-. 
 

 
 JERRY 
 
 A NOVEL 
 
 BY 
 
 SARAH BARNWELL ELLIOTT 
 
 " In the awful mystery of human life, it is a 
 consolation sometimes to believe that our mis- 
 takes, perhaps even our sins, are permitted to be 
 instruments of our education for immortality.''' 1 
 
 NEW YORK 
 HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1891, BY 
 HENRY HOLT & CO. 
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1890, 1891, BY 
 CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS.
 
 TO MY BROTHER 
 R. HABERSHAM ELLIOTT, C.E. 
 
 OF 
 
 BIRMINGHAM, ALABAMA 
 
 2061722
 
 PART FIRST. 
 
 " ' You know very well that every human being has his tree of 
 life, or his flower of life, just as each is arranged. They look like 
 other plants, but their hearts beat. Children's hearts can beat 
 too. Think of this. Perhaps you may recognize the beating of 
 your child's heart. ' And then they went into the great hot-house 
 of Death, where flowers and trees were growing, and marvelously 
 intertwined. There stood the fine hyacinths under glass bells, 
 some quite fresh, others somewhat sickly. There stood gallant 
 palm-trees, oaks, and plantains, and parsley, and blooming thyme. 
 Each tree and flower had its name ; each was a human life. 
 There were great trees thrust into little pots, so that they stood 
 quite crowded, and were nearly bursting the pots ; there was also 
 many a little weakly flower in rich earth, with moss around it, 
 cared for and tended. But the sorrowful mother bent over all the 
 smallest plants, and heard the human heart beating in each, and 
 out of millions she recognized that of her child. 
 
 " ' That is it ! ' she cried, and stretched out her hands over a 
 little crocus flower, which hung down quite sick and pale."
 
 JERRY. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 " Alone, and empty-handed in this world 
 Where loves and hopes lie thick as Heaven's stars." 
 
 HE sat in the doorway with his elbows on his knees, 
 and his chin in his dirty little hands. His yel- 
 low face was expressionless almost ; and his thin, 
 straight lips looked as if they could never have smiled 
 or laughed as a child's lips should. A tired face with 
 all the lines set as in the countenance of an old per- 
 son ; a stolid face that gave small sign of heart, or 
 mind, or soul. 
 
 Motionless he sat with the spring sun sending a 
 thousand flickering lights about him, and cutting his 
 shadow sharp and black on the block of light in the 
 doorway. 
 
 Behind him, a clay-daubed log-house ; before him, a 
 barren, rain-gullied yard, a broken rail-fence, and a 
 few poor apple-trees that seemed ashamed of the 
 meager blossoms they could show. A rickety grind- 
 stone stood at the corner of the house where the mud 
 chimney jutted out, an axe stuck in a log near the 
 wood-pile, one lean, straight-tailed hog rooted in 
 a corner of the fence. 
 
 In all his life the child had never looked on any 
 other scene, had never lost sight of the smoke from 
 that poor chimney. Now he rose slowly, pulling up 
 his ragged trowsers.
 
 4 JERR Y. 
 
 " I'm agoin'," he said at last, looking straight be- 
 fore him, " it aint no use ; I can't git to see you no 
 mo', and you telled me as it wornt much, for you 
 wuz agoin' to the ' Golding Gates/ not much fur," 
 and putting his hands in his pockets, he walked away 
 slowly down a well-worn path to where a spring made 
 a still, clear pool in the gray rocks. He paused here 
 a moment to drink out of a sun-bleached gourd that 
 lay on a ledge, then passed beyond to where in a cor- 
 ner of the fence there was a grave. Some rails had 
 been laid about the off-side of this grave ; but only to 
 an insignificant height this extra fence had reached, 
 as if the strength that built it were not equal to the 
 task. 
 
 The child stood and looked ; his expression did not 
 change ; no special feeling seemed to stir within him ; 
 but at last the straight lips parted, and he spoke to 
 the grave as he had spoken to himself up at the 
 house. " I'm agoin', Mammy," he said, " it aint no 
 use ; Dad he beats me, an' Minervy Ann Salter's 
 done come to live, an' las' night her beat me too ; it 
 aint no use. I aint took much rails," he went on, 
 " an' mebbe Dad'll lettum stay ; mebbe he'll furgit 
 you're down here if I kivver you good ; mebbe he'll 
 furgit," and without haste or excitement he climbed 
 over the outer fence to reach a brush-heap which was 
 there. 
 
 " I'll kivver you good," he repeated, and dropped 
 the brush. piece by piece over the fence on to the 
 grave ; then beyond he picked a long branch of 
 blackberry blossoms. 
 
 Gravely he scanned from end to end the blooming 
 brier ; he recrossed the fence, and stood once more 
 by the grave ; again the sharp little voice broke the 
 stillness. " You wuz powerful proud of blossoms, 
 Mammy," he said, " an' I'll lay 'em thar ; but I'm 
 agoin' ; I can't git to see you, but dad can't nuther, 
 can't beat you no mo* ; an' mebbe," nodding his head 
 slowly, " mebbe he'll furgit them rails."
 
 JERR Y. 5 
 
 His task was done, and he stood slouching like an 
 old man ; his shoulders rounded forward ; his hands 
 in his pockets, and his bare feet drawn close to- 
 gether. 
 
 The poor grave had become a brush-heap, with the 
 long spray of snowy blossoms on the top ; and the 
 stolen rails were covered. 
 
 " Mebbe he'll furgit them rails," and he turned 
 away toward the house, 
 
 Straight up the path to the house, and in at the 
 door ; there he paused and looked about him. In 
 one corner a bed ; in another the pile of straw where 
 the child slept, the broad, broken fireplace where 
 stones served for andirons, the cracked dutch-oven, 
 the frying-pan, and battered coffee-pot, the few 
 tin plates and cups the splint-bottomed chairs the 
 string of red peppers over the chimney ; all these 
 things that had been always about his little life, he 
 was about to leave. He drew his dirty shirt-sleeve 
 across his nose, pausing in the act as his eyes in their 
 survey reached a dark corner of the house ; he 
 walked over to the spot. A faded, blue homespun 
 apron hung there ; he eyed it gravely, then touched it 
 softly. 
 
 " It's your'n, Mammy," he whispered, " it aint Min- 
 ervy Ann Sailer's ; her aint never so much as teched 
 it, it's been a-hangin' thar ever sense dad knocked 
 youuns over ; dad aint agoin' to 'member it," and 
 while he spoke he drew himself up by the uneven logs 
 until he reached the peg where the apron hung. 
 Once more on the floor with his prize in his hands, he 
 looked it over with a gleam of recognition in his eyes 
 as if every smirch upon it had some association 
 for him ; then rolled it up with clumsy carefulness, 
 wrapping some straw about it to make it fast. 
 
 " It aint Minervy Ann Salter's," he said decisively, 
 " it's Mammy's, sure/y," and he turned and left the 
 house. 
 
 A road passed by the old rail-fence, turning down
 
 6 JERR Y. 
 
 the hillside ; a rough, red clay road where the winter's 
 ruts had hardened into shape under the spring sun ; 
 with here and there a well-worn stump garnishing its 
 ugly length, or the rounded shoulder of some mighty 
 buried cliff making a few smooth steps. On either 
 side the woods crept up so close that the roots of the 
 trees were travel-worn, and much bark was missing 
 from the trunks at the usual height of the wheel-hubs. 
 A lonely, desolate road lying like a long red gash cut 
 on the face of the world as God had left it, the only 
 mark that man had made. 
 
 The child paused as he climbed the fence, paused 
 astride the top rail, and hitched the strings that an- 
 swered for braces a little higher on his shoulders, then 
 turned the straw-wrapped bundle over slowly in his 
 hands. 
 
 " It aint no use," he repeated once again, as if at 
 the last some memory laid faint hold upon him, 
 " it aint no use, mammy," he whispered, " an' I've 
 done kivvered youuns good, rale good," almost 
 pleadingly, " good as I could." One moment more 
 he paused, then climbed down to the rough road, and 
 turned away resolutely from all the landmarks of his 
 little life. If he realized at all the step he was about 
 to take, if he had any fear of the world or the treat- 
 ment he would meet with there, if he felt any sorrow 
 for the ties he was breaking, he gave no sign more 
 than the pause as he crossed the fence. What had 
 roused him now seemed more than he could bear, and 
 so he went away. 
 
 The road grew more and more rough as it descend- 
 ed the hills ; the rocks more frequent and more 
 scarred and scraped by brake-locked wheels ; the 
 trees were taller and bent in more various directions 
 as they had to find more unequal rootage among the 
 rocks. Tall, shining poplars ; broad-leaved chest- 
 nuts ; slim, gaunt oaks that had no room to spread, 
 and from tree to tree rank vines wild grapes and 
 briars that made an impassable barrier on either side.
 
 JERRY. 7 
 
 Straight on the child walked ; not picking his way, 
 nor avoiding rock, nor root, nor mudhole ; straight 
 on, neither fast nor slow, looking neither to the right 
 nor to the left. His little bundle close under one arm; 
 his hands in his pockets ; his hat crammed well down 
 on his head, so that his colorless hair, creeping through 
 a hole in the crown, could scarcely be distinguished 
 from the equally colorless felt. 
 
 Down, down the road wound, with sometimes a 
 level sweep sometimes a slight rise that showed it 
 was not taking the most direct route toward the val- 
 ley : still, it made toward the valley : the ruts deep- 
 ening into gullies, the woods becoming more and 
 more dense, the rocks changing from yellow to a 
 pale gray, the clay shading to a more sanguinary 
 hue that prophetically stained the feet of the child e'er 
 the first day of his wandering was done. The noon- 
 day sun looked straight down on the rough road and 
 the human mite that followed it, then slowly sank 
 down the western sky : the shadows blackened in the 
 woods ; the rocks and the stems of the trees took on 
 weird shapes ; the wind rose and fell, dying far away 
 up the hillside. 
 
 The child walked on : the shadows and the gath- 
 ering darkness did not seem to disturb him : on be- 
 tween the black woods, with the narrow strip of sky 
 above him turning slowly from blue to violet, where 
 presently the watchful stars would shine and flicker 
 in their places. 
 
 The road broadened, and a fence stood sharply de- 
 fined against the sky ; a section of fence that seemed 
 to run along the brow of a hill. . 
 
 The child paused, then went on more slowly: where 
 was he, and who lived here ? 
 
 Gradually the road rose until it reached the fence, 
 then both dipped abruptly, and before him, in a little 
 basin-like hollow, a light shone. 
 
 He stopped again, as if for consideration, then ap- 
 proached cautiously, over the fence and through a
 
 g JERR Y. 
 
 field where the belted dead trees stood up like gaunt 
 specters against the sky. 
 
 Nearer and nearer the child crept, pausing every 
 few moments to make observations, until he was so 
 near that the fire, shining all over the one room of 
 the house, showed him quite plainly the faces gath- 
 ered about it, and striking out through the open door 
 made a broad path of light across the field. 
 
 " I aint never sawn them folks," he said softly to 
 himself, "them aint never been up our way." Again 
 he looked to make quite sure, when suddenly there 
 came the sharp bark of a dog that dashed out at him, 
 and a woman following quickly made retreat hopeless. 
 
 " Who's thar ! " she called out ; then to the dog, 
 " Hold yer mouth, Buck, consarn yer ! " and a troop 
 of children coming to the front, the boy was discov- 
 ered. He stood quite still, a black shadow in the 
 stream of light, his hands in his pockets, the little 
 bundle close under one arm, and his yellow face, all 
 drawn and haggard from hunger and fatigue, turned 
 up to meet the eyes of the woman. 
 
 " Mussy me ! " she said, kicking the small dog 
 aside, and taking a snuff-stick from her mouth, 
 " whar's you come from ? " 
 
 " No whars," the child answered, looking furtively 
 in the direction of the fence as if bent on retreat. 
 
 " No whars," the woman repeated, setting her arms 
 akimbo, and again kicking the small dog over, " that's 
 a rale likely tale ; whar's youuns' mar ? " 
 
 The child paused a moment as if thinking, then 
 said slowly : 
 
 "I dunno." 
 
 "Yerdunno?" raising her voice ; "I 'How thet's 
 a peart look-out fer sense : well, where's youuns' 
 par ? " 
 
 "Over yon," pointing to the hills that loomed above 
 them. 
 
 " Thet's more like now," a little satisfaction coming 
 into her voice ; " an* whar mout you be agoin' ? "
 
 JERRY. 9 
 
 " Over yon," pointing to the west, where the yellow 
 light still lingered in the far, day-faithful horizon. 
 
 " Thet's rale sensible," sarcastically ; " I reckon 
 you've about telled all youuns knows, aint yer ? " 
 
 " I reckon," humbly. 
 
 " Jest so ; I reckon yer have, ceppen youuns' name ; 
 is you got any of thet ? " 
 
 " Jerry." 
 
 " Jerry," the woman repeated, and looking him 
 over from head to foot, laid her hand on his shoulder ; 
 not roughly, yet a shiver ran over the child's thin little 
 body, and his tired eyes flickered in their upward look. 
 
 " Lord-er-mussy, chile ! " and she gave him a little 
 shake, " thar aint no use a-trimlin' an' a-jumpin', I 
 aint agoin' to knock you ; looks like you is usen to 
 beatin'." 
 
 " I is," stolidly. 
 
 " An' I 'Hows thet you is runned away," putting 
 her head on one side with a knowing look, " aint 
 thet so ? " 
 
 There was a pause, then a quick gasp as the child's 
 voice, grown suddenly sharper, broke the silence. 
 " Does you know Minervy Ann Salter ? " fearfully. 
 
 " No." 
 
 A sigh of relief came from the boy. 
 
 " Her's a great, big woman," he said meditatively, 
 "an* her knocked me deef an' bline, her did, an' I 
 runned away." 
 
 " Well, I never ! jest alisten, Delithy," to a younger 
 woman who had joined the group. 
 
 " I hearn," Delithy answered, taking out a piece of 
 straight comb that held up the knot of sandy hair on 
 the back of her head, to comb it straight back from 
 each side the ragged part, and screw it up again, " I 
 hearn ; but aint her no kin to youuns ? " 
 
 " Minervy Ann ? " the boy asked with some scorn, 
 "no!" 
 
 Then inside the house a baby began to cry, and the 
 women turned simultaneously.
 
 10 JERRY. 
 
 " I reckon you kin come in, Jerry," the elder 
 woman said, and the child followed her. 
 
 Tired and stiff and hungry, the fire, and the smell 
 of something that was cooking on the hearth, made 
 the lines of the child's face relax, and sent a gleam of 
 light into his hopeless eyes. All that long spring day 
 he had walked without a stop for rest, and nothing 
 had passed his lips since he drank from the still pool 
 near the brush-heaped grave. Now he squatted at 
 the corner of the wide chimney and watched intently 
 the coarse corn bread that was baking in a spider 
 over the coals. 
 
 " Youuns looks powerful hungry," Delithy re- 
 marked, when the baby being hushed and the child- 
 ren settled in a convenient staring distance of the 
 new-comer, silence reigned, " how long sence youuns 
 had wittles?" 
 
 " I aint had a bite sence mornin',' ' not moving his 
 eyes from the bread. 
 
 " An' been a-runnin' all day ? " 
 
 " I were feared to run," he said, " I were feared I'd 
 give out." 
 
 " Well, I reckon you jest would." 
 
 " Kin I have a leetle bite ? " the boy went on, point- 
 ing to the bread, but not moving his eyes from it ; 
 " I'll chop wood for it." 
 
 Delithy moved her snuff-stick thoughtfully across 
 her big white teeth, eyeing the boy the while. 
 
 " An' I'll tote water," was added by the sharp little 
 voice to the pitiful bargain; he was so hungry. 
 
 " Youuns seem usen to work," Delithy remarked. 
 
 " I reckon I is," thoughtfully, " kin I have it ? " 
 
 " It's Jake's bread," she answered slowly, watching 
 the boy intently as with a dull satisfaction in his long- 
 ing that was with her a form of humor. 
 
 " Well, Jake aint a-comin' this night," the elder 
 woman put in, returning from where she had deposited 
 the baby on the bed, " an' I reckon Louwisy Dyer is 
 able to give a bite of bread 'thout tradin' ; I 'low
 
 JERRY. II 
 
 'twont hurt, though, to tote a leetle water," stooping 
 over the bread. " Youuns is sure 'bout it ? " 
 
 " I is," and for the first time that day the little bun- 
 dle dropped from under the boy's arm, and both 
 hands were stretched out, " jest sure," then further 
 utterance was stopped by the bread. 
 
 " Fur all the world like a hongry dorg," Delithy 
 said, after some thought, " I never seen ther like," 
 and again she combed and put in place her sandy 
 locks. 
 
 Then in a tin-cup the elder woman gave Jerry some 
 cold coffee, and told him where in the loft he could 
 sleep on some fodder. 
 
 And the child crept away up the ladder, and 
 quickly fell asleep with his bundle safe inside of his 
 shirt. 
 
 '' 'Cause it might git lost in ther fodder," he said.
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 " But the child's sob in the silence curses deeper 
 Than the strong man in his wrath." 
 
 4 * ^pH AR'S Jake an' a man alonger him." 
 
 Toiling up from the spring with two buckets 
 of water, Jerry heard the words and stopped. 
 
 The midday meal was over, and still Jerry had not 
 gone away from this first resting-place ; dinner and 
 breakfast had been added to his obligations ; but it 
 was not this so much that held him, as that he was 
 weary, weary of his little life, weary from the 
 tramp of the day before, and loath, moreover, to leave 
 the unwonted kindness of these pitying women. And 
 now he was bringing water for Delithy's washing. 
 " A man alonger him," the words rang in his ears : 
 who was it ? Fear made him cautious, and leaving 
 the buckets he crept on his hands and knees to where 
 he could see this man. 
 
