins held his breath, and looked at Clinch. Hale, with the instinct of a refined, sensitive man, turned hot with the embarrassment Clinch should have shown. For that gentleman, without lifting his eyes from the fire, and with no apparent change in his demeanour, lazily asked : ' Ye didn't ketch the name o' that passenger ?' 1 Naturally, no ! For when Guthrie hears what was said agin him, he wouldn't give his name until he heard from him.' ' And. what was said agin him ?' asked Clinch musingly. ' What would be said agin a man that give up that sum o' money, like a chaw of tobacco, for the asking ? Why, there were but three men, as far ez we kin hear, that did the job. And there were four passengers inside armed, and the driver and express messenger on the box. Six were robbed by three ! they were a sweet-scented lot ! Reckon they must hev felt mighty small, for I hear they got up and ske daddled from the station under the pretext of lookin' for the robbers.' He laughed again, and the laugh was noisily repeated by his five companions at the other end of the room. Hale, who had forgotten that the stranger was 170 SNOW-BOUND AT EAGLE'S only echoing a part of his own criticism of eight hours before, was on the point of rising with burning cheeks and angry indignation, when the lazily up lifted eye of Clinch caught his, and absolutely held him down with its paralyzing and deadly significance. Murder itself seemed to look from those cruelly quiet and remorseless gray pupils. For a moment he for got his own rage in this glimpse of Clinch's im placable resentment ; for a moment he felt a thrill of pity for the wretch who had provoked it. He remained motionless and fascinated in his chair as the lazy lids closed like a sheath over Clinch's eyes again. Rawlins, who had probably received the same glance of warning, remained equally still. * They haven't heard the last of it yet, you bet/ continued the infatuated stranger. ' I've got a little statement here for the newspaper,' he added, drawing some papers from his pocket ' suthin' I just run off in the coach as I came along. I reckon it'll show things up in a new light. It's time there should be some change. All the cussin' that's been usually done hez been by the passengers agin the express and stage companies. I propose that the company should do a little cussin' themselves. See ? P'r'aps you don't mind my readin' it to ye ? It's just spicy enough to suit them newspaper chaps.' ' Go on,' said Colonel Clinch quietly. The man cleared his throat, with the preliminary pose of authorship, and his five friends, to whom the composition was evidently not unfamiliar, assumed anticipatory smiles. SNOW-BOUND AT EAGLE'S 171 ' I call it " Prize Pusillanimous Passengers." Sorter runs easy off the tongue, you know. ' " It now appears that the success of the late stage-coach robbery near the summit was largely due to the pusillanimity not to use a more serious word ' " he stopped and looked explanatorily towards Clinch ; ' ye'll see in a minit what I'm gettin' at by that " pusillanimity" of the passengers themselves. It now transpires that there were only three robbers who attacked the coach, and that although passengers, driver, and express messenger were fully armed, and were double the number of their assailants, not a shot was fired. We mean no reflections upon the well-known courage of Yuba Bill, nor the experience and coolness of Bracy Tibbetts, the courteous express messenger, both of whom have since confessed to have been more than astonished at the Christian and lamb-like submission of the insiders. Amusing stories of some laughable yet sickening incidents of the occasion, such as grown men kneeling in the road, and offering to strip themselves completely, if their lives were only spared ; of one of the passengers hiding under the seat, and only being dislodged by pulling his coat- tails ; of incredible sums promised, and even offers of menial service for the preservation of their wretched carcases, are received with the greatest gusto ; but we are in possession of facts which may lead to more serious accusations. Although one of the passengers is said to have lost a large sum of money entrusted to him, while attempting with barefaced effrontery to establish a rival " carrying " 172 SNOW-BOUND AT EAGLE'S business in one of the express company's own coaches " I call that a good point.' He inter rupted himself to allow the unrestrained applause of his own party. ' Don't you ?' ' It's just h 11,' said Clinch musingly. ' " Yet the affair," ' resumed the stranger, from his manuscript, ' " is locked up in great and suspicious mystery. The presence of Jackson N. Stanner, Esq." (that's me), " special detective agent to the company, and his staff in town, is a guarantee that the mystery will be thoroughly probed." Hed to put that in to please the company,' he again deprecatingly explained. ' " We are indebted to this gentleman for the facts." ; ' The p'int you want to make in that article,' said Clinch, rising, but still directing his face and his con versation to the fire, ' ez far ez I ken see ez. that no three men kin back down six unless they be cowards, or are willing to be backed down.' 'That's the point what I start from,' rejoined Stanner, ' and work up. I leave it to you ef it ain't so.' ' I can't say ez I agree with you,' said the Colonel dryly. He turned, and still without lifting his eyes, walked towards the door of the room which Zenobia had entered. The key was on the inside, but Clinch gently opened the door, removed the key, and closing the door again, locked it from his side. Hale and Rawlins felt their hearts beat quickly ; the others followed Clinch's slow movements and downcast mien with amused curiosity. After locking the other outlet from the room, and putting the keys in SNOW-BOUND AT EAGLE'S 173 his pocket, Clinch returned to the fire. For the first time he lifted his eyes ; the man nearest him shrank back in terror. ' I am the man,' he said slowly, taking deliberate breath between his sentences, ' who gave up those greenbacks to the robbers. I am one of the three passengers you have lampooned in that paper, and these gentlemen beside me are the other two.' He stopped and looked around him. ' You don't believe that three men can back down six ! Well, I'll show you how it can be done. More than that, I'll show you how one man can do it ; for by the living G d, if you don't hand over that paper I'll kill you where you sit ! I'll give you until I count ten if one of you moves he and you are dead men but you first !' Before he had finished speaking Hale and Rawlins had both risen, as if in concert, with their weapons drawn. Hale could not tell how or why he had done so, but he was equally conscious, without knowing why, of fixing his eye on one of the other party, and that he should, in the event of an affray, try to kill him. He did not attempt to reason ; he only knew that he should do his best to kill that man and perhaps others. ' One,' said Clinch, lifting his derringer, ' two three ' ' Look here, Colonel, I swear I didn't know it was you. Come, d n it ! I say see here,' stammered Stanner, with white cheeks, not daring to glance for aid to his stupefied party. ' Four five six ' 174 SNOW-BOUND AT EAGLE'S ' Wait ! Here !' He produced the paper and threw it on the floor. * Pick it up and hand it to me. Seven eight ' Stanner hastily scrambled to his feet, picked up the paper, and handed it to the Colonel. ' I was only joking, Colonel,' he said with a forced laugh. ' I'm glad to hear it. But as this joke is in black and white, you wouldn't mind saying so in the same fashion. Take that pen and ink and write as I dictate. " I certify that I am satisfied that the above statement is a base calumny against the characters of Ringwood Clinch, Robert Rawlins, and John Hale, passengers, and that I do hereby apologize to the same." Sign it. That'll do. Now let the rest of your party sign as witnesses.' They complied without hesitation ; some, seizing the opportunity of treating the affair as a joke, sug gested a drink. ' Excuse me,' said Clinch quietly, ' but ez this house ain't big enough for me and that man, and ez I've got business at Wild Cat Station with this paper, I think I'll go without drinkin'.' He took the keys from his pocket, unlocked the doors, and taking up his overcoat and rifle, turned as if to go. Rawlins rose to follow him ; Hale alone hesitated. The rapid occurrences of the last half-hour gave him no time for reflection. But he was by no means satisfied of the legality of the last act he had aided and abetted, although he admitted its rude justice and felt he would have done so again. A fear of this, and an instinct that he might be led into SNOW-BOUND AT EAGLE'S 175 further complications if he continued to identify himself with Clinch and Rawlins ; the fact that they had professedly abandoned their quest, and that it was really supplanted by the presence of an authorized party with whom they had already come in conflict all this urged him to remain behind. On the other hand, the apparent desertion of his comrades at the last moment was opposed both to his sense of honour and the liking he had taken to them. But he reflected that he had already shown his active partizanship, that he could be of little service to them at Wild Cat Station, and would be only increasing the distance from his home ; and above all an impatient longing for independent action finally decided him. ' I think I will stay here,' he said to Clinch, 'unless you want me.' Clinch cast a swift and meaning glance at the enemy, but looked approval. ' Keep your eyes skinned, and you're good for a dozen of 'em,' he said sotto voce, and then turned to Stanner. ' I'm going to take this paper to Wild Cat. If you want to communicate with me hereafter, you know where I am to be found, unless ' he smiled grimly 'you'd like to see me outside for a few minutes before I go ?' ' It is a matter that concerns the stage company not me, 5 said Stanner, with an attempt to appear at his ease. Hale accompanied Clinch and Rawlins through the kitchen to the stables. The ostler, Dick, had already returned to the rescue of the snow-bound coach, 176 SNOW-BOUND AT EAGLE'S * I shouldn't like to leave many men alone with that crowd,' said Clinch, pressing Kale's hand; 'and I wouldn't have allowed your staying behind ef I didn't know I could bet my pile on you. Your offerin' to stay just puts a clean finish on it. Look yer, Hale, I didn't cotton much to you at first; but ef you ever want a friend, call on Ringwood Clinch.' ' The same here, old man,' said Rawlins, extend ing his hand as he appeared from a hurried conference with the old woman at the wood-shed, ' and trust to Zeenie to give you a hint ef there's anythin' under handed goin' on. So long/ Half inclined to resent this implied suggestion of protection, yet half pleased at the idea of a confi dence with the handsome girl he had seen, Hale returned to the room. A whispered discussion among the party ceased on his entering, and an awkward silence followed, which Hale did not attempt to break as he quietly took his seat again by the fire. He was presently confronted by Stanner, who, with an affectation of easy familiarity, crossed over to the hearth. * The old Kernel's d d peppery and high-toned when he's got a little more than his reg'lar three fingers o' corn-juice, eh ?' ' I must beg you to understand distinctly, Mr. Stanner,' said Hale, with a return of his habitual precision of statement, ' that I regard any slighting allusion to the gentleman who has just left not only as in exceedingly bad taste, coming from you, but very offensive to myself. If you mean to imply that SNOW-BOUND AT EAGLE'S 177 he was under the influence of liquor, it is my duty to undeceive you ; he was so perfectly in possession of his faculties as to express not only his own, but my opinion of your conduct. You must also admit that he was discriminating enough to show his objection to your company by leaving it. I regret that cir cumstances do not make it convenient for me to exercise that privilege ; but if I am obliged to put up with your presence in this room, I strongly insist that it is not made unendurable with the addition of your conversation.' The effect of this deliberate and passionless declaration was more discomposing to the party than Clinch's fury. Utterly unaccustomed to the ideas and language suddenly confronting them, they were unable to determine whether it was the real expres sion of the speaker, or whether it was a vague badin age or affectation to which any reply would involve them in ridicule. In a country terrorized by practical joking, they did not doubt but that this was a new form of hoax ing calculated to provoke some response that would constitute them as victims. The immediate effect upon them was that complete silence in regard to himself that Hale desired. They drew together again and conversed in whispers, while Hale, with his eyes fixed on the fire, gave himself up to somewhat late and useless reflection. He could scarcely realize his position. For, how ever he might look at it, within a space of twelve hours he had not only changed some of his most cherished opinions, but he had acted in accordance 12 178 SNOW-BOUND AT EAGLE'S with that change in a way that made it seem almost impossible for him ever to recant. In the interests of law and order he had engaged in an unlawful and disorderly pursuit of criminals, and had actually come in conflict, not with the criminals, but with the only party apparently authorized to pursue them. More than that, he was rinding himself committed to a certain sympathy with those criminals. Twenty-four hours ago, if anyone had told him that he would have condoned an illegal act for its abstract justice, or assisted to commit an illegal act for the same purpose, he would have felt himself insulted. That he knew he would not now feel it as an insult perplexed him still more. In these circum stances the fact that he was separated from his family, and as it were from all his past life and traditions, by a chance accident, did not disturb him greatly ; indeed, he was for the first time a little doubtful of their probable criticism on his inconsistency, and was by no means in a hurry to subject himself to it. Lifting his eyes, he was suddenly aware that the door leading to the kitchen was slowly opening. He had thought he heard it creak once or twice during his deliberate reply to Stanner. It was evidently moving now so as to attract his attention, without disturbing the others. It presently opened sufficiently wide to show the face of Zeenie, who, with a gesture of caution towards his companions, beckoned him to join her. He rose carelessly as if going out, and, putting on his hat, entered the kitchen as the retreating figure of the young girl glided lightly towards the stables. She SNOW-BOUND AT EAGLE'S 179 ascended a few open steps as if to a hayloft, but stopped before a low door. Pushing it open, she preceded him into a small room, apparently under the roof, which scarcely allowed her to stand upright. By the light of a stable lantern hanging from a beam he saw that, though poorly furnished, it bore some evidence of feminine taste and habita tion. Motioning to the only chair, she seated herself on the edge of the bed, with her hands clasping her knees in her familiar attitude. Her face bore traces of recent agitation, and her eyes were shining with tears. By the closer light of the lantern he was surprised to find it was from laughter. 1 1 reckoned you'd be right lonely down there with that Stanner crowd, particklerly after that little speech o' yourn ; so I sez to maw, I'd get you up yer for a spell. Maw and I heerd you exhort 'em ! Maw allowed you wos talkin' a furrin' tongue all along, but I sakes alive ! I hed to hump myself to keep from bustin' into a yell when yer jist drawed them Webster-unabridged sentences on 'em.' She stopped and rocked backwards and forwards with a laugh that, subdued by the proximity of the roof, and the fear of being overheard, was by no means unmusical. * I'll tell ye whot got me, though ! That part commencing, " Suckamstances over which I've no controul." ' Oh, come ! I didn't say that,' interrupted Hale, laughing. * " Don't make it convenient for me to exercise i8o SNOW-BOUND AT EAGLE'S the privilege of kickin' yer out to that extent," ' she continued ; ' " but if I cannot dispense with your room, the least I can say is that it's a d d sight better than your company " or suthin' like that ! And then the way you minded your stops, and let your voice rise and fall just ez easy ez ef you wos a First Reader in large type ! Why, the Kernel wasn't nowhere, His cussin' didn't come within a mile o' yourn. That Stanner jist turned yaller.' ' I'm afraid you are laughing at me,' said Hale, not knowing whether to be pleased or vexed at the girl's amusement. ' I reckon I'm the only one that dare do it, then,' said the girl simply. ' The Kernel sez the way you turned round after he'd done his cussin', and said yer believed you'd stay and take the responsibility of the whole thing and did in that kam, soft, did -anybody -speak -to -me style, was the neatest thing he'd seen yet ! No ! maw says I ain't much on manners, but I know a man when I see him.' For an instant Hale gave himself up to the delicious flattery of unexpected, unintended, and apparently uninterested compliment. Becoming at last a little embarrassed under the frank curiosity of the girl's dark eyes, he changed the subject. * Do you always come up here through the stables ?' he asked, glancing round the room, which was evidently her own. ' I reckon,' she answered half abstractedly. ' There's a ladder down thar to maw's room ' pointing to a trap-door beside the broad chimney that served as a SNOW-BOUND AT EAGLE'S 181 wall ' but it's handier the other way, and nearer the hosses ef you want to get away quick.' This palpable suggestion, borne out by what he remembered of the other domestic details, that the house had been planned with reference to sudden foray or escape, reawakened his former uneasy re flections. Zeenie, who had been watching his face, added : * It's no slouch, when b'ar or painters hang round nights and stampede the stock, to be able to swing yourself on to a hoss whenever you hear a row goin' on outside.' ' Do you mean that you ' ' Paw used, and I do now, sense I've come into the room.' She pointed to a nondescript garment, half cloak, half habit, hanging on the wall. ' I've been outer bed, and on Pitchpine's back as far ez the trail five minutes arter I heard the first bellow.' Hale regarded her with undisguised astonishment. There was nothing at all Amazonian or horsy in her manners, nor was there even the robust physical contour that might have been developed through such experiences. On the contrary, she seemed to be lazily effeminate in body and mind. Heedless of his critical survey of her, she beckoned him to draw his chair nearer, and, looking into his eyes, said : ' Whatever possessed you to take to huntin' men ?' Hale was staggered by the question, but neverthe less endeavoured to explain. But he was surprised to find that his explanation appeared stilted even to himself, and, he could not doubt, was utterly incom- 182 SNOW-BOUND AT EAGLE'S prehensible to the girl. She nodded her head, how ever, and continued : ' Then you haven't anythin' agin' George ?' ' I don't know George,' said Hale, smiling. t My proceeding was against the highwayman.' ' Well, he was the highwayman.' * I mean it was the principle I objected to. A principle that I consider highly dangerous.' ' Well, he is the principal, for the others only helped, I reckon,' said Zeenie with a sigh, * and I reckon he is dangerous.' Hale saw it was useless to explain. The girl con tinued : ' What made you stay here instead of going on with the Kernel ? There was suthin' else besides your wantin' to make that Stanner take water. What is it r A light sense of the propinquity of beauty, of her confidence, of their isolation, of the eloquence of her dark eyes, at first tempted Hale to a reply of simple gallantry ; a graver consideration of the same cir cumstances froze it upon his lips. * I don't know,' he returned awkwardly. ' Well, I'll tell you,' she said. ' You didn't cotton to the Kernel and Rawlins much more than you did to Stanner. They ain't your kind.' In his embarrassment Hale blundered upon the thought he had honourably avoided. ' Suppose,' he said, with a constrained laugh, ' I had stayed to see you.' ' I reckon I ain't your kind neither,' she replied promptly. There was a momentary pause, when SNOW-BOUND AT EAGLE'S 183 she rose and walked to the chimney. * It's very quiet down there/ she said, stooping and listening over the roughly-boarded floor that formed the ceil ing of the room below. * I wonder what's goin on.' In the belief that this was a delicate hint for his return to the party he had left, Hale rose, but the girl passed him hurriedly, and, opening the door, cast a quick glance into the stable beyond. ' Just as I reckoned the horses are gone too. They've skedaddled,' she said blankly. Hale did not reply. In his embarrassment a moment ago the idea of taking an equally sudden departure had flashed upon him. Should he take this as a justification of that impulse, or how ? He stood irresolutely gazing at the girl, who turned and began to descend the stairs silently. He followed. When they reached the lower room they found it as they had expected deserted. ' I hope I didn't drive them away/ said Hale, with an uneasy look at the troubled face of the girl. * For I really had an idea of going myself a moment ago.' She remained silently gazing out of the window. Then, turning with a slight shrug of her shoulders, said half defiantly : ' What's the use now ? Oh, maw ! the Stanner crowd has vamosed the ranch, and this yer stranger kalkilates to stay !' 184 SNOW-BOUND AT EAGLE'S CHAPTER VII. A WEEK had passed at Eagle's Court a week of mingled clouds and sunshine by day, of rain over the green plateau and snow on the mountain by night. Each morning had brought its fresh greenness to the winter-girt domain, and a fresh coat of dazzling white to the barrier that separated its dwellers from the world beyond. There was little change in the encompassing wall of their prison ; if anything, the snowy circle round them seemed to have drawn its lines nearer day by day. The immediate result of this restricted limit had been to confine the range of cattle to the meadows nearer the house, and at a safe distance from the fringe of wilderness now invaded by the prowling tread of predatory animals. Nevertheless, the two figures lounging on the slope at sunset gave very little indication of any serious quality in the situation. Indeed, so far as appearances were concerned, Kate, who was return ing from an afternoon stroll with Falkner, exhibited, with feminine inconsistency, a decided return to the world of fashion and conventionality, apparently just as she was effectually excluded from it. She had not only discarded her white dress as a conces sion to the practical evidence of the surrounding winter, but she had also brought out a feather hat and sable muff which had once graced a fashionable suburb of Boston. Even Falkner had exchanged his slouch hat and picturesque scrape for a beaver SNOW-BOUND AT EAGLE'S 185 overcoat and fur cap of Hale's, which had been pressed upon him by Kate, under the excuse of the exigencies of the season. Within a stone's-throw of the thicket, turbulent with the savage forces of Nature, they walked with the abstraction of people hearing only their own voices ; in the face of the solemn peaks clothed with white austerity they talked gravely of dress. 1 I don't mean to say,' said Kate demurely, ' that you're to give up the serape entirely ; you can wear it on rainy nights, and when you ride over here from your friend's house to spend the evening for the sake of old times/ she added, with an unconscious air of referring to an already antiquated friendship ; ' but you must admit it's a little too gorgeous and theatrical for the sunlight of day and the public highway.' ' But why should that make it wrong, if the expe rience of a people has shown it to be a garment best fitted for their wants and requirements ?' said Falkner argumentatively. ' But you are not one of those people,' said Kate, ' and that makes all the difference. You look differ ently, and act differently, so that there is something irreconcilable between your clothes and you that makes you look odd.' ' And to look odd, according to your civilized prejudices, is to be wrong, 1 said Falkner bitterly. ' It is to seem different from what one really is, which is wrong. Now, you are a mining superin tendent, you tell me. Then you don't want to look like a Spanish brigand, as you do in that serape. I 186 SNOW-BOUND AT EAGLE'S am sure if you had ridden up to a stage-coach while I was in it, I'd have handed you my watch and purse without a word. There ! you are not offended ?' she added, with a laugh, which did not, however, conceal a certain earnestness. * I suppose I ought to have said I would have given it gladly to such a romantic figure, and perhaps have got out and danced a saraband or bolero with you if that is the thing to do nowadays. Well !' she said, after a dangerous pause, ' consider that I've said it.' He had been walking a little before her, with his face turned towards the distant mountains. Sud denly he stopped and faced her. 'You would have given as much of your time to the highwayman, Miss Scott, as would have enabled you to identify him for the police and no more. Like your brother, you would have been willing to sacrifice yourself for the benefit of the laws of civil ization and good order.' If a denial to this assertion could have been expressed without the use of speech, it was certainly transparent in the face and eyes of the young girl at that moment. If Falkner had been less self- conscious he would have seen it plainly. But Kate only buried her face in her lifted muff, slightly raised her pretty shoulders, and dropping her tremulous eyelids, walked on. ' It seems a pity,' she said, after a pause, ' that we cannot preserve our own miserable existence with out taking something from others sometimes even a life!' He started. 'And it's horrid to have to SNOW-BOUND AT EAGLE'S 187 remind you that you have yet to kill something for the invalid's supper,' she continued. * I saw a hare in the field yonder.' 'You mean that jackass rabbit?' he said ab stractedly. ' What you please. It's a pity you didn't take your gun instead of your rifle.' ' I brought the rifle for protection.' f And a shot gun is only aggressive, I sup pose?' Falkner looked at her for a moment, and then, as the hare suddenly started across the open a hundred yards away, brought the rifle to his shoulder. A long interval as it seemed to Kate elapsed; the animal appeared to be already safely out of range, when the rifle suddenly cracked, the hare bounded in the air like a ball, and dropped motionless. The girl looked at the marksman in undisguised admi ration. ' Is it quite dead ?' she said timidly. * It never knew what struck it.' ' It certainly looks less brutal than shooting it with a shot gun, as John does, and then not killing it outright/ said Kate. ' I hate what is called sport and sportsmen, but a rifle seems ' ' What ?' said Falkner. 1 More gentlemanly.' She raised her pretty head in the air, and, with her hand shading her eyes, was looking around the clear ether, and said meditatively : * I wonder No matter.' ' What is it ?' i88 SNOW-BOUND AT EAGLE'S ' Oh, nothing.' ' It is something,' said Falkner, with an amused smile, reloading his rifle. * Well, you once promised me an eagle's feather for my hat. Isn't that thing an eagle ?' ' I am afraid it is only a hawk.' ' Well, that will do. Shoot that.' Her eyes were sparkling. Falkner withdrew his own with a slight smile, and raised his rifle with provoking deliberation. ' Are you quite sure it's what you want ?' he asked demurely. ' Yes quick !' Nevertheless, it was some minutes before the rifle cracked again. The wheeling bird suddenly struck the wind with its wings aslant, and then fell like a plummet at a distance which showed the difficulty of the feat. Falkner started from her side before the bird reached the ground. He returned to her after a lapse of a few moments, bearing a trailing wing in his hand. ' You shall make your choice,' he said gaily. ' Are you sure it was killed outright ?' ' Head shot off/ said Falkner briefly. * And, besides, the fall would have killed it,' said Kate conclusively. ' It's lovely ! I suppose they call you a very good shot ?' < They ? Who ?' * Oh, the people you know your friends, and their sisters.' ' George shoots better than I do, and has had more experience. I've seen him do that with a SNOW-BOUND AT EAGLE'S 189 pistol. Of course, not such a long shot, but a more difficult one.' Kate did not reply, but her face showed a convic tion that, as an artistic and gentlemanly perform ance, it was probably inferior to the one she had witnessed. Falkner, who had picked up the hare also, again took his place by her side as they turned towards the house. ' Do you remember the day you came, when we were walking here, you pointed out that rock on the mountain where the poor animals had taken refuge from the snow?' said Kate suddenly. * Yes,' answered Falkner ; ' they seem to have diminished. I am afraid you were right : they have either eaten each other or escaped. Let us hope the latter.' ' I looked at them with a glass every day,' said Kate, ' and they've got down to only four. There's a bear, and that shabby, overgrown cat you call a Californian lion, and a wolf, and a creature like a fox or a squirrel.' ' It's a pity they're not all of a kind,' said Falkner. ' Why ?' 