 Across the field between the dead trees, blackly 
 silhouetted against the golden glory of the western 
 sky, he saw them coming ; two long, thin, slouching 
 mountaineers, walking with the uneven regularity of 
 men who followed the plow. He cowered, trembled, 
 shrank, with his face bleaching to a deathly gray; his 
 eyes grew wide and bright with terror, his chin 
 dropped, he seemed as one paralyzed. 
 
 " Dad ! " he whispered, then all was still. 
 
 Nearer they came across the dreary field : Delithy 
 paused over her tub ; the elder woman stood in the 
 doorway ; the children gazed open-mouthed ; and 
 through a bunch of maple bushes whose young spring 
 leaves glowed red in the sun-light, two glittering, 
 fear-charmed eyes were watching.
 
 JERRY. 13 
 
 Then Jake's voice : 
 
 " Hardy, gals, hardy ; I'm back." 
 
 " I reckon I'se got eyes, Jake Dyer," the elder wo- 
 man answered, " an' yeers too, fur all yer holler like 
 I'm deef." 
 
 " Aint youuns deef, Louwisy?" jocularly, "don't 
 say ! " 
 
 " No, I aint deef," then to the stranger, " good 
 evenin'." 
 
 " Mister Bill Wilkerson," Jake went on, " I makes 
 yer knowed to Mis Louwisy Dyer, my old woman: 
 an* Mis Louwisy Dyer, I make yer knowed to Mister 
 Bill Wilkerson ; likewise Miss Delithy Suggs," and 
 Jake bowed with a flourish. 
 
 Delithy nodding, said, " Evenin'," to her new 
 acquaintance; then she added with calm and compla- 
 cent certainty : 
 
 "Youuns is drunk, Jake Dyer." 
 
 " No, I aint drunk nuther," Jake retorted, but 
 with no sign of anger, " an' Mister Wilkerson aint 
 drunk nuther ; but he's done lost hisn's boy, he has." 
 
 The women looked at each other, and the children 
 looked at the women. 
 
 " Weuns went to meetin' yisterday," Mr. Wilken- 
 son began, " an' w'en weuns come home Jerry, my 
 boy, he were a-missin' ; an' he must a come this road, 
 fur t'other road 'ud tuck him to meetin'." 
 
 "An" no folks over thar sawn him," Jake put in, 
 " an' as Mister Wilkerson were made knowed to me 
 by Preacher Dunner, I tole him to come alonger me 
 an' hunt fur thet boy." 
 
 Still the women did not speak, and the children 
 gazed stolidly in their faces, until Wilkerson, looking 
 from one to the other, said : 
 
 " Have youuns sawn him ?" 
 
 " Yes, weuns have sawn him," Delithy answered 
 sharply, returning vigorously to her washing, " he 
 tuck a bite here last night ; but he's plum gone now, 
 he is."
 
 14 JERRY. 
 
 " That's so," Louwisy added with earnestness, and 
 the children stared in silence. 
 
 " Well, thet jest beats me ! " Wilkerson said slow- 
 ly, pushing his hat a little further back on his head, 
 " I never hearn ther like; he's jest a-spilin' fur a beat- 
 in', Jerry is." 
 
 " I 'llowed from ther looks of him as he were a-spil- 
 in' fur whiles," and Delithy, shaking the suds from 
 her hands, took up a bucket and went toward the 
 spring, leaving her parting shot to do what work it 
 could. 
 
 Only a little way down the steep path, then she 
 stopped, for on either side stood two buckets full of 
 water. 
 
 " Pore creetur ! " she muttered, looking about her 
 hastily as she poured the water out, " he couldn't 
 tuck much mo'beatin'," and hiding the buckets in the- 
 bushes, fearing that Wilkerson might search, she went 
 on her way. 
 
 Straight on through the black night the child 
 walked ; down, down, and the early dawn found him 
 in the valley, with the grim, flat-topped old Cumber- 
 land mountains lying behind him like huge sleeping 
 creatures, showing black against the eastern sky. 
 All night long he walked ; from the time when Jake's 
 voice broke the spell that held him still behind the 
 maple bushes. 
 
 He had not paused for brake nor brier, until by a 
 long detour he reached the road ; then once more he 
 had followed it without deviation, over rocks and 
 stumps, and unseen gullies ; often falling ; often his 
 terror had bidden him run, but while never stopping, 
 he never ran. Sore and bruised, and weak with hun- 
 ger, he still pushed on, with always the thought that 
 his father might come on him in the darkness without 
 warning ; in the gray dawn of the growing day he 
 had looked back to the lessening hills, while the new 
 thought came to him : 
 
 " Dad mout git a nag an' ketch me yit ! "
 
 JERRY. 15 
 
 The fields that had shown green and fresh about 
 him as the darkness lifted ; the rail-fences that had 
 loomed like long rows of skeleton ribs, jagged and 
 twisting on either side the road endless fences that 
 seemed to wind and crawl for ever by him as he 
 walked were with him still ; and still the road lay 
 straight and red as blood before him, until the color 
 had grown into his eyes, staining wherever he looked. 
 
 He was afraid, deadly afraid of stopping ; but at 
 last he had been obliged to pause at a house and beg 
 for food, and in her way the woman had been kind to 
 him. 
 
 " Youuns misewell stop an' rest," she had said, 
 looking him over almost contemptuously; "nobody 
 ain't a-runnin' atter sicher splinter as you nohow ; 
 an* I 'How 'twouldn't be no satisfaxion a-knockin' 
 .you nuther." 
 
 But Jerry had resisted with patient persistence. 
 " Gimme in my han's," he pleaded, "an" I kin eat 
 while I'ma-walkin' ;" then he had added persuasively, 
 " an' when I gits a chence, I'll come back an' chop 
 youuns' wood, I will." 
 
 The woman had looked keenly into the wistful eyes 
 before she parted with the bread ; but then she had 
 given it all. 
 
 " I b'lieve youuns is honest," she had said, " I 
 b'lieve it sure ; but yer'll never git no chence 
 ceppen to lay down an' be planted afore many days." 
 
 The child took the bread with a look of wonder 
 growing in his eyes that were fastened on the wom- 
 an's face. 
 
 " Planted ? " he had repeated slowly as to himself, 
 " planted ! " and he had turned away without another 
 word ; had walked slowly but steadily down the long 
 red road, and as he munched the hard corn-bread 
 had said over and over again to himself, " Planted 
 planted." 
 
 This had been hours ago in the early morning, and 
 now in the noonday brightness the child, still plod-
 
 1 6 JERRY. 
 
 ding on his way, had but the one thought " Thet's 
 what Dad done to youuns. Mammy ; you said yer 
 were agoin' over yander to ther ' Golding Gates,' not 
 much fur, you said ; an' thet's what Dad done, 
 he planted youuns so yer couldn't go." On and on 
 through the gathering heat he walked, with this one 
 thought repeating itself over and over again in his 
 mind, " thet's what Dad done," at last it was too 
 strong for him, and he stopped in his going ; for a 
 new fact had come home to him. He stood quite 
 still for a moment while his little face blanched, and 
 a look of longing untold, bitter longing, came into 
 his eyes as he turned them to the fading hills. 
 
 " An' I hepped 'im ! " he cried aloud to the empty 
 fields and sky, " I hepped 'im, I piled ther bresh thar! 
 Oh, Mammy, I never knowed I never knowed ! " 
 and down on the hard red road he cast himself, sob- 
 bing as if his heart would break. And always the 
 burden of his cry, " I never knowed, Mammy, I never 
 knowed ! " 
 
 Presently the sobs died away, and lying there dull 
 with grief, the sound of a horse's hoofs struck on his 
 ear. For one second he listened too terrified to move, 
 then sprang up : it was a man on horseback, and 
 coming from the direction of the mountains ! One 
 frightened glance, one instant's blindness, then 
 down the road he sped as fast as his feet could carry 
 him, straight on and on like a hunted animal fleeing 
 for its life. 
 
 Would the fences never end would the road lie 
 between those level fields forever was the man coming 
 any faster would he catch him ? A terrified look 
 over his shoulder : the horse was trotting smartly ; 
 there was no hope, and a voice hailed him " Stop ! " 
 
 He tried so hard to run a little faster, but it was no 
 use, his breath seemed to fail, and once more he fell 
 prone in the dust. One moment, then the horse 
 stopped beside him, and a voice broke on his ear 
 
 " Git up."
 
 JERRY. 17 
 
 But he could neither speak nor move, he could not 
 even distinguish if it were his father's voice. 
 
 " What ails yer ? " and he was lifted by the arm after 
 a kindly fashion, and above him he saw a rough old 
 face that was unknown to him. 
 
 " What air youuns skeered about ? " 
 
 Jerry's voice came back to him now with a long, 
 sobbing breath. 
 
 " I were feared," he faltered, " feared youuns'd 
 ketch me." 
 
 " An' I have" the old man answered simply, " but 
 I aint agoin* to hurt yer : whar air yer agoin' to ? " 
 
 " Over yon," pointing as always to the west. 
 
 " Well, yer'll never git thar if yer try runnin'," the 
 old man went on with clear common sense, " but git 
 up, an' I'll tote youuns a piece." 
 
 The child looked up : the poor little face was 
 smeared now with tears and dust in addition to its 
 usual yellowness, but in the eyes was the same wistful 
 look that had made Delithy put his father off the 
 track ; that had made the woman feed him that morn- 
 ing, and that now made the rough old countryman 
 lift him on the raw-boned horse that waited so patiently 
 for his double load. 
 
 " Tuck a good grip," the old man said kindly, as he 
 settled himself in the saddle, " youuns kin hold on 
 good, I'm solid ; but you looks powerful weakly an' 
 small to be so fur off ? " he went on interrogatively, 
 " you're about five miles from any whars : what mout 
 be youuns' name ? " 
 
 " Jerry," the child answered from where he leaned 
 against the broad back of the brown jeans coat. 
 
 " Jeremiah, I reckon," the old man went on in a 
 superior tone. 
 
 " Mammy usen to call me ' Miah,' " came with a 
 little catch in the voice, "butl'se mostly called Jerry." 
 
 " Jest so, but it Stan's to reason as youuns' name is 
 Jeremiah : now what mout be ther balance of youuns' 
 name ? " in a still more persuasive voice.
 
 1 8 JERRY. 
 
 " Does you know Minervy Ann Salter ? " came ir- 
 relevantly from the child. 
 
 " I can't say as I rickerlec' any sicher name," was 
 answered. 
 
 " Well, my name is Wilkerson, sense you dunno 
 Minervy Ann." 
 
 " Jeremiah Wilkerson," the old man repeated, " is 
 thar any mo' to it? " 
 
 " I dunno rightly," Jerry answered, " but Dad 
 'llowed thar were a P. in it som'ers." 
 
 "A P. ; well, I reckon it were Jeremiah P. Wilker- 
 son ; thet sounds right peart." 
 
 " It do so," and the little voice had a ring of pride 
 and pleasure in it, " I reckon thet were it, Jeremiah 
 P. Wilkerson, it soun's rayly purty." 
 
 " An' youuns' par, what were hisn's name?" the old 
 man went on, pleased with his success, his husky voice 
 jolting out in time to the jog-trot of the horse. 
 
 " Bill," and at the awful name the child gave a 
 frightened look behind ; " can't weuns git on a leetle 
 faster ? " he asked anxiously, " I'm feared." 
 
 " Feared ? " his new friend repeated, pulling the 
 horse to a sudden stop, " thet's cur'us sure ! " 
 
 " I'm feared of Dad," Jerry explained hastily, " I'm 
 feared he'll git me agin ; an' if youuns ain't agoin' no 
 further, I'll 'light an' walk," trying to look round the 
 broad back that obscured his view of everything. 
 
 The man thought a moment in silence, then again 
 urged his beast into the slow trot that seemed its nor- 
 mal pace. 
 
 " I'm agoin' further, Jeremiah, an' I'll have a leetle 
 talkin' alonger youuns," was answered meditatively, 
 then with much condescension " I'm a preacher, 
 Jeremiah ; I'm Preacher Babbit, I am," pausing that 
 this announcement might have full effect ; " an' I'll 
 not be far from ther mark if I say you is a-runnin' 
 away ; now aint yer ? " pausing, " aint you a-runnin' 
 off from youuns' dear 'par, William Wilkerson, an' 
 youuns' pore mar ; aint yer ? "
 
 JERRY. 19 
 
 There was a moment's silence after this unexpected 
 attack ; then with a new hard tone in his voice the 
 child answered : 
 
 " Mammy ain't thar no mo", an* Minervy Ann Sail- 
 er's done come thar to live, an' her knocked me deef 
 an' bline, an' I runned away." 
 
 " I reckon youuns' par done married agin, Jere- 
 miah; ain't thet so ? " coaxingly. 
 
 " I dunno," came sullenly, " but I hates 'em, I do." 
 
 " No, Jeremiah," and Preacher Babbit cleared his 
 throat, and stroked the fringe of beard under his chin 
 in a way that would have shown a less ignorant person 
 than Jerry that a lecture was coming " ther Holy 
 Scripter says as leetle boys mustn't hate their pars," 
 he began slowly, " an' you mustn't nuther ; thar's 
 nothin' good as comes of leetle boys hatin' their pars, 
 an' you mustn't do it, Jeremiah. Now, I'm agoin' 
 to hold a meetin' down these ways to-morrer, an' 
 mebbe youuns dear par'll come, and he'll furgive 
 you, an' tuck you home again : ther par in ther 
 Testyment did : now, Jeremiah, jest think of thet ! " 
 and Preacher Babbit made a well-meant effort 
 to turn his face over his fat shoulder so as to 
 bestow a look of encouragement on his little com- 
 panion. 
 
 But Jerry had no thought for him, instead was look- 
 ing eagerly from one side of the road to the other. 
 They had come a long distance in the slow jog-trot, 
 and now were in the woods again, with the evening 
 closing in on them. Everything was in Jerry's favor, 
 and in an instant he had slipped off the horse's tail, 
 and lay sprawling in the road ; but only for a second 
 he lay there, then was up and off, speeding blindly 
 through the thick woods. In vain the worthy preacher 
 called ; the child would not hear : a dreadful sugges- 
 tion had been made to him ; a prayer-meeting was to 
 held, and his father might be there. No thought of 
 distance came to reassure him ; no thought at all was 
 with him, only the dread conviction that his father
 
 20 JERRY. 
 
 would be at the meeting ; for his father always went 
 to meetings. 
 
 No persuasions could call him back to that dread- 
 ful possibility. He fled until the old man's voice faded 
 from his hearing, then he sat down to rest ; but not 
 for long, and through the night he wandered as he 
 had done the night before. Once he lay down, but 
 in the stillness his terror increased, and with it the 
 dull pain that had been with him ever since the 
 woman's unconsciously cruel words had forced their 
 way into his mind, and with them the pitiful conviction 
 that he had aided his father in the deed that had shut 
 his only friend away from him. Living in the heart 
 of the Cumberland Mountains, whose heights he had 
 never before left, his ignorance was dense, and to him 
 things were strangely mingled and perverted. The 
 thought that he might go back and pull away the brush 
 he had piled over his mother, and so undo his share 
 in the work that had imprisoned her, had not yet oc- 
 curred to him. He was not accustomed to thinking, 
 and, until lately, little accustomed to feeling anything 
 save hunger, and cold, and blows. But now a great 
 awakening was on him ; a great loneliness held him ; 
 a great loneliness that had been with him ever since 
 the one soul that loved him had been put away from 
 him in a mysterious manner that he. had not under- 
 stood until now ; and now the awful conviction was 
 with him that he had helped to shut his mother up in 
 the earth. 
 
 So he could not stop to rest, for he would begin to 
 cry again, and crying made him feel so sick and weak. 
 Very, very tired he was when at last the day dawned, 
 and he found himself in a long, straight clearing that 
 extended as far as he could see : a clearing like a 
 roadway, only up and down the center were beams of 
 wood, and across them long shining pieces of iron. 
 He stopped and looked at it ; it must be some kind 
 of road ; but a new kind he had never before seen. 
 
 He climbed the slight embankment on which it was,
 
 JERRY. 21 
 
 and stood looking wonderingly up and down ; then 
 with his back to the rising sun, he followed slowly 
 this new kind of road. He was weak and tired, and 
 the stepping from beam to beam confused him so 
 much, that it took all his attention to step just the right 
 distance, and not to fall. Carefully he made his way 
 until something caused him to look up, when he found 
 himself in a straggling line of small houses. 
 
 He paused and turned about, for the moment for- 
 getting all his ills in the wonder called forth. 
 
 " Lotser folks must live here," he muttered, " an' I 
 knows dad aint never seen it, 'cause I aint never 
 hearn him tell nuthin' 'bout it, I never did sure ! " 
 and with his hands in his pockets he stood regarding 
 the houses about him. Presently .he saw a curl of 
 smoke come from a chimney, and watched a woman 
 as she slowly opened a door, then a window ; then he 
 went nearer, for he was too hungry to pause for con- 
 sideration. 
 
 Slowly he approached the house that he had just 
 seen opened, and leaning against the open door said 
 stolidly : 
 
 " I'm honggry." 
 
 The woman turned quickly, and her eyes opened 
 wide as they rested on the ragged, starved specimen 
 of humanity confronting her. 
 
 " Mussy, but you're a rough 'un ! " she said, scan- 
 ning Jerry without seeming to heed his words until he 
 repeated slowly : 
 
 " I'm honggry, gimme a bite of sumpen ? " 
 
 " Most folks works fur their wittles," was the un- 
 gracious reply. 
 