'There'd be nothing to keep them from being comfortable together.' ' On the contrary, / should think it would be simply awful to be shut up entirely with one's own kind.' ' Then you believe it is possible for them, with their different natures and habits, to be happy together ?' said Falkner, with sudden earnestness. ' I believe,' said Kate hurriedly, 'that the bear and igo SNOW-BOUND AT EAGLE'S the lion find the fox and the wolf very amusing, and that the fox and the wolf ' ' Well ?' said Falkner, stopping short. * Well, the fox and the wolf will carry away a much better opinion of the lion and bear than they had before.' They had reached the house by this time, and, for some occult reason, Kate did not immediately enter the parlour, where she had left her sister and the invalid, who had already been promoted to a sofa and a cushion by the window, but proceeded directly to her own room. As a manoeuvre to avoid meeting Mrs. Hale, it was scarcely necessary, for that lady was already in advance of her on the staircase, as if she had left the parlour a moment before they entered the house. Falkner, too, would have preferred the company of his own thoughts, but Lee, apparently the only unpreoccupied, all-pervading and boyishly-alert spirit in the party, hailed him from within, and obliged him to present himself on the threshold of the parlour with the hare and the hawk's wing he was still carry ing. Eyeing the latter with affected concern, Lee said gravely : ' Of course, I can eat it, Ned, and I dare say it's the best part of the fowl, and the hare isn't more than enough for the women, but I had no idea we were so reduced. Three hours and a half gunning, and only one hare and a hawk's wing. It's terrible !' Perceiving that his friend was alone, Falkner dropped his burden in the hall, and strode rapidly to his side. SNOW-BOUND AT EAGLE'S 191 ' Look here, George ; we must / must leave this place at once. It's no use talking ; I can stand this sort of thing no longer.' ' Nor can I, with the door open. Shut it, and say what you want quick, before Mrs. Hale comes back. Have you found a trail ?' ' No, no; that's not what I mean/ ' Well, it strikes me it ought to be if you expect to get away. Have you proposed to Beacon Street, and she thinks it rather premature on a week's acquaintance ?' 'No; but- ' But you will, you mean ? Don't just yet.' ' But I cannot live this perpetual lie.' ' That depends. I don't know how you're lying when I'm not with you. If you're walking round with that girl, singing hymns and talking of your class in Sunday-school, or if you're insinuating that you're a millionaire, and think of buying the place for a summer hotel, I should say you'd better quit that kind of lying. But, on the other hand, I don't see the necessity of your dancing round here with a shot gun, and yelling for Harkins's blood, or counting that package of greenbacks in the lap of Miss Scott to be truthful. It seems to me there ought to be something between the two.' But, George, don't you think you are on such good terms with Mrs. Hale and her mother that you might tell them the whole story ? That is, tell it in your own way ; they will hear anything from you, and believe it.' IQ2 SNOW-BOUND AT EAGLE'S ' Thank you ; but suppose I don't believe in lying, either ?' ' You know what I mean ! You have a way, d n it, of making everything seem like a matter of course, and the most natural thing going.' ' Well, suppose I did. Are you prepared for the worst ?' Falkner was silent for a moment, and then replied : 1 Yes, anything would be better than this sus pense.' ' I don't agree with you. Then, you would be willing to have them forgive us ?' ' I don't understand you.' ' I mean that their forgiveness would be the worst thing that could happen. Look here, Ned. Stop a moment ; listen at that door. Mrs. Hale has the tread of an angel, with the pervading capacity of a cat. Now listen ! / don't pretend to be in love with anybody here, but if I were I should hardly take advantage of a woman's helplessness and solitude with a sensational story about myself. It's not giving her a fair show. You know she won't turn you out of the house.' ' No,' said Falkner, reddening ; ' but I should expect to go at once, and that would be my only excuse for telling her.' ' Go ! where ? In your preoccupation with that girl you haven't even found the trail by which Manuel escaped. Do you intend to camp outside the house, and make eyes at her when she comes to the window ?' SNOW-BOUND AT EAGLE'S 193 ' Because you think nothing of flirting with Mrs. Hale,' said Falkner bitterly, ' you care little ' ' My dear Ned/ said Lee, ' the fact that Mrs. Hale has a husband, and knows that she can't marry me, puts us on equal terms. Nothing that she could learn about me hereafter would make a flirtation with me any less wrong than it would be now, or make her seem more a victim. Can you say the same of yourself and that Puritan girl ?' ' But you did not advise me to keep aloof from her ; on the contrary, you ' ' I thought you might make the best of the situa tion, and pay her some attention, because you could not go any further.' * You thought I was utterly heartless and selfish, like ' ' Ned !' Falkner walked rapidly to the fireplace and re turned. * Forgive me, George; I'm a fool and an un grateful one.' Lee did not reply at once, although he took and retained the hand Falkner had impulsively extended. ' Promise me,' he said slowly, after a pause, ' that you will say nothing yet to either of these women I ask it for your own sake, and this girl's, not for mine. If, on the contrary, you are tempted to do so from any Quixotic idea of honour, remember that you will only precipitate something that will oblige you, from that same sense of honour, to separate from the girl for ever.' ' I don't understand.' 13 194 SNOW-BOUND AT EAGLE'S ' Enough !' said he, with a quick return of his old reckless gaiety. * Shoot-Off-His-Mouth the Beard less Boy Chief of the Sierras has spoken ! Let the Pale Face with the black moustache ponder and beware how he talks hereafter to the Rippling Cochituate Water ! Go !' Nevertheless, as soon as the door had closed upon Falkner, Lee's smile vanished. With his colourless face turned to the fading light at the window, the hollows in his temples and the lines in the corners of his eyes seemed to have grown more profound. He remained motionless and absorbed in thought so deep that the light rustle of a skirt, that would at other times have thrilled his sensitive ear, passed unheeded. At last, throwing off his reverie with the full and unrestrained sigh of a man who believes himself alone, he was startled by the soft laugh of Mrs. Hale, who had entered the room unper- ceived. ' Dear me ! how portentous ! Really, I almost feel as if I were interrupting a tete-a-tete between yourself and some old flame. I haven't heard any thing so old-fashioned and conservative as that sigh since I have been in California. I thought you never had any past out here ?' Fortunately his face was between her and the light, and the unmistakable expression of annoyance and impatience which passed over it was spared her. There was, however, still enough dissonance in his manner to affect her quick feminine sense, and when she drew nearer to him it was with a certain maiden like timidity. SNOW-BOUND AT EAGLE'S 195 ' You are not worse, Mr. Lee, I hope ? You have not over-exerted yourself ?' ' There's little chance of that with one leg, if not in the grave, at least mummified with bandages,' he replied, with a bitterness new to him. ' Shall I loosen them ? Perhaps they are too tight. There is nothing so irritating to one as the sensation of being tightly bound.' The light touch of her hand upon the rug that covered his knees, the thoughtful tenderness of the blue-veined lids, and the delicate atmosphere that seemed to surround her like a perfume, cleared his face of its shadow and brought back the reckless fire into his blue eyes. ' I suppose I'm intolerant of all bonds,' he said, looking at her intently, ' in others as well as my self.' Whether or not she detected any double meaning in his words, she was obliged to accept the chal lenge of his direct gaze, and raising her eyes to his, drew back a little from him with a slight increase of colour. 'I was afraid you had heard bad news just now.' ' What \vould you call bad news ?' asked Lee, clasping his hands behind his head and leaning back on the sofa, but without withdrawing his eyes from her face. ' Oh, any news that would interrupt your con valescence, or break up our little family party/ said Mrs. Hale. ' You have been getting on so well that 196 SNOW-BOUND AT EAGLE'S really it would seem cruel to have anything interfere with our life of forgetting and being forgotten. But,' she added with apprehensive quickness, 'has anything happened? Is there really any news from from the trails ? Yesterday Mr. Falkner said the snow had recommenced in the pass. Has he seen anything noticed anything different ?' She looked so very pretty, with the rare, genuine, and youthful excitement that transfigured her wearied and wearying regularity of feature, that Lee contented himself with drinking in her pret- tiness as he would have inhaled the perfume of some flower. ' Why do you look at me so, Mr. Lee?' she asked, with a slight smile. ' I believe something has happened. Mr. Falkner has brought you some intelligence.' ' He has certainly found out something I did not foresee/ ' And that troubles you ?' < It does.' ' Is it a secret ?' 'No.' ' Then, I suppose you will tell it to me at dinner,' she said, with a little tone of relief. ' I am afraid, if I tell it at all, I must tell it now,' he said, glancing at the door. ' You must do as you think best,' she said coldly, ' as it seems to be a secret after all.' She hesitated. ' Kate is dressing, and will not be down for some time.' ' So much the better ; for I'm afraid that Ned has SNOW-BOUND AT EAGLE'S 197 made a poor return to your hospitality by falling in love with her.' * Impossible ! He has known her for scarcely a week.' ' I am afraid we won't agree as to the length of time necessary to appreciate and love a woman. I think it can be done in seven days and four hours, the exact time we have been here.' * Yes ; but as Kate was not in when you arrived, and did not come until later, you must take off at least one hour,' said Mrs. Hale gaily. ' Ned can ; / shall not abate a second.' ' But are you not mistaken in his feelings ?' she continued hurriedly. ' He certainly has not said anything to her.' ' That is his last hold on honour and reason. And to preserve that little intact he wants to run away at once.' ' But that would be very silly.' * Do you think so ?' he said, looking at her fixedly. ' Why not ?' she asked in her turn, but rather faintly. ' I'll tell you why,' he said, lowering his voice with a certain intensity of passion unlike his usual boyish light-heartedness. ' Think of a man whose life has been one of alternate hardness and aggression, of savage disappointment and equally savage successes ; who has known no other relaxation than dissipation or extravagance ; a man to whom the idea of the domestic hearth and family ties only meant weak ness, effeminacy, or worse ; who had looked for 198 SNOW-BOUND AT EAGLE'S loyalty and devotion only in the man who battled for him at his right hand in danger, or shared his privations and sufferings. Think of such a man, and imagine that an accident has suddenly placed him in an atmosphere of purity, gentleness, and peace, surrounded him by the refinements of a higher life than he had ever known, and that he found him self, as in a dream, on terms of equality with a pure woman who had never known any other life, and yet would understand and pity his. Imagine his loving her. Imagine that the first effect of that love was to show him his own inferiority and the immeasur able gulf that lay between his life and hers. Would he not fly rather than brave the disgrace of her awakening to the truth ? Would he not fly rather than accept even the pity that might tempt her to a sacrifice ?' ' But is Mr. Falkner all that ?' ' Nothing of the kind, I assure you, ' said he demurely. ' But that's the way a man in love feels.' ' Really ! Mr. Falkner should get you to plead his cause with Kate,' said Mrs. Hale, with a faint laugh. ' I need all my persuasive powers in that way for myself,' said Lee boldly. Mrs. Hale rose. ' I think I hear Kate coming,' she said. Neverthe less, she did not move away. ' It is Kate coming,' she added hurriedly, stopping to pick up her work- basket, which had slipped with Lee's hand from her own. It was Kate, who at once flew to her sister's assis- SNOW-BOUND AT EAGLE'S 199 tance, Lee deploring from the sofa his own utter in ability to aid her. * It's all my fault, too,' he said to Kate, but looking at Mrs. Hale. ' It seems I have a faculty of upsetting existing arrangements without the power of im proving them, or even putting them back in their places. What shall I do ? I am willing to hold any number of skeins or rewind any quantity of spools. I am even willing to forgive Ned for spending the whole day with you, and only bringing me the wing of a hawk for supper.' ' That was all my folly, Mr. Lee,' said Kate, with swift mendacity. ' He was all the time looking after something for you, when I begged him to shoot a bird to get a feather for my hat. And that wing is so pretty.' ' It is a pity that mere beauty is not edible,' said Lee gravely, 'and that if the worst comes to the worst here, you would probably prefer me to Ned and his moustaches, merely because I've been tied by the leg to this sofa, and slowly fattened like a Strasbourg goose.' Nevertheless, his badinage failed somehow to amuse Kate, and she presently excused herself to rejoin her sister, who had already slipped from the room. For the first time during their enforced seclusion a sense of restraint and uneasiness affected Mrs. Hale, her sister, and Falkner at dinner. The latter addressed himself to Mrs. Scott almost entirely. Mrs. Hale was fain to bestow an exceptional and marked tenderness on her little daughter Minnie, who, however, by some occult childish instinct, 200 SNOW-BOUND AT EAGLE'S insisted upon sharing it with Lee her great friend to Mrs. Hale's uneasy consciousness. Nor was Lee slow to profit by the child's suggestion, but responded with certain vicarious caresses that in creased the mother's embarrassment. That evening they retired early, but in the intervals of a restless night, Kate was aware, from the sound of voices in the opposite room, that the friends were equally wakeful. A morning of bright sunshine and soft, warm air did not, however, bring any change to their new and constrained relations. It only seemed to offer a reason for Falkner to leave the house very early for his daily rounds, and gave Lee that occasion for un aided exercise with an extempore crutch on the veranda, which allowed Mrs. Hale to pursue her manifold duties without the necessity of keeping him company. Kate also, as if to avoid an accidental meeting with Falkner, had remained at home with her sister. With one exception, they did not make their guests the subject of their usual playful comments, nor, after the fashion of their sex, quote their ideas and opinions, That exception was made by Mrs. Hale. * You have had no difference with Mr. Falkner ?' she said carelessly. ' No,' said Kate quickly. Why ?' ' I only thought he seemed rather put out at dinner last night, and you didn't propose to go and meet him to-day.' ' He must be bored with my company at times, I dare say/ said Kate, with an indifference quite incon- SNOW-BOUND AT EAGLE'S 201 sistent with her rising colour. ' I shouldn't wonder if he was a little vexed with Mr. Lee's chaffing him about his sport yesterday, and probably intends to go further to-day, and bring home larger game. I think Mr. Lee very amusing always, but I sometimes fancy he lacks feeling.' ' Feeling ! You don't know him, Kate/ said Mrs. Hale quickly. She stopped herself but with a half smiling recollection in her dropped eyelids. ' Well, he doesn't look very amiable now, stamp ing up and down the veranda. Perhaps you'd better go and soothe him.' ' I'm really so busy just now,' said Mrs. Hale, with sudden and inconsequent energy ; ' things have got dreadfully behind in the last week. You had better go, Kate, and make him sit down, or he'll be over doing it. These men never know any medium in anything.' Contrary to Kate's expectation, Falkner returned earlier than usual, and taking the invalid's arm, sup ported him in a more ambitious walk along the terrace before the house. They were apparently absorbed in conversation, but the two women who observed them from the window could not help noticing the almost feminine tenderness of Falkner's manner towards his wounded friend, and the thoughtful tenderness of his ministering care. ' I wonder,' said Mrs. Hale, following them with softly appreciative eyes, ' if women are capable of as disinterested friendship as men ? I never saw any thing like the devotion of these two creatures. Look ! if Mr. Falkner hasn't got his arm round Mr. 202 SNOW-BOUND AT EAGLE'S Lee's waist, and Lee, with his own arm over Falkner's neck, is looking up in his eyes. I declare, Kate, it almost seems an indiscretion to look at them.' Kate, however, to Mrs. Rale's indignation, threw her pretty head back and sniffed the air con temptuously. { I really don't see anything but some absurd sentimentalism of their own, or some man nish wickedness they're concocting by themselves. I am by no means certain, Josephine, that Lee's influence over that young man is the best thing for him.' ' On the contrary, Lee's influence seems the only thing that checks his waywardness,' said Mrs. Hale quickly. ' I'm sure if anyone makes sacrifices, it is Lee ; I shouldn't wonder that even now he is making some concession to Falkner, and all those caressing ways of your friend are for a purpose. They're not much different from us, dear.' ' Well, 7 wouldn't stand there and let them see me looking at them, as if I couldn't bear them out of my sight for a moment,' said Kate, whisking herself out of the room. ' They're conceited enough, Heaven knows, already/ That evening, at dinner, however, the two men exhibited no trace of the restraint or uneasiness of the previous day. If they were less impulsive and exuberant, they were still frank and interested, and if the term could be used in connection with men apparently trained to neither self-control nor repose, there was a certain gentle dignity in their manner which for the time had the effect of lifting them a SNOW-BOUND AT EAGLE'S 203 little above the social level of their entertainers. For even with all their predisposition to the strangers, Kate and Mrs. Hale had always retained a conscious attitude of gentle condescension and superiority towards them an attitude not incon sistent with a stronger feeling, nor altogether un- provocative of it ; yet this evening they found themselves impressed with something more than an equality in the men who had amused and interested them, and they were perhaps a little more critical and doubtful of their own power. Mr. Hale's little girl, who had appreciated only the seriousness of the situation, had made her own application of it. 'Are you dowin' away from Aunt Kate and mamma?' she asked, in an interval of silence. ' How else can I get you the red snow we saw at sunset the other day on the peak yonder ?' said Lee gaily. ' I'll have to get up some morning very early and catch it when it comes at sunrise.' ' What is this wonderful snow, Minnie, that you are tormenting Mr. Lee for ?' asked Mrs. Hale. ' Oh ! it's a fairy snow that he told me all about ; it only comes when the sun comes up and goes down, and if you catch ever so little of it in your hand it makes all you fink you want come true ! Wouldn't that be nice ?' But to the child's astonishment her little circle of auditors, even while assenting, sighed. The red snow was there plain enough the next morning before the valley was warm with light, and while Minnie, her mother, and Aunt Kate were still peacefully sleeping. And Mr. Lee had kept his word, and was evidently seeking it, for he and 204 SNOW-BOUND AT EAGLE'S Falkner were already urging their horses through the pass, with their faces towards and lit up by its glow. CHAPTER VIII. KATE was stirring early, but not as early as her sister, who met her on the threshold of her room. Her face was quite pale, and she held a letter in her hand. ' What does this mean, Kate ?' * What is the matter ?' asked Kate, her own colour fading from her cheek. ' They are gone with their horses. Left before day, and left this.' She handed Kate an open letter. The girl took it hurriedly, and read : ' When you get this we shall be no more ; perhaps not even as much. Ned found the trail yesterday, and we are taking the first advantage of it before day. We dared not trust ourselves to say " Good bye " last evening ; we were too cowardly to face you this morning ; we must go as we came, without warning, but not without regret. We leave a pack age and a letter for your husband. It is not only our poor return for your gentleness and hospitality, but, since it was accidentally the means of giving us the pleasure of your society, we beg you to keep it in safety until his return. We kiss your mother's hands. Ned wants to say something more, but SNOW-BOUND AT EAGLE'S 205 time presses, and I only allow him to send his love to Minnie, and to tell her that he is trying to find the red snow. * GEORGE LEE.' 'But he is not fit to travel,' said Mrs. Hale. ' And the trail it may not be passable.' * It was passable the day before yesterday,' said Kate drearily, ' for I discovered it, and went as far as the buck-eyes.' ' Then, it was you who told them about it,' said Mrs. Hale reproachfully. ' No,' said Kate indignantly. ' Of course I didn't.' She stopped, and, reading the significance of her speech in the glistening eyes of her sister, she blushed. Josephine kissed her, and said : ' It was treating us like children, Kate, but we must make them pay for it hereafter. For that package and letter to John mean something, and we shall probably see them before long. I wonder what the letter is about, and what is in the package ?' ' Probably one of Mr. Lee's jokes. He is quite capable of turning the whole thing into ridicule. I dare say he considers his visit here a prolonged jest.' * With his poor leg, Kate ? You are as unfair to him as you were to Falkner when they first came.' Kate, however, kept her dark eyebrows knitted in a piquant frown. ' To think of his intimating what he would allow Falkner to say ! And yet you believe he has no evil influence over the young man.' 206 SNOW-BOUND AT EAGLE'S Mrs. Hale laughed. ' Where are you going so fast, Kate ?' she called mischievously, as the young lady flounced out of the room. ' Where ? Why, to tidy John's room. He may be coming at any moment now. Or do you want to do it yourself?' ' No, no,' returned Mrs. Hale hurriedly ; ' you do it. I'll look in a little later on.' She turned away with a sigh. The sun was shining brilliantly outside. Through the half-open blinds its long shafts seemed to be searching the house for the lost guests, and making the hollow shell appear doubly empty. What a contrast to the dear dark days of mysterious seclusion and delicious security, lit by Lee's laughter and the sparkling hearth, which had passed so quickly ! The for gotten outer world seemed to have returned to the house through those open windows and awakened its dwellers from a dream. The morning seemed interminable, and it was past noon, while they were deep in a sympathetic conference with Mrs. Scott, who had drawn a pathetic word-picture of the two friends perishing in the snowdrift, without flannels, brandy, smelling- salts, or jelly, which they had forgotten, when they were startled by the loud barking of Spot on the lawn before the house. The women looked hur riedly at each other. ' They have returned/ said Mrs. Hale. Kate ran to the window. A horseman was ap proaching the house. A single glance showed her SNOW-BOUND AT EAGLE'S 207 that it was neither Falkner, Lee, nor Hale, but a stranger. ' Perhaps he brings some news of them,' said Mrs. Scott quickly. So complete had been their preoccupation with the loss of their guests, that they could not yet conceive of anything that did not pertain to it. The stranger, who was at once ushered into the parlour, was evidently disconcerted by the presence of the three women. ' I reckoned to see John Hale yer,' he began awkwardly. A slight look of disappointment passed over their faces. * He has not yet returned,' said Mrs. Hale briefly. ' Sho ! I wanter know. He's hed time to do it, I reckon/ said the stranger. ' I suppose he hasn't been able to get over from the summit,' returned Mrs. Hale. ' The trail is closed.' ' It ain't now, for I kem over it this mornin' myself.' ' You didn't meet anyone ?' asked Mrs. Hale timidly, with a glance at the others. 'No.' A long silence ensued. The unfortunate visitor plainly perceived an evident abatement of interest in himself, yet he still struggled politely to say something. 'Then I reckon you know what kept Hale away ?' he said dubiously. ' Oh, certainly the stage robbery.' 208 SNOW-BOUND AT EAGLE'S ' I wish I'd known that,' said the stranger re flectively, ' for I ez good ez rode over jist to tell it to ye. Ye see John Hale he sent a note to ye 'splainin' matters by a gentleman ; but the road agents tackled that man, and left him for dead in the road.' * Yes/ said Mrs. Hale impatiently. * Luckily he didn't die, but kem to, and managed to crawl inter the brush, whar I found him when I was lookin' for stock, and brought him to my house ' ' You found him ? Your house ?' interrupted Mrs. Hale. ' Inter my house,' continued the man doggedly. ' I'm Thompson, of Thompson's Pass, over yon ; mebbe it ain't much of a house, but I brought him thar. Well, ez he couldn't find the note that Hale had guv him, and like ez not the road agents had gone through him and got it, ez soon ez the weather let up I made a break over yer to tell ye.' ' You say Mr. Lee came to your house,' repeated Mrs. Hale, ' and is there now ?' * Not much,' said the man grimly ; * and I never said Lee was thar. I mean that Bilson waz shot by Lee and kem ' * Certainly, Josephine !' said Kate, suddenly step ping between her sister and Thompson, and turning upon her a white face and eyes of silencing signifi cance ; ' certainly don't you remember ? that's the story we got from the Chinaman, you know, only muddled. Go on, sir,' she continued, turning to Thompson calmly ; ' you say that the man who brought the note from my brother was shot by Lee ?' SNOW-BOUND AT EAGLE'S 209 'And another fellow they call Falkner. Yes, that's about the size of it.' ' Thank you ; it's nearly the same story that we heard. But you have had a long ride, Mr. Thomp son ; let me offer you a glass of whisky in the dining-room. This way, please.' The door closed upon them none too soon. For Mrs. Hale already felt the room whirling around her, and sank back into her chair with a hysterical laugh. Old Mrs. Scott did not move from her seat, but, with her eyes fixed on the door, impatiently waited Kate's return. Neither spoke, but each felt that the young untried girl was equal to the emer gency, and would get at the truth. The sound of Thompson's feet in the hall and the closing of the front-door was followed by Kate's reappearance. Her face was still pale, but calm. ' Well,' said the two women in a breath. ' Well/ returned Kate slowly ; ' Mr. Lee and Mr. Falkner were undoubtedly the two men who took the paper from John's messenger and brought it here.' * You are sure ?' said Mrs. Scott. ' There can be no mistake, mother.' ' Then,' said Mrs. Scott with triumphant feminine logic, ' I don't want anything more to satisfy me that they are perfectly innocent /' More convincing than the most perfect masculine deduction, this single expression of their common nature sent a thrill of sympathy and understanding through each. They cried for a few moments on each other's shoulders. 