 " I kin work too," the child persisted, " but I'm plum 
 wore out now, I is," and he sat down slowly on the 
 step. The widow Perkins paused before further words 
 of harshness to watch the child's movements, which 
 had been made assured by the kindly treatment he 
 had met with in his wanderings through the unopened 
 regions from which he had come : and while she
 
 22 JERRY. 
 
 watched, the thought came to her, suppose he was one 
 of a gang of tramps sent ahead to " spy out the land," 
 suppose if she refused him what he asked, he should 
 bring the whole company down on her, a lone widow ! 
 She had read of such things in the papers. And she 
 stared at the child with a growing anxiety in her eyes 
 as she asked quickly : 
 
 " Will you git away if I give you some wittles ? " 
 
 Jerry looked up slowly. 
 
 " Don't you warnt me to tote no water for youuns 
 when I gits rested ? " he asked innocently. 
 
 The woman's silly fears having once taken hold of 
 her, grew with every word the child uttered : he was 
 surely a " spyer," and she must persuade him to go 
 away. 
 
 " You're too little," she said kindly, " I couldn't 
 abear to see you workin'." 
 
 Jerry listened in wonder : yesterday a woman had 
 fed him ; but she had expected him to work for her 
 in the future, so he thought ; but this woman was a 
 new experience, and would not let him work at all. 
 
 " Here's bread an' meat, child, an' some good hot 
 coffee," she went on, handing him a plate and cup, 
 " an' when you're through, I'll give you more to take 
 along." Jerry looked up at her with his wistful eyes 
 full of wonder ; but he had no words. His life had 
 been one strictly of command and obedience, and he 
 had no vocabulary of thanks. He listened without 
 comment to the kind words that came from the wom- 
 an's lips as he ate and drank, and when he had fin- 
 ished took in silence the fresh supply of food that was 
 given him wrapped in a greasy paper. 
 
 It was very strange, this kindness, and emboldened 
 him, and he laid his dirty little hand on the woman's 
 frock as she stood near him. 
 
 " Kin I lay down awhile ? " he asked. 
 
 " Lord, honey," and the woman's voice was actually 
 tremulous from uneasiness,, " I aint got any place 
 fitten to sleep in," going on more hastily as if to cover
 
 JERRY. 23 
 
 the clumsy lie, " but if you'll go 'long the track apiece, 
 there's a car of straw where you kin rest jest as easy, 
 now you go 'long an' try it," and she walked out of 
 the house in her anxiety to point him in the right 
 direction. 
 
 But Jerry's ignorance foiled her : he did not know 
 what a car was, so could not understard her words 
 nor her actions, except that she wanted him to go on, 
 and he was too tired ; he listened patiently, however, 
 until she paused to see the effects of her advice, 
 then 
 
 " I wanter drink of water," was all that came 
 slowly from the child's almost colorless lips ; and the 
 woman's heart sank. Was, this stupidity, or was it 
 cunning to make time until the rest of the party 
 should come up ? Whatever it was, she answered 
 amiably, though with more haste, 
 
 " Yes, honey, jest you wait, an' I'll git you some," 
 and she hurried into the house. 
 
 Jerry waited ; he could not understand this person, 
 but she gave him what he most needed, and he was 
 content to obey her. Presently she returned, looking 
 anxiously up and down the road, and in her hands a 
 tin dipper full of water, and a black bottle tightly 
 corked. 
 
 " Drink this, honey," handing him the dipper, "an* 
 here's some more in the bottle ; 'twon't be much load 
 to carry," encouragingly, " an' I'll take you to the car 
 myself ; none of the neighbors is up yet," glancing 
 keenly at the nearest houses, " an' nobody '11 see you git 
 in the car," and as she talked she walked quickly down 
 the railway to where on a side-track a box-car was 
 being loaded with loose hay. Left unlocked at this 
 little country station, there was no difficulty in pushing 
 the doors far enough apart for Jerry to creep in ; 
 then the woman handed in the bottle of water and 
 package of food, and pulled the doors close as she 
 had found them. One anxious look about to see if 
 she were observed, as well as to see if the tramps she
 
 24 JERR y. 
 
 feared were at hand, then this sagacious woman 
 returned to her house congratulating herself on her 
 shrewdness. The hay was fragrant and soft, and Jerry, 
 not at all comprehending why he was there, but 
 perfectly contented with his quarters, waded and 
 clambered to a far corner, where, putting safely to one 
 side his food and bottle, he made for himself a little 
 nest, and curling up was soon in a dreamless sleep. 
 
 Securely hidden from all the world, his immediate 
 wants provided for, the sleep that came to him was 
 almost the sleep of death. So through all the noise 
 and bustle of the approaching train ; through the 
 new unknown motion to which he was shortly sub- 
 jected, he slept ; and not until far into the day did he 
 rouse from the lethargy that had overpowered him. 
 
 Slowly he opened his eyes and looked about him : 
 there was the loosely packed hay shivering from base 
 to apex his bottle and bread jolting straight up and 
 down, and his own sensations beyond any words of 
 his to describe. 
 
 He was terrified ; he called aloud ; he tried to 
 stand, then gladly sank again into the hay. What 
 was the matter such noise such furious motion ? 
 He was now afraid to move, and for a long time lay 
 quite still, but at last hunger overcame him, and he 
 opened his bundle. There was the bread the woman 
 had given him, and the meat he had regarded with 
 such satisfaction ; he touched it, as if under the 
 strange circumstances he doubted his senses ; but it 
 was as real as it looked ; he tasted it, then ate heartily, 
 putting away the fragments carefully, a lesson he 
 had learned as a dog learns to hide a bone. He felt 
 better after this, and drinking some water from his 
 bottle resumed his place Thoughtfully he regarded 
 the roof of the car, then pulled more hay down about 
 him. 
 
 "When it gits through runnin' away and busts," he 
 muttered, " I misewell fall soff," and burying himself 
 still more deeply, once more forgot all things in sleep.
 
 JERRY. 25 
 
 On through miles of level fields through hills and 
 forests, and swamps, away from every thing and 
 soul he had ever known, on and on until the sun 
 set and the new moon rose thin and fair, looking 
 down on the far-off brush-heaped grave, on slow 
 Delithy telling for the twentieth time how that she 
 had " fooled thet Wilkerson man," upon the kindly 
 woman in the valley, wondering over his fate, upon 
 old Preacher Babbit preaching from the " Prodigal 
 son," and using the little waif to point a moral, upon 
 the widow Perkins still waiting for the tramps. 
 
 On hurried the battered old car where the little boy 
 lay sleeping. On into a world he had never dreamed 
 of, into a world where he would have to work, and 
 fight, and suffer more intricately, more bitterly per- 
 haps, and perchance with less reward than if he had 
 followed to its end his life among the lonely hills. 
 
 On the train rushed toward the west, while the 
 moon set, and the night blackened : then in the early 
 dawn a sudden stop.
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 " On to days of strangest wonder 
 Was it Providence or Fate ! " 
 
 grating, creaking doors were pushed back, 
 and the faces of men appeared in the opening. 
 Jerry looked out cautiously from his lair : he was 
 afraid, for ever since the sudden stoppage he had 
 heard strange sounds outside. Rumblings as of wheels 
 over rocks ; strange cries and calls ; awful shrieks 
 and whoops that made him put his fingers in his ears 
 and cower lower in the hay, and above all clanging as 
 of a hundred cow-bells rung at once ! 
 
 Where was he, what was it all ? 
 
 So now when the doors were rolled back, he peeped 
 forth cautiously to make observations. The hay was 
 being taken out, and he could see the heads of horses ; 
 then beyond he saw men swarming in every direction; 
 and vehicles rushing about, nor were any of them like 
 the vehicles of his mountain home ; and going in and 
 out among this crowd of men and wheels were great 
 black things with black smoke coming from them, 
 huge things, rolling back and forth on the same kind 
 of road he had found down in the woods. 
 
 He stood there looking out on all this seeming con- 
 fusion, a gaunt, wonder-stricken specter, not heeding 
 the calls of the men who, catching sight of him, had 
 for the moment ceased from their work. 
 
 " Say, sonny, is you deef ? " and one of the men, 
 springing into the car, laid a hand on the child's shoul- 
 der. Jerry did not start ; but looked up slowly, dumb 
 with fear and wonder. 
 
 " Be jabers, he's er idgit ! " said a great Irishman, 
 twitching one rag-fringed leg of the boy's trousers. 
 
 26
 
 JERRY. 27 
 
 " Where's you come from ? " the first man asked, 
 shaking him slightly. 
 
 " I dunno," slowly. 
 
 " That's wholesome ; where's you goin', then ? " 
 
 "I dunno." 
 
 " Sure enough ! " laughing, " do you think you'll 
 have a safe trip ? " and again came the pitiful answer: 
 
 " I dunno." 
 
 " P'raps you can tell us how you feel ? " 
 
 " I feels feared, an' I feels honggry," looking from 
 one to the other. 
 
 " Pore laytle divil ; pitch 'im oot, Dick ; sure he's 
 had a fray ride, "and the big Irishman pulled the child 
 toward the door. 
 
 He did not resist, except for the one second he 
 paused to feel if his little bundle was safe inside his 
 shirt; then he yielded himself to the man's strong 
 grasp, and was put down in the muddy street. 
 
 " Git away, now," but the child did not move : all 
 about him was the rush of a great railway terminus 
 bewildering him and terrifying him ; he did not dare 
 to move. 
 
 " Put him on the sidewalk, Pat, he'll get killed tryin' 
 to cross." So the Irishman half lifted, half dragged 
 the boy to the pavement, then left him. 
 
 It was early, but numbers of people were abroad ; 
 work-people hurrying with baskets to their day's toil, 
 and to Jerry crouching in a doorway not ten steps 
 from where the man left him, they flitted like figures 
 in a dream. He had no thoughts, he had no words for 
 his fears : he was seated on something immovable, he 
 was leaning against something solid ; it did not matter 
 that the street, and people, and houses seemed for some 
 time to sway and jolt as he had been doing for hours in 
 the car ; everything was so strange that nothing could 
 surprise him any more : not even a big man with shin- 
 ing buttons on his coat, who pushed him with a stick 
 and told him to get up. He only felt sorry to move 
 because he was weak and hungry : other than this he
 
 28 JERRY. 
 
 had no sensations, and was too dazed to ask any 
 questions when the man, taking him by the arm, led 
 him down the street. 
 
 He was very weary, and was glad when at last they 
 stopped in front of what seemed to him a hole in a big 
 rock. Inside a number of people were gathered, 
 people that looked sick, and ragged, and dirty ; and 
 who laughed when he dropped on a bench against the 
 wall. His chief sensation was still weariness, and he 
 nearly fell asleep in the corner where he had been put; 
 only rousing when after long waiting he was led into 
 another room, where he saw more men with shining 
 buttons, and one sitting high up above the others. 
 
 Here he was put in a little pen with a low fence all 
 around it, and the man who had brought him said 
 something he could not understand ; and the man 
 seated high up looked at him very hard, then asked 
 his name. 
 
 " Jerry," he answered, and the familiar sound 
 seemed to bring him out of the dream he was in ; the 
 very twang of his own voice, so different from the 
 voices about him, made things seem more real, and he 
 looked around him more intelligently. 
 
 " What other name have you ? " the man went on : 
 there was a pause, then the child looked up asking : 
 
 " Does youuns know Minervy Ann Salter ? " There 
 was a smile even in the well-ordered police room, and 
 the man answered : 
 
 " No." 
 
 " Well, then, my name is Jerry Wilkerson," slowly, 
 " an' Preacher Babbit, he says as he 'Hows I's named 
 Jeremiah P. Wilkerson," with great stress on the P. 
 " Jeremiah P. Wilkerson," the official repeated, then 
 went on : 
 
 " Where have you come from, Jeremiah ?" 
 
 A puzzled look came over the child's face. 
 
 " I dunno," he answered slowly, " but it's over yan- 
 der whar ther sun gits up ; it's a fur way, an' power- 
 ful lonesome."
 
 JERRY. 29 
 
 " What is the name of the place ? " 
 
 Jerry shook his head. 
 
 " It ain't got no name as I knows on," he said. 
 
 " How far is it from here ? " 
 
 " I dunno." 
 
 " How did you come ? " 
 
 Jerry paused a moment ; he could answer this, for 
 he could recall with pain and weariness every change 
 in his mode of traveling. 
 
 " I walked a piece," he began with slow literalness, 
 "an' I runned a piece 'cause I were feared; an' I 
 corned a piece on Preacher Babbit's nag, an' I drapped 
 off 'cause he were agoin' to sen' me back; an' I loped 
 a piece to a cur'us kinder road; an' a woman give me 
 sumpen to eat, an' shet me in a box of strawer, an' 
 when I woked up agin/' looking up almost excitedly, 
 " it were a-gittin' along ther all-gracious-beatenest 
 kind er way! An' I were feared agin; an' ther fellers 
 tuck me out an' sot me down in ther road whar all 
 sorter tricks was lopin' round, an' smokin', an' hollerin'; 
 then him," pointing to his captor, " come an' got me, 
 an' brunged me here." 
 
 The sharp little voice ceased; the hard faces about 
 the room looked a little softer, perhaps, and the next 
 question did not have such a business-like ring to it : 
 
 " Why did you leave your home ?" 
 
 The child's face changed, and all his sorrow and 
 remorse came back to him while he answered with a 
 look of pitiful despair in his eyes : 
 
 " Mammy were gone, an' Minervy Ann Salter come 
 thar to live, an' her knocked me deef an' bline, an* I 
 runned away." 
 
 " Where had your mother gone ? " 
 
 " I dunno." 
 
 There was a pause, as if the officials were non- 
 plussed; there was no law providing for a case like 
 this, no refuge for such wanderers : he did not 
 deserve punishment; he was not an orphan: and the 
 officer asked:
 
 3 JERRY. 
 
 " Where are you going when you leave this place ? " 
 
 " Whar ther sun sots," was the quiet answer. 
 
 " Have you friends there ? " smiling. 
 
 " Mammy said she were agoin' thar, her did, an' 
 she 'llowed 'twornt much fur to ther ' Golding 
 Gates'." 
 
 The men looked at each other. 
 
 " San Francisco? " one hazarded. 
 
 The child shook his head. 
 
 " I dunno; but her p'inted whar the sun sots, her 
 did, an' I'm agoin' thar." 
 
 " Are you going on to-day ? " 
 
 " I 'llowed I'd rest awhile," was answered simply. 
 
 " Where will you rest ? " 
 
 " I 'llowed youuns 'd lemme rest right here; an' I'm 
 honggry," looking up as a dog might. 
 
 " Poor little creature," and the chief officer put 
 some money on the table, " let ' 63 ' take him in the 
 yard and feed him; his case shall be attended to 
 later," then to the child, " Jeremiah, you must wait 
 until I see you again." 
 
 " Jest so, I'll wait sure," nodding reassuringly; then 
 he followed " 63 " out into the dingy yard. Here he 
 was fed, then placed on a bench with orders not to 
 move until "63" should come back. 
 
 " Kin I lay down ? " he asked wearily. 
 
 " Yes, but don't you go away from this bench; do 
 you hear ?" 
 
 " I do," and the child lay down while the man went 
 away with the empty plate and cup. Soundly he slept 
 until the sun crept round the high buildings and shone 
 on him, a poor ragged little mite. 
 
 Two men stood looking down on him as he rested; 
 one his captor, policeman 63; the other, the official 
 who had provided food for him. 
 
 " I have a brother who runs a boat on the river," 
 " 63 " was saying, " I reckon he can find him work 
 to do." 
 
 " If your brother will take him, it will be better
 
 JERRY. 3 1 
 
 than turning him adrift on the street," the officer 
 answered, " poor little devil ; waken him." 
 
 So Jerry was roused, and once more coming back 
 to the bewildering world, he looked about him slowly, 
 fastening his eyes at last on " 63." 
 
 " I aint got off ther bench onest," he said, remem- 
 bering the last order given him. 
 
 " All right," the man answered, " but I want you to 
 come with me now." 
 
 " Whar ? " 
 
 " I am going to take you to my brother." 
 
 The child got up, paused to feel for the little bundle 
 inside his shirt, then putting his hands deep in his 
 pockets, he turned to the officer. 
 
 " Youuns aint a-comin' ? " he said familiarly, with 
 perfect unconsciousness of the distance between them. 
 
 " No." 
 
 " Well, far'well," holding out a dirty hand that 
 looked as small and thin as a bird's claw. 
 
 " Good-by," and the officer shook the little hand 
 quite heartily, "take care of yourself, Jeremiah." 
 
 " All right," then returning his hand to his pocket 
 he followed his guide out of the court-yard. 
 
 Down the broad, busy streets, now swarming with 
 the full rush of daily traffic; choked with vehicles of 
 every kind; the pavement thronged with passengers; 
 the shops with buyers ; Jerry looked and wondered, 
 but asked no questions. Without any understanding 
 of what he saw about him, he accepted the bewilder- 
 ment, and with, the stoical inertness of his class, he 
 followed his guide in silence ; slouching along, his 
 hands in his pockets, his hat drawn well down to his 
 ears, and his eyes grown keen and thoughtful during 
 his few days of travel, wandering over the scene about 
 him. Suddenly his guide stopped. 
 
 " Hello, Sam! " he called, and a huge, rough-coated 
 man turned at his call. 
 
 " Hello, George ! " was answered, then the two men 
 drew together, and turning aside from the stream of
 
 32 JERRY. 
 
 pedestrians talked earnestly for a few moments, at last 
 pulling Jerry forward. 
 
 " Here's your boss, Jerry," " 63 " said; then to the 
 man called " Sam " " don't you think you could find 
 work for him on the boat ? " 
 
 Sam looked the limp boy over from head to heels. 
 
 " Work ? " he repeated slowly, " he looks more like 
 a candidate for planting," and he laughed a little fat, 
 chuckling laugh. 
 