210 SNOW-BOUND AT EAGLE'S ' To think,' said Mrs. Scott, * what that poor boy must have suffered to have been obliged to do that to to Bilson isn't that the creature's name ? I suppose we ought to send over there and inquire after him, with some chicken and jelly, Kate. It's only common humanity, and we must be just, my dear ; for even if he shot Mr. Lee and provoked the poor boy to shoot him, he may have thought it his duty. And, then, it will avert suspicion.' * To think,' murmured Mrs. Hale, ' what they must have gone through while they were here momentarily expecting John to come, and yet keep ing up such a light heart.' ' I believe if they had stayed any longer, they would have told us everything,' said Mrs. Scott. Both the younger women were silent. Kate was thinking of Falkner's significant speech as they neared the house on their last walk ; Josephine was recalling the remorseful picture drawn by Lee, which she now knew was his own portrait. Suddenly she started. ' But John will be here soon ; what are we to tell him ? and then that package and that letter.' ' Don't be in a hurry to tell him anything at present, my child,' said Mrs. Scott gently. ' It is unfortunate this Mr. Thompson called here, but we are not obliged to understand what he says now about John's message, or to connect our visitors with his story. I'm sure, Kate, I should have treated them exactly as we did if they had come without any message from John so I do not know why we should lay any stress on that, or even speak of it. SNOW-BOUND AT EAGLE'S 211 The simple fact is, that we have opened our house to two strangers in distress. Your husband,' continued Mrs. Hale's mother-in-law, ' does not require to know more. As to the letter and package, we will keep that for further consideration. It cannot be of much importance, or they would have spoken of it before ; it is probably some trifling present as a return for your hospitality. I should use no inde corous haste in having it opened.' The two women kissed Mrs. Scott with a feeling of relief, and fell back into the monotony of their household duties. It is to be feared, however, that the absence of their outlawed guests was nearly as dangerous as their presence in the opportunity it afforded for uninterrupted and imaginative reflection. Both Kate and Josephine were at first shocked and wounded by the discovery of the real character of the two men with whom they had associated so familiarly ; but it was no disparagement to their sense of propriety to say that the shock did not last long, and was accompanied with the fascination of danger. This was succeeded by a consciousness of the delicate flattery implied in their indirect influence over the men who had undoubtedly risked their lives for the sake of remaining with them. The best woman is not above being touched by the effect of her power over the worst man, and Kate at first allowed herself to think of Falkner in that light. But if in her later reflections he suffered as a heroic experience to be forgotten, he gained some thing as an actual man to be remembered. Now 212 SNOW-BOUND AT EAGLE'S that the proposed rides from * his friend's house ' were a part of the illusion, would he ever dare to visit them again ? Would she dare to see him ? She held her breath with a sudden pain of parting that was new to her ; she tried to think of something else, to pick up the scattered threads of her life before that eventful day. But in vain. That one week had rilled the place with implacable memories, or more terrible, as it seemed to her and her sister, they had both lost their feeble, alien hold upon Eagle's Court in the sudden presence of the real genii of these soli tudes, and henceforth they alone would be the strangers there. They scarcely dared to confess it to each other, but this return to the dazzling sunlight and cloud less skies of the past appeared to them to be the one unreal experience ; they had never known the true wild flavour of their home, except in that week of delicious isolation. Without breathing it aloud, they longed for some vague denouement to this experience that should take them from Eagle's Court for ever. It was noon the next day when the little house hold beheld the last shred of their illusion vanish like the melting snow in the strong sunlight of John Kale's return. He was accompanied by Colonel Clinch and Rawlins two strangers to the women. Was it fancy, or the avenging spirit of their absent companions ? but he too looked a stranger, and as the little cavalcade wound its way up the slope he appeared to sit his horse and wear his hat with a certain slouch and absence of his usual restraint that strangely shocked them. SNOW-BOUND AT EAGLE'S 213 Even the old half-condescending, half-punctilious gallantry of his greeting of his wife and family was changed, as he introduced his companions with a mingling of familiarity and shyness that was new to him. Did Mrs. Hale regret it, or feel a sense of relief in the absence of his usual seignorial formality? She only knew that she was grateful for the pre sence of the strangers, which for the moment post poned a matrimonial confidence from which she shrunk. * Proud to know you,' said Colonel Clinch, with a sudden outbreak of the antique gallantry of some remote Huguenot ancestor. 'My friend, Judge Hale, must be a regular Roman citizen to leave such a family and such a house at the call of public duty. Eh, Rawlins ?' ' You bet,' said Rawlins, looking from Kate to her sister in undisguised admiration. * And I suppose the duty could not have been a very pleasant one,' said Mrs. Hale timidly, without looking at her husband. 'Gad! madam, that's just it/ said the gallant Colonel, seating himself with a comfortable air, and an easy, though by no means disrespectful, familiarity. ' We went into this fight a little more than a week ago. The only scrimmage we've had has been with the detectives that were on the robbers' track. Ha ! ha ! The best people we've met have been the friends of the man we were huntin', and we've generally come to the conclusion to vote the other ticket. Ez Judge Hale and me agreed ez we came along, the two men ez we'd most like to see just now and 214 SNOW-BOUND AT EAGLE'S shake hands with are George Lee and Ned Falkner.' ' The two leaders of the party who robbed the coach/ explained Mr. Hale, with a slight return of his usual precision of statement. The three women looked at each other with a blaze of thanksgiving in their grateful eyes. With out comprehending all that Colonel Clinch had said, they understood enough to know that their late guests were safe from the pursuit of that party, and that their own conduct was spared criticism. I hardly dare write it, but they instantly assumed the appearance of aggrieved martyrs, and felt as if they were. ' Yes, ladies/ continued the Colonel, inspired by the bright eyes fixed upon him. ' We haven't taken the road ourselves yet, but 'pon honour we wouldn't mind doing it in a case like this.' Then, with the fluent, but somewhat exaggerated phraseology of a man trained to ' stump ' speaking, he gave an account of the robbery and his own con nection with it. He spoke of the swindling and treachery which had undoubtedly provoked Falkner to obtain restitution of his property by an overt act of violence under the leadership of Lee. He added that he had learned since at Wild Cat Station that Harkins had fled the country ; that a suit had been commenced by the Excelsior Ditch Company, and that all available property of Harkins had been seized by the Sheriff. ' Of course, it can't be proved yet, but there's no doubt in my mind that Lee, who is an old friend of SNOW-BOUND AT EAGLE'S 215 Ned Falkner's, got up that job to help him, and that Ned's off with the money by this time and I'm right glad of it. I can't say ez we've done much towards it, except to keep tumbling in the way of that detec tive party of Stanner's, and so throw them off the trail ha, ha ! The Judge here, I reckon, has had his share of fun, for, while he was at Hennicker's trying to get some facts from Hennicker's pretty daughter, Stanner tried to get up some sort of vigilance committee of the stage passengers to burn down Hennicker's ranch out of spite, but the Judge here stepped in and stopped that.' ' It was really a high-handed proceeding, Josephine, but I managed to check it,' said Hale, meeting some what consciously the first direct look his wife had cast upon him, and falling back for support on his old manner. ' In its way, I think it was worse than the robbery by Lee and Falkner, for it was done in the name of law and order ; while, as far as I can judge from the facts, the affair that we were follow ing up was simply a rude and irregular restitution of property that had been morally stolen.' ' I have no doubt you did quite right, though I don't understand it,' said Mrs. Hale languidly ; ' but I trust these gentlemen will stay to luncheon, and in the meantime excuse us for running away, as we are short of servants, and Manuel seems to have followed the example of the head of the house, and left us in pursuit of somebody or something.' When the three women had gained the vantage ground of the drawing-room, Kate said earnestly : ' As it's all right, hadn't we better tell him now?' 216 SNOW-BOUND AT EAGLE'S ' Decidedly not, child,' said Mrs. Scott impera tively. ' Do you suppose they are in a hurry to tell us their whole story ? Who are those Hen- nicker people ? And they were there a week ago!' * And did you notice John's hat when he came in, and the vulgar familiarity of calling him "judge"?' said Mrs. Hale. ' Well, certainly anything like the familiarity of this man Clinch 7 never saw,' said Kate. ' Contrast his manner with Mr. Falkner's !' At luncheon the three suffering martyrs finally suc ceeded in reducing Hale and his two friends to an attitude of vague apology. But their triumph was short-lived. At the end of the meal they were startled by the trampling of hoofs without, followed by loud knocking. In another moment the door was opened, and Mr. Stanner strode into the room. Hale rose with a look of indignation. * I thought, as Mr. Stanner understood that I had no desire for his company elsewhere, he would hardly venture to intrude upon me in my house, and certainly not after ' ' Ef you're alluding to the Vigilantes shakin' you and Zeenie up at Hennicker's, you can't make me responsible for that. I'm here now on business, you understand reg'lar business. Ef you want to see the papers, yer ken. I suppose you know what a warrant is ?' ' I know what you are !' said Hale hotly, ' and if you don't leave my house ' ' Steady, boys !' interrupted Stanner, as his five SNOW-BOUND AT EAGLE'S 217 henchmen filed into the hall. ' There's no backin' down here, Colonel Clinch, unless you and Hale kalkilate to back down the State of Californy ! The matter stands like this. There's a half-bred Mexican called Manuel arrested over at the summit, who swears he saw George Lee and Edward Falkner in this house the night after the robbery. He says that they were makin' themselves at home here, as if they were among friends, and, considerin' the kind of help we've had from Mr. John Hale, it looks ez if it might be true.' ' It's an infamous lie !' said Hale. ' It may be true, John,' said Mrs. Scott, suddenly stepping in front of her pale-cheeked daughters. 'A wounded man was brought here out of the storm by his friend, who claimed the shelter of your roof. As your mother, I should have been unworthy to stay beneath it and have denied that shelter, or withheld it until I knew his name and what he was. He stayed here until he could be removed. He left a letter for you. It will probably tell you if he was the man this person is seeking.' ' Thank you, mother,' said Hale, lifting her hand to his lips quietly ; ' and perhaps you will kindly tell these gentlemen that, as your son does not care to know who or what the stranger was, there is no necessity for opening the letter, or keeping Mr. Stanner a moment longer.' * But you will oblige me, John, by opening it be fore these gentlemen,' said Mrs. Hale, recovering her voice and colour. ' Please to follow me,' she said, preceding them to the staircase. 2i8 SNOW-BOUND AT EAGLE'S They entered Mr. Hale's room, now restored to its original condition. On the table lay a letter and a small package. The eyes of Mr. Stanner, a little abashed by the attitude of the two women, fastened upon it and glistened. Josephine handed her husband the letter. He opened it in breathless silence, and read : 'JOHN HALE, * We owe you no return for voluntarily making yourself a champion of justice and pursuing us, except it was to offer you a fair field and no favour. We didn't get that much from you, but accident brought us into your house and into your family, where we did get it, and were fairly vanquished. To the victors belong the spoils. We leave the package of greenbacks which we took from Colonel Clinch in the Sierra coach, but which was first stolen by Harkins from forty-four shareholders of the Excel sior Ditch. We have no right to say what you should do with it, but if you aren't tired of following the same line of justice that induced you to run after us, you will try to restore it to its rightful owners. ' We leave you another trifle as an evidence that our intrusion into your affairs was not without some service to you, even if the service was as accidental as the intrusion. You will find a pair of boots in the corner of your closet. They were taken from the burglarious feet of Manuel, your peon, who, be lieving the three ladies were alone and at his mercy, entered your house with an accomplice at two SNOW-BOUND AT EAGLE'S 219 o'clock on the morning of the 2ist, and was kicked out by ' Your obedient servants, ' GEORGE LEE and ' EDWARD FALKNER.' Rale's voice and colour changed on reading this last paragraph. He turned quickly towards his wife ; Kate flew to the closet, where the muffled boots of Manuel confronted them. * We never knew it. I always suspected some thing that night,' said Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Scott in the same breath. ' That's all very well, and like George Lee's high falutin',' said Stanner, approaching the table; 'but as long ez the greenbacks are here, he can make what capital he likes outer Manuel. I'll trouble you to pass that package.' ' Excuse me,' said Hale, ' but I believe this is the package taken from Colonel Clinch. Is it not ?' he added, appealing to the Colonel. ' It is, 5 said Clinch. ' Then take it,' said Hale, handing him the pack age. ' The first restitution is to you, but I believe you will fulfil Lee's instructions as well as myself.' ' But,' said Stanner, furiously interposing, ' I've a warrant to seize that, wherever found, and I dare you to disobey the law.' ' Mr. Stanner,' said Clinch slowly, * there are ladies present. If you insist upon having that package, I must ask them to withdraw, and I'm afraid you'll find me better prepared to resist a second robbery 220 SNOW-BOUND AT EAGLE'S than I was the first. Your warrant, which was taken out by the express company, is supplanted by civil proceedings taken the day before yesterday against the property of the fugitive swindler Harkins ! You should have consulted the Sheriff before you came here.' Stanner saw his mistake. But in the face of his grinning followers he was obliged to keep up his bluster. ' You shall hear from me again, sir,' he said, turning on his heel. ' I beg 3'our pardon,' said Clinch grimly, ' but do I understand that at last I am to have the honour ' ' You shall hear from the company's lawyers, sir,' said Stanner, turning red, and noisily leaving the room. ' And so, my dear ladies,' said Colonel Clinch, ' you have spent a week with a highwayman. I say a highwayman, for it would be hard to call my young friend Falkner by that name for his first offence, committed under great provocation, and undoubtedly instigated by Lee, who was an old friend of his, and to whom he came, no doubt, in desperation.' Kate stole a triumphant glance at her sister, who dropped her lids over her glistening eyes. * And this Mr. Lee,' she continued more gently, ' is he really a highwayman ?' ' George Lee,' said Clinch, settling himself back oratorically in his chair, ' my dear young lady, is a highwayman, but not of the common sort. He is a gentleman born, madam ; comes from one of the SNOW-BOUND AT EAGLE'S 221 oldest families of the eastern shore of Maryland. He never mixes himself up with anything but some of the biggest strikes, and he's an educated man. He is very popular with ladies and children ; he was never known to do or say anything that could bring a blush to the cheek of beauty or a tear to the eye of inno cence. I think I may say I'm sure you found him so.' ' I shall never believe him anything but a gentle man,' said Mrs. Scott firmly. ' If he has a defect, it is perhaps a too reckless indulgence in draw poker,' said the Colonel musingly, ' not unbecoming a gentleman, understand me, Mrs. Scott, but perhaps too reckless for his own good. George played a grand game, a glittering game but pardon me if I say an uncertain game. I've told him so ; it's the only point on which we ever differed.' * Then you know him ?' said Mrs. Hale, lifting her soft eyes to the Colonel. ' I have that honour.' ' Did his appearance, Josephine/ broke in Hale, somewhat ostentatiously, ' appear to er er corre spond with these qualities ? You know what I mean ?' ' He certainly seemed very simple and natural,' said Mrs. Hale, slightly drawing her pretty lips together. ' He did not wear his trousers rolled up over his boots in the company of ladies, as you're doing now, nor did he make his first appearance in this house with such a hat as you wore this morning, or I should not have admitted him/ 222 SNOW-BOUND AT EAGLE'S There were a few moments of embarrassing silence. ' Do you intend to give that package to Mr. Falkner yourself, Colonel ?' asked Mrs. Scott. ' I shall hand it over to the Excelsior Company,' said the Colonel, ' but I shall inform Ned of what I have done.' * Then/ said Mrs. Scott, ' will you kindly take a message from us to him ?' ' If you wish it.' ' You will be doing me a great favour, Colonel,' said Hale politely. Whatever the message was, six months later it brought Edward Falkner, the re-established super intendent of the Excelsior Ditch, to Eagle's Court. As he and Kate stood again on the plateau looking towards the distant slopes, once more green with verdure, Falkner said : ' Everything here looks as it did the first day I saw it, except your sister.' ' The place does not agree with her,' said Kate hurriedly. ' That is why my brother thinks of leaving it before the winter sets in.' ' It seems so sad,' said Falkner, ' for the last words poor George said to me, as he left to join his cousin's corps at Richmond, were : " If I'm not killed, Ned, I hope some day to stand again beside Mrs. Hale at the window in Eagle's Court and watch you and Kate coming home." ' A MILLIONAIRE OF ROUGH-AND- READY A MILLIONAIRE OF ROUGH- AND-READY PROLOGUE. THERE was no mistake this time : he had struck gold at last ! It had lain there before him a moment ago a misshapen piece of brown-stained quartz, inter spersed with dull yellow metal, yielding enough to have allowed the point of his pick to penetrate its honeycombed recesses, yet heavy enough to drop from the point of his pick as he endeavoured to lift it from the red earth. He was seeing all this plainly, although he found himself, he knew not why, at some distance from the scene of his discovery, his heart foolishly beating, his breath impotently hurried. Yet he was walking slowly and vaguely, conscious of stopping and staring at the landscape, which no longer looked familiar to him. He was hoping for some instinct or force of habit to recall him to himself, yet when he saw a neighbour at work in an adjacent claim, he 15 226 A MILLIONAIRE hesitated, and then turned his back upon him. Yet only a moment before he had thought of running to him, saying, 'By Jingo ! I've struck it !' or, ' D n it, old man, I've got it ! J But that moment had passed, and now it seemed to him that he could scarce raise his voice, or, if he did, the ejaculation would appear forced and artificial. Neither could he go over to him coolly and tell his good fortune ; and, partly from this strange shyness, and partly with a hope that another survey of the treasure might restore him to natural expression, he walked back to his tunnel. Yes, it was there ! No mere ' pocket ' or * deposit,' but a part of the actual vein he had been so long seeking. It was there, sure enough, lying beside the pick and the debris of the * face ' of the vein that he had exposed sufficiently, after the first shock of discovery, to assure himself of the fact and the permanence of his fortune. It was there, and with it the refutation of his enemies' sneers, the corroboration of his friends' belief, the practical demonstration of his own theories, the reward of his patient labours. It was there, sure enough. But, somehow, he not only failed to recall the first joy of discovery, but was conscious of a vague sense ol responsibility and unrest. It was, no doubt, an enormous fortune to a man in his circumstances ; perhaps it meant a couple of hundred thousand dollars or more, judging from the value of the old Martin lead, which was not as rich as this ; but it required to be worked cautiously and judiciously. It was with a decided sense of uneasiness that he OF ROUGH-AND-READY 227 again sought the open sunlight of the hillside. His neighbour was still visible on the adjacent claim ; but he had apparently stopped working, and was contemplatively smoking a pipe under a large pine- tree. For an instant he envied him his apparent contentment. He had a sudden fierce and inexplic able desire to go over to him and exasperate his easy poverty by a revelation of his own difficult treasure. But even that sensation quickly passed, and left him staring blankly at the landscape again. As soon as he had made his discovery known, and settled its value, he would send for his wife and children from the States. He would build a fine house on the opposite hillside, if she would consent to it, unless she preferred, for the children's sake, to live in San Francisco. A sense of a loss of inde pendence, of a change of circumstances that left him no longer his own master, began to perplex him in the midst of his brightest projects. Certain other relations with other members of his family, which had lapsed by absence and his insignificance, must now be taken up anew. He must do something for his sister Jane, for his brother William, for his wife's poor connections. It would be unfair to him to say that he contemplated those things with any other instinct than that of generosity; yet he was conscious of being already perplexed and puzzled. Meantime, however, the neighbour had apparently finished his pipe, and, knocking the ashes out of it, rose suddenly, and ended any further uncertainty of their meeting by walking over directly towards him. 228 A MILLIONAIRE The treasure-finder advanced a few steps on his side, and then stopped irresolutely. ' Hallo, Slinn !' said the neighbour confidently. ' Hallo, Masters,' responded Slinn faintly. From the sound of the two voices a stranger might have mistaken their relative condition. * What in thunder are you mooning about for ?' asked Masters. ' What's up ?' Then, catching sight of Slinn's pale and anxious face, he added abruptly : * Are you sick ?' Slinn was on the point of telling him his good fortune, but stopped. The unlucky question con firmed his consciousness of his own physical and mental disturbance, and he dreaded the ready ridicule of his companion. He would tell him later ; Masters need not know when he had made the strike. Besides, in his present vagueness he shrank from the brusque, practical questioning that would be sure to follow the revelation to a man of Masters' temperament. ' I'm a little giddy here,' he answered, putting his hand to his head, * and I thought I'd knock off until I was better.' Masters examined him with two very critical gray eyes. ' Tell ye what, old man : if you don't quit this dog-goned foolin' of yours in that God-forsaken tunnel you'll get looney ! Times you get so tangled up in follerin' that blind lead o' yours you ain't sensible !' Here was the opportunity to tell him all, and vindicate the justice of his theories ! But he shrank from it again ; and now, adding to the confusion, OF ROUGH-AND-READY 229 was a singular sense of dread at the mental labour of explanation. He only smiled painfully, and began to move away. 4 Look yer !' said Masters peremptorily, 'ye want about three fingers of straight whisky to set you right, and you've got to take it with me. D n it, man, it may be the last drink we take together ! Don't look so skeered ! I mean, I made up my mind about ten minutes ago to cut the whole d d thing, and light out for fresh diggings. I'm sick of getting only grub wages out o' this hill. So that's what I mean by saying it's the last drink you and me'll take together. You know my ways : sayin' and doin' with me's the same thing.' It was true. Slinn had often envied Masters' promptness of decision and resolution. But he only looked at the grim face of his interlocutor with a feeble sense of relief. He was going I And he, Slinn, would not have to explain anything ! He murmured something about having to go over to the settlement on business. He dreaded lest Masters should insist upon going into the tunnel. ' I suppose you want to mail that letter/ said Masters dryly. * The mail don't go till to-morrow, so you've got time to finish it, and put it in an envelope.' Following the direction of Masters' eyes, Slinn looked down and saw, to his utter surprise, that he was holding an unfinished pencilled note in his hand. How it came there, when he had written it, he could not tell ; he dimly remembered that one of his first impulses was to write to his wife ; but that 230 A MILLIONAIRE he had already done so, he had forgotten. He hastily concealed the note in his breast-pocket, with a vacant smile. Masters eyed him half contemptu ously, half compassionately. * Don't forget yourself and drop it in some hollow tree for a letter-box/ he said. * Well, so long ! since you won't drink. Take care of yourself,' and, turning on his heel, Masters walked away. Slinn watched him as he crossed over to his abandoned claim, saw him gather his few mining utensils, strap his blanket over his back, lift his hat on his long-handled shovel as a token of farewell, and then stride light-heartedly over the ridge. He was alone now with his secret and his treasure. The only man in the world who knew of the exact position of his tunnel had gone away for ever. It was not likely that this chance companion of a few weeks would ever remember him or the locality again ; he could now leave his treasure alone for even a day perhaps until he had thought out some plan and sought out some friend in whom to confide. His secluded life, the singular habits of concentration which had at last proved so successful, had, at the same time, left him few acquaintances and no asso ciates. And into all his well-laid plans and patiently- digested theories for finding the treasure, the means and methods of working it and disposing of it had never entered. And now, at the hour when he most needed his faculties, what was the meaning of this strange be numbing of them ? Patience! He only wanted a little rest a little OF ROUGH-AND-READY 231 time to recover himself. There was a large boulder under a tree in the highway to the settlement a sheltered spot where he had often waited for the coming of the stage-coach. He would go there, and when he was sufficiently rested and composed, he would go on. Nevertheless, on his way he diverged and turned into the woods for no other apparent purpose than to find a hollow tree. ' A hollow tree.' Yes ; that was what Masters had said ; he remembered it dis tinctly ; and something was to be done there ; but what it was, or why it should be done, he could not tell. However, it was done, and very luckily, for his limbs could scarcely support him further, and reach ing a boulder, he dropped upon it like another stone. And now, strange to say, the uneasiness and per plexity which had possessed him ever since he had stood before his revealed wealth, dropped from him like a burden laid upon the wayside. A measureless peace stole over him, in which visions of his new found fortune, no longer a trouble and perplexity, but crowned with happiness and blessing to all around him, assumed proportions far beyond his own weak, selfish plans. In its even-handed bene faction, his wife and children, his friends and rela tions, even his late poor companion of the hillside, met and moved harmoniously together; in its far- reaching consequences there was only the influence of good. It was not strange that this poor finite mind should never have conceived the meaning of the wealth extended to him ; or that, conceiving it, 232 A MILLIONAIRE he should faint and falter under the revelation. Enough that for a few minutes he must have tasted a joy of perfect anticipation that years of actual possession might never bring. The sun seemed to go down in a rosy dream of his own happiness, as he still sat there. Later, the shadows of the trees thickened and surrounded him, and still later fell the calm of a quiet evening sky with far-spaced passionless stars, that seemed as little troubled by what they looked upon as he was by the stealthy creeping life in the grasses and under brush at his feet. The dull patter of soft little feet in the soft dust of the road ; the gentle gleam of moist and wondering little eyes on the branches, and in the mossy edges of the boulder, did not disturb him. He sat patiently through it all, as if he had not yet made up his mind. But when the stage came with the flashing sun the next morning, and the irresistible clamour of life and action, the driver suddenly laid his four spirited horses on their haunches before the quiet spot. The express messenger clambered down from the box, and approached what seemed to be a heap of cast-off clothes upon the boulder. * He don't seem to be drunk,' he said, in reply to a querulous interrogation from the passengers. * I can't make him out. His eyes are open ; but he cannot speak or move. Take a look at him, Doc/ A rough, unprofessional-looking man here de scended from the inside of the coach, and carelessly thrusting aside the other curious passengers, suddenly OF ROUGH-AND-READY 233 leant over the heap of clothes in a professional atti tude. * He is dead,' said one of the passengers. The rough man let the passive head sink softly down again. ' No such luck for him,' he said curtly, but not unkindly. ' It's a stroke of paralysis and about as big as they make 'em. It's a toss-up if he speaks or moves again as long as he lives.' CHAPTER I. WHEN Alvin Mulrady announced his intention of growing potatoes and garden ' truck ' on the green slopes of Los Gatos, the mining community of that region, and the adjacent hamlet of ' Rough-and- Ready,' regarded it with the contemptuous indiffer ence usually shown by those adventurers towards all bucolic pursuits. There was certainly no active objection to the occupation of two hillsides, which gave so little promise to the prospector for gold that it was currently reported that a single prospector, called ' Slinn,' had once gone mad or imbecile through repeated failures. The only opposition came, incongruously enough, from the original pastoral owner of the soil, one Don Ramon Alva- rado, whose claim for seven leagues of hill and valley, including the now prosperous towns of Rough-and-Ready and Red Dog, was met with simple derision from the squatters and miners. ' Looks ez ef we woz goin' to travel three thousand 234 A MILLIONAIRE miles to open up his d d old wilderness, and then pay for the increased valoo we give it don't it ? Oh, yes, certainly !' was their ironical commentary. Mulrady might have been pardoned for adopting this popular opinion ; but by an equally incongruous sentiment, peculiar, however, to the man, he called upon Don Ramon, and actually offered to purchase the land, or ' go shares ' with him in the agricultural profits. It was alleged that the Don was so struck with this concession, that he not only granted the land, but struck up a quaint, reserved friendship for the simple-minded agriculturist and his family. It is scarcely necessary to add that this intimacy was viewed by the miners with the contempt that it deserved. They would have been more contemptu ous, however, had they known the opinion that Don Ramon entertained of their particular vocation, which he early confided to Mulrady. ' They are savages who expect to reap where they have not sown ; to take out of the earth without returning anything to it but their precious carcases ; heathens, who worship the mere stones they dig up.' * And was there no Spaniard who ever dug gold ?' asked Mulrady simply. ' Ah, there are Spaniards and Moors,' responded Don Ramon sententiously. ' Gold has been dug, and by caballeros ; but no good ever came of it. There were Alvaradoes in Sonora, look you, who had mines of silver, and worked them with peons and mules, and lost their money a gold mine to work a silver one like gentlemen ! But this grubbing in the dirt with one's fingers that a little gold may stick OF ROUGH-AND-READY 235 to them, it is not for caballeros. And, then, one says nothing of the curse.' 