 " Planting! " and the child's face changed suddenly, 
 " planting " a word that until lately had meant noth- 
 ing save in connection with potatoes and corn; but 
 that now had come to mean the putting out of sight of 
 people! Now they spoke of " planting" him. His 
 heart sank within him; how could he get away ? 
 
 A troubled, keen look came into his eyes as he 
 measured the man introduced to him as his " boss," 
 he was very big, the child thought, and as his hopes 
 of escape seemed to lessen from this survey, his fears 
 increased and, combined with his weariness, came 
 near overpowering him, and he leaned against "63." 
 
 " He looks awful weakly," Sam went on, " but as 
 you ask it, George, I'll give him a trip ; there aint 
 nothin' mean about me," rubbing his fat chin ; then 
 to the child, " What kin you do ? " 
 
 " Chop wood, an' tote water," was answered slowly. 
 
 " An' leanin' against George ; that's hopeful," 
 laughing. 
 
 " I kin," the child repeated, " when I gits rested." 
 
 "You're sure now?" the " boss " went on, "an* 
 when I gives you a hatchet you wont cut my boat to 
 pieces ? I'm most afraid of you, I am." 
 
 But Jerry had had no training in the matter of 
 jokes, and for answer drew his sleeve across his fore- 
 head where the perspiration of fear had come in great 
 drops when the man spoke of u planting," of dealing 
 with him as his mother had been dealt with. 
 
 A little tremulous motion passed over him, and for 
 the first time the idea came to him distinctly that he
 
 JERRY. 33 
 
 should go back and take the brush off, and so undo 
 his part of the evil deed ; and with this thought the 
 longing that his mother should hear him say over and 
 over again ; as he was whispering now while the men 
 talked " I never knowed I never knowed ! " 
 
 Then, the conference being over, the captain laid 
 his fat hand on Jerry's shoulder : 
 
 '' Come along now, Samson," he said, " an' we'll 
 chop that cord of wood," and as in the morning that 
 now seemed so far away, the child was half-led, halt- 
 carried down the street. 
 
 Narrower and dirtier the street grew, and the ap- 
 pearance of the people changed ; then at the begin- 
 ning of the wharf that projected into the water, the 
 captain gave Jerry over to a rougher, larger man, and 
 with a farewell joke about leaving the wood until the 
 next day, he turned and went back into the town. 
 Down the hollow-sounding plank wharf until they 
 reached a rusty looking steamboat that in its earliest 
 youth could never have been of the better class of 
 vessels, and that now looked cracked and frail enough. 
 In and out among barrels and bales, the child fol- 
 lowed his third guide until they reached the gang- 
 plank ; then he stopped. The swift, swirling water 
 that was suddenly revealed to him seemed on every 
 hand, and he realized that only a floor was between 
 him and this new thing. He shrank back, cowering 
 away from the big man. 
 
 " I'm feared I'm feared! " he cried aloud, " lemme 
 go lemme go ! " 
 
 For a moment the man paused, looking down in 
 astonishment on the frightened child ; but only for 
 a moment, then with an oath he lifted him, and, strid- 
 ing across the plank, dropped him on a pile of rope 
 and bagging that was near at hand. 
 
 Very still the child lay, not making an effort to 
 change in any way the position into which he had 
 fallen ; and the realization of his absolute helpless- 
 ness rushed over him with dreadful force. Who
 
 34 JERRY. 
 
 would lift him again across that narrow plank ; and 
 he shivered now to think of the water slipping by so 
 silently, so swiftly ! He was afraid to look at it, yet 
 longed with a strange fascination to see it once more ; 
 and where had it all come from ? 
 
 "An' I can't never get back no mo' to tuck thet 
 bresh off," he whispered to himself ; for the feeling 
 that had come to him so gradually had at last taken 
 hold of him with great force, until now it had reached 
 the point of remorse. 
 
 "An' ther blossoms air done dried up by now," he 
 went on, "an* mammy'll 'How them's bresh too," the 
 little whisper died away, and he put his hands over 
 his face. 
 
 The sun had set and the darkness was falling fast 
 when the captain returned ; and Jerry crouched 
 closer to the ropes and bagging as he passed. He 
 had a great fear of this man, and thought with long- 
 ing of all the people who had helped him on his way ; 
 even of old Preacher Babbit who threatened to take 
 him home again ; but this man was bigger even than 
 " Minervy Ann Salter," and he was entirely in his 
 power. 
 
 " Mebby he'll furgit me," he whispered, as he heard 
 the loud voice giving orders in the distance ; wonder- 
 ing the while what the increased noise meant, when 
 suddenly a sound broke on His ear that he knew was a 
 bell simply from the family resemblance it bore to the 
 cow-bells of his native region. After that, a strange 
 scream like some he had heard that morning ; again 
 it came, and with it a great sigh and shudder, and the 
 frail structure that held him from the water shivered 
 from end to end. 
 
 For a moment he crouched closer to the floor; then 
 as the second scream and shudder seemed to make 
 certain the feared destruction, he sprang to his feet 
 with a pitiful little cry. 
 
 Terrified as only an ignorant child can be terrified, 
 he clung to the guards and looked to where the gang-
 
 JERRY. 35 
 
 plank had been ; in his desperation he would have 
 dared that journey back to land. 
 
 Alas, the plank was gone, and between him and the 
 city, now sparkling with myriad lights, there lay a 
 broad expanse of water repeating indefinitely every 
 flickering gleam. They were moving. 
 
 " Like ther box of strawer ! " he said fearfully to 
 himself, then stood quite still, looking down stead- 
 fastly into the water, magnetized, fascinated, he 
 watched it. 
 
 " Slippin' away like snakes," he whispered, as if 
 afraid the water might hear him, and hearing might 
 crawl up to where he stood. " I hates it I hates 
 it ! " he said, unconsciously raising his voice. Then 
 a heavy hand fell on his shoulder, and the captain's 
 rough voice asking: 
 
 " What's that you hate ? " 
 
 " Ther water," catching his breath with a gasp. 
 
 " Why ? " 
 
 " 'Cause it favors snakes," the child answered 
 hurriedly. " 'Cause it sorter crawls away an' don't 
 make no soun'," then more slowly " thar's sich a 
 lot, I'm feared." 
 
 "Come away, then. Have you had anything to 
 eat ? " 
 
 " No." 
 
 "Are you hungry ? " 
 
 " I is," still clinging to the guard. 
 
 " Come this way, then," turning away ; but the 
 child did not move. " Come along, I say," and the 
 captain's big voice grew louder. 
 
 " I'm feared to leggo," and the thin face looked up 
 fearfully. 
 
 " You fool ! come to me." 
 
 Two terrors. The child chose the least, and let- 
 ting go his hold on the side of the boat, he walked 
 unsteadily to his master, seizing his coat anxiously. 
 
 " Now are you dead ? " 
 
 "I'll 'How I'm nigh to it," looking furtively at the
 
 36 JERR Y. 
 
 open space left for the gang-plank, through which a 
 broad expanse of water was visible ; " it creeps an' 
 crawls, an' I hates it," and he turned his face away. 
 
 The captain laughed ; but he was merciful enough 
 not to take his coat from between the clinging hands 
 until they had reached the dingy, ill-smelling cabin 
 where the men ate ; here he gave the child into the 
 care of the cook, with orders for him to be fed and 
 given a place to sleep. 
 
 So all night long the boat shivered and strained 
 against the mighty current of the great river; and the 
 child slept uneasily, waking often with a shudder, as he 
 remembered the black water slipping by so near him.
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 " Patient children think what pain 
 
 Makes a young child patient, ponder ! 
 Wronged too commonly to strain 
 After right, or wish or wonder." 
 
 JERRY'S hope that the captain would forget him 
 was doomed to disappointment, and with the earliest 
 dawn he was wakened from his troubled sleep 
 and put to work, coiling rope, separating into dif- 
 ferent piles the almost innumerable boxes and bags 
 of supplies that were to be put off at various way 
 landings. So the long day passed; and Jerry worked 
 with his face turned away from the water ; looking 
 at everything, even the awful captain, rather than at 
 the dark sliding stream. 
 
 " Ittrimmels 'cause it can't abear to tech the water," 
 he said, pausing with a rope in his hand. The man 
 working near him looked at the child curiously. 
 
 "What trembles ? " he asked. 
 
 " It," Jerry answered, striking the side of the boat; 
 "jest yotiuns feel how it trimmels," looking up as the 
 boat shivered under the thud of the engine; " it can't 
 abear to tech ther water 'cause it favors snakes." 
 
 The man laughed. 
 
 " You'd better not let the boys know as you're 
 skeart of water," he said ; " they'll devil the life outer 
 you." 
 
 " I'm feared sure," the child repeated; and the 
 captain lounging by heard him. 
 
 " Ha, ha ! " he laughed, " the boys must larn you 
 better'n that, Samson; nobody kin run on this craft 
 that is a coward: we'll dip you a few times when we 
 git in order and have nothin' to do," and he laughed 
 
 37
 
 3 8 JERRY. 
 
 again until he shook; " it'll help your lily-white skin, 
 Samson." 
 
 The child made no answer save to bend lower over 
 his work. To be put in that water, to feel it slipping 
 by him, feeling like snakes ! His straight, sun- 
 burned hair almost stood on end. Anything would 
 be better than this, even his father and Minervy Ann 
 Salter. And when his fellow-worker would be at 
 some far-off task, he would creep to the side of the 
 boat and watch with fascination this latest enemy. 
 He must get away he must even dare to cross the 
 plank alone. 
 
 " How long 'fore youuns has time ? " he asked at last. 
 
 " To dip you ? " and the man laughed; " by morn- 
 in', I reckon, an* you kin bet your life they'll duck you 
 good; the boys won't like nothin' better." 
 
 " Ther mornin' ? " the child repeated, " after weuns 
 git done sleepin' to-night ?" 
 
 " That's it," and the man chuckled to himself as he 
 thought of the fun. 
 
 Poor Jerry watched at every landing for his oppor- 
 tunity: he would watch the gang-plank swing into 
 place, but his courage failed time after time, for to 
 the fear of the precarious crossing was added the fear 
 that seeing him on the plank would tempt the men 
 to dip him. He determined to wait until night, and 
 watched with sickening dread the growing order on 
 the boat. 
 
 At last the day was done, and Jerry felt safer, 
 and made up his mind to get off at the first landing 
 after nightfall. If he fell in the water, if they 
 should catch him and bring him back, these were 
 possibilities too dreadful to be entertained for a 
 moment. 
 
 Slowly the twilight ended and the darkness came: 
 supper was over; preparations were being made for a 
 stoppage, and in the hurry Jerry was forgotten and 
 unnoticed as he crouched in the shadow near the gang- 
 way.
 
 JERRY. 39 
 
 The night was inky black, with a light rain falling 
 that was scarcely to be felt at first, but that neverthe- 
 less promised a thorough wetting. A dreary night to 
 run away in ; but Jerry was desperate, and waited in 
 the shadow with his hat pressed well down, and his 
 bundle safe inside his shirt. 
 
 Close up under the high bluff the boat swung; the bell 
 clanging, the whistle screaming, and every other noise 
 that could be made, breaking the cloud-weighted still- 
 ness of the night. Boxes and barrels and bales were 
 put on and off with all the marvelous celerity of trained 
 handlers; and still the child saw no chance, for lights 
 flickered everywhere. At last there came a moment's 
 cessation of the noise: was the plank to swing into 
 place again as he had seen it do so many times that 
 day, and he be carried on ? 
 
 There was a tremulous sigh, a stifled gasp, then a 
 little shadow sped across the wavering plank : one 
 second in the glare of the lanterns, the next buried in 
 the black shadow of the bluff. No one called after 
 him no one seemed to have seen him and in and 
 out between the piles of landed cargo he crawled, 
 surely but slowly making his way to the impenetrable 
 darkness outside the circle of barrels and boxes. 
 
 At last he came to where a little way up the bank a 
 clump of bushes grew, and above them a small tree 
 that had toppled over with the caving in of the bluff : 
 carefully he crawled up, glad to find a place where he 
 could rest and hide until the boat went away. 
 
 " They'll furgit me 'till mornin'," he thought, then 
 watched the moving lights, and listened to the noises 
 that sounded so preternaturally clear and far in the 
 black stillness. The rain whispered softly, and min- 
 gled with it came the low licking of the river, eating 
 hungrily into the shore. 
 
 Gradually it attracted Jerry's attention, and he lis- 
 tened anxiously : it seemed so near that if he put his 
 foot down the creeping coldness would wrap it round. 
 He drew his feet up under him, and listened intently,
 
 40 JERR Y. 
 
 until all other sounds passed from his hearing en- 
 tirely, and only the hungry gnawing of the river was 
 with him. 
 
 The boat swung out into the stream, and away on 
 her journey : the boxes and barrels were carried slow- 
 ly up the bank ; all life and light faded away ; th-e 
 rain patiently filtered through the foliage of the little 
 tree and through the child's few garments where he 
 crouched listening to the voice of his enemy. 
 
 " Ef I drap to sleep it mout ketch me," he muttered, 
 and he took a closer hold on the slim stem against 
 which he leaned. This made him feel more safe, and 
 as he moved, some more sand sliding down against 
 his back, the thought came to him that a great deal 
 might roll down and " kivver him like his mammy ! " 
 
 And with this thought his remorse for the help he 
 had given his father came back upon him ; the pres- 
 ent was forgotten, and his voice broke the stillness of 
 the night. " I'll go back," he said, as if taking an 
 oath, "go back if Dad knocks me over onest a min- 
 ute I will, sure." When the morning dawned he 
 would turn his face, not his back, to the rising sun, 
 and it would surely guide him home. 
 
 "An* I'll tuck all ther bresh an' ther dirt off, Mam- 
 my" talking softly to himself, his heart feeling 
 lighter for the resolve " an' weuns kin run away 
 agin ; an' weuns kin talk, and Dad wont be roun' to 
 cuss us," so the one love of his life would come back 
 to him. 
 
 Poor love that had been so surreptitiously given ; 
 had been able only to show itself in such humble 
 ways : the secret soothing after a beating, a little 
 coffee hidden that he might drink it when his father 
 was out of the way, a bundle of dry leaves pushed 
 under the straw he slept on to make his resting-place 
 a little softer. So he remembered his mother. He 
 could not understand her going from him, but he 
 could remember how it had happened : remembered 
 how his mother stood still and watching while his
 
 JERRY. 41 
 
 father beat him, remembered how he would not cry 
 out because she had warned him not to, even when 
 in his drunken fury his father raised him to dash him 
 against the chimney ! He remembered the breath- 
 less, silent, upward swing then the sharp cry as his 
 mother's arms wrapped close about him, and the blow 
 that followed. He covered his face as the sound of 
 the dull thud came back to him ; and after that the 
 strange stillness there was about the house when he 
 waked again and found himself on his pile of straw, 
 and on the bed his mother lying, and the old woman, 
 their only neighbor, watching her. He talked to her 
 that afternoon, and heard her speak then of the 
 " Golden Gates"; and his father crouching over the 
 fire heard too, and did not curse her. That night he 
 fell asleep lying there close by her side ; and in the 
 morning she was there still, but though he called and 
 spoke to her until his father and the old woman 
 turned him out of the house, she never answered. He 
 had understood nothing that followed until he had 
 learned wisdom from the woman in the valley. Now 
 that he understood all that had happened, he would 
 go back ; would begin his return journey when day- 
 light came, and it would not take him long : he could 
 soon get back again and pull the brush off. 
 
 Slower and slower the thoughts came ; the ugly 
 little head drooped against the tree ; the loose sand 
 settled more warmly about him ; the rain, the wind, 
 the gnawing of the water faded from his hearing, and 
 he slept as soundly as the dead woman on the hillside. 
 
 Slept while the clouds floated away, and in the 
 dawn his pitiful eyes watched the sun rise eyes that 
 grew wide with despair. 
 
 At his feet the mighty, impassable river, and beyond 
 the other shore the sun rose.
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 " What use in hope ? 
 
 What use ! 
 
 In waiting long with empty hands held high 
 In watching patiently the clouded sky 
 What use you soon will die ? " 
 
 WE yearn and strive, and long, and grieve, and 
 hold up praying hands. Then stand and watch 
 with death-like serenity, may be, while our hopes, 
 our beliefs, our loves, all of them dyed to the most 
 prismatic loveliness by the light gone from our eyes 
 the strength from our youth the blood from our 
 hearts, fade from us as certainly as the day fades 
 down the western sky. Fade from us entirely, until 
 we are glad when they 
 
 " Put the death-weights on our eyes 
 To seal them safe from tears. " 
 
 The ragged tops of the great mountains behind 
 him the broken cliffs falling down a hundred feet 
 below him and far off beyond this wild desert of 
 rock in the gold and purple glory of the dying day 
 the distant valley lying like a dream. 
 And where were the " Golding Gates ? " 
 Jerry crouched on the dizzy pinnacle of barren 
 rock only a step away from the narrow foot-track he 
 had so persistently climbed. Ever since the day be- 
 fore he had been toiling up and up the grim moun- 
 tains, sure that at last he had reached his goal. The 
 path wound up and up along the dizzy cliffs ; through 
 tiny clefts ; through yawning denies ; avoiding and 
 rounding the higher peaks until now on the western 
 side, with the apex of the mighty ridge left behind, it 
 
 42
 
 JERRY. 43 
 
 touched with one curve this crowning height of its 
 course ere it turned to descend. 
 
 He crouched there with the September wind striking 
 sharply through his thin clothing his face looking 
 drawn and blank his hands clasped close. 
 
 Where were the " Golding Gates ? " 
 
 When the river had intervened between him and 
 his resolve on that May morning that seemed so long 
 ago, the child had resumed his old course toward the 
 west, toward the " Golding Gates "; but with as little 
 hope of seeing them, as there was hope left in his 
 heart that he would again see his mother. 
 
 Still, as evening after evening he watched the west- 
 ern sky, the " gates " seemed to grow into absolute 
 certainties that some day he would touch. Sometimes 
 through rain mists he watched the glorious flame- 
 lights shoot up to lay warm hands upon the homeless 
 clouds : sometimes across the hot dry prairies, track- 
 less, wild, deserted, the sun fell suddenly like a fiery 
 ball : sometimes it sank in clear amber depths that 
 seemed to vibrate and throb in tremulous pulsations. 
 It had grown into his life and his heart, this hope for the 
 "gates " his mother had been so sure were near, and 
 for weeks as he made his way toward these mountains, 
 pausing to work for his food, pausing until some 
 merciful hand would wash and patch his clothes, 
 begging a lift from some kindly emigrant, for all 
 these weeks, ever since these mountains came in sight, 
 he had made sure that behind this last barrier he 
 would find the gates. 
 
 And now with this last disappointment his strength 
 seemed to leave him, and he shivered and crouched 
 close to the rocks as the wind struck him. 
 
 " Youuns 'Mowed 'twornt much fur, Mammy," he 
 whispered, looking out wonderingly, hopelessly to the 
 fading distance, " An' I've done come, an' come 
 fur a long time, an' it don't seems like I gits to 
 nowhars," a moment longer he looked out across the 
 grand scene, then he covered his face with his hands.
 
 44 JERR y. 
 
 " Oh, Mammy, Mammy ! " he wailed, " I aint got 
 no place ~I aint got nobody oh, Mammy, Mammy!" 
 and the frail, uncared-for, unlovely little creature was 
 shaken with a storm of sobs. 
 
 Somehow in the months he had wandered the knowl- 
 edge of his loneliness had come to him. He had 
 worked sometimes for people in very different spheres 
 from the one he lived in, and he had seen mothers and 
 children together in ways not practiced in his own 
 class ; and watching he had learned that people be- 
 longed to each other, and with this knowledge came 
 the other, that he belonged to no one. Still, the 
 " Golding Gates " opened as a vision before him : 
 always inextricably mixed in his mind with the sun- 
 sets ; always looking warm and shining ; they had 
 become home, and mother, and love to him ; he 
 ceased to feel lonely when he thought of them, and 
 what work he had to do was done more briskly be- 
 cause of this vision in his mind. Somehow they would 
 welcome him and make him happy when he reached 
 them, for his mother had said she would not be tired, 
 nor sick, nor hungry any more when she got there. 
 Now he crouched, unheeding all the desolate grandeur 
 spread before him : one wild spring would have ended 
 all, but he did not know that ; he did not know what 
 death meant ; he could not understand how and why 
 he stood where he was ; he simply accepted facts, and 
 only reasoned enough to avoid pain and hunger. 
 
 But at last he realized his loneliness ; his " Golding 
 Gates," his hope by day and his dream by night, had 
 been taken away from him, and his life was left unto 
 him desolate. 
 
 He crept slowly from off the great boulder, and once 
 more on the path passed downward wearily ; climbing, 
 slipping, letting himself down from rock to rock, he 
 made his way mechanically. There was nothing to 
 make him him hasten now, nothing ahead of him to 
 make him heedless of the toil : he did not think any 
 more of following the sunset, for this last revelation,
 
 JERR Y. 45 
 
 this last long view across the valley, had somehow 
 made him feel that his mother had been mistaken. He 
 had seen so far from the top of that rock : it would 
 take him until the blackberries blossomed again be- 
 fore he could go as far as he had seen ; and now he 
 felt so weak and sick he could not do it. 
 
 Heavily, unthinkingly he moved, guided by an in- 
 stinct that made him go further down where he might 
 find some fellow-creature. He knew that nobody lived 
 among these barren rocks ; a woman on the other side 
 had told him so; she had warned him that he would get 
 lost, or starve to death, or fall from some high place 
 and be killed, or some " wild critter 'd kill him jest to 
 git what small pickin's thar was on his bones ; they 
 gits mighty hungry, the varmints do." But Jerry was 
 not to be dissuaded from crossing the mountains ; his 
 Mammy had said he would find the " Golding Gates," 
 and his own eyes had seen the sun sink behind these 
 very mountains for many weeks, of course the 
 " Gates " were behind them too. 
 
 From every meal he had saved some scrap as store 
 to help him over the mountains : he had not told his 
 hopes ; he had used no contrary arguments, not even 
 when the wild beasts were represented as ferocious 
 enough to eat such a lean morsel as he was. He sat 
 in stolid silence, filling with his hoarded treasures of 
 broken food a small cotton bag some kind person had 
 given him in which to carry his bread and meat. 
 
 And early in the dawn he had started on his well 
 nigh desperate undertaking : had climbed all day as 
 far as his strength would allow : had slept in a crev- 
 ice of the rocks at night, pushing aside his fears by 
 thought of the " Golding Gates " he would reach on the 
 morrow. And when the morrow came, tired and hun- 
 gry, for his little store of food had not satisfied 
 him, he still pushed on higher and higher, when 
 every step made him feel more surely the biting wind. 
 Up and up, not scanning much in front of him, not 
 looking much beyond the next step he must take
 
 46 JERR Y. 
 
 the next rock he must climb ; going on in perfect 
 faith that when the sun set he would be safe and 
 happy inside the "gates"; and far down in his heart 
 there was a feeling that somehow his Mammy would 
 be there, and he could tell her all about that "bresh." 
 
 And crouching in the cutting wind he saw only a 
 barren wilderness of rocks, and far off across infinite 
 distance the sun fading grandly down the western 
 sky. No nearer now than when from among his own 
 hills he watched it die. 
 
 No nearer love and rest now than then, but only 
 more lonely for his last hope gone. 
 
 In those dim days of ignorance he had piled that 
 grave with brush to hide the rails that were to 
 keep it safe ; now in his wisdom it seemed to him that 
 he had only aided a most evil design. Then he had 
 set out in undoubting faith to find a happy land 
 where there would be rest and plenty : now when his 
 hand reached for the hard-won prize, it faded from 
 his grasp. 
 
 Down into the gathering shadows he went; further 
 and further still : an endless distance it seemed to 
 him when at last he came to a little grass, and 
 lying down, for he was very weary, he looked back to 
 where so high above him the light lingered. His 
 head felt heavy and hurt him, and his body seemed 
 torn by a hundred little creeping pains. He lay 
 quite still, wondering in a dull, vague way what ailed 
 him. He was hungry and weak, and must reach 
 some place that night where he could be warmed and 
 fed. 
 
 " If I could git to feel a good fire," he said " I 'llow 
 I'd be better." 
 
 Slowly he rose and stumbled on ; his head seemed 
 to grow more heavy, and a deadly chill mingled with 
 his many pains. 
 
 Down, still down the path led, but it was broader 
 now, and more worn, as if constantly used. 
 
 " Mebbe I'll git to som'ers atter a while," pausing
 
 JERR Y. 47 
 
 as for a moment the whole mountain side seemed to 
 waver and tremble. 
 
 He covered his eyes. 
 
 " It's me as is a-shakin','' fearfully, " an' I aint got 
 no place : if I could jest git to feel a fire, jest fur a 
 minnit : Oh, Mammy, Mammy ! " then all faded from 
 him, and he sank down on the roadside. At last he 
 was worn out ; for with his hope his little strength 
 had failed him, and lying limp and haggard among 
 the gray rocks, he looked as if the " Gates " had at last 
 opened for him, and the weary, ignorant little soul 
 had crept in among the paradise flowers.
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 " Is your wisdom very wise, 
 On this narrow earth ? 
 Very happy, very worth 
 That I should stay to learn ? 
 Are these air-corrupting sighs 
 Fashioned by unlearned breath ? 
 Do the students' lamps that burn 
 All night, illumine death ? " 
 
 " T I THERE did you find him, Joe ! " 
 
 \\ "I were a-comin' down Blake's trail, an' I 
 sawn him a-lyin' thar liker dead critter, I did," 
 and Joe poked the fire, " an' I says, says I, Joe Gil- 
 Ham, yon's dead ; but when I got nigher I sorter 
 changed, an' I poked him, says I, ' Sonny,' says I ; 
 an' he riz right up lookin' wild like ; says 'ee ' Mammy, 
 I aint got no place, Mammy, I aint got nobody ! ' I 
 were tuck all to pieces, Doctor ; says I ' Sonny, 
 you shell hev a place,' says I, an' I brunged him 
 here, I did," and again the man pushed the fire, 
 going on more slowly " I aint got nobody nuther, 
 Doctor ; but I 'llowed thet as I hes a leetle place I'd 
 keep him fur comp'ny like ; an' 'cause he talks like 
 my own home folks." 
 
 . The man addressed as " doctor " stood looking 
 down into the fire. 
 
 " If we can keep him, Joe," he said. 
 
 " He's powerful bony," Joe admitted, " looks like 
 he'd been starved fur a long time ; an' he never had 
 nothin' alonger him ceppen this leetle passel," taking 
 a small, dirty, newspaper-wrapped bundle from a 
 crevice in the wall, "seems like it's strawer inside," 
 turning it over slowly. 
 
 The doctor took the bundle, looked at it for a mo- 
 ment, then replaced it in the wall. 
 
 48
 
 JERRY. 49 
 
 " An' he's been a-cryin' jest like he's hollerin' now 
 ever sence yisterday mornin'," Joe went on seriously; 
 " fust I 'llowed as I could fotch hjm roun', but 'twornt 
 no use, you bet." 
 
 " Poor little creature," and the doctor turned again 
 to the bed where Jerry lay in a consuming fever, turn- 
 ing his head from side to side with the never-ceasing 
 cry " I never knowed, Mamrny, I never knowed." 
 The voice was sinking lower each hour from weak- 
 ness, and the doctor had to bend down now to hear 
 him " I never knowed I never knowed," the pitiful 
 cry went on. 
 
 Then the doctor whispered 
 
 " I know that." 
 
 There was a pause in the monotonous movement of 
 the head ; the wild eyes fastened on his face, and the 
 little hand crept up to touch him. 
 
 " An' ther blossoms ? " the weak voice went on. 
 
 " Beautiful ? " was answered. 
 
 " What ?" uneasily. 
 
 " Pretty," the doctor repeated. 
 
 " They was, sure ; an' youuns was powerful proud 
 er blossoms, Mammy." 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " An' I never knowed I never knowed." 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 "An' I never knowed," more slowly as the eyes closed 
 and the hands fell limp onthequilt, "I neverknowed." 
 
 The doctor's finger was on the fluttering pulse. 
 
 " He is going to sleep, Joe," he said ; " but you 
 must watch him if you want him." 
 
 " I will," Joe answered. " An' I dunno, doctor, 
 but he's got a grip on me, he has ; I reckon histalkin' 
 done it." 
 
 " And give him whiskey and milk all night." 
 
 " Jest so." 
 
 " And I will come up again in the morning." Then 
 the doctor stooped under the low doorway, and 
 mounting his horse, rode off.
 
 5 JERRY. 
 
 Patiently Joe watched, and when the night fell he 
 rose from his place in the chimney-corner to close and 
 bolt the stout wooden shutter that guarded the win- 
 dow, and to bar securely the door. He shut the door 
 very carefully, trying it again and again ; then reach- 
 ing down a long, lean rifle he proceeded to load and 
 cap it, then put it against the wall near his chair, full 
 cocked. 
 
 " Youuns is dange'ous, Tom," he said, as if the 
 rifle understood, and patted it gently ; then, as by a 
 preconcerted signal, there emerged from one corner a 
 huge, hideous yellow dog, stump-tailed, bow-legged, 
 but with a breadth of chest and a jaw that promised 
 a hopeless grip. 
 
 "Youuns is honggry, is you, Pete ? " going to the 
 corner and lifting most carefully the leaves that made 
 his bed, " I'll feed you, jest hev a leetle patience," 
 then he peered about the low rafters with a torch 
 flickering and flaring in his hand. " It's better to 
 know fur sure," he said as he put down the torch and 
 proceeded to feed the evil-looking dog. " Eatin* 
 means a good grip, Pete," giving him a rough caress ; 
 then once more taking up the rifle, he looked care- 
 fully to its condition. 
 
 So the night swept on, the moon sending but few 
 rays to touch the low log house so far back under the 
 rocks. The man dozed in his chair the sleeping boy 
 looked dead the fire flickered weirdly, and the dog 
 breathed loud in the corner. Slowly the dawn crept 
 over the mountains, and with the first ray of light 
 the man roused himself with a start, reaching his 
 hand to his rifle before his eyes were well opened, and 
 listening intently. He could hear nothing but the 
 breathing of the dog was the child dead ? He 
 crossed over to the bed, and bent his ear to the 
 thin lips ; but the breath came regularly, and raising 
 him for the whisky, he laid him down again and cov- 
 ered him as gently as a woman might. 
 
 Soon the fire blazed, and the breakfast for the man
 
 JERR Y. 5 J 
 
 and the dog was under way ; then he made the same 
 survey he had made the night before, of the dog's bed 
 and the rafters, before he opened either the window 
 or the door. 
 
 He was a middle-aged man, with close-cut gray 
 hair, keen gray eyes, deep set under bushy eye- 
 brows, and filled with an eager light. He was short, 
 squarely built, with long, powerful arms, and shoul- 
 ders rounded forward as from years of stooping. 
 Canvas trousers, high, heavy boots, and a red flannel 
 shirt that opening at the throat showed a neck like a 
 bull-dog's. 
 
 His movements were slow and silent, and his 
 long arms seemed to reach from place to place 
 like the legs of a great spider. The meal that he 
 cooked was simple enough, and after carefully giving 
 the dog much the larger part, he ate slowly and 
 earnestly. 
 
 Away off from under the shadow of the cliffs the 
 sun was shining brightly now, and standing in the 
 doorway one could see far below where the long 
 shafts of light struck down, losing themselves among 
 the black pines, and beyond sweeping like a tender 
 hand over the barren, brown rocks. 
 
 Joe only looked down the trail, he did not watch 
 the sunlight ; he did not heed any of the beauty about 
 him ; he was listening intently, with his arms folded, 
 and his hat drawn down to shield his keen eyes. 
 
 " I can't spar' another day," he said, stepping out a 
 little distance to get a better view down the path. " I 
 aint done a good stroke for three days an' mo'," walk- 
 ing restlessly back. " I 'llowed he'd come afore now." 
 Then going within he gave the child the milk or- 
 dered, looking steadfastly at it the while. 
 
 " I aint tasted no milk in a-many a year," he said 
 slowly ; " poor leetle Nan wanted a cow powerful," 
 and he drew a long breath that in the civilized world 
 would have answered for a sigh, then he turned to the 
 child.
 
 52 JERRY. 
 
 Mechanically the milk was taken ; the heavy eye- 
 lids did not rise, the parched, cracked lips seemed 
 scarcely to close on the cup, and once more on the 
 hard pillow, the narrow, yellow face looked beyond 
 the reach of human help. 
 
 " Pore leetle varmint, he's hed a rale rough time 
 sure," and Joe lifted the toil-worn, bony hand and 
 laid it back on the coverlid as gently as if his great 
 strength were trained to the handling of little things ; 
 then he returned to his watch in the doorway. 
 
 Slowly the doctor came : the way was long ; the 
 path was narrow and steep, and on every hand were 
 pictures that could have detained him all day. 
 
 Slowly but surely, and Joe's brow cleared as the 
 first sharp ring of the horse's hoof on the rocks struck 
 his ear : very far away, but in the death-like stillness 
 of the rocky wilderness the sounds came very dis- 
 tinctly, with every now and then the rattle of a loos- 
 ened stone rolling down to some unknown depth. 
 
 " Et laist," Joe muttered, and went forward to meet 
 his guest. 
 
 " Is he alive ? " was the first question. 
 
 " He is ; but looks morer like dead," then Joe 
 took the horse to tie it, and the doctor stooped under 
 the doorway. 
 
 He put his hand on the child's pulse, then lifted 
 the eyelids to look into the eyes. 
 
 " Has he been quiet all night ? " to Joe. 
 
 " Jest the way yer sees him." 
 
 " Well, I will wait until 'he wakens," and the doc- 
 tor put a small tin bucket on the table, " it is the milk, 
 Joe, and you had better put it in a jug in the 
 spring." 
 
 But Joe did not move ; he stood looking at the doc- 
 tor doubtfully. 
 
 " How long will he be a-sleepin' ? " he asked. 
 
 " I do not know," placing a chair in the doorway ; 
 " why ? " 
 
 "I wanter go to my work."
 
 JERRY. .53 
 
 " Your work ? " slowly, not turning his eyes from 
 the scene outside the door ; " what is it, Joe ? " 
 
 A keener light came into Joe's eyes, and he cast a 
 furtive glance at the rafters, and toward the dog's 
 corner. 
 
 44 1 works over in Eureky ; I's been a-doin' it ever 
 sence before youuns come to Burdens." 
 
 " That will take you until night." 
 
 " If I works it will : but I'll jest tell 'em I'm a-com- 
 in', thet's all I wanter do "; then after a moment's 
 pause, " do you reckon he'll sleep thet long? " 
 
 " You may go ; but leave me something to eat." 
 
 " I aint got nothin' fatten, doctor," with real regret 
 in his voice, "I aint never onest thought 'bout thet." 
 
 " Any meal ? " 
 
 " Lord, yes, an' bacon, too ; but thet's all." 
 
 " That will do ; but remember, I do not wish to bt 
 on the road after dark." 
 