'The curse !' echoed Mary Mulrady, with youthful feminine superstition. ' What is that ?' ' You knew not, friend Mulrady, that when these lands were given to my ancestors by Charles V., the Bishop of Monterey laid a curse upon any who should desecrate them. Good ! Let us see ! Of the three Americanos who founded yonder town, one was shot, another died of fever poisoned, you understand, by the soil and the last got himself crazy of aguardiente. Even the scientific,* who came here years ago and spied into the trees and the herbs, he was afterwards punished for his profana tion, and died of an accident in other lands. But,' added Don Ramon, with grave courtesy, ' this touches not yourself. Through me, you are of the soil.' Indeed, it would seem as if a secure, if not a rapid, prosperity was the result of Don Ramon's manorial patronage. The potato patch and market-garden flourished exceedingly ; the rich soil responded with magnificent vagaries of growth ; the even sunshine set the seasons at defiance with extraordinary and premature crops. The salt pork and biscuit consum ing settlers did not allow their contempt of Mulrady's occupation to prevent their profiting by this oppor tunity for changing their diet. The gold they had taken from the soil presently began to flow into his * Don Ramon probably alluded to the eminent naturalist Douglas, who visited California before the gold excitement, and died of an accident in the Sandwich Islands, 236 A MILLIONAIRE pockets in exchange for his more modest treasures. The little cabin, which barely sheltered his family a wife, son and daughter was enlarged, extended, and refitted, but in turn abandoned for a more pre tentious house on the opposite hill. A white-washed fence replaced the rudely-split rails which had kept out the wilderness. By degrees, the first evidences of cultivation the gashes of red soil, the piles of brush and undergrowth, the bared boulders and heaps of stone melted away, and were lost under a carpet of lighter green, which made an oasis in the tawny desert of wild oats on the hillside. Water was the only free boon denied this Garden of Eden ; what was necessary for irrigation had to be brought from a mining ditch at great expense, and was of insufficient quantity. In this emergency Mulrady thought of sinking an artesian well on the sunny slope beside his house ; not, however, without serious consultation and much objection from his Spanish patron. With great austerity Don Ramon pointed out that this trifling with the entrails of the earth was not only an indignity to Nature almost equal to shaft-sinking and tunnelling, but was a dis turbance of vested interests. ' I and my fathers San Diego rest them!' said Don Ramon, crossing himself ' were content with wells and cisterns, filled by Heaven at its appointed seasons ; the cattle, dumb brutes though they were, knew where to find water when they wanted it. But thou sayest truly,' he added, with a sigh, ' that was before streams and rivers were choked with hellish engines, and poisoned with their spume. Go on, 6F ROUGH-AND-READY 237 friend Mulrady, dig and bore if thou wilt, but in a seemly fashion, and not with impious earthquakes and devilish gunpowder.' With this concession Alvin Mulrady began to sink his first artesian shaft. Being debarred the aux iliaries of steam and gunpowder, the work went on slowly. The market-garden did not suffer mean time, as Mulrady had employed two Chinamen to take charge of the ruder tillage while he superin tended the engineering work of the well. This trifling incident marked an epoch in the social con dition of the family. Mrs. Mulrady at once assumed a conscious importance among her neighbours. She spoke of her husband's * men ' ; she alluded to the well as ' the works ' ; she checked the easy frontier familiarity of her customers with pretty Mary Mul rady, her seventeen-year-old daughter. Simple Alvin Mulrady looked with astonishment at this sudden development of the germ planted in all feminine nature to expand in the slightest sunshine of pros perity. ' Look yer, Malviny ; ain't ye rather puttin' on airs with the boys that want to be civil to Mamie ? Like as not one of 'em may be makin' up to her already.' ' You don't mean to say, Alvin Mulrady,' responded Mrs. Mulrady with sudden severity, ' that you ever thought of givin' your daughter to a common miner ; or that I'm goin' to allow her to marry out of our own set ?' ' Our own set !' echoed Mulrady feebly, blinking at her in astonishment, and then glancing hurriedly 238 A MILLIONAIRE across at his freckle-faced son and the two China men at work in the cabbages. * Oh, you know what I mean,' said Mrs. Mulrady sharply ' the set that we move in. The Alvarados and their friends ! Doesn't the old Don come here every day ? and ain't his son the right age for Mamie ? And ain't they the real first families here all the same as if they were noblemen ? No ; leave Mamie to me, and keep to your shaft ; there never was a man yet had the least sabe about these things, or knew what was due to his family.' Like most of his larger-minded, but feebly- equipped, sex, Mulrady was too glad to accept the truth of the latter proposition, which left the mean nesses of life to feminine manipulation, and went off to his shaft on the hillside. But during that afternoon he was perplexed and troubled. He was too loyal a husband not to be pleased with this proof of an unexpected and superior foresight in his wife, although he was, like all husbands, a little startled by it. He tried to dismiss it from his mind. But looking down from the hillside upon his little venture, whose gradual increase and prosperity had not been beyond his faculties to control and under stand, he found himself haunted by the more ambi tious projects of his helpmate. From his own knowledge of men, he doubted if Don Ramon, any more than himself, had ever thought of the possibility of a matrimonial connection between the families. He doubted if he would consent to it. And, unfortunately, it was this very doubt that, touching his own pride as a self-made man, made OF ROUGH-AND-READY 239 him first seriously consider his wife's proposition. He was as good as Don Ramon any day ! With this subtle feminine poison instilled in his veins, carried completely away by the logic of his wife's illogical premises, he almost hated his old bene factor. He looked down upon the little Garden of Eden, where his Eve had just tempted him with the fatal fruit, and felt a curious consciousness that he was losing its simple and innocent enjoyment for ever. Happily, about this time Don Ramon died. It is not probable that he ever knew the amiable inten tions of Mrs. Mulrady in regard to his son, who now succeeded to the paternal estate, sadly partitioned by relatives and law-suits. The feminine Mulradys attended the funeral, in expensive mourning from Sacramento ; even the gentle Alvin was forced into ready-made broadcloth, which accented his good- natured but unmistakably common presence. Mrs. Mulrady spoke openly of her * loss ' ; declared that the old families were dying out ; and impressed the wives of a few new arrivals at Red Dog with the belief that her own family was contemporary with the Alvarados, and that her husband's health was far from perfect. She extended a motherly sym pathy to the orphaned Don Caesar. Reserved, like his father, in natural disposition, he was still more gravely ceremonious from his loss ; and, perhaps from the shyness of an evident partiality for Mamie Mulrady, he rarely availed himself of her mother's sympathizing hospitality. But he carried out the intentions of his father by consenting to sell to 240 A MILLIONAIRE Mulrady, for a small sum, the property he had leased. The idea of purchasing had originated with Mrs. Mulrady. 'It'll be all in the family,' had observed that astute lady, ' and it's better for the looks of the things that we shouldn't be his tenants.' It was only a few weeks later that she was startled by hearing her husband's voice calling her from the hillside as he rapidly approached the house. Mamie was in her room, putting on a new pink cotton gown, in honour of an expected visit from young Don Caesar, and Mrs. Mulrady was tidying the house in view of the same event. Something in the tone of her good man's voice, and the unusual circumstance of his return to the house before work was done, caused her, however, to drop her dusting cloth, and run to the kitchen-door to meet him. She saw him running through the rows of cabbages, his face shining with perspiration and excitement, a light in his eyes which she had not seen for years. She recalled, without sentiment, that he looked like that when she had called him a poor farm hand of her father's out of the brush heap at the back of their former home in Illinois, to hear the consent of her parents. The recollection was the more embarrass ing as he threw his arms around her, and pressed a resounding kiss upon her sallow cheek. ' Sakes alive, Mulrady!' she said, exorcising the ghost of a blush that had also been recalled from the past with her housewife's apron. ' What are you doin', and company expected every minit ?' ' Malviny, I've struck it; and struck it rich !' OF ROUGH-AND-READY 241 She disengaged herse from his arms, without excitement, and looked at him with bright, but shrewdly observant, eyes. ' I've struck it in the well. The regular vein that the boys have been looking fer. There's a fortin' fer you and Mamie thousands and tens of thousands !' * Wait a minit.' She left him quickly, and went to the foot of the stairs. He could hear her wonderingly and distinctly. f Ye can take off that new frock, Mamie,' she called out. There was a sound of undisguised expostulation from Mamie. ' I'm speaking,' said Mrs. Mulrady emphatically. The murmuring ceased. Mrs. Mulrady returned to her husband. The interruption seemed to have taken off the keen edge of his enjoyment. He at once abdicated his momentary elevation as a dis coverer, and waited for her to speak. ' Ye haven't told anyone yet ?' she asked. ' No. I was alone down in the shaft. Ye see, Malviny, I wasn't expectin' of anything,' he began, with an attempt at fresh enjoyment ; ' I was just clearin' out, and hadn't reckoned on anythinV ' You see, I was right when I advised your taking the land/ she said, without heeding him. Mulrady's face fell. ' I hope Don Caesar won't think ' he began hesitatingly. ' I reckon, perhaps, I oughter make some sorter compensation, you know.' ' Stuff!' said Mrs. Mulrady decidedly. ' Don't be 16 242 A MILLIONAIRE a fool. Any gold discovery, anyhow, would have been yours that's the law. And you bought the land without any restrictions. Besides, you never had any idea of this' she stopped and looked him suddenly in the face ' had you ?' Mulrady opened his honest, pale-gray eyes widely. ' Why, Malviny, you know I hadn't I could swear ' ' Don't swear, and don't let on to anybody but what you did know it was there. Now, Alvin Mul rady, listen to me.' Her voice here took the strident form of action. ' Knock off work at the shaft, and send your man away at once. Put on your things, catch the next stage to Sacramento at four o'clock, and take Mamie with you.' ' Mamie !' echoed Mulrady feebly. * You want to see Lawyer Cole and my brother Jim at once,' she went on, without heeding him, * and Mamie wants a change and some proper clothes. Leave the rest to me and Abner. I'll break it to Mamie, and get her ready.' Mulrady passed his hands through his tangled hair, wet with perspiration. He was proud of his wife's energy and action ; he did not dream of opposing her, but somehow he was disappointed. The charming glamour and joy of his discovery had vanished before he could fairly dazzle her with it ; or, rather, she was not dazzled with it at all. It had become like business, and the expression ' breaking it ' to Mamie jarred upon him. He would have pre ferred to tell her himself to watch the colour come into her delicate oval face, to have seen her soft eyes OF ROUGH-AND-READY 243 light with an innocent joy he had not seen in his wife's ; and he felt a sinking conviction that his wife was the last one to awaken it. ' You ain't got any time to lose/ she said im patiently, as he hesitated. Perhaps it was her impatience that struck harshly upon him ; perhaps, if she had not accepted her good fortune so confidently, he would not have spoken what was in his mind at the time ; but he said gravely : ' Wait a minit, Malviny ; I've suthin' to tell you 'bout this find of mine that's sing'lar.' ' Go on,' she said quickly. 1 Lyin' among the rotten quartz of the vein was a pick,' he said constrainedly, ' and the face of the vein sorter looked ez if it had been worked at. Follering the line outside to the base of the hill there was signs of there having been an old tunnel ; but it had fallen in, and was blocked up.' ' Well ?' said Mrs. Mulrady contemptuously. * Well,' returned her husband, somewhat discon- certedly, ' it kinder looked as if some feller might have discovered it before.' ' And went away and left it for others ! That's likely ain't it ?' interrupted his wife, with ill- disguised intolerance. ' Everybody knows the hill wasn't worth that for prospectin' ; and it was aban doned when we came here. It's your property, and you've paid for it. Are you goin' to wait to adver tise for the owner, Alvin Mulrady, or are you going to Sacramento at four o'clock to-day ?' Mulrady started. He had never seriously believed 244 A MILLIONAIRE in the possibility of a previous discovery, but his conscientious nature had prompted him to give it a fair consideration. She was probably right. What he might have thought had she treated it with equal conscientiousness he did not consider. ' All right,' he said simply. ' I reckon we'll go at once.' ' And when you talk to Lawyer Cole and Jim, keep that silly stuff about the pick to yourself. There's no use of putting queer ideas into other people's heads because you happen to have 'em yourself.' When the hurried arrangements were at last com pleted, and Mr. Mulrady and Mamie, accompanied by a taciturn and discreet Chinaman, carrying their scant luggage, were on their way to the highroad to meet the up-stage, the father gazed somewhat anxiously and wistfully into his daughter's face. He had looked forward to those few moments to enjoy the freshness and naivete of Mamie's youthful delight and enthusiasm as a relief to his wife's practical, far- sighted realism. There was a pretty pink suffusion in her delicate cheek, the breathless happiness of a child in her half-opened little mouth, and a beauti ful absorption in her large gray eyes that augured well for him. * Well, Mamie, how do we like bein' an heiress ? How do we like layin' over all the gals between this and Frisco ?' 'Eh?' She had not heard him. The tender, beautiful eyes were engaged in an anticipatory examination of OF ROUGH-AND-READY 245 the remembered shelves in the ' Fancy Emporium ' at Sacramento ; in reading the admiration of the clerks ; in glancing down a little criticisingly at the broad cow-hide brogues that strode at her side ; in looking up the road for the stage-coach ; in regard ing the fit of her new gloves everywhere but in the loving eyes of the man beside her. He, however, repeated the question, touched with her charming preoccupation, and passing his arm around her little waist. ' I like it well enough, pa, you know !' she said, slightly disengaging his arm, but adding a perfunc tory little squeeze to his elbow to soften the separa tion. ' I always had an idea something would happen. I suppose I'm looking like a fright,' she added ; * but ma made me hurry to get away before Don Caesar came.' ' And you didn't want to go without seeing him ?' he added archly. ' I didn't want him to see me in this frock,' said Mamie simply. * I reckon that's why ma made me change/ she added, with a slight laugh. ' Well, I reckon you're allus good enough for him in any dress,' said Mulrady, watching her attentively, ' and more than a match for him now,' he added triumphantly. ' I don't know about that,' said Mamie. ' He's been rich all the time, and his father and grandfather before him ; while we've been poor, and his tenants.' His face changed. The look of bewilderment with which he had followed her words gave way to one of pain, and then of anger. 246 A MILLIONAIRE * Did he git off such stuff as that ?' he asked quickly. ' No ; I'd like to catch him at it,' responded Mamie promptly. * There's better nor him to be had for the asking now.' They had walked on a few moments in aggrieved silence, and the Chinaman might have imagined some misfortune had just befallen them. But Mamie's teeth shone again between her parted lips. ' La, pa ! it ain't that. He cares everything for me, and I do for him ; and if ma hadn't got new ideas ' She stopped suddenly. ' What new ideas ?' queried her father anxiously. ' Oh, nothing ! I wish, pa, you'd put on your other boots ! Everybody can see these are made for the furrows. And you ain't a market-gardener any more.' 'What am I, then?' asked Mulrady, with a half pleased, half uneasy laugh. ' You're a capitalist, I say ; but ma says a landed proprietor.' Nevertheless, the landed proprietor, when he reached the boulder on the Red Dog highway, sat down in somewhat moody contemplation, with his head bowed over the broad cow-hide brogues, that seemed to have already gathered enough of the soil to indicate his right to that title. Mamie, who had recovered her spirits, but had not lost her pre-occupation, wandered off by herself in the meadow, or ascended the hillside as her occa sional impatience at the delay of the coach, or the OF ROUGH-AND-READY 247 following of some ambitious fancy, alternately prompted her. She was so far away at one time that the stage-coach, which finally drew up before Mulrady, was obliged to wait for her. When she was deposited safely inside, and Mulrady had climbed to the box beside the driver, the latter remarked curtly : 'Ye gave me a right smart skeer a minit ago, stranger.' ' Ez how ?' ' Well, about three years ago, I was comin' down this yer grade, at just this time, and, sittin' right on the stone, in just your attitude, was a man about your build and years. I pulled up to let him in, when, darn my skin ! if he ever moved, but sorter looked at me without speakin'. I called to him, and he never answered, 'cept with that idiotic stare. I then let him have my opinion of him, in mighty strong English, and drove off, leavin' him there. The next morning, when I came by on the up-trip, darn my skin ! if he wasn't thar, but lyin' all of a heap on the boulder. Jim drops down and picks him up. Doctor Duchesne, ez was along, allows it was a played-out prospector, with a big case of paralysis, and we expressed him through to the county hospital, like so much dead freight. I've allus bin kinder superstitious about passin' that rock, and when I saw you jist now, sittin' thar, dazed like, with your head down like the other chap, it rather threw me off my centre.' In the inexplicable and half-superstitious uneasi ness that this coincidence awakened in Mulrady 's 248 A MILLIONAIRE unimaginative mind, he was almost on the point of disclosing his good fortune to the driver, in order to prove how preposterous was the parallel, but checked himself in time. * Did you find out who he was ?' broke in a rash passenger. ' Did he ever get over it ?' added another unfortu nate. With a pause of insulting scorn at the interrup tion, the driver resumed, pointedly, to Mulrady : ' The p'int of the whole thing was my cussin' a helpless man, ez could neither cuss back nor shoot, and then afterwards takin' you for his ghost, layin' for me, to get even.' He paused again, and then added carelessly : ' They say he never kem to enuff to let on who he was or whar he kem from ; and he was eventooally taken to a 'Sylum for Doddering Idjits and Gin'ral and Permiskus Imbeciles at Sacramento. I've heerd it's considered a first-class institooshun, not only for them ez is paralyzed and can't talk, but for them ez is the reverse and is too chipper. Now,' he added languidly, turning for the first time to his miserable questioners, ' how did you chaps find it ?' CHAPTER II. WHEN the news of the discovery of gold in Mulrady shaft was finally made public, it created an excite ment hitherto unknown in the history of the country. Half of Red Dog and all Rough-and-Ready were OF ROUGH-AND-READY 249 emptied upon the yellow hills surrounding Mulrady's, until their circling camp-fires looked like a besieging army that had invested his peaceful pastoral home, preparatory to carrying it by assault. Unfortunately for them, they found the various points of vantage already garrisoned with notices of ' pre-emption ' for mining purposes in the name of the various members of the Alvarado family. This stroke of business was due to Mrs. Mulrady, as a means of mollifying the conscientious scruples of her husband and of placating the Alvarados, in view of some remote contingency. It is but fair to say that this degradation of his father's Castilian principles was opposed by Don Caesar. ' You needn't work them yourself, but sell out to them that will ; it's the only way to keep the pro spectors from taking it without paying for it at all/ argued Mrs. Mulrady. Don Caesar finally assented ; perhaps less to the business arguments of Mulrady's wife than to the simple suggestion of Mamie's mother. Enough that he realized a sum in money for a few acres that exceeded the last ten years' income of Don Ramon's seven leagues. Equally unprecedented and extravagant was the realization of the discovery in Mulrady's shaft. It was alleged that a company, hastily formed in Sacramento, paid him a million of dollars down, leaving him still a controlling two-thirds interest in the mine. With an obstinacy, however, that amounted almost to a moral conviction, he refused to include the house and potato-patch in the 250 A MILLIONAIRE property. When the company had yielded the point, he declined with equal tenacity to part with it to outside speculators on even the most extravagant offers. In vain Mrs. Mulrady protested ; in vain she pointed out to him that the retention of the evidence of his former humble occupation was a green blot upon their social escutcheon. * If you will keep the land, build on it, and root up the garden.' But Mulrady was adamant. 1 It's the only thing I ever made myself, and got out of the soil with my own hands; it's the beginning of my fortune, and it may be the end of it. Mebbe, I'll be glad enough to have it to come back to some day, and be thankful for the square meal I can dig out of it.' By repeated pressure, however, Mulrady yielded the compromise that a portion of it should be made into a vineyard and flower-garden, and by a suitable colouring of ornament and luxury obliterate its vulgar part. Less successful, however, was that energetic woman in another effort to mitigate the austerities of their earlier state. It occurred to her to utilize the softer accents of Don Caesar in the pronunciation of their family name, and privately had ' Mulrade ' take the place of Mulrady on her visiting-card. ' It might be Spanish,' she argued with her husband. * Lawyer Cole says most American names are corrupted, and how do you know that yours ain't ?' Mulrady, who would not swear that his ancestors OF ROUGH-AND-READY 251 came from Ireland to the Carolinas in '98, was help less to refute the assertion. But the terrible Nemesis of an un-Spanish, American provincial speech avenged the orthographical outrage at once. When Mrs. Mulrady began to be addressed orally, as well as by letter, as ' Mrs. Mulraid,' and when simple amatory effusions to her daughter rhymed with 'lovely maid,' she promptly restored the original vowel. But she fondly clung to the Spanish courtesy which transformed her husband's baptismal name, and usually spoke of him in his absence as ' Don Alvino.' But in the presence of his short, square figure, his orange tawny hair, his twinkling gray eyes, and retrousse nose, even that dominant woman with held his title. It was currently reported at Red Dog that a distinguished foreigner had one day approached Mulrady with the formula : * I believe I have the honour of addressing Don Alvino Mulrady ?' * You kin bet your boots, stranger, that part of that's me,' had returned that simple hidalgo. Although Mrs. Mulrady would have preferred that Mamie should remain at Sacramento until she could join her, preparatory to a trip to the States and Europe, she yielded to her daughter's desire to astonish Rough-and-Ready, before she left, with her new wardrobe, and unfold in the parent nest the deli cate and painted wings with which she was to fly from them for ever. ' I don't want them to remember me afterwards in those spotted prints, ma, and like as not 252 A MILLIONAIRE say I never had a decent frock until I went away.' There was something so like the daughter of her mother in this delicate foresight that the touched and gratified parent kissed her and assented. The result was gratifying beyond her expectation. In that few weeks' sojourn at Sacramento, the young girl seemed to have adapted and assimilated herself to the latest modes of fashion with even more than the usual American girl's pliancy and taste. Equal to all emergencies of style and material, she seemed to supply, from some hitherto unknown quality she possessed, the grace and manner peculiar to each. Untrammelled by tradition, education, or precedent, she had the Western girl's confidence in all things being possible which makes them so often probable. Mr. Mulrady looked at his daughter with mingled sentiments of pride and awe. Was it possible that this delicate creature, so superior to himself that he seemed like a degenerate scion of her remoter race, was his own flesh and blood? Was she the daughter of her mother, who even in her remembered youth was never equipped like this ? If the thought brought no pleasure to his simple, loving nature, it at least spared him the pain of what might have seemed ingratitude in one more akin to himself. ' The fact is, we ain't quite up to her style,' was his explanation and apology. A vague belief that in another and a better world than this he might approximate and under- OF ROUGH-AND-READY 253 stand this perfection somewhat soothed and sustained him. It was quite consistent, therefore, that the em broidered cambric dress which Mamie Mulrady wore one summer afternoon on the hillside at Los Gatos, while to the critical feminine eye at once artistic and expensive, should not seem incongruous to her surroundings or to herself in the eyes of a general audience. It certainly did not seem so to one pair of frank humorous ones that glanced at her from time to time, as their owner, a young fellow of five-and-twenty, walked at her side. He was the new editor of the Rough- and- Ready Record, and, having been her fellow-passenger from Sacra mento, had already once or twice availed himself of her father's invitation to call upon them. Mrs. Mulrady had not discouraged this mild flirtation. Whether she wished to disconcert Don Caesar for some occult purpose, or whether, like the rest of her sex, she had an overweening confidence in the un- heroic, unseductive, and purely platonic character of masculine humour, did not appear. * When I say I'm sorry you are going to leave us, Miss Mulrady,' said the young fellow lightly, 'you will comprehend my unselfishness, since I frankly admit your departure would be a positive relief to me as an editor and a man. The pressure in the Poet's Corner of the Record since it was mistakingly discovered that a person of your name might be induced to seek the " glade " and " shade " without being "afraid," " dismayed," or "betrayed," has been something enormous, and, unfortunately, I am 254 A MILLIONAIRE debarred from rejecting anything, on the just ground that I am myself an interested admirer.' ' It is dreadful to be placarded around the country by one's own full name, isn't it ?' said Mamie, without, however, expressing much horror in her face. ' They think it much more respectful than to call you " Mamie," ' he responded lightly ; ' and many of your admirers are middle-aged men, with a mediaeval style of compliment. I've discovered that amatory versifying isn't entirely a youthful passion. Colonel Cash is about as fatal with a couplet as with a double-barrelled gun, and scatters as terribly. Judge Butts and Doctor Wilson have both discerned the resemblance of your gifts to those of Venus, and their own to Apollo. But don't under-value those tributes, Miss Mulrady,' he added, more seriously. ' You'll have thousands of admirers where you are going ; but you'll be willing to admit in the end, I think, that none were more honest and respectful than your subjects at Rough-and- Ready and Red Dog. He stopped, and added in a graver tone : ' Does Don Caesar write poetry ?' ' He has something better to do,' said the young lady pertly. 1 1 can easily imagine that/ he returned mis chievously ; ' it must be a pallid substitute for other opportunities.' * What did you come here for ?' she asked suddenly. ' To see you.' ' Nonsense ! You know what I mean. Why OF ROUGH-AND-READY 255 did you ever leave Sacramento to come here ? I should think it would suit you so much better than this place.' ' I suppose I was fired by your father's example, and wished to find a gold mine.' ' Men like you never do,' she said simply. * Is that a compliment, Miss Mulrady ?' ' I don't know. But I think that you think that it is.' He gave her the pleased look of one who had unexpectedly found a sympathetic intelligence. ' Do I ? This is interesting. Let's sit down.' In their desultory rambling they had reached, quite unconsciously, the large boulder at the roadside. Mamie hesitated a moment, looked up and down the road, and then, with an already opulent indifference to the damaging of her spotless skirt, sat herself upon it with her furled parasol held by her two little hands thrown over her half drawn- up knee. The young editor, half sitting, half leaning against the stone, began to draw figures in the sand with his cane. * On the contrary, Miss Mulrady, I hope to make some money here. You are leaving Rough-and- Ready because you are rich. We are coming to it because we are poor.' ' We ?' echoed Mamie lazily, looking up the road. ' Yes ; my father and two sisters.' ' I am sorry. I might have known them if I hadn't been going away.' At the same moment it flashed across her mind that, if they were like the man before her ? they might prove disagreeably 256 A MILLIONAIRE independent and critical. ' Is your father in busi ness ?' she asked. He shook his head. After a pause, he said, punctuating his sentences with the point of his stick in the soft dust : * He is paralyzed, and out of his mind, Miss Mulrady. I came to California to seek him, as all news of him ceased three years since ; and I found him only two weeks ago, alone, friendless an unrecognised pauper in the county hospital.' ' Two weeks ago ? That was when I went to Sacramento.' ' Very probably.' ' It must have been very shocking to you ?' ' It was.' ' I should think you'd feel real bad ?' ' I do, at times.' He smiled and laid his stick on the stone. ' You now see, Miss Mulrady, how neces sary to me is this good fortune that you don't think me worthy of. Meantime, I must try to make a home for them at Rough-and-Ready.' Miss Mulrady put down her knee and her parasol. ' We mustn't stay here much longer, you know.' ' Why ?' ' Why, the stage-coach comes by at about this time.' 'And you think the passengers will observe us sitting here ?' ' Of course they will.' ' Miss Mulrady, I implore you to stay.' He was leaning over her with such apparent OF ROUGH-AND-READY 257 earnestness of voice and gesture that the colour came into her cheek. For a moment she scarcely dared to lift her conscious eyes to his. When she did so, she suddenly glanced her own aside with a flash of anger. He was laughing. 1 If you have any pity for me, do not leave me now,' he repeated. ' Stay a moment longer and my fortune is made. The passengers will report us all over Red Dog as engaged. I shall be supposed to be in your father's secrets, and shall be sought after as a director of all the new companies. The Record will double its circulation ; poetry will drop out of its columns; advertisements rush to fill its place ; and I shall receive five dollars a week more salary, if not seven and a half. Never mind the consequences to yourself at such a moment. I assure you there will be none. You can deny it the next day / will deny it nay, more, the Record itself will deny it in an extra edition of one thousand copies, at ten cents each. Linger a moment longer, Miss Mulrady. Fly, oh, fly not yet ! They're coming hark ! ho ! By Jove, it's only Don Caesar !' It was, indeed, only the young scion of the house of Alvarado, blue-eyed, sallow-skinned, and high- shouldered, coming towards them on a fiery, half- broken mustang, whose very spontaneous lawlessness seemed to demonstrate and relieve the grave and decorous ease of his rider. Even in his burlesque preoccupation the editor of the Record did not with hold his admiration of this perfect horsemanship. Mamie, who, in her wounded amour propre, would like to have made much of it to annoy her com- 258 A MILLIONAIRE panion, was thus estopped any ostentatious compli ment. Don Caesar lifted his hat with sweet seriousness to the lady, with grave courtesy to the gentleman. While the lower half of this centaur was apparently quivering with fury, and stamping the ground in his evident desire to charge upon the pair, the upper half, with natural dignity, looked from the one to the other as if to leave the privilege of an explana tion with them. But Mamie was too wise, and her companion too indifferent to offer one. A slight shade passed over Don Caesar's face. To complicate the situation at that moment, the ex pected stage-coach came rattling by. With quick feminine intuition, Mamie caught in the face of the driver and the express-man, and reflected in the mischievous eyes of her companion, a pecu liar interpretation of their meeting that was not removed by the whispered assurance of the editor that the passengers were anxiously looking back ' to see the shooting.' The young Spaniard, equally oblivious of humour or curiosity, remained impassive. ' You know Mr. Slinn, of the Record,' said Mamie, ' don't you ?' Don Caesar had never before met the Sefior Esslinn. He was under the impression that it was a Sefior Robinson that was of the Record. ' Oh, he was shot,' said Slinn. ' I am taking his place.' ' Bueno ! To be shot too ? I trust not/ Slinn looked quickly and sharply into Don Caesar's grave face. He seemed to be incapable of any OF ROUGH-AND-READY 259 double meaning. However, as he had no serious reason for awakening Don Caesar's jealousy, and very little desire to become an embarrassing third in this conversation, and possibly a burden to the young lady, he proceeded to take his leave of her. From a sudden feminine revulsion of sympathy, or from some unintelligible instinct of diplomacy, Mamie said, as she extended her hand : ' I hope you'll find a home for your family near here. Mamma wants pa to let our old house. Perhaps it might suit you, if not too far from your work. You might speak to ma about it.' ' Thank you ; I will,' responded the young man, pressing her hand with unaffected cordiality. Don Caesar watched him until he had disappeared behind the wayside buck-eyes. ' He is a man of family this one your country man ?' It seemed strange to her to have a mere acquaint ance spoken of as ' her countryman ' not the first time nor the last time in her career. As there appeared no trace or sign of jealousy in her ques tioner's manner, she answered briefly, but vaguely : ' Yes ; it's a shocking story. His father dis appeared some years ago, and he has just found him a helpless paralytic in the Sacramento Hospital. He'll have to support him, and they're very poor.' ' So, then, they are not independent of each other always these fathers and children of Americanos ?' * No/ said Mamie shortly. Without knowing why, she felt inclined to resent Don Caesar's manner. His serious gravity gentle and high-bred as it was, 260 A MILLIONAIRE undoubtedly was somewhat trying to her at times, and seemed even more so after Slinn's irreverent humour. She picked up her parasol a little im patiently, as if to go. But Don Caesar had already dismounted, and tied his horse to a tree with a strong lariat that hung at his saddle-bow. ' Let us walk through the woods towards your home. I can return alone for the horse, when you shall dismiss me.' They turned in among the pines that, overcrowd ing the hollow, crept partly up the side of the hill of Mulrady's shaft. A disused trail, almost hidden by the wax-leaved yerba buena, led from the highway, and finally lost itself in the undergrowth. It was a lovers' walk ; they were lovers evidently, and yet the man was too self-poised in his gravity, the young woman too conscious and critical, to suggest an absorbing or oblivious passion. ' I should not have made myself so obtrusive to day before your friend,' said Don Caesar, with proud humility, ' but I could not understand from your mother whether you were alone or whether my com pany was desirable. It is of this I have now to speak, Mamie. Lately, your mother has seemed strange to me ; avoiding any reference to our affection ; treating it lightly, and even, as to-day, I fancy, putting obstacles in the way of our meeting alone. She was disappointed at your return from Sacramento, where, I have been told, she intended you to remain until you left the country ; and since your return I have seen you but twice. I may be wrong. Perhaps I do not comprehend the OF ROUGH-AND-READY 261 American mother. I have who knows ? perhaps offended in some point of etiquette, omitted some ceremony that was her due. But when you told me, Mamie, that it was not necessary to speak to her first, that it was not the American fashion ' Mamie started, and blushed slightly. ' Yes/ she said hurriedly, ' certainly ; but ma has been quite queer of late, and she may think you know that since since there has been so much property to dispose of, she ought to have been con sulted.' ' Then, let us consult her at once, dear child ! And as to the property, in Heaven's name, let her dispose of it as she will. Saints forbid that an Alvarado should ever interfere ! And what is it to us, my little one ? Enough that Dona Mameta Alvarado will never have less state than the richest bride that ever came to Los Gatos.' Mamie had not forgotten that, scarcely a month ago, even had she loved the man before her no more than she did at present, she would still have been thrilled with delight at these words. Even now she was moved conscious as she had become that the ' state ' of a bride of the Alvarados was not all she had imagined, and that the bare adobe court of Los Gatos was open to the sky and the free criticism of Sacramento capitalists. ' Yes, dear,' she murmured, with a half childlike pleasure that lit up her face and eyes so innocently that it stopped any minute investigation into its origin and real meaning. 'Yes, dear; but we need not have a fuss made about it at present, and perhaps put ma against us. She wouldn't hear of 262 A MILLIONAIRE our marrying now ; and she might forbid our engage ment/ ' But you are going away.' ' I should have to go to New York or Europe first, you know,' she answered naively, * even if it were all settled. I should have to get things ! One couldn't be decent here.' With the recollection of the pink cotton gown in which she had first pledged her troth to him before his eyes, he said, ' But you are charming now. You cannot be more so to me. If I am satisfied, little one, with you as you are, let us go together, and then you can get dresses to please others.' She had not expected this importunity. Really, if it came to this, she might have engaged herself to someone like Slinn ; he at least would have under stood her. He was much cleverer, and certainly more a man of the world. When Slinn had treated her like a child, it was with the humorous tolerance of an admiring superior, and not the didactic im pulse of a guardian. She did not say this, nor did her pretty eyes indicate it, as in the instance of her brief anger with Slinn. She only said gently : ' I should have thought you, of all men, would have been particular about your wife doing the proper thing. But never mind ! Don't let us talk any more about it. Perhaps, as it seems such a great thing to you, and so much trouble, there may be no necessity for it at all. 1 I do not think that the young lady deliberately planned this charming illogical deduction from Don Caesar's speech, or that she calculated its effect upon him ; but it was part of her nature to say it, and OF ROUGH-AND-READY 263 profit by it. Under the unjust lash of it, his pride gave way. ' Ah, do you not see why I wish to go with you ?' he said, with sudden and unexpected passion. ' You are beautiful ; you are good ; it has pleased Heaven to make you rich also ; but you are a child in experience, and know not your own heart. With your beauty, your goodness, and your wealth, you will attract all to you as you do here because you cannot help it. But you will be equally helpless, little one, if they should attract you and you had no tie to fall back upon.' It was an unfortunate speech. The words were Don Caesar's; but the thought she had heard be fore from her mother, although the deduction had been of a very different kind. Mamie followed the speaker with bright but visionary eyes. There must be some truth in all this. Her mother had said it ; Mr. Slinn had laughingly admitted it. She had a brilliant future before her ! Was she right in making it im possible by a rash and foolish tie ? He himself had said she was inexperienced. She knew it ; and yet, what was he doing now but taking advantage of that inexperience ? If he really loved her, he would be willing to submit to the test. She did not ask a similar one from him, and was willing, if she came out of it free, to marry him just the same. There was something so noble in this thought, that she felt for a moment carried away by an impulse of compassionate unselfishness, and smiled tenderly as she looked up in his face. 'Then you consent, Mamie?' he said eagerly, passing his arm around her waist, 264 A MILLIONAIRE 1 Not now, Caesar/ she said, gently disengaging herself. ' I must think it over ; we are both too young to act upon it rashly ; it would be unfair to you, who are so quiet and have seen so few girls I mean Americans to tie yourself to the first one you have known. When I am gone, you will go more into the world. There are Mr. Slinn's two sisters coming here ; I shouldn't wonder if they were far cleverer and talked far better than I do ; and think how I should feel if I knew that only a wretched pledge to me kept you from loving them !' She stopped, and cast down her eyes. It was her first attempt at coquetry ; for, in her usual charming selfishness, she was perfectly frank and open ; and it might not have been her last, but she had gone too far at first, and was not prepared for a recoil of her own argument. ' If you admit that it is possible, then it is pos sible to you r he said quickly. She saw her mistake. ' We may not have many opportunities to meet alone,' she answered quietly ; ' and I am sure we would be happier when we meet, not to accuse each other of impossibilities. Let us rather see how we can communicate together if anything should prevent our meeting. Remember, it was only by chance that you were able to see me now. If ma has believed that she ought to have been consulted, our meeting together in this secret way will only make matters worse. She is even now wondering where I am, and may be suspicious. I must go back at once. At any moment someone may come here looking for me/ OF ROUGH-AND-READY 265 ' But I have so much to say,' he pleaded. ' Our time has been so short.' ' You can write.' ' But what will your mother think of that ?' he said, in grave astonishment. She coloured again, as she returned quickly : ' Of course you must not write to the house. You can leave a letter somewhere for me say some where about here. Stop!' she added, with a sudden girlish gaiety, ' see, here's the very place ! Look there !' She pointed to the decayed trunk of a blasted sycamore, a few feet from the trail. A cavity, breast high, half filled with skeleton leaves and pine nuts, showed that it had formerly been a squirrel's hoard, but for some reason had been deserted. ' Look ! it's a regular letter-box,' she continued gaily, rising on tip-toe to peep into its recesses. Don Caesar looked at her admiringly; it seemed like a return to their first idyllic love-making in the old days, when she used to steal out of the cabbage rows in her brown linen apron and sun-bonnet to walk with him in the woods. He recalled the fact to her with the fatality of a lover already seeking to restore in past recollections something that was wanting in the present. She received it with the impatience of youth, to whom the present is all sufficient. ' I wonder how you could ever have cared for me in that holland apron,' she said, looking down upon her new dress. ' Shall I tell you why ?' he said fondly, passing 266 A MILLIONAIRE his arm around her waist, and drawing her pretty head nearer his shoulder. ' No not now !' she said laughingly, but struggling to free herself. * There's not time. Write it, and put it in the box. There !' she added hastily, * listen ! What's that ?' ' It's only a squirrel/ he whispered reassuringly in her ear. ' No ; it's somebody coming. I must go ! Please, Caesar dear ! There, then ' She met his kiss half-way, released herself with a lithe movement of her wrist and shoulder, and the next moment seemed to slip into the woods, and was gone. Don Caesar listened with a sigh as the last rustling ceased, cast a look at the decayed tree as if to fix it in his memory, and then slowly retraced his steps towards his tethered mustang. He was right, however, in his surmise of the cause of that interruption. A pair of bright eyes had been watching them from the bough of an adjacent tree. It was a squirrel, who, having had serious and prior intentions of making use of the cavity they had discovered, had only withheld examination by an apparently courteous discretion towards the intrud ing pair. Now that they were gone, he slipped down the tree and ran towards the decayed stump. OF ROUGH-AND-READY 267 CHAPTER III. APPARENTLY dissatisfied with the result of an in vestigation which proved that the cavity was unfit as a treasure hoard for a discreet squirrel, whatever its value as a receptacle for the love-tokens of incautious humanity, the little animal at once set about to put things in order. He began by whisking out an immense quantity of dead leaves, disturbed a family of tree-spiders, dissipated a drove of patient aphides browsing in the bark, as well as their attendant dairymen, the ants, and otherwise ruled it with the high hand of dispossession and a contemptuous opinion of the previous incumbents. It must not be supposed, however, that his pro ceedings were altogether free from contemporaneous criticism ; a venerable crow sitting on a branch above him displayed great interest in his occupation, and, hopping down a few moments afterwards, dis posed of some worm-eaten nuts, a few larvae, and an insect or two, with languid dignity and without prejudice. Certain incumbrances, however, still resisted the squirrel's general eviction among them a folded square of paper with sharply defined edges, that declined investigation, and, owing to a nauseous smell of tobacco, escaped nibbling as it had ap parently escaped insect ravages. This, owing to its sharp angles, which persisted in catching in the soft, decaying wood in his whirlwind of house-cleaning, he allowed to remain. Having thus, in a general way, prepared for the coming winter, the self- 268 A MILLIONAIRE satisfied little rodent dismissed the subject from his active mind. His rage and indignation a few days later may be readily conceived, when he found, on returning to his new-made home, another square of paper, folded like the first, but much fresher and whiter, lying within the cavity, on top of some moss which had evidently been placed there for the purpose. This he felt was really more than he could bear, but as it was smaller, with a few energetic kicks and whisks of his tail, he managed to finally dislodge it through the opening> where it fell ignominiously to the earth. The eager eyes of the ever-attendant crow, how ever, instantly detected it ; he flew to the ground, and, turning it over, examined it gravely. It was certainly not edible, but it was exceedingly rare, and, as an old collector of curios, he felt he could not pass it by. He lifted it in his beak, and, with a desperate struggle against the superincumbent weight, regained the branch with his prize. Here, by one of those delicious vagaries of animal nature, he apparently at once discharged his mind of the whole affair, became utterly oblivious of it, allowed it to drop without the least concern, and eventually flew away with an abstracted air, as if he had been another bird entirely. The paper got into a manzanita bush, where it remained suspended until the evening, when, being dislodged by a passing wild-cat on its way to Mul- rady's hen -roost, it gave that delicately sensitive marauder such a turn that she fled into the adjacent county. Rut the troubles of the squirrel were not yet over. On the following day the young man who had ac- OF ROUGH-AND-READY 269 companied the young woman returned to the trunk, and the squirrel had barely time to make his escape before the impatient visitor approached the opening of the cavity, peered into it, and even passed his hand through its recesses. The delight visible upon his anxious and serious face at the disappearance of the letter, and the apparent proof that it had been called for, showed him to have been its original depositor, and probably awakened a remorseful recollection in the dark bosom of the omnipresent crow, who uttered a conscience-stricken croak from the bough above him. But the young man quickly disappeared again, and the squirrel was once more left in undisputed possession. A week passed. A weary, anxious interval to Don Caesar, who had neither seen nor heard from Mamie since their last meeting. Too conscious of his own self-respect to call at the house after the equivocal conduct of Mrs. Mulrady, and too proud to haunt the lanes and approaches in the hope of meeting her daughter, like an ordinary lover, he hid his gloomy thoughts in the monastic shadows of the courtyard at Los Gatos, or found relief in furious riding at night and early morning on the highway. Once or twice the up-stage had been overtaken and passed by a rushing figure as shadowy as a phantom horse man, with only the star-like point of a cigarette to indicate its humanity. It was in one of these fierce recreations that he was obliged to stop in early morning at the blacksmith's shop at Rough-and- Ready to have a loosened horseshoe replaced, and while waiting picked up a newspaper. Don Caesar seldom read the papers, but, noticing that this was 270 A MILLIONAIRE the Record, he glanced at its columns. A familiar name suddenly flashed out of the dark type like a spark from the anvil. With a brain and heart that seemed to be beating in unison with the blacksmith's sledge, he read as follows : 1 Our distinguished fellow-townsman, Alvin Mul- rady, Esq., left town day before yesterday to attend an important meeting of directors of the Red Dog Ditch Company, in San Francisco. Society will regret to hear that Mrs. Mulrady and her beautiful and accomplished daughter, who were expecting to depart for Europe at the end of the month, antici pated the event nearly a fortnight by taking this opportunity of accompanying Mr. Mulrady as far as San Francisco, on their way to the East. Mrs. and Miss Mulrady intend to visit London, Paris, and Berlin, and will be absent three years. It is possible that Mr. Mulrady may join them later at one or other of those capitals. Considerable disappoint ment is felt that a more extended leave-taking was not possible, and that, under the circumstances, no opportunity was offered for a "send-off" suitable to the condition of the parties, and the esteem in which they are held in Rough-and-Ready.' The paper dropped from his hands. Gone ! and without a word ! No, that was impossible ! There must be some mistake ; she had written ; the letter had miscarried ; she must have sent word to Los Gatos, and the stupid messenger had blundered ; she had probably appointed another meeting, or expected him to follow to San Francisco. ' The day before yesterday !' It was the morning's paper ; OF ROUGH-AND-READY 271 she had been gone scarcely two days ; it was not too late yet to receive a delayed message by post, by some forgetful hand by ah ! the tree ! Of course it was in the tree, and he had not been there for a week ! Why had he not thought of it before ? The fault was his, not hers. Perhaps she had gone away believing him faithless, or a country boor. ' In the name of the devil, will you keep me here till eternity !' The blacksmith stared at him. Don Caesar suddenly remembered that he was speaking, as he was thinking, in Spanish. 'Ten dollars, my friend, if you have done in five minutes !' The man laughed. ' That's good enough American,' he said, be ginning to quicken his efforts. Don Caesar again took up the paper. There was another paragraph that recalled his last interview with Mamie : ' Mr. Harry Slinn, jun., the editor of this paper, has just moved into the pioneer house formerly occupied by Alvin Mulrady, Esq., which has already become historic in the annals of the county. Mr. Slinn brings with him his father H. J. Slinn, Esq. and his two sisters. Mr. Slinn, sen., who has been suffering for many years from complete paralysis, we understand is slowly improving; and it is by the advice of his physicians that he has chosen the invigorating air of the foothills as a change to the debilitating heat of Sacramento.' 