 " All right," then Joe paused, again looking doubt 
 fully at the doctor, " and Pete ? " he asked slowly, 
 " will you give him a bite? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " Thenkey, doctor," with a grunt of satisfaction, 
 and in an incredibly short space of time the horse 
 was unsaddled and tethered ; the milk in an earthen- 
 ware jug in the spring, and Joe on his way down the 
 mountain-side, with a long swinging stride that soon 
 took him out of sight. 
 
 Very still the man in the doorway sat, looking out 
 with a far-reaching look that seemed to be searching 
 time rather than space. Perfectly still, with his arms 
 folded, his head bent, and his broad-brimmed hat 
 drawn down to shade his eyes. The sunlight crept 
 nearer, a bright snake glided slowly past among the 
 rocks, a lizard basked on the logs of the house, 
 the hideous dog came out and sniffed about the fig- 
 ure sitting so still, and a busy spider span its web 
 across the corner of the doorway. 
 
 Quite still until a little sound reached him, a long
 
 54 JERR y. 
 
 sigh with a sobbing catch in it. He rose quickly, and 
 laying aside his hat bent over the child : another sob- 
 bing sigh, then the eyes opened slowly, looking up 
 without a question in them, without a hope, only so 
 weary. 
 
 Then the little whisper 
 
 " I never knowed." 
 
 " Yes," the doctor answered, " but you must drink 
 this for me," and he raised the child gently. 
 
 Again the unchildish eyes opened and looked into 
 the man's eyes above them. 
 
 " Mammy 'llowed 'twor'nt much fur ; but I'm done 
 give out sure," and the weak whisper died away. 
 
 11 1 know that," the doctor answered ; " but drink 
 this." 
 
 The child obeyed, looking steadfastly into the face 
 above him : 
 
 " I kin chop wood fur youuns," with a little gasp, 
 "an' tote water when I gits rested, I kin." 
 
 " Very well, but you must rest now," and he turned 
 over the hard pillow before he laid the child down 
 again. 
 
 Suddenly there was a movement, and the little 
 wasted creature looked like a hunted animal : ".Whar's 
 it ! " the weak voice breaking with a cry, " hes you- 
 uns tooken it? Oh, gimme, gimme, gimme!" and 
 he clutched the doctor's arm, " oh, gimme ! it can't 
 do you no good." 
 
 " What is it ? " kindly. 
 
 " My bundle, my leetle bundle," and the words fin- 
 ished with a pitiful wail. 
 
 For a moment the doctor was puzzled, then he re- 
 membered the bundle Joe had shown him the day 
 before, and stepped to the side of the fire-place. 
 
 " Is this it ? " holding up the shabby little pack- 
 age. 
 
 It was as if a beam of light had swept across the 
 child's face. 
 
 " Thet's it," lifting his hands with sudden energy to
 
 JERRY. ,] 55 
 
 clutch it, hiding it under his pillow, " it aint noth- 
 in' to do no good," he explained, looking up depre- 
 catingly, " it aint wittles ; it aint nothin' youuns 
 wants," pressing the pillow down as securely as he 
 could, " it aint nothin'," still more pleadingly. 
 
 " Very well," the doctor answered, drawing the cov- 
 ering up a little higher, "you shall keep it, you need 
 not be afraid ; but go to sleep now," then he turned 
 away to his place in the doorway, while the child, 
 with his hand on the bundle under his pillow, went to 
 sleep. So the day passed ; the doctor moved only 
 when it was absolutely necessary to wait on the child 
 to cook his dinner, or to water his horse ; he sat like 
 one resting after a great strain ; every muscle seemed 
 relaxed, and a supreme weariness that seemed other 
 than the weariness of body, possessed him. No 
 word, no sign escaped him until toward the after- 
 noon he walked out to the trail and stood looking 
 down. 
 
 " If God will ever forgive me," he said slowly, then 
 for one instant he covered his face with his hands. 
 Suddenly the sound of a falling stone caught his 
 attention ; he looked up quickly, and with his hands 
 in his pockets stood waiting for Joe. 
 
 " I aint much late, is I, doctor ? " coming up slightly 
 blown. 
 
 " Not much." 
 
 "An' the boy? " 
 
 " Better ; but I will come again to-morrow ; give 
 him the whisky and milk all night, and do not take 
 away his bundle, he has it under his pillow." 
 
 " All right," and Joe took the saddle from where it 
 had hung all day, while the doctor went to look at his 
 patient once more. 
 
 " Poor little devil," and he laid his hand on the 
 forehead of the sleeping child, " what have I saved 
 you for, and will you thank me when all is done ? " 
 
 " All right, doctor " Joe called, and taking the tin 
 bucket, the doctor turned away.
 
 5 6 JERRY. 
 
 " Every hour, Joe, whisky or milk," he repeated, 
 " and leave the bundle where it is." 
 
 Then the doctor rode away down the mountain ; 
 and his face changed as he went. All the gentleness 
 faded from it, and the lines about the mouth grew set 
 and stern, his every-day face that no one realized 
 was a mask.
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 " The steadfast silence that holds peace for wrong 
 Or love, that keeps the smile on quivering lips ; 
 That holds the tears back from the brave, sad eyes ; 
 That with a steady hand doth sod the grave 
 Of all its hopes, so none may know a grave 
 Is there ! " 
 
 ALONG, low, unpainted, weather-beaten frame 
 house standing a little back from the road that at 
 this point turned, and became the one street of 
 Burden's. A house without the very smallest 
 attempt at beauty, that fulfilled but one end a 
 shelter. 
 
 The main shed, extending straight down from the 
 apex of the roof, takes under its protection a broad 
 piazza, in whose shadowy depths the doors and 
 windows of the house open. 
 
 The windows are glazed, which is a luxury in the 
 town of Burden's ; but the doors and blinds are 
 simply battened, like the rest of the houses. 
 
 Three chimneys come from the roof, one from either 
 end and one from the middle ; wonderfully square 
 and ugly ; but softened to the view on this cool Sep- 
 tember day by slender plumes of smoke. A thin rail 
 extends round the piazza, save where a clear space is 
 left for the steps, at the corner of which stands a 
 hitching-post for horses. The reddish-brown soil of 
 the yard is baked to the consistency of brick, rising 
 and falling in mimic ravines and hills as the rain is 
 pleased to wash it. No sign of a fence, no sign of 
 paint or whitewash anywhere, no vestige of any 
 attempt at flower, or shrub, or grass ; an ugly, bar- 
 ren, neglected place. 
 
 In a high-backed, splint-bottomed rocking-chair, 
 57
 
 5 8 JERRY. 
 
 with his feet on the hand-rail that goes about the 
 piazza, a boy sits reading ; delicately made, and fair, 
 and with a finish in his dress and bearing that shows 
 familiarity with localities very different from Bur- 
 den's. Indeed, he looks entirely out of place in this 
 rough environment, and seems perfectly to realize the 
 unfitness of things. 
 
 Evidently he is very tired ; but only of himself and 
 his book, for no work can ever have soiled his white 
 hands, nor hardened his delicate muscles ; yet he 
 yawns and stretches very wearily, clasping his hands 
 behind his head. 
 
 " A beastly hole," he muttered. " I shall be cross- 
 eyed if I read any more," but yet, for lack of other 
 interest he takes up his book again. The shapely 
 head bends forward, the long lashes shade the 
 girlish cheeks where a little flush has come from the 
 exertion of the last yawn, and the boy is beautiful. 
 No other word would describe him ; indeed one 
 would not be tempted to fit any other adjective 
 to him. 
 
 And the doctor, riding up and tying his horse, thinks 
 how different this face is from the other he left up on 
 the mountain-side. 
 
 The boy rises. 
 
 " At last ! " he says, coming forward, " I thought 
 you'might possibly spend the night." 
 
 " Scarcely ; I waited only to watch the case." 
 
 " And how is the case ? " yawning again. 
 
 " Progressing favorably." 
 
 "Unlike your humble servant," turning to follow 
 the doctor indoors. 
 
 The doctor paused to hang up his saddle-bags and 
 hat, then turned to look at the boy. 
 
 " You look in good case," he said. 
 
 " ' My face is my fortune," " looking up with a smile 
 that made this same face brilliant, " but really, I am 
 nearly dead of loneliness : and at noon a letter from 
 Mamma ; a letter a month old, but telling of the most
 
 JERRY. , 59 
 
 enchanting things ; really, you know ! " with an earn- 
 est, regretful look in his beautiful eyes. 
 
 The doctor listened quietly, watching the boy's face 
 that seemed to charm him against his will. 
 
 " It is very unfortunate," he said gravely, then went 
 into a fire-lighted room where a table was laid for two, 
 and a servant in waiting. 
 
 " Dinner at once," he said, " and a fire in the study; " 
 then sitting down in the great arm-chair he turned to 
 the boy who stood near a window. " Is there any news, 
 Paul ? " he asked. 
 
 " Nothing, except no end of balls, and lunches, 
 and lovely art exhibitions, and operas, and concerts, 
 and everything that can make a fellow long to go 
 home ; and I go everywhere with Mamma, don't you 
 know : I wish you knew her," the boy added slowly. 
 
 " Yes," and the doctor leaned his head back as if 
 this precocious child worried him. 
 
 " Yes," Paul went on, drawing a letter from his 
 pocket, " and she sends you a message." 
 
 The creamy paper rustled in the boy's hands ; a 
 faint perfume floated on the air, and the words came 
 softly " ' I miss you more than I can say, and long 
 for you with a longing that I hope you may never 
 realize. Would it not be possible to persuade your 
 guardian to come home with you some time this win- 
 ter, so that I can see you ? ' " pausing and looking 
 steadfastly at the doctor ; but there was no movement, 
 and he read on " ' Thank him for me for all his care 
 of you : I know he will do whatever is best for you, 
 and in the highest sense of the word make a man of 
 you,' " the boy stopped, folding the letter slowly. 
 
 " Thank you," came coldly from the doctor, and he 
 passed his hands wearily over his eyes. 
 
 " Didyou ever know her ?" the boy asked hesita- 
 tingly, after a moment's silence. 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 Then the dinner and lights came in, and the con- 
 versation ceased.
 
 60 JERR V. 
 
 The meal was rather silent, and afterward the 
 evening in the book-lined study seemed rather cold 
 and still. The lessons went on without much heart, 
 dragging heavily ; with cold patience on the doctor's 
 part ; with undisguised weariness on the boy's part, 
 until the tasks were done. 
 
 " Now I will fly back with delight to my novel of 
 which I was so weary," and the boy rose and stretched 
 himself ; " to think I should be thankful to my lessons 
 for anything," he went on, "to think that I should 
 fall so low that one dullness is a boon because it makes 
 the next dullness seem less dull." 
 
 " I am reading," the doctor said, not looking up. 
 
 " I beg pardon," hurriedly, and the boy, with the 
 color burning in his cheeks, subsided with his book 
 into an arm-chair. 
 
 But he did not read ; instead, he watched furtively 
 the man before him, wondering what was the point of 
 his life. Why did he live in this lonely fashion away 
 off in these wilds ; why study so diligently ; why 
 spend his time and his money on the poor creatures, 
 the scum of the country who gathered out in this 
 region ? Like to-day, spending hours over one little 
 waif who was no earthly use to any one. Was he 
 altogether right in his mind ? He must be, Paul con- 
 cluded, for he remembered quite distinctly his father's 
 dying words about him, ' I give him Paul as uncon- 
 ditionally as such a thing can be done, and charge him 
 to be all to him that he would be to his own son.' 
 Paul remembered it all quite distinctly, and the last talk 
 his father had given him. After that the long months 
 when his mother pleaded not to give him up, the 
 lawyer's protest, and the letters from this guardian 
 that had made his mother so ill : then his journey to 
 this far western region, his reception, and wonder at 
 his surroundings. It was very strange ; and with all 
 his precocious, shallow knowledge of the world, he 
 could make nothing of these facts that met him on 
 every hand.
 
 JERRY. 6 1 
 
 Now he found that there had been some acquaint- 
 ance between his mother and his guardian : a new 
 piece of knowledge that deserved much thought. 
 Why not ask about this new puzzle ? Why not, in- 
 deed ! After that last snub he would rather put his 
 hand in the fire than say a word. No really harsh 
 word had ever been said to him by this man, yet Paul 
 would sooner have attempted to strike him, than posi- 
 tively to disregard one wish of his. He shirked his 
 duty sometimes when in a particularly rebellious 
 frame of mind, and when his guardian was not at 
 hand to look him over after a cool, calm way he had. 
 Sometimes he longed to see him angry, to hear him 
 curse and swear and storm as he had heard other men 
 do ; he thought it would be almost refreshing. This 
 intense calm, this controlled stillness that nothing 
 seemed to disturb, was frightfully monotonous, and 
 the man must surely be devoid of feeling. And 
 yet he helped all the poor and sick, and got no pay 
 for it : certainly a strange man. 
 
 And this strange man sat in the brilliant circle of 
 lamplight reading on and on ; turning page after page 
 as if nothing existed for him save that book. All 
 day long he had been resting with no eye to scan his 
 features, no keen curiosity to probe his self-control : 
 all day he had been resting with only the wild 
 creatures about him. 
 
 So they sat until the word came of a miner who 
 had fallen and injured himself ; then the doctor 
 closed his book and ordered his horse, and telling 
 the boy not to wait for him, rode away in the 
 darkness to spend the hours of the night among 
 the lowest of mankind, watching the death-struggles 
 of the strong, the misery and desolation of the 
 weak. 
 
 Aye, what did life seem to him ; what use in all its 
 toil and striving ; what comfort for all its sorrow and 
 suffering? 
 
 As well as he could he eased the agony of body,
 
 62 JERRY. 
 
 and comforted the heart, for he knelt and prayed 
 for the passing soul, this strange man whose life had 
 no visible point. 
 
 And riding homeward in the wild dawn he whis- 
 pered once again 
 
 "If God will ever forgive me!"
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 "And with no language but a cry." 
 
 JERRY sat in the low doorway very much as he 
 had done on the spring morning before he left his 
 home, with the sun shining all about him, finding 
 out all the hollows in his small face, and showing the 
 grave eyes grown larger and more wistful. His hopes 
 had all failed him ; the only object he had ever had 
 was seemingly an illusion ; a blankness had come 
 to him that was strange and unaccountable, and he 
 realized thoroughly but one thing that he was sorry 
 he had ever wakened from his sleep on the trail. He 
 felt more lonely now that there was nothing to remind 
 him of his past save his little bundle. His clothes 
 were all new and warm ; Joe had brought them from 
 Eureka, whatever or wherever that might be. Red 
 flannel shirts and thick trousers, and a thing Jerry 
 had never known before in his short life, a pair of 
 boots ! In his recollection his father had possessed 
 one pair ; but further than that he did not know 
 boots. Now he sat in the sunshine, thinking as far as 
 his half-awakened faculties could think. Heretofore 
 his life had been but a dull routine, never reaching 
 beyond the old rail-fence, of helping his mother with 
 the scant crop, or picking berries that his father took 
 away to " peddle," which meant to Jerry that his 
 father would return with a small store of provisions, 
 but always whisky. So his life had passed in igno- 
 rance and silence, with pain and hunger for variety. 
 With his mother's disappearance came the first change 
 and excitement. She had talked to him of the 
 " Golding Gates," and then for the first time he had 
 heard that there were such things as peace and 
 
 63
 
 64 JERK Y. 
 
 plenty. After that his journey the excitement the 
 failure the long sleep and slow awakening to kind- 
 ness and rest, and this strange blankness for which he 
 could not account, for he knew his life was more full 
 than ever before. 
 
 He sat in the sunshine, slowly revolving the reasons 
 of things as far as he knew them, and gradually com- 
 ing to the conclusion that he had missed the " Gates," 
 because he had not his mother with him, and added 
 to this was the hopelessness of ever being able to re- 
 turn and undo the evil done to his mother. He leaned 
 against the door-post sorrowfully. " I can't never 
 git back/' he muttered, "Joe 'Hows as he dunno how 
 I made out to git here ; cause he 'Hows I muster come 
 from whar he come from, 'cause I talks like all his'ns 
 folks : an' ther big water, I'm fearder that, sure ! " 
 He would not continue his wanderings, for he had no 
 hope now, and one place was as good as another. Joe 
 never beat him Joe gave him food and clothes. 
 There was nothing for it but to stay where he was ; 
 mind the house by day while Joe was gone ; cut wood 
 down among the pines, and have the supper cooked 
 when Joe came home : tlys was the routine. " If I 
 only hed Mammy," he would whisper in the long, 
 silent days, turning his bundle over in his hands. But 
 when Joe came home at night the fire was always 
 burning, the supper ready, and the little face watch- 
 ing for him. And Joe felt he had done a good thing 
 in taking in the little waif. 
 
 " He's sumpen ter say ' hardy ' to when I gits home 
 of evenin's," he said to the doctor as if to excuse his 
 weakness ; and long before there was any hope of 
 seeing his house, Joe would look up the trail to try to 
 catch a glimpse of the open door and the little figure 
 showing black against the firelight. 
 
 And when supper was dispatched, and the house 
 closed for the night, it was something pleasant to 
 feel that if he put down his pipe and asked a question 
 there was a voice to answer him.
 
 JERRY. 65 
 
 He often wondered over the child, and occasionally 
 put a question to him ; but the doctor had said to 
 wait until the child was quite strong before he took 
 his mind back to the things that had caused his ill- 
 ness. So Joe waited until one night, when the crisis 
 was reached unintentionally. 
 
 Joe had sat silent for a long time, when, putting 
 down his pipe and looking solemnly into the fire, he 
 said : 
 
 " To-morrer pore 'Lije Milton is agoin' to be buried, 
 Jerry, an' you kin go alonger me if you hes a mind 
 thet way. 'Lije an' hisn woman come from home, 
 too." 
 
 Jerry, squatting by the fire, was silent for several 
 minutes, then looked up slowly. 
 
 " Buried?" he said. 
 
 Joe looked at the child in astonishment. 
 