272 A MILLIONAIRE The affair had been quickly settled, certainly, reflected Don Caesar, with a slight chill of jealousy, as he thought of Mamie's interest in the young editor. But the next moment he dismissed it from his mind ; all except a dull consciousness that, if she really loved him Don Csesar as he loved her, she could not have assisted in throwing into his society the two young sisters of the editor, whom she ex pected might be so attractive. Within the five minutes the horse was ready, and Don Caesar in the saddle again. In less than half an hour he was at the wayside boulder. Here he picketed his horse, and took the narrow foot-trail through the hollow. It did not take him long to reach their old trysting-place. With a beating heart he approached the decaying trunk and looked into the cavity. There was no letter there ! A few blackened nuts and some of the dry moss he had put there were lying on the ground at its roots. He could not remember whether they were there when he had last visited the spot. He began to grope in the cavity with both hands. His fingers struck against the sharp angles of a flat paper packet ; a thrill of joy ran through them and stopped his beating heart ; he drew out the hidden object, and was chilled with disappointment. It was an ordinary-sized envelope of yellowish- brown paper, bearing, besides the usual Government stamp, the official legend of an express company* and showing its age as much by this record of a now obsolete carrying service as by the discolora tion of time and atmosphere. Its weight, which was heavier than that of an ordinary letter of the OF ROUGH-AND-READY 273 same size and thickness, was evidently due to some loose enclosures, that slightly rustled and could be felt by the ringers, like minute pieces of metal or grains of gravel. It was within Don Caesar's experi ence that gold specimens were often sent in that manner. It was in a state of singular preservation, except the address, which, being written in pencil, was scarcely discernible, and even when deciphered appeared to be incoherent and unfinished. The unknown correspondent had written ' Dear Mary ' and then ' Mrs. Mary Slinn,' with an unintelligible scrawl following for the direction. If Don Caesar's mind had not been lately preoccupied with the name of the editor he would hardly have guessed the superscription. In his cruel disappointment and fully aroused indignation, he at once began to suspect a con nection of circumstances which at any other moment he would have thought purely accidental, or perhaps not have considered at all. The cavity in the tree had evidently been used as a secret receptacle for letters before ; did Mamie know it at the time ? and how did she know it ? The apparent age of the letter made it preposterous to suppose that it pointed to any secret correspondence of hers with young Mr. Slinn, and the address was not in her hand writing. Was there any secret previous intimacy between the families ? There was but one way in which he could connect this letter with Mamie's faithlessness. It was an infamous and grotesquely horrible idea, a thought which sprang as much from his inexperience of the world and his habitual sus- 18 274 A MILLIONAIRE piciousness of all humour as anything else. It was that the letter was a brutal joke of Slinn's a joke perhaps concocted by Mamie and himself a parting insult that should at the last moment proclaim their treachery and his own credulity. Doubtlessnt con tained a declaration of their shame, and the reason why she had fled from him without a word of explanation. And the enclosure, of course, was some significant and degrading illustration. Those Americans were full of those low conceits : it was their national vulgarity. He held the letter in his angry hand. He could break it open if he wished, and satisfy himself; but it was not addressed to him, and the instinct of honour, strong even in his rage, was the instinct of an adversary as well. No ; Slinn should open the letter before him. Slinn should explain everything and answer for it. If it was nothing a mere acci dent it would lead to some general explanation, and perhaps even news of Mamie. But he would arraign Slinn, and at once. He put the letter in his pocket, quickly retraced his steps to his horse, and, putting spurs to the animal, followed the highroad to the gate of Mulrady's pioneer cabin. He remembered it well enough. To the cultivated taste it was superior to the more pretentious ' new house.' During the first year of Mulrady's tenancy the plain square log-cabin had received those addi tions and attractions which only a tenant can con ceive and actual experience suggest; and in this way the hideous right angles were broken with sheds, * lean-to ' extensions, until a certain picturesqueness was given to the irregularity of outline, and a home- OF ROUGH-AND-READY 275 like security and companionship to the congregated buildings. It typified the former life of the great capitalist, as the tall new house illustrated the lone liness and isolation that wealth had given him. But the real points of vantage were the years of cultivation and habitation that had warmed and enriched the soil, and evoked the climbing vines and roses that already hid its unpainted boards, rounded its hard outlines, and gave protection and shadow from the pitiless glare of a summer's long sun, or broke the steady beating of the winter rains. It was true that pea and bean poles surrounded it on one side, and the only access to the house was through the cabbage rows that once were the pride and sustenance of the Mulradys. It was this fact, more than any other, that had impelled Mrs. Mul- rady to abandon its site ; she did not like to read the history of their humble origin reflected in the faces of their visitors as they entered. Don Caesar tied his horse to the fence and hur riedly approached the house. The door, however, hospitably opened when he was a few paces from it, and when he reached the threshold he found him self unexpectedly in the presence of two pretty girls. They were evidently Slinn's sisters, whom he had neither thought of nor included in the meeting he had prepared. In spite of his preoccupation, he felt himself suddenly embarrassed, not only by the actual distinction of their beauty, but by a kind of likeness that they seemed to bear to Mamie. ' We saw you coming/ said the elder unaffectedly. ' You are Don Caesar Alvarado ? My brother has spoken of you.' 276 A MILLIONAIRE The words recalled Don Caesar to himself and a sense of courtesy. He was not here to quarrel with these fair strangers at their first meeting ; he must seek Slinn elsewhere, and at another time. The frankness of his reception, and the allusion to their brother, made it appear impossible that they should be either a party to his disappointment, or even aware of it. His excitement melted away before a certain lazy ease which the consciousness of their beauty seemed to give them. He was able to put a few courteous inquiries, and, thanks to the paragraph in the Record, to congratulate them upon their father's improvement. ' Oh, pa is a great deal better in his health, and has picked up even in the last few days, so that he is able to walk round with crutches,' said the elder sister. ' The air here seems to invigorate him wonderfully.' ' And you know, Esther,' said the younger, ' I think he begins to take more notice of things, especially when he is out of doors. He looks around on the scenery, and his eye brightens, as if he knew all about it ; and sometimes he knits his brows, and looks down so, as if he was trying to remember.' * You know, I suppose,' explained Esther, * that since his seizure his memory has been a blank that is, three or four years of his life seem to have been dropped out of his recollection.' ' It might be a mercy sometimes, senora,' said Don Caesar with a grave sigh, as he looked at the delicate features before him, which recalled the face of the absent Mamie. OF ROUGH-AND-READY 277 'That's not very complimentary,' said the younger girl laughingly ; ' for pa didn't recognise us, and only remembered us as little girls.' 'Vashti!' interrupted Esther rebukingly; then, turning to Don Caesar, she added : ' My sister, Vashti, means that father remembers more what happened before he came to California, when we were quite young, than he does of the interval that elapsed. Dr. Duchesne says it's a singular case. He thinks that, with his present progress, he will re cover the perfect use of his limbs, though his memory may never come back again.' ' Unless You forget what the doctor told us this morning,' interrupted Vashti again briskly. ' I was going to say it/ said Esther a little curtly. ' Unless he has another stroke ; then he will either die or recover his mind entirely.' Don Caesar glanced at the bright faces, a trifle heightened in colour by their eager recital and the slight rivalry of narration, and looked grave. He was a little shocked at a certain lack of sympathy and tenderness towards their unhappy parent. They seemed to him not only to have caught that dry, curious toleration of helplessness which characterizes even relationship in its attendance upon chronic suffering and weakness, but to have acquired an unconscious habit of turning it to account. In his present sensitive condition, he even fancied that they flirted mildly over their parent's in firmities. ' My brother Harry has gone to Red Dog/ con tinued Esther. ' He'll be right sorry to have missed you. Mrs. Mulrady spoke to him about you. You 278 A MILLIONAIRE seem to have been great friends. I s'pose you knew her daughter, Mamie. I hear she is very pretty.' Although Don Caesar was now satisfied that the Slinns knew nothing of Mamie's singular behaviour to him, he felt embarrassed by this conversation. * Miss Mulrady is very pretty,' he said, with grave courtesy ; ' it is a custom of her race. She left suddenly,' he added, with affected calmness. ' I reckon she did calculate to stay here longer so her mother said ; but the whole thing was settled a week ago. I know my brother was quite surprised to hear from Mr. Mulrady that if we were going to decide about this house we must do it at once. He had an idea himself of moving out of the big one into this when they left.' ' Mamie Mulrady hadn't much to keep her here, considerin' the money and the good looks she has, I reckon,' said Vashti. ' She isn't the sort of girl to throw herself away in the wilderness when she can pick and choose elsewhere. I only wonder she ever come back from Sacramento. They talk about papa Mulrady having business at San Francisco, and that hurrying them off! Depend upon it, that "busi ness " was Mamie herself. Her wish is gospel to them. If she'd wanted to stay and have a farewell party, old Mulrady's business would have been nowhere.' ' Ain't you a little rough on Mamie,' said Esther, who had been quietly watching the young man's face with her large, languid eyes, ' considering that we don't know her, and haven't even the right of friends to criticise ?' ' I don't call it rough,' returned Vashti frankly, OF ROUGH-AND-READY 279 'for I'd do the same if I were in her shoes and they're four-and-a-halves, for Harry told me so. Give me her money and her looks, and you wouldn't catch me hanging round these diggings, goin' to choir -meetings Saturdays, church Sundays, and buggy-riding once a month, for society ! No ; Mamie's head was level, you bet !' Don Caesar rose hurriedly. They would present his compliments to their father, and he would endeavour to find their brother at Red Dog. He, alas ! had neither father, mother, nor sister ; but if they would receive his aunt, the Dona Inez Sepul- vida, the next Sunday, when she came from Mass, she should be honoured, and he would be delighted. It required all his self-possession to deliver him self of this formal courtesy before he could take his leave, and, on the back of his mustang, give way to the rage, disgust, and hatred of everything connected with Mamie that filled his heart. Conscious of his disturbance, but not entirely appreciating their own share in it, the two girls somewhat wickedly prolonged the interview by following him into the garden. 'Well, if you must leave now,' said Esther at last languidly, ' it ain't much out of your way to go down through the garden and take a look at pa as you go. He's somewhere down there, near the woods, and we don't like to leave him alone too long. You might pass the time of day with him see if he's right side up. Vashti and I have got a heap of things to fix here yet ; but if anything's wrong with him, you can call us. So long.' Don Caesar was about to excuse himself hurriedly, A MILLIONAIRE but that sudden and acute perception of all kindred sorrow, which belongs to refined suffering, checked his speech. The loneliness of the helpless old man in this atmosphere of active and youthful selfishness touched him. He bowed assent, and turned aside into one of the long perspectives of bean-poles. The girls watched him until out of sight. ' Well,' said Vashti, ' don't tell me. But if there wasn't something between him and that Mamie Mulrady, I don't know a jilted man when I see him.' ' Well, you needn't have let him see that you knew it, so that any civility of ours would look as if we were ready to take up with her leavings,' responded Esther astutely, as the girls re-entered the house. Meantime, the unconscious object of their criticism walked sadly down the old market-garden whose rude outlines and homely details he once clothed with the poetry of a sensitive man's first love. Well, it was a common cabbage-field and potato -patch after all. In his disgust he felt conscious of even the loss of that sense of patronage and superiority which had invested his affection for a girl of meaner condition. His self-respect was humiliated with his love. The soil and dirt of those wretched cabbages had clung to him, but not to her. It was she who had gone higher ; it was he who was left in the vulgar ruins of his misplaced passion. He reached the bottom of the garden without observing any sign of the lonely invalid. He looked up and down the cabbage rows and through the long perspective of pea-vines without result. There was a newer trail leading from a gap in the vines to OF ROUGH-AND-READY . 281 the wooded hollow which undoubtedly intersected the little path that he and Mamie had once followed from the highroad. If the old man had taken this trail, he had possibly overtasked his strength, and there was the more reason why he should continue his search, and render any assistance if required. There was another idea that occurred to him, which eventually decided him to go on. It was that both these trails led to the decayed sycamore stump, and that the older Slinn might have something to do with the mysterious letter. Quickening his steps through the field, he entered the hollow, and reached the intersecting trail as he expected. To the right it lost itself in the dense woods in the direction of the ominous stump ; to the left it descended in nearly a straight line to the highway, now plainly visible, as was equally the boulder on which he had last discovered Mamie sitting with young Slinn. If he was not mistaken, there was a figure sitting there now. It was surely a man. And by that half-bowed, helpless attitude, the object of his search ! It did not take him long to descend the track to the highway and approach the stranger. He was seated with his hands upon his knees, gazing in a vague, absorbed fashion upon the hillside, now crowned with the engine-house and chimney that marked the site of Mulrady's shaft. He started slightly and looked up as Don Caesar paused before him. The young man was surprised to see that the unfortunate man was not as old as he had expected, and that his expression was one of quiet and beatified contentment. 282 A MILLIONAIRE ' Your daughters told me you were here,' said Don Caesar, with gentle respect. ' I am Caesar Alvarado, your not very far neighbour ; very happy to pay his respects to you, as he has to them.' ' My daughters ?' said the old man vaguely. ' Oh yes nice little girls. And my boy Harry. Did you see Harry ? Fine little fellow, Harry.' * I am glad to hear that you are better,' said Don Caesar hastily, 'and that the air of our country does you no harm. God benefit you, senor,' he added, with a profoundly reverential gesture, dropping un consciously into the religious habit of his youth. ' May He protect you, and bring you back to health and happiness !' 'Happiness?' said Slinn amazedly. 'I am happy very happy ! I have everything I want : good air, good food, good clothes, pretty little children, kind friends ' He smiled benignantly at Don Caesar. ' God is very good to me !' Indeed, he seemed very happy ; and his face, albeit crowned with white hair, unmarked by care and any disturbing impression, had so much of satisfied youth in it that the grave features of his questioner made him appear the elder. Neverthe less, Don Caesar noticed that his eyes, when with drawn from him, sought the hillside with the same visionary abstraction. ' It is a fine view, Senor Esslinn/ said Don Caesar. ' It is a beautiful view, sir,' said Slinn, turning his happy eyes upon him for a moment, only to rest them again on the green slope opposite. ' Beyond that hill which you are looking at not OF ROUGH-AND-READY 283 far, Senor Esslinn I live. You shall come and see me there you and your family.' ' You you live there ?' stammered the invalid, with a troubled expression the first and only change to the complete happiness that had hitherto suffused his face. ' You and your name is is Ma ' ' Alvarado,' said Don Caesar gently. ' Caesar Alvarado.' ' You said Masters,' said the old man, with sudden querulousness. ' No, good friend. I said Alvarado,' returned Don Caesar gravely. 1 If you didn't say Masters, how could / say it ? I don't know any Masters.' Don Caesar was silent. In another moment the happy tranquillity returned to Slinn's face, and Don Csesar continued : ' It is not a long walk over the hill, though it is far by the road. When you are better, you shall try it. Yonder little trail leads to the top of the hill and then ' He stopped, for the invalid's face had again assumed its troubled expression. Partly to change his thoughts, and partly from some inexplicable idea that had suddenly seized him, Don Caesar con tinued : 1 There is a strange old stump near the trail, and in it a hole. In the hole I found this letter.' He stopped again this time in alarm. Slinn had staggered to his feet with ashen and distorted features, and was glancing at the letter which Don Caesar had drawn from his pocket. The muscles of his throat swelled as if he was swallowing ; his lips 284 A MILLIONAIRE moved, but no sound issued from them. At last, with a convulsive effort, he regained a disjointed speech, in a voice scarcely audible : ' My letter ! My letter ! It's mine ! Give it me ! It's my fortune all mine ! In the tunnel hill 1 Masters stole it stole my fortune ! Stole it all ! See, see!' He seized the letter from Don Caesar with trembling hands, and tore it open forcibly ; a few dull yellow grains fell from it heavily, like shot, to the ground. 'See, it's true! My letter! My gold! My strike ! My my my God !' A tremor passed over his face. The hand that held the letter suddenly dropped sheer and heavy as the gold had fallen. The whole side of his face and body nearest Don Caesar seemed to drop and sink into itself as suddenly. At the same moment, and without a word, he slipped through Don Caesar's outstretched hands to the ground. Don Caesar bent quickly over him, but not longer than to satisfy himself that he lived and breathed, although helpless. He then caught up the fallen letter, and, glancing over it with flashing eyes, thrust it and the few specimens in his pocket. He then sprang to his feet, so transformed with energy and intelligence that he seemed to have added the lost vitality of the man before him to his own. He glanced quickly up and down the highway. Every moment to him was precious now ; but he could not leave the stricken man in the dust of the road ; nor could he carry him to the house ; nor, having alarmed his daughters, could he abandon his help- OF ROUGH-AND-READY 285 lessness to their feeble arms. He remembered that his horse was still tied to the garden fence. He would fetch it, and carry the unfortunate man across the saddle to the gate. He lifted him with difficulty to the boulder, and ran rapidly up the road in the direction of his tethered steed. He had not pro ceeded far when he heard the noise of wheels behind him. It was the up-stage coming furiously along. He would have called to the driver for assistance, but even through that fast sweeping cloud of dust and motion he could see that the man was utterly oblivious of anything but the speed of his rushing chariot, and had even risen in his box to lash the in furiated and frightened animals forward. An hour later, when the coach drew up at the Red Dog Hotel, the driver descended from the box, white, but taciturn. When he had swallowed a glass of whisky at a single gulp, he turned to the astonished express agent who had followed him in. ' One of two things, Jim, hez got to happen,' he said huskily. ' Either that there rock hez got to get off the road, or I have. I've seed him on it agin !' CHAPTER IV. No further particulars of the invalid's second attack were known than those furnished by Don Caesar's brief statement, that he had found him lying insen sible on the boulder. This seemed perfectly con sistent with the theory of Dr. Duchesne, and as the young Spaniard left Los Gatos the next day, he escaped not only the active reporter of the Record, 286 A MILLIONAIRE but the perusal of a grateful paragraph in the next day's paper recording his prompt kindness and courtesy. Dr. Duchesne's prognosis, however, seemed at fault ; the elder Slinn did not succumb to this second stroke, nor did he recover his reason. He apparently only relapsed into his former physical weakness, losing the little ground he had gained during the last month, and exhibiting no change in his mental condition, unless the fact that he re membered nothing of his seizure, and the presence of Don Caesar, could be considered as favourable. Dr. Duchesne's gravity seemed to give that signifi cance to this symptom, and his cross-questioning of the patient was characterized by more than his usual curtness. ( You are sure you don't remember walking in the garden before you were ill ?' he said. ' Come, think again. You must remember that.' The old man's eyes wandered restlessly around the room, but he answered by a negative shake of his head. 'And you don't remember sitting down on a stone by the road ?' The old man kept his eyes resolutely fixed on the bed-clothes before him. ' No !' he said, with a certain sharp decision that was new to him. The doctor's eye brightened. ' All right, old man ; then don't/ On his way out he took the eldest Miss Slinn aside : ' He'll do,' he said grimly ; ' he's beginning to lie.' ' Why, he only said he didn't remember,' responded Esther. OF ROUGH-AND-READY 287 ' That was because he didn't want to remember,' said the doctor authoritatively. ' The brain is acting on some impression that is either painful and un pleasant, or so vague that he can't formulate it ; he is conscious of it, and won't attempt it yet. It's a heap better than his old self-satisfied incoherency.' A few days later, when the fact of Slinn's identifi cation with the paralytic of three years ago by the stage-driver became generally known, the doctor came in quite jubilant. ' It's all plain now,' he said decidedly. ' That second stroke was caused by the nervous shock of his coming suddenly upon the very spot where he had the first one. It proved that his brain still re tained old impressions, but as this first act of his memory was a painful one, the strain was too great. It was mighty unlucky ; but it was a good sign.' ' And you think, then ' hesitated Harry Slinn. ' I think,' said Dr. Duchesne, ' that this activity still exists, and the proof of it, as I said before, is that he is trying now to forget it, and avoid thinking of it. You will find that he will fight shy of any allusion to it, and will be cunning enough to dodge it every time.' He certainly did. Whether the doctor's hypo thesis was fairly based or not, it was a fact that, when he was first taken out to drive with his watchful physician, he apparently took no notice of the boulder which still remained on the roadside, thanks to the later practical explanation of the stage-driver's vision and curtly refused to talk about it. But, more significant to Duchesne, and 288 A MILLIONAIRE perhaps more perplexing, was a certain morose abstraction, which took the place of his former vacuity of contentment, and an intolerance of his attendants, which supplanted his old habitual trust fulness to their care, that had been varied only by the occasional querulousness of an invalid. His daughters sometimes found him regarding them with an attention little short of suspicion, and even his son detected a half-suppressed aversion in his inter views with him. Referring this among themselves to his unfor tunate malady, his children, perhaps, justified this estrangement by paying very little attention to it. They were more pleasantly occupied. The two girls succeeded to the position held by Mamie Mul- rady in the society of the neighbourhood, and divided the attentions of Rough-and-Ready. The young editor of the Record had really achieved, through his supposed intimacy with the Mulradys, the good fortune he had jestingly prophesied. The disappearance of Don Caesar was regarded as a virtual abandonment of the field to his rival ; and the general opinion was that he was engaged to the millionaire's daughter on a certain probation of work and influence in his prospective father-in-law's interests. He became successful in one or two speculations, the magic of the lucky Mulrady's name befriending him. In the superstition of the mining community, much of this luck was due to his having secured the old cabin. ' To think,' remarked one of the augurs of Red Dog, French Pete, a polyglot jester, 'that, while every d d fool went to taking up claims where OF ROUGH-AND-READY 289 the gold had already been found, no one thought of stepping into the old man's old choux in the cab bage-garden !' Any doubt, however, of the alliance of the families was dissipated by the intimacy that sprang up be tween the elder Slinn and the millionaire, after the latter's return from San Francisco. It began in a strange kind of pity for the physical weakness of the man, which enlisted the sympathies of Mulrady, whose great strength had never been deteriorated by the luxuries of wealth, and who was still able to set his workmen an example of hard labour ; it was sustained by a singular and super stitious reverence for his mental condition, which, to the paternal Mulrady, seemed to possess that spiritual quality with which popular ignorance invests demented people. ' Then, you mean to say that during these three years the vein o' your mind, so to speak, was a lost lead, and sorter dropped out o' sight or follerin' ?' queried Mulrady with infinite serious ness. * Yes,' returned Slinn, with less impatience than he usually showed to questions. ' And durin' that time, when you was dried up and waitin' for rain, I reckon you kinder had visions?' A cloud passed over Slinn's face. 1 Of course, of course !' said Mulrady, a little frightened at his tenacity in questioning the oracle. ' Nat'rally, this was private, and not to be talked about. I meant, you had plenty of room for 'em 19 2 9 o A MILLIONAIRE without crowdin' ; you kin tell me some day when you're better, and kin sorter select what's points and what ain't.' ' Perhaps I may some day,' said the invalid gloomily, glancing in the direction of his preoccu pied daughters, ' when we're alone.' When his physical strength had improved, and his left arm and side had regained a feeble but slowly gathering vitality, Alvin Mulrady one day surprised the family by bringing the convalescent a pile of letters and accounts, and spreading them on a board before Slinn's invalid chair, with the suggestion that he should look over, arrange, and docket them. The idea seemed preposterous, until it was found that the old man was actually able to perform this service, and exhibited a degree of intellectual activity and capacity for this kind of work that was unsus pected. Dr. Duchesne was delighted, and divided with admiration between his patient's progress and the millionaire's sagacity. * And there are envious people,' said the enthusi astic doctor, 'who believe that a man like him, who could conceive of such a plan for occupying a weak intellect without taxing its memory or judgment, is merely a lucky fool ! Look here. Maybe it didn't require much brains to stumble on a gold mine, and it is a gift of Providence. But, in my experience, Providence don't go round buyin' up d d fools, or investin' in dead beats.' When Mr. Slinn, finally, with the aid of crutches, was able to hobble every day to the imposing count ing-house and office of Mr. Mulrady, which now occupied the lower part of the new house, and con- OF ROUGH-AND-READY 291 tained some of its gorgeous furniture, he was installed at a rosewood desk behind Mr. Mulrady's chair, as his confidential clerk and private secretary. The astonishment of Red Dog and Rough-and- Ready at this singular innovation knew no bounds ; but the boldness and novelty of the idea carried every thing before it. Judge Butts, the oracle of Rough- and-Ready, delivered its decision. ' He's got a man who's physically incapable of running off with his money, and has no memory to run off with his ideas. How could he do better ?' Even his own son, Harry, coming upon his father thus installed, was for a moment struck with a certain filial respect, and for a day or two patronized him. In this capacity Slinn became the confidant not only of Mulrady's business secrets, but of his domestic affairs. He knew that young Mulrady, from a freckle-faced, slow country boy, had deve loped into a freckle-faced, fast city man, with coarse habits of drink and gambling. It was through the old man's hands that extravagant bills and shameful claims passed on their way to be cashed by Mulrady; it was he that at last laid before the father one day his signature, perfectly forged by the son. ' Your eyes are not ez good ez mine, you know, Slinn,' said Mulrady gravely. ' It's all right. I sometimes make my y's like that. I'd clean forgot to enter that cheque. You must not think you've got the monopoly of disremembering,' he added, with a faint laugh. Equally through Slinn's hands passed the record of the lavish expenditure of Mrs. Mulrady and the 2Q2 A MILLIONAIRE fair Mamie, as well as the chronicle of their move ments and fashionable triumphs. As Mulrady had already noticed that Slinn had no confidence with his own family, he didn't try to withhold from him these domestic details, possibly as an offset to the dreary catalogue of his son's misdeeds, but more often in the hope of gaining from the taciturn old man some comment that might satisfy his innocent vanity as father and husband, and perhaps dissipate some doubts that were haunting him. ' Twelve hundred dollars looks to be a good figger for a dress, ain't it ? But Malviny knows, I reckon, what ought to be worn at the Tooilleries, and she don't want our Mamie to take a back seat before them furrin princesses and gran' dukes. It's a slap- up affair, I kalkilate. Let's see. I disremember whether it's an emperor or a king that's rulin' over thar now. It must be suthin' first-class and Ai, for Malviny ain't the woman to throw away twelve hundred dollars on any of them small potato despots ! She says Mamie speaks French already like them French Petes. I don't quite make out what she means here. She met Don Caesar in Paris, and she says, " I think Mamie is nearly off with Don Caesar, who has followed her here. I don't care about her dropping him too suddenly; the reason I'll tell you hereafter. I think the man might be a dangerous enemy." Now, what do you make of that ? I allus thought Mamie rather cottoned to him, and it was the old woman who fought shy, thinkin' Mamie would do better. Now, I am agreeable that my gal should marry anyone she likes, whether he's a dook or a poor man, as long as he's on the square* I was OF ROUGH-AND-READY 293 ready to take Don Caesar, but now things seem to have shifted round. As to Don Caesar's being a dangerous enemy if Mamie won't have him, that's a little too high and mighty for me, and I wonder the old woman don't make him climb down. What do you think ?' ' Who is Don Caesar ?' asked Slinn. ' The man what picked you up that day. I mean,' continued Mulrady, seeing the marks of evident ignorance on the old man's face, ' I mean a sort of grave, genteel chap, suthin' between a parson and a circus rider. You might have seen him round the house talkin' to your gals.' But Slinn's entire forgetfulness of Don Caesar was evidently unfeigned. Whatever sudden accession of memory he had at the time of his attack, the incident that caused it had no part in his recollection. With the exception of these rare intervals of domestic confidences with his crippled private secretary, Mulrady gave himself up to money-getting. Without any especial faculty for it an easy prey often to unscrupulous financiers his unfailing luck, however, carried him safely through, until his very mistakes seemed to be simply insignificant means to a large significant end and a part of his original plan. He sank another shaft, at a great expense, with a view to following the lead he had formerly found, against the opinions of the best mining engineers, and struck the artesian spring he did not find at that time, with a volume of water that enabled him not only to work his own mine, but to furnish supplies to his less fortunate neighbours at a vast profit. A league of tangled forest and canon behind Rough- A MILLIONAIRE and-Ready, for which he had paid Don Ramon's heirs an extravagant price in the presumption that it was auriferous, furnished the most accessible timber to build the town, at prices which amply remunerated him. The practical schemes of ex perienced men, the wildest visions of daring dreams delayed or abortive for want of capital, eventually fell into his hands. Men sneered at his methods, but bought his shares. Some who affected to regard him simply as a man of money were content to get only his name to any enterprise. Courted by his superiors, quoted by his equals, and admired by his inferiors, he bore his elevation equally without osten tation or dignity. Bidden to banquets, and forced by his position as director or president into the usual gastronomic feats of that civilization and period, he partook of simple food, and continued his old habit of taking a cup of coffee with milk and sugar at dinner. Without professing temperance, he drank sparingly in a community where alcoholic stimulation was the custom. With neither refine ment nor an extended vocabulary, he was seldom profane, and never indelicate. With nothing of the Puritan in his manner or conversation, he seemed to be as strange to the vices of civilization as he was to its virtues. That such a man should offer little to, and receive little from, the companionship of women of any kind was a foregone conclusion. Without the dignity of solitude, he was pathetically alone. Meantime, the days passed ; the first six months of his opulence were drawing to a close, and in that interval he had more than doubled the amount of his discovered fortune. The rainy season set in OF ROUGH-AND-READY 295 early. Although it dissipated the clouds of dust under which Nature and Art seemed to be slowly disappearing, it brought little beauty to the land scape at first, and only appeared to lay bare the crudenesses of civilization. The unpainted wooden buildings of Rough-and-Ready, soaked and dripping with rain, took upon themselves a sleek and shining ugliness, as of second-hand garments ; the absence of cornices or projections to break the monotony of the long straight lines of downpour made the town appear as if it had been recently submerged, every vestige of ornamentation swept away, and only the bare outlines left. Mud was everywhere ! The outer soil seemed to have risen and invaded the houses even to their most secret recesses, as if outraged Nature was trying to revenge herself. Mud was brought into the saloons and bar-rooms and express- offices, on boots, on clothes, on baggage, and some times appeared mysteriously in splashes of red colour on the walls, without visible conveyance. The dust of six months, closely packed in cornice and carving, yielded under the steady rain a thin yellow paint, that dropped on wayfarers or unex pectedly oozed out of ceilings and walls on the wretched inhabitants within. The outskirts of Rough-and-Ready, and the dried hills round Los Gatos, did not appear to fare much better ; the new vegetation had not yet made much headway against the dead grasses of the summer; the pines in the hollow wept lugubriously into a small rivulet] that had sprung suddenly into life near the old v trail : everywhere was the sound of dropping, splashing gurgling, or rushing waters. 296 A MILLIONAIRE More hideous than ever, the new Mulrady house lifted itself against the leaden sky, and stared with all its large-framed, shutterless windows blankly on the prospect, until they seemed to the wayfarer to become mere mirrors set in the walls, reflecting only the watery landscape, and unable to give the least indication of light or heat within. Nevertheless, there was a fire in Mulrady's private office that December afternoon, of a smoky, intermittent variety, that sufficed more to record the defects of hasty architecture than to comfort the millionaire and his private secretary, who had lingered after the early withdrawal of the clerks. For the next day was Christmas, and, out of deference to the near approach of this festivity, a half-holiday had been given to the employes. ' They'll want, some of them, to spend their money before to-morrow ; and others would like to be able to rise up comfortably drunk Christmas morning/ the superintendent had suggested. Mr. Mulrady had just signed a number of cheques indicating his largesse to those devoted adherents with the same unostentatious, undemonstrative, matter-of-fact manner that distinguished his ordi nary business. The men had received it with some thing of the same manner. A half-humorous * Thank you, sir ' as if to show that, with their patron, they tolerated this deference to a popular custom, but were a little ashamed of giving way to it expressed their gratitude and their independence. * I reckon that the old lady and Mamie are having a high old time in some of them gilded pallises, in OF ROUGH-AND-READY 297 St. Petersburg or Berlin, about this time. Them diamonds that I ordered at Tiffany ought to have reached 'em about now, so that Mamie could cut a swell at Christmas with her war-paint. I suppose it's the style to give presents in furrin countries ez it is here, and I allowed to the old lady that what ever she orders in that way she is to do in Californy style no dollar jewellery and galvanized watches business. If she wants to make a present to any of them nobles ez has been purlite to her, it's got to be something that Rough-and-Ready ain't ashamed of. I showed you that pin Mamie bought me in Paris, didn't I ? It's just come for my Christmas present. No ! I reckon I put it in the safe, for them kind o' things don't suit my style ; but 'spose I orter sport it to-morrow. It was mighty thoughtful in Mamie, and it must have cost a lump ; it's got no slouch of a pearl in it. I wonder what Mamie gave for it ?' ' You can easily tell ; the bill is here. You paid it yesterday,' said Slinn. There was no satire in the man's voice, nor was there the least perception of irony in Mulrady's manner, as he returned quietly : * That's so ; it was suthin' like a thousand francs ; but French money, when you pan it out as dollars and cents, don't make so much, after all.' There was a few moments' silence, when he continued in the same tone of voice : ' Talkin' o' them things, Slinn, I've got suthin' for you.' He stopped suddenly. Ever watchful of any undue excitement in the invalid, he had noticed a slight flush of dis turbance pass over his face, and continued care lessly : ' But we'll talk over it to-morrow ; a day or 298 A MILLIONAIRE two don't make much difference to you and me in such things, you know. P'raps I'll drop in and see you. We'll be shut up here.' ' Then, you're going out somewhere ?' asked Slinn mechanically. ' No,' said Mulrady hesitatingly. It had suddenly occurred to him that he had nowhere to go if he wanted to, and he continued, half in explanation, ' I ain't reckoned much on Christmas, myself. Abner's at the Springs ; it wouldn't pay him to come here for a day even if there was anybody here he cared to see. I reckon I'll hang round the shanty and look after things generally. I haven't been over the house upstairs to put things right since the folks left. But you needn't come here, you know.' He helped the old man to rise, assisted him in putting on his overcoat, and then handed him the cane which had lately replaced his crutches. * Good-bye, old man ! You musn't trouble your self to say " Merry Christmas " now, but wait until you see me again. Take care of yourself.' He slapped him lightly on the shoulder, and went back into his private office. He worked for some time at his desk, and then laid his pen aside, put away his papers methodically, placing a large envelope on his private secretary's vacant table. He then opened the office-door and ascended the staircase. He stopped on the first landing to listen to the sound of rain on the glass skylight, that seemed to echo through the empty hall like the gloomy roll of a drum. It was evident that the searching water had found out the secret sins of the house's construction, for OF ROUGH-AND-READY 299 there were great fissures of discoloration in the white and gold paper in the corners of the wall. There was a strange odour of the dank forest in the mirrored drawing-room, as if the rain had brought out the sap again from the unseasoned timbers ; the blue and white satin furniture looked cold, and the marble mantels and centre tables had taken upon themselves the clamminess of tombstones. Mr. Mulrady, who had always retained his old farmer-like habit of taking off his coat with his hat on entering his own house, and appearing in his shirt-sleeves, to indicate domestic ease and security, was obliged to replace it, on account of the chill. He had never felt at home in this room. Its strangeness had lately been heightened by Mrs. Mulrady's purchase of a family portrait of someone she didn't know, but who, she had alleged, resembled her * Uncle Bob,' which hung on the wall beside some paintings in massive frames. Mr. Mulrady cast a hurried glance at the portrait that, on the strength of a high coat-collar and high top curl both rolled with equal precision and singular sameness of colour had always glared at Mulrady as if he was the intruder ; and passing through his wife's gorgeous bedroom, entered the little dressing-room, where he still slept on the smallest of cots, with hastily improvised surround ings, as if he was a bailiff in possession. He didn't linger here long, but, taking a key from a drawer, continued up the staircase, to the ominous funeral marches of the beating rain on the skylight, and paused on the landing to glance into his son's and daughter's bedrooms, duplicates of the bizarre 300 A MILLIONAIRE extravagance below. If he were seeking some char acteristic traces of his absent family, they certainly were not here in the painted and still damp blazon ing of their later successes. He ascended another staircase, and, passing to the wing of the house, paused before a small door, which was locked. Already the ostentatious decorations of wall and passages were left behind, and the plain lath-and- plaster partition of the attic lay before him. He unlocked the door and threw it open. CHAPTER V. THE apartment he entered was really only a lumber- room or loft over the wing of the house, which had been left bare and unfinished, and which revealed in its meagre skeleton of beams and joints the hollow sham of the whole structure. But in more violent contrast to the fresher glories of the other part of the house were its contents, which were the hetero geneous collection of old furniture, old luggage, and cast-off clothing, left over from the past life in the old cabin. It was a much plainer record of the simple beginnings of the family than Mrs. Mulrady cared to have remaining in evidence, and for that reason it had been relegated to the hidden recesses of the new house, in the hope that it might absorb or digest it. There were old cribs in which the infant limbs of Mamie and Abner had been tucked up ; old looking- glasses that had reflected their shining soapy faces, and Mamie's best chip Sunday hat ; an old sewing- machine, that had been worn out in active service ; OF ROUGH-AND-READY 301 old patch-work quilts ; an old accordion, to whose long-drawn inspirations Mamie had sung hymns ; old pictures, books, and old toys. There were one or two old chromos, and, stuck in an old frame, a coloured print from the Illustrated London News of a Christmas gathering in an old English country house. He stopped and picked up this print, which he had often seen before, gazing at it with a new and singular interest. He wondered if Mamie had seen anything of this kind in England, and why couldn't he have had something like it here, in their own fine house, with themselves and a few friends ? He remembered a past Christmas, when he had bought Mamie that now headless doll with the few coins that were left him after buying their frugal Christmas dinner. There was an old spotted hobby horse that another Christmas had brought to Abner. Abner, who would be driving a fast trotter to morrow at the Springs ! How everything had changed ! How they had all got up in the world, and how far beyond this kind of thing and yet yet it would have been rather comfortable to have all been together again here. Would they have been more comfortable ? No ! Yet, then he might have had something to do, and been less lonely to-morrow. What of that ? He had something to do : to look after this immense fortune. What more could a man want ? or should he want ? It was rather mean in him, able to give his wife and children everything they wanted, to be wanting anything more. He laid down the print gently, after dusting its glass and frame with his silk handkerchief, and slowly left the room. 302 A MILLIONAIRE The drum-beat of the rain followed him down the staircase, but he shut it out with his other thoughts, when he again closed the door of his office. He sat diligently to work by the declining winter light until he was interrupted by the entrance of his Chinese waiter to tell him that supper which was the meal that Mulrady religiously adhered to in place of the late dinner of civilization was ready in the dining-room. Mulrady mechanically obeyed the summons ; but on entering the room, the oasis of a few plates in a desert of white table-cloth which awaited him made him hesitate. In its best aspect, the high dark Gothic mahogany ecclesiastical side board and chairs of this room, which looked like the appointments of a mortuary chapel, were not ex hilarating ; and to-day, in the light of the rain- filmed windows and the feeble rays of a lamp half obscured by the dark, shining walls, it was most de pressing. * You kin take up supper into my office,' said Mulrady, with a sudden inspiration. ' I'll eat it there.' He ate it there with his usual healthy appetite, which did not require even the stimulation of com pany. He had just finished, when his Irish cook the one female servant of the house came to ask permission to be absent that evening and the next day. ' I suppose the likes of your honour won't be at home on the Christmas Day ? And it's me cousins from the old counthry at Rough-and- Ready that are invitin' me.' ' Why don't you ask them over here ?' said Mul- OF ROUGH-AND-READY 303 rady, with another vague inspiration. ' I'll stand treat.' ' Lord preserve you for a jinerous gintleman ! But it's the likes of them and myself that wouldn't be at home here on such a day.' There was so much truth in this that Mulrady checked a sigh as he gave the required permission, without saying that he had intended to remain. He could cook his own breakfast ; he had done it before ; and it would be something to occupy him. As to his dinner, perhaps he could go to the hotel at Rough-and-Ready. He worked on until the night had well advanced. Then, overcome with a certain restlessness that disturbed him, he was forced to put his books and papers away. It had begun to blow in fitful gusts, and occasionally the rain was driven softly across the panes like the passing of childish fingers. This disturbed him more than the monotony of silence, for he was not a nervous man. He seldom read a book, and the county paper fur nished him only the financial and mercantile news, which was part of his business. He knew he could not sleep if he went to bed. At last he rose, opened the window, and looked out from pure idleness of occupation. A splash of wheels in the distant muddy road and fragments of a drunken song showed signs of an early wandering reveller. There were no lights to be seen at the closed works ; a profound darkness encompassed the house, as if the distant pines in the hollow had moved up and round it. The silence was broken now only by the occa sional sighing of wind and rain. It was not an in viting night for a perfunctory walk ; but an idea 304 A MILLIONAIRE struck him he would call upon the Slinns, and anticipate his next day's visit ! They would probably have company, and be glad to see him ; he could tell the girls of Mamie and her success. That he had not thought of this before was a proof of his usual self-contained isolation ; that he thought of it now was an equal proof that he was be coming at least accessible to loneliness. He was angry with himself for what seemed to him a selfish weakness. He returned to his office, and putting the envelope that had been lying on Slinn's desk in his pocket, threw a serape over his shoulders, and locked the front-door of the house behind him. It was well that the way was a familiar one to him, and that his feet instinctively found the trail, for the night was very dark. At times he was warned only by the gurgling of water of little rivulets that descended the hill and crossed his path. Without the slightest fear, and with neither imagination nor sensitiveness, he recalled how, the winter before, one of Don Caesar's vaqueros, crossing this hill at night, had fallen down the chasm of a landslip caused by the rain, and was found the next morning with his neck broken in the gully. Don Caesar had to take care of the man's family. Suppose such an accident should happen to him ? Well, he had made his will. His wife and children would be provided for, and the work of the mine would go on all the same ; he had arranged for that. Would anybody miss him ? Would his wife, or his son, or his daughter ? No ! He felt such a sudden and overwhelming conviction of the truth of this, that he stopped as suddenly as OF ROUGH-AND-READY 305 if the chasm had opened before him. No 1 It was the truth. If he were to disappear for ever in the darkness of the Christmas night, there was none to feel his loss. His wife would take care of Mamie ; his son would take care of himself as he had before relieved of even the scant paternal authority he rebelled against. A more imaginative man than Mulrady would have combated or have followed out this idea, and then dismissed it ; to the millionaire's matter-of-fact mind it was a deduction that, having once presented itself to his perception, was already a recognised fact. For the first time in his life he felt a sudden instinct of something like aversion towards his family, a feeling that even his son's dissipation and criminality had never provoked. He hurried on angrily through the darkness. It was very strange; the old house should be almost before him now, across the hollow, yet there were no indications of light ! It was not until he actually reached the garden-fence, and the black bulk of shadow rose out against the sky, that he saw a faint ray of light from one of the lean-to windows. He went to the front-door and knocked. After waiting in vain for a reply, he knocked again. The second knock proving equally futile, he tried the door ; it was unlocked, and, pushing it open, he walked in. The narrow passage was quite dark, but from his knowledge of the house he knew the ' lean-to ' was next to the kitchen, and, passing through the dining- room into it, he opened the door of the little room from which the light proceeded. It came from a 20 306 A MILLIONAIRE single candle on a small table, and beside it, with his eyes moodily fixed on the dying embers of the fire, sat old Slinn. There was no other light nor another human being in the whole house. For the instant Mulrady, forgetting his own feel ings in the mute picture of the utter desolation of the helpless man, remained speechless on the threshold. Then, recalling himself, he stepped forward and laid his hand gaily on the bowed shoulders. ' Rouse up out o' this, old man ! Come, this won't do ! Look ! I've run over here in the rain jist to have a sociable time with you all.' ' I knew it,' said the old man, without looking up ; * I knew you'd come.' ' You knew I'd come ?' echoed Mulrady, with an uneasy return of the same strange feeling of awe with which he regarded Slinn's abstraction, * Yes ; you were alone like myself all alone !' ' Then, why in thunder didn't you open the door or sing out just now ?' said Mulrady, with an affected brusquerie to cover his uneasiness. ' Where's your daughters ?' ' Gone to Rough-and- Ready to a party.' * And your son ?' * He never comes here when he can amuse himself elsewhere.' ' Your children might have stayed home on Christ mas Eve.' ' So might yours/ He didn't say this impatiently, but with a certain abstracted conviction far beyond any suggestion of its being a retort. Mulrady did not appear to notice it. OF ROUGH-AND-READY 307 ( Well, I don't see why us old folks can't enjoy ourselves without them,' said Mulrady, with affected cheerfulness. ' Let's have a good time, you and me. Let's see, you haven't anyone you can send to my house, hev you ?' 'They took the servant with them,' said Slinn briefly. ' There is no one here.' ' All right,' said the millionaire briskly. ' I'll go myself. Do you think you could manage to light up a little more, and build a fire in the kitchen while I am gone ? It used to be mighty comfortable in the old times.' He helped the old man to rise from his chair, and seemed to have infused into him some of his own energy. He then added : ' Now, don't you get yourself down again into that chair until I come back,' and darted out into the night once more. In a quarter of an hour he returned with a bag on his broad shoulders, which one of his porters would have shrunk from lifting, and laid it before the blazing hearth of the now lighted kitchen. * It's something the old woman got for her party that didn't come off,' he said apologetically. ' I reckon we can pick out enough for a spread. That darned Chinaman wouldn't come with me,' he added, with a laugh, 'because, he said, he'd knocked off work " allee same, Mellican man !" Look here, Slinn,' he said with a sudden decisiveness, ' my pay roll of the men around here don't run short of a hundred and fifty dollars a day, and yet I couldn't get a hand to help me bring this truck over for my Christmas dinner.' 308 A MILLIONAIRE ' Of course,' said Slinn gloomily. ' Of course ; so it oughter be,' returned Mulrady shortly. * Why, it's only their one day out of three hundred and sixty-five ; and I can have three hundred and sixty-four days off, as I am their boss. I don't mind a man's being independent,' he continued, taking off his coat and beginning to unpack his sack a common ' gunny bag/ used for potatoes. ' We're independent ourselves, ain't we, Slinn ?' His good spirits, which had been at first laboured and affected, had become natural. Slinn, looking at his brightened eye and fresher colour, could not help thinking he was more like his old real self at this moment than in his counting-house and offices with all his simplicity as a capitalist. A less ab stracted and more observant critic than Slinn would have seen in this patient aptitude for real work, and the recognition of the force of petty detail, the dominance of the old market-gardener in his former humble, as well as his later more ambitious successes. ' Heaven keep us from being dependent upon our children !' said Slinn darkly. ' Let the young ones alone to-night ; we can get along without them, as they can without us,' said Mulrady, with a slight twinge as he thought of his reflections on the hillside. * But look here, there's some champagne, and them sweet cordials ihat women like ; there's jellies and such like stuff, about as good as they make 'em, I reckon ; and preserves, and tongues, and spiced beef take your pick! Stop, let's spread them out.' He dragged the table to the middle of the floor, OF ROUGH-AND-READY 309 and piled the provisions upon it. They certainly were not deficient in quality or quantity. ' Now, Slinn, wade in.' ' I don't feel hungry,' said the invalid, who had lapsed again into a chair before the fire. ' No more do I,' said Mulrady ; ' but I reckon it's the right thing to do about this time. Some folks think they can't be happy without they're getting outside o' suthin', and my directors down at Frisco can't do any business without a dinner. Take some champagne, to begin with.' He opened a bottle, and filled two tumblers. ' It's past twelve o'clock, old man, so here's a merry Christmas to you, and both of us ez is here. And here's another to our families ez isn't.' They both drank their wine stolidly. The rain beat against the windows sharply, but without the hollow echoes of the house on the hill. * I must write to the old woman and Mamie, and say that you and me had a high old time on Christmas Eve.' ' By ourselves/ added the invalid. Mr. Mulrady coughed. ' Nat'rally by ourselves. And her provisions,' he added, with a laugh. ' We're really beholden to her for 'em. If she hadn't thought of having them ' ' For somebody else, you wouldn't have had them would you ?' said Slinn slowly, gazing at the fire. ' No,' said Mulrady dubiously. After a pause, he began more vivaciously, and as if to shake off some disagreeable thought that was impressing him : ' But I mustn't forget to give you your Christmas, 3io A MILLIONAIRE old man, and I've got it right here with me/ He took the folded envelope from his pocket, and, hold ing it in his hand, with his elbow on the table, con tinued : ' I don't mind telling you what idea I had in giving you what I'm goin' to give you now. I've been thinking about it for a day or two. A man like you don't want money you wouldn't spend it. A man like you don't want stocks or fancy investments, for you couldn't look after them. A man like you don't want diamonds and jewellery, nor a gold- headed cane, when it's got to be used as a crutch. No, sir. What you want is suthin' that won't run away from you ; that is always there before you, and won't wear out, and will last after you're gone. That's land ! And, if it wasn't that I have sworn never to sell or give away this house and that garden ; if it wasn't that I've held out agin the old woman and Mamie on that point, you should have this house and that garden. But, mebbe for the same reason that I've told you, I want that land to keep for myself. But I've selected four acres of the hill this side of my shaft, and here's the deed of it. As soon as you're ready, I'll put you up a house as big as this that shall be yours with the land as long as you live, old man, and after that your children's.' ' No, not theirs !' broke in the old man passionately. * Never !' Mulrady recoiled for an instant in alarm at the sudden and unexpected vehemence of his manner. ' Go slow, old man, go slow,' he said soothingly. ' Of course, you'll do with your own as you like.' Then, as if changing the subject, he went on cheer- OF ROUGH-AND-READY 31! fully : * Perhaps you'll wonder why I picked out that spot on the hillside. Well, first, because I reserved it after my strike in case the lead should run that way, but it didn't. Next, because when you first came here you seemed to like the prospect. You used to sit there looking at it, as if it reminded you of something. You never said it did. They say you was sitting on that boulder there when you had that last attack, you know; but,' he added gently, * you've forgotten all about it.' ' I have forgotten nothing/ said Slinn, rising, with a choking voice. ' I wish to God I had ! I wish to God I could !' He was on his feet now, supporting himself by the table. The subtle, generous liquor he had drunk had evidently shaken his self-control, and burst those voluntary bonds he had put upon himself for the last six months ; the insidious stimulant had also put a strange vigour into his blood and nerves. His face was flushed, but not distorted; his eyes were brilliant, but not fixed. He looked as he might have looked to Masters in his strength three years before on that very hillside. ' Listen to me, Alvin Mulrady,' he said, leaning over him with burning eyes. ' Listen, while I have brain to think and strength to utter, why I have learnt to distrust, fear, and hate them ! You think you know my story. Well, hear the truth from me, to-night, Alvin Mulrady, and do not wonder if I have cause.' He stopped, and, with pathetic inefficiency, passed the fingers and inward turned thumb of his paralyzed hand across his mouth, as if to calm himself. 