 " Well I reckon thet's what I said ; buried," he 
 repeated. 
 
 "What's thet?" very simply. 
 
 " My soul, boy ! " in absolute wonder, " why, pore 
 'Lije is dead, dead as a cole stone, an' weuns is agoin' 
 to bury him. Aint you never been to a buryin' ?" 
 
 " I dunno," hesitatingly. 
 
 "Aint you never seen nothin' die?" 
 
 " I dunno," with a tone of humility added to the 
 ignorance. 
 
 " Aint you- never broke a chicken's neck ? " 
 
 " No, but I hev sawn it done," somewhat of confi- 
 dence coming again into his voice. 
 
 " Well, when its neck's broke, an' it's a-lyin' thar rale 
 still" 
 
 " But it don't," Jerry interrupted quickly, " it hops 
 around powerful, it do, jest all over ever'thing." 
 
 " Thet's true," Joe acknowledged, seeing the weak- 
 ness of his simile, but at a loss for a better, until after 
 a little thought he looked up slowly, " but it do git 
 rale quiet afterwards." 
 
 " Thet's so," Jerry allowed in his turn.
 
 66 JERR Y. 
 
 "An" cole, an' stiff," Joe went on, with superiority 
 growing in his voice. 
 
 " It do," looking up. 
 
 " Well, then it's dead : it can't crow no mo', an* if 
 it's a hen it can't cluck no mo' to its chickens ; it 
 can't eat ner nothin', an' it's dead," solemnly. 
 
 Jerry made no response, his little mind was far too 
 busy, was groping too earnestly for him to make any 
 sound ; and Joe went on : 
 
 "An' thet's what's come to pore 'Lije Miller; he's 
 dead, plum dead : he can't eat, ner talk, ner do noth- 
 in'; he jest lies thar stiff an' cole, an' youuns kin call 
 him furever ! Pore Mis. Miller were jest a-howlin', 
 but 'Lije never knowed it." 
 
 "An' what's buryin'?" Jerry asked again in the 
 silence that followed Joe's words. 
 
 Again Joe looked the child over from head to heels, 
 as a naturalist would scan a totally new and unex- 
 pected development in some well-known species. 
 This ignorance was something entirely beyond his 
 experience, any extreme being beyond him, and 
 he scarcely knew how to account for it ; but with 
 exemplary patience he tried to make it clear to the 
 child. 
 
 " When folkses is dead," he began slowly, " we digs 
 a hole an' puts 'em in, an' kivvers 'em good." 
 
 The child's eyes grew wider as he listened, and he 
 fastened them on the speaker with an intensity that 
 made Joe halt a little in his speech. 
 
 " They're 'bleeged to do it," he explained hastily, 
 as if the child had condemned the practice. 
 
 " An' puts rails 'round it, an' bresh on top ? " the 
 little, anxious voice questioned. 
 
 Joe was puzzled for a moment, but he answered 
 bravely, nevertheless : 
 
 "Sometimes they do when critters air roun'; they 
 purtects 'em thet away." 
 
 " An' can't theyuns never git up no mo' ? " with his 
 pitiful eyes still on the man's face.
 
 JERRY. 67 
 
 Joe shook his head. 
 
 " Not fur a long spell," he said, " an* I aint rale 
 sartain sure 'bout thet : but some preachers b'lieves 
 it, an' calls it the 'jedgment day,' an' says as all folks 
 as is dead gits up then : gits up a-singin' an' a-shout- 
 in' to march to the ' Promis'-lan',' whar thar aint no 
 mo' sickness, ner nothiu' bad. My Nancy Ann's 
 gone, gone in at the ' Pearly Gates' ! " 
 
 "'Golding Gates', 1 ' the child interrupted eagerly, 
 "the 'Golding Gates,' Mammy 'llowed she were 
 agoin' thar, her did." 
 
 Joe looked at the child earnestly. 
 
 " Is youun's mammy dead ?" he asked, too curious 
 to remember the doctor's injunctions. 
 
 Jerry shook his head. 
 
 " I dunno," he answered, and all the light died out 
 of his eyes, "I dunno ; 1 dunrio nothin' ! " covering 
 his face with his hands. " Mammy's goned away, an' 
 I piled bresh on her, I did," the burden of his remorse 
 breaking out in a wail, " an' some blossoms ; but I 
 never knowed I never knowed ! " rocking back and 
 forth with the pitiful refrain coming almost hyster- 
 ically from his lips, " I never knowed, I never 
 knowed ! " 
 
 Joe was startled, for he remembered the days when 
 this cry never faltered until the voice was too weak 
 to cry. Was the child becoming ill again ? And in 
 his anxiety he remembered the doctor's quieting 
 words. 
 
 " It's all right, Jerry," he said gently, " you done 
 all right : ax the doctor when you sees him, he 
 knows." 
 
 The pitiful cry died away and the rocking ceased 
 as Joe went on : 
 
 " If youuns Par buried her " 
 
 " The woman in the valley named it ' olantin' ' of 
 her," the child put in wearily. 
 
 "Well," Joe granted, "some folks do name it 
 plantin', but I don't 'How as I like it; it soun's like
 
 68 JERR Y. 
 
 weuns wustatersor corn, so I says buried, I do: an' if 
 youuns' Par buried youuns' Mar, her muster been dead, 
 sure ; an' if you piled rails an' bresh roun* her, you 
 done jest right ; you purtected her, you did." 
 
 Jerry leaned against the chimney, silent ; his re- 
 morse was being stilled, but his hopelessness was in- 
 creasing with every word Joe uttered. He would never 
 see his mother again unless what Joe only half believed 
 should turn out true ; the " Jedgment day," when all 
 the dead should rise ; and he looked up asking : 
 
 " An' when'll it come ? " 
 
 " What ? " in some anxiety lest his stock of learning 
 should be exhausted. 
 
 " The day when all the folks gits up ? " 
 
 " Thar aint no man as knows," Joe answered with 
 reassured solemnity, " the doctor told my Nancy Ann 
 as nobody knowed ; he said the horn 'ud blow an' all 
 'ud rise : but some folks don't b'lieve it ; pore 'Lije 
 Milton never b'lieved it, 'cause he 'llowed he'd ruther 
 never git up no mo' ; he 'llowed he'd done lived in a 
 mine as is a hole in the groun', and he'd jest as lieve 
 stay thar;" then rousing as from a meditation he 
 turned to the child, " but you done right, Jerry, an' 
 youuns pore Mar is a-restin' mighty easy, I reckon, 
 an* you kin rest easy too," with which grain of 
 comfort the child went away to his bed in the corner; 
 and Joe, feeling troubled about him, determined to tell 
 the doctor of his perplexity, and ask his advice. He 
 had done his best, but he was dimly conscious that 
 his knowledge had run short under the child's ques- 
 tioning, and any further probings from this quarter 
 would put him where he would have nothing to say. 
 Besides, he was in some doubt as to the soundness of 
 the child's mind ; such dense ignorance puzzled sorely 
 his own half-knowledge. He could not comprehend 
 this extreme any more than he could realize the other, 
 and he felt obliged to appeal to a higher power. 
 
 He would ask the doctor the next day, for of course 
 the doctor would be at 'Lije's funeral.
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 " Death encleth all : 
 
 And then ? 
 
 The tears are dried The dim hope fled, 
 Love lieth still, and cold, and dead 
 Death endeth all : 
 And then ? 
 
 A DIM, gray day with the clouds drifting so low that 
 they hid the tops of the mountains, and hung far 
 down the sides like ragged curtains. No rain was 
 falling, and the wind was still save now and then it rose 
 in sudden gusts that tore the clouds to pieces. 
 
 Joe and Jerry set out on their way at an early hour, 
 as the distance was not short, and the occasion one 
 that demanded the respect of long and solemn waiting, 
 especially from Joe, who had the honor of having 
 come from the same county in Tennessee as 'Lije 
 Milton. Many in the colony had come from neigh- 
 boring States and counties, but Joe alone had come 
 from the same place. 
 
 They had beaten their clothes clear of dust; had 
 greased their boots, and scrubbed their faces and 
 heads until the skin shone, and the hair lay as 
 sleek as wax. But it was a great day in Burden's 
 and one that required these rites and ceremonies. 
 'Lije Milton was a miner of high degree ; indeed, 
 a mine owner, and not only this, but one who had 
 dared to go so far as to doubt the doctor's doc- 
 trine of a hereafter : one who had actually argued this 
 point with the doctor, but who still loved the doctor, 
 and had more than once declared his intention of 
 knocking down any one who agreed with him in his 
 opinions against the doctor. He could not second 
 
 69
 
 7 JERRY. 
 
 the doctor in his views, but no one else should dare to 
 take such a stand while " 'Lije Milton hed a fist ! " 
 
 And 'Lije was held in most profound respect : he 
 had killed a " grisly " with a jack-knife, he had 
 knocked down a mule with his fist, he had discov- 
 ered the new mine, he had scalped more Indians than 
 any one else had ever seen, he had been to more 
 places, even to the end of the old mine where every- 
 body knew he would have to meet old Burden's ghost 
 that lived there in peace and plenty. 
 
 All these things 'Lije had done: and all these things 
 Joe poured into Jerry's ears, adding a full description 
 of the awful terror of the black depths in " Burden's 
 mine," where 'Lije had met and conquered the wander- 
 ing spirit of the ancient possessor. 
 
 " Thar's water in thar thet never quits a-drappin'," 
 Joe went on, " an' 'Lije kep' on a-hearin' it, an' a-hearin' 
 it 'tell it jest wore him plum out, an' he 'llowed he'd 
 go in thar an see 'bout it, an' he did," pausing 
 solemnly, "you bet he did; an' he were gone two 
 days, he were ; an' I tells you, Jerry," drawing a 
 long breath that seemed to catch a little, " 'Lije 
 wornt never the same man sence; never, sure'syouuns 
 is born," stopping to put a fresh piece of tobacco in his 
 mouth, " an' he never tole nobody what it was he 
 sawn in thar, ceppen thet he hearn things a-cryin', an* 
 the water allers a-drappin': but he 'llowed as ole Bur- 
 den'd never pester him no mo' ; an' now 'Lije is gone, 
 an' aint no better man 'an old Burden." 
 
 "Were ole Burden buried ? " Jerry asked, his mind 
 occupied with these rites he did not understand. 
 
 Joe shook his head. 
 
 "I aint plum sure," he said, "fur ole Burden were 
 dead an' gone 'fore ever I come out to this place ; 
 but I hearn as he never wus ! He tumbled off some 
 rale deep hole in the mine, an' nobody never knowed 
 rightly whar it were ; but nobody couldn't git no mo* 
 men to work in Burden's mine." Then more medi- 
 tatively, " I aint never worked none in thar, but they
 
 JERR Y. 71 
 
 do say as thar's mo* gole in Burden's mine 'an any 
 man kin dig, they do." 
 
 " Gole ? " the child asked. 
 
 Joe turned back in the narrow path to look down 
 on him. 
 
 " My Lord ! boy, aint you got nary idee ? " he said, 
 " aint you never seed no gole ? " 
 
 Jerry shook his head, leaning humbly against an 
 adjacent rock. 
 
 "I dunno nothin'," he answered wearily. 
 
 " Aint you never seed no money ? " 
 
 And again Jerry shook his head. Joe was in 
 despair almost ; the child surely must be wrong in 
 his mind. 
 
 " Well, Jerry," compassionately, " I mus' 'How as 
 you is a most onknowin' creetur : well, jest listen ; 
 money jest means ever' blessed thing an' creetur," 
 taking his hands out of his pockets to emphasize his 
 words, " money means mules, an' powder, an' shot, 
 an' a house, an' ever' kinder truck ; money means 
 wittles, an' clothes, an' boots, an' hats ; money means 
 you is too good to do nothin'; money means ter- 
 backy, an' segyars, an' whisky, " 
 
 " Dad hed whisky all the time," the boy inter- 
 rupted quickly. 
 
 " Then youuns Par hed money," Joe finished con- 
 clusively, " an' money air made outer gole, an' gole 
 air yaller an' shines ; an' gole jest lays roun' loose in 
 Burden's mine ! " 
 
 "An' gole makes the ' Golding Gates'?" the child 
 queried deprecatingly as Joe was about to proceed on 
 his way. . 
 
 " You bet it do," he answered, " 'cause the preach- 
 ers says thar's riches thar as never fails, never ! " 
 and again turning from the child he walked on. 
 
 Down, down, down to the funeral of this hero who 
 had passed by the shining treasures of Burden's mine 
 in order to do battle with Burden's ghost ; but who 
 had, nevertheless, come back a changed man.
 
 7 2 JERRY. 
 
 Jerry listened and wondered, if the confusion of 
 ideas in his mind could be called wonder. His pure 
 and simple conception of the " Golding Gates " had 
 become inextricably mixed with his father and the 
 money that bought whisky ! Could it be the same 
 gold ? 
 
 His judgment wavered for a time ; but before he 
 reached 'Lije Milton's it had settled to the conviction 
 that the gold that bought whisky, and so represented 
 his father and all his misery, could not be the same 
 thing that made the entrance to the wonderful land 
 of which his mother had told him, the land where 
 he must meet her. " Mammy'd never go no whars as 
 thar wus whisky," he whispered to himself, " never, 
 sure's I'm alive." Still this conclusion did not change 
 the mystery : did some people like beatings and hun- 
 ger, and so go to a place where all was gold, and so 
 all was whisky ? 'Lije Milton was right ; leave the 
 gold, if gold meant whisky. 
 
 Yet there was something strange about it all ; Joe 
 seemed to set great store by gold, but not by whisky, 
 for he never got drunk. 
 
 And Jerry was at a loss. 
 
 " I'll ax the doctor," he said softly to himself, 
 " Joe says as he kin jest tell about ever'thing I'll 
 ax him," and he followed silently down the steep 
 way. 
 
 The clouds came lower and lower over the rough 
 land that was torn and rent in every direction by 
 hands hungry for gold, the rough, red land so dark 
 and unlovely ; with no exquisite coloring ; no beau- 
 tiful fresh greenness ; no gorgeous autumn staining, 
 poor, hard, rock-broken land. 
 
 But humanity did not seem to miss the soft loveli- 
 ness that had spread about their paths in the far 
 East ; they did not ever think of the wind that sobbed 
 among the black pines and crept down the lonely 
 gorges as the same wind that swept across the green 
 hills far away beyond the Mississippi. A little child
 
 JERR Y. 73 
 
 listened to it because it sounded "like Mammy a-sing- 
 in' "; but that was all. 
 
 The people had come only for gold, and what use 
 in listening to the wind, even if it did come from 
 their old homes. All was equal out here in the West, 
 and money was made more easily. In the East it 
 had been long toil and little pay ; riches and luxury 
 were all about them to be envied and longed for, but 
 not to be won by them. What folly to listen to the 
 wind, what folly to think of their old homes where 
 their fathers had been content ; the old men and 
 women making their living so hardly, the old graves 
 where so many had laid them down in weariness and 
 hope. It had done very well for the old who had 
 been content to see others above them ; but in this 
 new West things were very different. 
 
 The wind was whispering very low to-day and 
 Jerry listened almost unconsciously : in his own home 
 the clouds and wind came down just as they did here, 
 and he felt less lonely when they closed about him, 
 as he followed Joe in puzzled silence. 
 
 At last 'Lije Milton's house was reached: a frame 
 house with an upper story, which, being the only one 
 in Durden's, had caused much talk at the time of 
 building. But 'Lije's wife, who had come out later 
 than he, had mad-e him build this addition which his 
 friends had criticised quietly. Criticised because they 
 were friends, and quietly because 'Lije was not over 
 scrupulous about either words or blows. 
 
 There were curtains at the glazed windows, and a 
 fence about the front yard, which last was more than 
 even the doctor's house could boast: more than this, 
 there was a horse-rack in front of the gate for the con- 
 venience of any one stopping either at 'Lije's, or at 
 any other house in the settlement. 
 
 Inside, all was in solemn order: a large fire burned 
 in the broad fireplace of the best room; on the walls 
 were frightful prints ; a gorgeously painted clock 
 ticked on the mantel-piece, flanked by two brilliant
 
 74 JERRY. 
 
 china vases; the bedstead in the corner boasted a 
 feather-bed, a rare and costly thing in Burden's, and 
 was covered by a patchwork quilt that would have 
 defied any rainbow to a contest of colors. A rug of 
 fringed woolen rags was on the floor in front of the 
 hearth, and on the backs of the three cane-seated 
 rocking-chairs were tidies of wonderful workmanship. 
 Rows of medicine bottles stood on a table in one 
 corner to show that no money had been spared in 
 'Lije's illness; and around this gorgeous apartment, 
 for it was gorgeous and luxurious for Burden's, and 
 Mrs. Milton saw with much pride that all were awed 
 by it, were placed benches and chairs for the accom- 
 modation of friends. They were pretty well filled now, 
 and had been so for hours, by rows of women and 
 children, with their long bonnets either pushed back 
 from their heads, or held in their hands. 
 
 Near the fire, rocking slowly in the largest of the 
 rocking-chairs, backed by the gaudiest tidy, sat the 
 widow. Her straight, sandy hair was screwed into a 
 tight knot at the back of her head; her dress made of 
 curtain chintz was gorgeous in palm leaves a foot 
 long, buttoned in front with large white china buttons, 
 also a rare article in Burden's. 
 
 " 'Lije never grudged her nothin', you bet ! " and 
 all the women moved their heads mournfully. " 'Lije 
 never grudged nothin', thet was sure," they said, then 
 looked to where, on two rough carpenters' benches, 
 rested the painted deal coffin, and in it all that re- 
 mained of the hero of Burden's. 
 