312 A MILLIONAIRE ' Three years ago I was a miner, but not a miner like you. I had experience; I had scientific know ledge ; I had a theory, and the patience and energy to carry it out. I selected a spot that had all the indications, made a tunnel, and, without aid, counsel, or assistance of any kind, worked it for six months, without rest or cessation, and with scarcely food enough to sustain my body. Well, I made a strike ; not like you, Mulrady : not a blunder of good luck, a fool's fortune there, I don't blame you for it but in perfect demonstration of my theory, the reward of my labour. It was no pocket, but a vein, a lead, that I had regularly hunted down and found a fortune ! ' I never knew how hard I had worked until that morning. I never knew what privations I had undergone until that moment of my success, when I found I could scarcely think or move. I staggered out into the open air. The only human soul near me was a disappointed prospector, a man named Masters, who had a tunnel not far away. I managed to conceal from him my good fortune and my feeble state, for I was suspicious of him of anyone, and as he was going away that day, I thought I could keep my secret until he was gone. I was dizzy and confused, but I remember that I managed to write a letter to my wife, telling her of my good fortune, and begging her to come to me ; and I remember that I saw Masters go. I don't remember anything else. They picked me up on the road, near that boulder, as you know.' 1 1 know,' said Mulrady, with a swift recollection of the stage-driver's account of his discovery. OF ROUGH-AND-READY 313 'They say,' continued Slinn tremblingly, ' that I never recovered my senses or consciousness for nearly three years ; they say I lost my memory completely during my illness, and that, by God's mercy, while I lay in that hospital, I knew no more than a babe; they say that because I could not speak or move, and only had my food as nature required it, that I was an imbecile, and that I never really came to my senses until after my son found me in the hospital. They say that ; but I tell you to-night, Alvin Mulrady/ he said, raising his voice to a hoarse outcry ' I tell you that it is a lie ! I came to my senses a week after I lay on that hospital cot. I kept my senses and memory ever after, during the three years that I was there, until Harry brought his cold, hypocritical face to my bedside and recog nised me. Do you understand ? I, the possessor of millions, lay there a pauper ! Deserted by wife and children a spectacle for the curious, a sport for the doctors and I knew it ! I heard them speculate on the cause of my helplessness. I heard them talk of excesses and indulgences; I, that never knew wine or woman ! I heard a preacher speak of the finger of God, and point to me may God curse him!' ' Go slow, old man go slow,' said Mulrady gently. ' I heard them speak of me as a friendless man, an outcast, a criminal a being whom no one would claim. They were right ; no one claimed me. The friends of others visited them ; relations came and took away their kindred ; a few lucky ones got well ; a few, equally lucky, died. I alone lived on, uncared for, deserted. 3 i4 A MILLIONAIRE 'The first year,' he went on more rapidly, 'I prayed for their coming. I looked for them every day. I never lost hope. I said to myself, " She has not got my letter ; but when the time passes she will be alarmed by my silence, and then she will come or send someone to seek me." A young student got interested in my case, and, by studying my eyes, thought that I was not entirely imbecile and uncon scious. With the aid of an alphabet he got me to spell my name and town in Illinois, and promised by signs to write to my family. But in an evil moment I told him of my cursed fortune, and in that moment I saw that he thought me a fool and an idiot. He went away, and I saw him no more. Yet I still hoped. I dreamed of their joy at finding me, and the reward that my wealth would give them. Perhaps I was a little weak still, perhaps a little flighty, too, at times; but I was quite happy that year, even in my disappointment ; for I had still hope.' He paused, and again composed his face with his paralyzed hand ; but his manner had become less excited, and his voice was stronger. * A change must have come over me the second year, for I only dreaded their coming now and finding me so altered. A horrible idea that they might, like the student, believe me crazy if I spoke of my fortune, made me pray to God that they might not reach me until after I had regained my health and strength, and found my fortune. When the third year found me still there, I no longer prayed for them I cursed them. I swore to myself that they should never enjoy my wealth ; but I wanted OF ROUGH-AND-READY 315 to live, and let them know I had it. I found myself getting stronger ; but as I had no money, no friends, and nowhere to go, I concealed my real condition from the doctors, except to give them my name, and to try to get some little work to do to enable me to leave the hospital and seek my lost treasure. One day I found out by accident that it had been dis covered. You understand? my treasure! that had cost me years of labour and my reason ; had left me a helpless, forgotten pauper. That gold I had never enjoyed had been found and taken posses sion of by another !' He checked an exclamation from Mulrady with his hand. ' They say they picked me up senseless from the floor, where I must have fallen when I heard the news. I don't remember. I recall nothing until I was confronted nearly three weeks after by my son, who had called at the hospital as a reporter for a paper, and had accidentally discovered me through my name and appearance. He thought me crazy, or a fool. I didn't undeceive him. I did not tell him the story of the mine to excite his doubts and derision, or worse if I could bring proof to claim it have it perhaps pass into his ungrateful hands. No ; I said nothing. I let him bring me here. He could do no less, and common decency obliged him to do that.' ' And what proof could you show of your claim ?' asked Mulrady gravely. ' If I had that letter, if I could find Masters,' began Slinn vaguely. * Have you any idea where the letter is, or what 3i6 A MILLIONAIRE has become of Masters ?' continued Mulrady, with a matter-of-fact gravity that seemed to increase Slinn's vagueness and excite his irritability. ' I don't know I sometimes think ' He stopped, sat down, and again passed his hands across his forehead. 1 1 have seen the letter somewhere since. Yes,' he went on with sudden vehemence, * I know it, I have seen it ! I ' His brow knitted, his features began to work con vulsively ; he suddenly brought his paralyzed hand down partly opened upon the table. * I will remember where.' ' Go slow, old man go slow.' ' You asked me once about my visions. Well, that is one of them. I remember a man some where showing me that letter. I took it from his hands and opened it, and knew it was mine by the specimens of gold that were in it. But where or when or what became of it, I cannot tell. It will come to me it must come to me soon.' He turned his eyes upon Mulrady, who was re garding him with an expression of grave curiosity, and said bitterly : ' You think me crazy. I know it. It needed only this.' 'Where is this mine?' asked Mulrady, without heeding him. The old man's eyes swiftly sought the ground. ' It is a secret then ?' 'No.' ' You have spoken of it to someone ?' 'No.' OF ROUGH-AND-READY . 317 ' Not to the man who possesses it V 'No.' ' Why ?' ' Because I wouldn't take it from him/ ' Why wouldn't you ?' ' Because that man is yourself!' In the instant of complete silence that followed they could hear that the monotonous patter of rain on the roof had ceased. ' Then all this was in my shaft, and the vein I thought I struck there was your lead, found three years ago in your tunnel ? Is that your idea ?' ' Yes.' ' Then I don't sabe why you don't want to claim it.' ' I have told you why I don't want it for my children. I go further now, and I tell you, Alvin Mulrady, that I was willing that your children should squander it, as they were doing. It has only been a curse to me ; it could only be a curse to them ; but I thought you were happy in seeing it feed selfishness and vanity. You think me bitter and hard. Well, I should have left you in your fool's paradise, but that I saw to-night when you came here that your eyes had been opened like mine. You, the possessor of my wealth my treasure could not buy your children's loving care and com pany with your millions, any more than I could keep mine in my poverty. You were to-night lonely and forsaken, as I was. We were equal for the first time in our lives. If that cursed gold had dropped down the shaft between us into the hell from which it sprang, we might have clasped hands like brothers across the chasm.' 3i8 A MILLIONAIRE Mulrady, who in a friendly show of being at his ease had not yet resumed his coat, rose in his shirt sleeves, and, standing before the hearth, straightened his square figure by drawing down his waistcoat on each side with two powerful thumbs. After a moment's contemplative survey of the floor between him and the speaker, he raised his eyes to Slinn. They were small and colourless ; the forehead above them was low, and crowned with a shock of tawny reddish hair ; even the rude strength of his lower features was enfeebled by a long straggling goat-like beard ; but for the first time in his life the whole face was impressed and transformed with a strong and simple dignity. * Ez far ez I kin see, Slinn,' he said gravely, ' the p'int between you and me ain't to be settled by our children, or wot we allow is doo and right from them to us. Afore we preach at them for playing in the slumgullion, and gettin' themselves splashed, perhaps we rnout as well remember that that thar slumgullion comes from our own sluice-boxes, where we wash our gold. So we'll just put them behind us, so,' he continued, with a backward sweep of his powerful hand towards the chimney, and went on : ' The next thing that crops up ahead of us, is your three years in the hospital, and wot you went through at that time. I ain't sayin' it wasn't rough on you, and that you didn't have it about as big as it's made ; but ez you'll allow that you'd hev had that for three years, whether I'd found your mine or whether I hadn't, I think we can put that behind us, too. There's nothin' now left to prospect but your story of your strike. Well, take your own proofs. OF ROUGH-AND-READY 319 Masters is not here ; and if he was, according to your own story, he knows nothin' of your strike that day, and could only prove you were a disappointed pro spector in a tunnel; your letter that the person you wrote to never got -you can't produce ; and if you did, would be only your own story without proof ! There is not a business man ez would look at your claim ; there isn't a friend of yours that wouldn't believe you were crazy, and dreamed it all ; there isn't a rival of yours ez wouldn't say ez you'd invented it. Slinn, I'm a business man I am your friend -I am your rival but I don't think you're lyin' I don't think you're crazy and I'm not sure your claim ain't a good one ! Ef you reckon from that that I'm going to hand you over the mine to-morrow,' he went on after a pause, raising his hand with a deprecating gesture, 'you're mistaken. For your own sake, and the sake of your wife and children, you've got to prove it more clearly than you hev ; but I promise you that from this night forward I will spare neither time nor money to help you to do it. I have more than doubled the amount that you would have had had you taken the mine the day you came from the hospital, When you prove to me that your story is true and we will find some way to prove it, if it is true that amount will be yours at once, without the need of a word from law or lawyers. If you want my name to that in black and white, come to the office to-morrow, and you shall have it.' * And you think I'll take it now ?' said the old man passionately. ' Do you think that your chanty will bring back my dead wife, the three years of my lost 320 A MILLIONAIRE life, the love and respect of my children ? Or do you think that your own wife and children, who deserted you in your wealth, will come back to you in your poverty ? No ! Let the mine stay with its curse where it is I'll have none of it !' ' Go slow, old man ; go slow,' said Mulrady quietly, putting on his coat. ' You will take the mine if it is yours ; if it isn't, I'll keep it. If it is yours, you will give your children a chance to show what they can do for you in your sudden prosperity, as I shall give mine a chance to show how they can stand reverse and disappointment. If my head is level and I reckon it is they'll both pan out all right. 1 He turned and opened the door. With a quick revulsion of feeling Slinn suddenly seized Mulrady's hand between both his own, and raised it to his lips. Mulrady smiled, disengaged his hand gently, and saying soothingly, ' Go slow, old man ; go slow,' closed the door behind him, and passed out into the clear Christmas dawn. For the stars, with the exception of one that seemed to sparkle brightly over the shaft of his former fortunes, were slowly paling. A burden seemed to have fallen from his square shoulders as he stepped out sturdily in the morning air. He had already forgotten the lonely man behind him, for he was thinking only of his wife and daughter. And at the same moment they were thinking of him ; and in their elaborate villa overlooking the blue Mediter ranean at Cannes, were discussing, in the event of Mamie's marriage with Prince Rosso e Negro, OF ROUGH-AND-READY 321 the possibility of Mr. Mulrady's paying two hundred and fifty thousand dollars, the gambling debts of that unfortunate but deeply conscientious nobleman. CHAPTER VI. WHEN Alvin Mulrady re-entered his own house, he no longer noticed its loneliness. Whether the events of the last few hours had driven it from his mind, or whether his late reflections had repeopled it with his family under pleasanter auspices, it would be difficult to determine. Destitute as he was of imagination, and matter-of-fact in his judgments, he realized his new situation as calmly as he would have considered any business proposition. While he was decided to act upon his moral convictions purely, he was prepared to submit the facts of Slinn's claim to the usual patient and laborious investiga tion of his practical mind. It was the least he could do to justify the ready and almost superstitious assent he had given to Slinn's story. When he had made a few memoranda at his desk by the growing light, he again took the key of the attic, and ascended to the loft that held the tangible memories of his past life. If he was still under the influence of his reflections, it was with very different sensations that he now regarded them. Was it possible that these ashes might be warmed again, and these scattered embers rekindled ? His practical sense said, No ! whatever his wish might have been. A sudden chill came over him ; he began to realize the terrible change that was probable, more by the 322 A MILLIONAIRE impossibility of his accepting the old order of things, than by his voluntarily abandoning the new. His wife and children would never submit. They would go away from this place far away, where no reminiscence of either former wealth or former poverty could obtrude itself upon them. Mamie his Mamie should never go back to the cabin, since desecrated by Slinn's daughters, and take their places. No ! Why should she ? because of the half- sick, half-crazy dreams of an old vindictive man ? He stopped suddenly. In moodily turning over a heap of mining clothing, blankets, and india-rubber boots, he had come upon an old pickaxe the one he had found in the shaft ; the one he had carefully preserved for a year, and then forgotten. Why had he not remembered it before ? He was frightened, not only at this sudden resurrection of the proof he was seeking, but at his own fateful forgetfulness. Why had he never thought of this when Slinn was speaking ? A sense of shame, as if he had volun tarily withheld it from the wronged man, swept over him. He was turning away, when he was again startled. This time it was by a voice below a voice calling him Slinn's voice. How had the crippled man got here so soon, and what did he want? He hurriedly laid aside the pick, which in his first impulse he had taken to the door of the loft with him, and descended the stairs. The old man was standing at the door of his office awaiting him. As Mulrady approached he trembled violently, and clung to the doorpost for support. ' I had to come over, Mulrady,' he said, in a OF ROUGH-AND-READY 323 choked voice ; ' I could stand it there no longer. I've come to beg you to forget all that I have said ; to drive all thought of what passed between us last night out of your head and mine for ever. I've come to ask you to swear with me that neither of us will ever speak of this again for ever. It is not worth the happiness I have had in your friendship for the last half-year ; it is not worth the agony I have suffered in its loss in the last half-hour.' Mulrady grasped his outstretched hand. ' P'raps/ he said gravely, ' there mayn't be any use for another word, if you can answer one now. Come with me. No matter/ he added, as Slinn moved with difficulty ; ' I will help you.' He half supported, half lifted the paralyzed man up the three flights of stairs, and opened the door of the loft. The pick was leaning against the wall where he had left it. ' Look around, and see if you recognise any thing.' The old man's eyes fell upon the implement in a half-frightened way, and then lifted themselves interrogatively to Mulrady's face. ' Do you know that pick ?' Slinn raised it in his trembling hands. ' I think I do ; and yet ; ' Slinn, is it yours ?' ' No,' he said hurriedly. * Then what makes you think you know it ?' ' It has a short handle like one I've seen.' ' And it isn't yours ?' ' No. The handle of mine was broken and spliced. I was too poor to buy a new one.' 324 A MILLIONAIRE * Then, you say that this pick which I found in my shaft is not yours ?' ' Yes/ ' Slinn !' The old man passed his hand across his forehead, looked at Mulrady, and dropped his eyes. ' It is not mine,' he said simply. ' That will do,' said Mulrady gravely. ' And you will not speak of this again ?' said the old man timidly. ' I promise you not until I have some more evidence.' He kept his word, but not before he had extorted from Slinn as full a description of Masters as his imperfect memory and still more imperfect know ledge of his former neighbour could furnish. He placed this with a large sum of money, and the promise of a still larger reward, in the hands of a trustworthy agent. When this was done he resumed his old relations with Slinn, with the exception that the domestic letters of Mrs. Mulrady and Mamie were no longer a subject of comment, and their bills no longer passed through his private secretary's hands. Three months passed ; the rainy season had ceased, the hillsides around Mulrady's shaft were bridal-like with flowers ; indeed, there were rumours of an approaching fashionable marriage in the air, and vague hints in the Record that the presence of a distinguished capitalist might soon be required abroad. The face of that distinguished man did not, however, reflect the gaiety of nature nor the anticipation of happiness ; on the contrary, for the OF ROUGH-AND-READY 325 past few weeks he had appeared disturbed and anxious, and that rude tranquillity which had char acterized him was wanting. People shook their heads ; a few suggested speculations ; all agreed on extravagance. One morning, after office hours, Slinn, who had been watching the care-worn face of his employer, suddenly rose and limped to his side. ' We promised each other,' he said, in a voice trembling with emotion, ' never to allude to our talk of Christmas Eve again, unless we had other proofs of what I told you then. We have none ; I don't believe we'll ever have any more ; I don't care if we ever do, and I break that promise now because I cannot bear to see you unhappy and know that this is the cause.' Mulrady made a motion of deprecation, but the old man continued : 1 You are unhappy, Alvin Mulrady. You are un happy because you want to give your daughter a dowry of two hundred and fifty thousand dollars, and you will not use the fortune that you think may be mine.' * Who's been talking about a dowry ?' asked Mul rady, with an angry flush. ' Don Caesar Alvarado told my daughter.' ' Then that is why he has thrown off on me since he returned,' said Mulrady, with sudden small male volence 'just that he might unload his gossip because Mamie wouldn't have him. The old woman was right in warnin' me agin him.' The outburst was so unlike him, and so dwarfed his large though common nature with its littleness, 326 A MILLIONAIRE that it was easy to detect its feminine origin, although it filled Slinn with vague alarm. * Never mind him,' said the old man hastily ; ' what I wanted to say now is that I abandon everything to you and yours. There are no proofs ; there never will be any more than what we know than what we have tested and found wanting. I swear to you that, except to show you that I have not lied and am not crazy, I would destroy them on their way to your hands. Keep the money, and spend it as you will. Make your daughter happy, and, through her, yourself. You have made me happy through your liberality, don't make me suffer through your privation.' ' I tell you what, old man,' said Mulrady, rising to his feet, with an awkward mingling of frankness and shame in his manner and accent, ' I should like to pay that money for Mamie, and let her be a princess, if it would make her happy. I should like to shut the lantern jaws of that Don Caesar, who'd be too glad if anything happened to break off Mamie's match, but I shouldn't touch that capital unless you'd lend it to me. If you'll take a note from me, payable if the property ever becomes yours, I'd thank you. A mortgage on the old house and garden, and the lands I bought of Don Caesar, out side the mine, will secure you.' ' If that pleases you,' said the old man, with a smile, * have your way ; and if I tear up the note, it does not concern you.' It did please the distinguished capitalist of Rough- and-Ready ; for the next few days his face wore a brightened expression, and he seemed to have re- OF ROUGH-AND-READY 327 covered his old tranquillity. There was, in fact, a slight touch of consequence in his manner, the first ostentation he had ever indulged in, when he was informed one morning at his private office that Don Caesar Alvarado was in the counting-house, desiring a few moments' conference. ' Tell him to come in, 1 said Mulrady shortly. The door opened upon Don Caesar, erect, sallow, and grave. Mulrady had not seen him since his return from Europe, and even his inexperienced eyes were struck with the undeniable ease and grace with which the young Spanish-American had assimi lated the style and fashion of an older civilization. It seemed rather as if he had returned to a familiar condition than adopted a new one. ' Take a cheer,' said Mulrady. The young man looked at Slinn with quietly per sistent significance. ' You can talk all the same,' said Mulrady, accept ing the significance. ' He's my private secretary.' ' It seems that for that reason we might choose another moment for our conversation,' returned Don Caesar haughtily. ' Do I understand you cannot see me now ?' Mulrady hesitated. He had always revered and recognised a certain social superiority in Don Ramon Alvarado ; somehow his son a young man of half his age, and once a possible son-in-law appeared to claim that recognition also. He rose, without a word, and preceded Don Caesar upstairs into his drawing-room. The alien portrait on the wall seemed to evidently take sides with Don Caesar, as against the common intruder, Mulrady. 328 A MILLIONAIRE 1 1 hoped that Seiiora Mulrady might have saved me this interview,' said the young man stiffly ; * or at least have given you some intimation of the reason why I seek it. As you just now proposed my talking to you in the presence of the unfortunate Sefior Esslinn himself, it appears she has not.' * I don't know what you're driving at, or what Mrs. Mulrady's got to do with Slinn or you,' said Mulrady, in angry uneasiness. ' Do I understand,' said Don Caesar sternly, * that Sefiora Mulrady has not told you that I entrusted to her an important letter, belonging to Sefior Esslinn, which I had the honour to discover in the wood six months ago, and which she said she would refer to you ?' ' Letter ?' echoed Mulrady slowly, * my wife had a letter of Slinn's ?' Don Caesar regarded the millionaire attentively. ' It is as I feared,' he said gravely. ' You do not know, or you would not have remained silent.' He then briefly recounted the story of his finding Slinn's letter, his exhibition of it to the invalid, its disastrous effect upon him, and his innocent discovery of the contents. ' I believed myself at that time on the eve of being allied with your family, Sefior Mulrady,' he said haughtily ; ' and when I found myself in posses sion of a secret which affected its integrity and good name, I did not choose to leave it in the helpless hands of its imbecile owner, or his sillier children, but proposed to trust it to the care of the senora, that she and you might deal with it as became your honour and mine. I followed her to Paris, and gave her the letter there. She affected to laugh at any OF ROUGH-AND-READY 329 pretension of the writer, or any claim he might have on your bounty ; but she kept the letter, and, I fear, destroyed it. You will understand, Sefior Mulrady, that when I found that my attentions were no longer agreeable to your daughter, I had no longer the right to speak to you on the subject, nor could I, without misapprehension, force her to return it. I should have still kept the secret to myself, if I had not since my return here made the nearer acquaintance of Sefior Esslinn's daughters. I cannot present myself at his house, as a suitor for the hand of the Senorita Vashti, until I have asked his absolution for my com plicity in the wrong that has been done to him. I cannot, as a caballero, do that without your permis sion. It is for that purpose I am here.' It needed only this last blow to complete the humiliation that whitened Mulrady's face. But his eye was none the less clear and his voice none the less steady as he turned to Don Caesar. ' You know perfectly the contents of that letter ?' ' I have kept a copy of it.' * Come with me.' He preceded his visitor down the staircase and back into his private office. Slinn looked up at his employer's face in unrestrained anxiety. Mulrady sat down at his desk, wrote a few hurried lines and rang a bell. A manager appeared from the counting- house. ' Send that to the bank.' He wiped his pen as methodically as if he had not at that moment countermanded the order to pay his daughter's dowry, and turned quietly to Slinn. ' Don Caesar Alvarado has found the letter you 330 A MILLIONAIRE wrote your wife on the day you made your strike in the tunnel that is now my shaft. He gave the letter to Mrs. Mulrady ; but he has kept a copy.' Unheeding the frightened gesture of entreaty from Slinn, equally with the unfeigned astonishment of Don Caesar, who was entirely unprepared for this revelation of Mulrady's and Slinn's confidences, he continued : * He has brought the copy with him. I reckon it would only be square for you to compare it with what you remember of the original.' In obedience to a gesture from Mulrady, Don Caesar mechanically took from his pocket a folded paper, and handed it to the paralytic. But Slinn's trembling fingers could scarcely unfold the paper ; and as his eyes fell upon its contents, his convulsive lips could not articulate a word. ' P'raps I'd better read it for you,' said Mulrady gently. ' You kin follow me and stop me when I go wrong.' He took the paper, and, in a dead silence, read as follows : ' DEAR WIFE, I've just struck gold in my tunnel, and you must get ready to come here with the children at once. It was after six months' hard work ; and I'm so weak I ... It's a fortune for us all. We should be rich even if it were only a branch vein dipping west towards the next tunnel, instead of dipping east, according to my theory ' 'Stop!' said Slinn, in a voice that shook the room. OF ROUGH-AND-READY 331 Mulrady looked up. ' It's wrong, ain't it ?' he asked anxiously ; ' it should be east, towards the next tunnel.' ' No ! It's right ! I am wrong ! We're all wrong !' Slinn had risen to his feet, erect and inspired. ' Don't you see,' he almost screamed with pas sionate vehemence ; ' it's Masters' abandoned tunnel your shaft has struck ? Not mine ! It was Masters' pick you found ! I know it now !' * And your own tunnel ?' said Mulrady, springing to his feet in his excitement. ' And your strike ?' ' Is still there !' The next instant, and before another question could be asked, Slinn had darted from the room. In the exaltation of that supreme discovery he regained the full control of mind and body. Mulrady and Don Caesar, no less excited, followed him precipi tately, and with difficulty kept up with his feverish speed. Their way lay along the base of the hill below Mulrady's shaft, and on a line with Masters' abandoned tunnel. Only once he stopped, to snatch a pick from the hand of an astonished Chinaman at work in a ditch, as he still kept on his way, a quarter of a mile beyond the shaft. Here he stopped before a jagged hole in the hillside. Bared to the sky and air, the very openness of its abandonment, its unpro- pitious position, and distance from the strike in Mulrady's shaft had no doubt preserved its integrity from wayfarer or prospector. ' You can't go in there alone and without a 332 MILLIONAIRE OF ROUGH-AND-READY light,' said Mulrady, laying his hand on the arm of the excited man. ' Let me get more help and proper tools.' ' I know every step in the dark as in the daylight,' returned Slinn, struggling. ' Let me go while I have yet strength and reason! Stand aside !' He broke from them, and the next moment was swallowed up in the yawning blackness. They waited with bated breath until, after a seeming eternity of night and silence, they heard his return ing footsteps, and ran forward to meet him. As he was carrying something clasped to his breast, they supported him to the opening. But at the same moment the object of his search and his burden, a misshapen wedge of gold and quartz, dropped with him, and both fell together with equal immobility to the ground. It was the treasure he had found four years ago, still intact. 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