 A powerfully made giant, now lying in unwonted 
 quiet and unnatural neatness, arrayed in a suit of 
 " sto' clothes " that proved more than anything the 
 great wealth and importance of the man, and the 
 calm disregard his widow had for money. " Thar aint 
 nothin' mean 'bout me," she had said, "an' 'Lije shell 
 be buried in the best clothes thar is in Burden's, an' 
 them is his own sto' clothes," and all the settlement 
 agreed with her, and looked with much just pride
 
 JERRY. 75 
 
 into the eyes of the people who had come over from 
 Eureka to the funeral. 
 
 Outside a group of men stood about the door 
 and lounged against the fence ; and inside, through 
 an open door another group of men could be seen in 
 the kitchen, where refreshments were being served by 
 two or three women. 
 
 All had been in and out more than once, for it was 
 not often that corn-bread and bacon, and whisky 
 and coffee were to be had without stint, and had with 
 the choice either of " long " or " short sweetenin* " ! 
 But "there warnt nothin' mean 'bout Mis. Milton." 
 
 No one went in as if they specially needed or 
 desired the food and drink, but with an air of accom- 
 modation, as if they took it only to please their hostess 
 and their dead friend. 
 
 So it all was when Joe and Jerry arrived : it took a 
 little time to make their way through the group in the 
 front yard, for every one had some word to say to Joe 
 about the boy. Gossip and news spread even in that 
 wild country, and everybody knew that Joe Gilliam 
 had found a boy and had taken him in ; but more 
 than this Joe scarcely knew himself. That the boy's 
 name was Jerry, that his mother was dead, that he 
 had run away from home and would have died in the 
 attempt but for Joe, was all that Joe knew, except 
 that the boy was hopelessly ignorant, might be con- 
 sidered even a little off in his mind. But Joe let 
 none of this appear in his talk. 
 
 " Is thet your boy, Joe ?" they asked. 
 
 " Thet's ther boy," looking down on Jerry, standing 
 beside him with his hands in his pockets. 
 
 " Where'd ye' find him ? " 
 
 " A-comin' down Blake's trail." 
 
 " He looks mighty skimpy." 
 
 " He do," Joe acknowledged ; then a silence fell, 
 during which all the group was occupied in looking 
 Jerry well over, and no sound could be heard save the 
 chewing and spitting of tobacco. This was the way
 
 76 JERRY. 
 
 of their kind, and Jerry, seeming to understand it, was 
 silent under the scrutiny. Then Joe turned away 
 toward the house, and Jerry followed him. 
 
 " Tuck off youuns hat," Joe whispered as they en- 
 tered, and the child obeyed. 
 
 ' All around the room his eyes wandered ; over the 
 rows of ugly, work-worn, stolid-looking women, 
 wearing on their faces and in their eyes a sort of un- 
 questioning stoicism. They knew all that life could 
 possibly hold for them ; they had solved, as far as 
 they could hope to solve or as far as they had realized 
 them, all the mysteries of their days : they knew no 
 higher desire than the bare necessities of food and 
 clothing ; their hopes were bounded by their actual 
 wants ; their sorrows, their joys, their pains and 
 pleasures were borne without any outcry ; nothing but 
 their fatalistic stoicism possessed any intensity for 
 them, and from that they were seldom shaken. 
 
 A birth, a death, a beating came naturally into the 
 day's work, and passed by with little comment. 
 
 Jerry looked about him now without any under- 
 standing of what this gathering meant. Lije Milton 
 was dead, Joe had told him, and they had come to see 
 him buried, or planted, whichever name one preferred 
 using : and Jerry had come to see, and to judge and 
 condemn, or exonerate his father : to satisfy himself 
 as to his own action in piling the brush on his moth- 
 er's grave, and then in deserting her. It was a thing 
 of momentous importance to him, for either it would 
 settle forever on his life the burden of remorse and 
 pain ; or it would prove to him that the burying.of his 
 mother was an absolute necessity, so leaving him no 
 hope but the day of Resurrection, which Joe seemed 
 to hold as very questionable. 
 
 It never occurred to him that the burying of his 
 mother, right or wrong, would have deprived her of 
 life, and so have exonerated him from all ill-doing : 
 he felt only that either his father had buried her to 
 keep her from running away to the " Golding Gates,"
 
 JERRY. 77 
 
 or that she was really dead, and there was nothing in 
 the future but the " Jedgment day." 
 
 Next to the long white box which Joe was now ap- 
 proaching, Jerry was the center of attraction, for all 
 were curious to see Joe Gilliam's boy. 
 
 Fortunately for Jerry the curiosity of this class was 
 not demonstrative : a fact satisfied them, and Jerry 
 standing among them proved all the story they had 
 heard, and the passing whisper that " Joe ain't found 
 much," ended the matter. 
 
 But Jerry realized nothing after his first look 
 around the room, save that Joe was standing, hat in 
 hand, gazing into a long box that seemed strangely 
 like one he had seen before. His patient eyes grew 
 more wistful, and a look of pain and wonder came in 
 them as he watched Joe. 
 
 He was afraid to go nearer, afraid of the certainty 
 that would be his if he looked in that box. Almost it 
 seemed as if he would again see his mother as he had 
 seen her last, before his father had nailed the box up 
 to put it in the ground. He trembled from head to 
 foot as he stood looking up with eyes fixed steadfastly 
 on Joe's. 
 
 " Yon's afraid," one woman said to another, and 
 the all-important widow, hearing the words, looked at 
 the child. 
 
 " You kin look in," she said, " 'Lije aint a-goin' 
 to hurt you : he never b'lieved he'd git up no mo,' 
 an' I don't b'lieve it nuther " obstinately. 
 
 Jerry only half comprehended the words as he stood 
 watching Joe, and had no thought that they were ad- 
 dressed to him ; but Joe fully realized not only all 
 that was being said, but all that was being thought ; 
 and beyond this, the awful breacrrof funeral etiquette 
 of which Jerry was now guilty. Not to stand and 
 look mournfully at the poor lump of clay clothed in 
 the mocking emblems of daily life not to stand and 
 think how " he'd failed away in his sickness," and how 
 he looked " rale nateral," not to make a close in-
 
 78 JERRY. 
 
 spection of the defenseless fellow-creature so as to be 
 able to describe and criticise for the benefit of less 
 fortunate friends ; was to show a decided lack of 
 breeding, and mortally to offend all surviving rel- 
 atives. 
 
 And Joe, not in the least comprehending Jerry's 
 trembling terror, drew the child forward ; drew him 
 forward until the questioning eyes could not but look 
 down to the dead for their answer. The gaunt, gray- 
 ish-yellow face and the great toil-worn hands crossed 
 in unearthly quiet. There was no sound, no move- 
 ment from the child ; he stood and looked while his 
 heart seemed to sink within him, and the daylight 
 seemed to fade from about him. His disconnected 
 wonders were drawing together his weary questions 
 were finding answers. 
 
 He had done no wrong, had aided in no ill against 
 his mother : he had been right to lay the rails about 
 her, and to pile the brush there ; and his running 
 away was not leaving her. 
 
 White and still he stood, losing his ignorance los- 
 ing his fair hope of the " Golding Gates," and with 
 a loneliness sweeping about him even as the clouds 
 swept down and clung about the mountain-side, a 
 loneliness that grew and grew as the ceremonies of 
 the day went on. 
 
 Every blow that drove the nails home in the coffin- 
 lid seemed to echo back through all his useless jour- 
 ney, to his poor home among the far-off hills ! Every 
 dull thud of the clods as they fell from the busy 
 spades, seemed to choke him, to fill him with a sti- 
 fling, breathless horror, to separate him still more 
 hopelessly from the only love his days had known. 
 
 What it was the doctor read, what it was the hoarse 
 voices sang, what it meant when all stood bareheaded 
 while the doctor looked up to the dull gray sky, the 
 child could not comprehend : it was to him like a 
 dream, and over and over he whispered " I aint got 
 nobody, Mammy, I aint got nobody."
 
 JERRY. 79 
 
 All the way home he plodded silently after Joe : 
 no words passed, only the whisper soft as a breath : 
 " I aint got nobody, Mammy, I aint got nobody." 
 And when his scarcely touched supper was over, 
 he wrapped himself in his blanket with his little bundle 
 held close in his arms. Somehow he was less lonely 
 while he could hold it close, could know and remem- 
 ber that his mother had worn that very apron, and 
 had hung it on the very peg from which he had taken 
 it. This was a comfort to him, for amid all the 
 changes and wonders of the life he had lived of late, 
 he seemed to be losing hold of the stolid facts that 
 hitherto had filled his days. Things seemed strange 
 and unreal to him, and the poor faded apron was some- 
 thing tangible that proved to him that his past had 
 been more than a dream.
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 " The fair pure soul of a little child, 
 
 Opened wide to the light of day 
 Looking away to the far Paradise, 
 Forgetting its roots are in clay." 
 
 ORNIN', doctor." 
 
 " Well, Joe." 
 " I'm done brunged him, doctor." 
 
 " Very well ; where do you go from here ? " 
 
 Joe turned his hat over in his hands once or twice, 
 and threw his weight from one foot to the other before 
 he answered with a jerk : 
 
 " Eureky." 
 
 " You work there steadily, do you ? " gravely. 
 
 " Not percisely," giving his hat another turn, " but 
 I makes a livin' fur me an' Jerry." 
 
 The doctor took his pipe from his mouth and blew 
 out a wreath of smoke. 
 
 " What is your work ? " he asked. 
 
 There was a pause, then Joe answered slowly : 
 
 " It's hones' work, doctor, I promise you thet." 
 
 " The same work your wife used to cry about?" 
 the doctor went on. 
 
 For one moment Joe stood irresolute, then he 
 turned from the study-door where he had been wait- 
 ing. 
 
 " Jerry's out har," he said, and walked away down 
 the hall. 
 
 " Very well," the doctor called after him, " send 
 him in." 
 
 Coming from the glare of the daylight into the com- 
 parative gloom of the study, where the windows looked 
 like holes cut in walls of books, Jerry was blinded for 
 
 80
 
 JERRY. 8 1 
 
 a moment ; but in a little while it seemed more nat- 
 ural to him, for the somber books seemed to shade the 
 sunshine down to the likeness of the light up under 
 the rocks where Joe's little house stood. 
 
 A bright fire burned, for the season was late autumn, 
 and in front of it, in a long, low-hung smoking-chair, 
 rested the doctor. 
 
 Hat in hand, Jerry paused just inside the door and 
 looked about him. 
 
 Books were unknown to him, and the walls might 
 just as well have been lined with stones for aught he 
 knew. He did not look at them with wonder, even, 
 nor at anything except the doctor looming like a 
 shadow in the clouds of tobacco-smoke. 
 
 This man was a power to Jerry ; a hero, a magician 
 who could cure every kind of sickness ; who knew 
 everything ; who could " bury folks," which was to 
 Jerry the most mysterious of all his attributes. 
 
 So Jerry paused and looked at him with a deep, 
 wondering interest, and some awe. 
 
 " Shut the door, Jerry," the doctor said, " and come 
 here." 
 
 Slowly the door swung on its hinges, closing with 
 an uncertain grating of the lock that betokened much 
 hesitation, then the clumsy boots tramped heavily 
 across the floor. Close up he came and stood looking 
 down with much gravity on the doctor, who returned 
 his look with corresponding interest. 
 
 " How are you ? " he said. 
 
 " I'm well as common," Jerry answered. 
 
 " And Joe is good to you ? " 
 
 " I 'How he's rale good, I do," with a little more 
 heartiness creeping into his voice, "he gin me boots, 
 he did," looking down to where his trousers were 
 carefully stuffed into the coarse, rough tops. 
 
 " Well, sit there by the fire," the doctor went on, 
 pointing to a stool near the hearth, " and tell me all 
 about it ; I hear that you went to 'Lije Milton's 
 funeral."
 
 82 JERR Y. 
 
 " Buryin'," Jerry corrected, taking his seat quietly, 
 "Joe he names it a buryin', he do." 
 
 " Well, a burying if you like : Joe said you had 
 never been to one, before," the doctor went on en- 
 couragingly; Joe had implored him to talk to Jerry on 
 these subjects, as from Joe's conversation with him 
 Jerry did not seem quite right in his mind : so 
 the doctor, watching the child carefully, put his 
 question. 
 
 " I 'llowed I never hed been to nary a-one," looking 
 steadfastly at the doctor, " 'cause I never knowed 
 what it were 'tell I sawn it ; but when I sawn it I 
 knowed it," shaking his head like an old man, and 
 turning his eyes from the doctor to fix them sadly on 
 the fire. 
 
 " And did you hear the words 1 read, Jerry ? " 
 
 The child shook his head. 
 
 " I reckon I hearn," he answered slowly, " but I 
 never knowed 'em I aint never hearn none like "em." 
 
 " Can you read ? " 
 
 A blank look came over the child's face, 
 
 "I dunno," he answered without looking up. 
 
 " Could your father read ? or your mother ? " 
 
 " Mebbe," was answered doubtfully, " but I never 
 hearn nothin* 'bout it ; an' I dunno nothin' nohow," 
 putting his elbows on his knees and his chin down in 
 his hands. So much -that was bewildering had come 
 to him, that he felt weary and despairing when made 
 to realize, however kindly, his ignorance. " I gits rale 
 tired a-steddyin' 'bout things as I hears Joe a-talkin' 
 "bout," he went on, " I jest sets an' sets, an' keeps on 
 a-steddyin' 'tell I'm plum wore out, I is." 
 
 " Tell me some of the things you do not under- 
 stand," the doctor suggested, becoming more inter- 
 ested in the boy, about whom there was an air of such 
 unspeakable loneliness ; whose place in the world's 
 general plan seemed to have been forgotten. No one 
 owned him ; no one cared especially for him ; and 
 having been instrumental in restoring the boy to life,
 
 JERR Y. 83 
 
 the doctor felt in some sort bound to try to help him: 
 and now the child looked at him gravely, asking 
 
 " Do gole makes money as buys whisky ?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 " An' do gole make the ' Golding Gates ' ?" 
 
 " The ' Golden Gates ' ? " slowly. 
 
 " That's what I said," earnestly, "the 'Golding 
 Gates'; thet's whar Mammy 'lowed she were a-goin', 
 her did," solemnly, " an' her pinted straight out the 
 winder to whar the sun were a-setting, her did." 
 
 " And they buried her ? " 
 
 " They did, sure," then with a little catch in his 
 voice, " an' I piled bresh on her, I did," looking up 
 wistfully. 
 
 " Well ? " 
 
 " An' I were feared as she couldn't never git up no 
 mo', 'cause of the bresh," speaking more rapidly as he 
 touched the cause of his agony, " an' I hearn a wo- 
 man a-sayin'as her were planted, an' I 'llowed as Dad 
 hed kivvered her in so her couldn't run away to the 
 'Golding Gates' an' I 'llowed I hed he'pped him, I did, 
 but I never knowed I never knowed ! " putting his 
 hands over his face. 
 
 " But you did right, Jerry," the doctor said ; " the 
 brush will protect the grave from washing." 
 
 " An' it kivvered the rails, it did," looking up anx- 
 iously, " I 'llowed as 'twornt a-tuckin' nothin" jist to 
 lift a few rails from the fence ; Dad'Il never know ; 
 but 'twornt a-tuckin' nothin'. Mammy tole me never 
 to tuck nothin' as wornt mine, her did." 
 
 " And would not your father have given you the 
 rails ? " the doctor asked, more to draw the child out 
 than to decide on the wickedness of stealing the rails. 
 
 Jerry shook his head. 
 
 " Dad never sot no store by Mammy, never, sure's 
 youuns is born," turning his eyes once more to the 
 fire, " Dad were a-goin' to bust my head agin the 
 chimbly, an' Mammy ketched his'n arm, her did," his 
 face lighting up and his eyes flashing " an' Dad
 
 84 JERR Y. 
 
 knocked her agin the wall*, he did, an' chunked me 
 a-topper her ! it was in the mornin', an' the nex' 
 mornin' thar were a-buryin' ; an' then Minervy Ann 
 Salter corned to live, her did," breathlessly, " an' her 
 knocked me deef an' bline," pausing, " an' I runned 
 away," with a fall in his voice and a change in his 
 whole manner : the running away had been such an 
 utter failure. 
 
 The doctor sat silent while the wretched story 
 dawned on him : would it be merciful to open the 
 child's eyes to all the story merciful to make him 
 understand all its bearings ? 
 
 " But Mammy he'pped to split them rails, her did," 
 the child went on slowly, " an' I only tuck a few, only 
 a few ; an' I kivvered 'em good so Dad couldn't seen 
 'em ; 'cause if he tuck 'em away ole Molly, thet's 
 the sow," in an explanatory tone, " ole Molly'd a-root- 
 ed it sure, jist sure," meditatively, " fur ole Molly 
 were the meanes' hog a-livin' : I 'llow Minervy Ann 
 Sailer's done kilt her by now, I reckon her hes," 
 drawing his shirt-sleeve across his nose ; " pore ole 
 Molly, her were pisen mean, sure, but her b'longed to 
 Mammy, an' I'd like powerful to see her onest more, 
 I would, I aint got nobody," putting his face down 
 on his arms that were crossed on his knees " I aint 
 got nobody " with a little cry that struck home to 
 his companion's heart. 
 
 " And I too have nobody, Jerry," the doctor said. 
 
 The child looked up slowly. 
 
 " Not nary a soul ? " he asked. 
 
 The doctor shook his head. 
 
 " My mother died when I was a little baby," he 
 said. 
 
 " An' youuns' daddy ? " interestedly. 
 
 " He married again." 
 
 " An' she beat youuns ? " 
 
 "No, but she did not like me, and I lived with my 
 uncle." 
 
 "An' you never runned away?"
 
 JERR Y. 85 
 
 " No, but after I was a man my uncle died, and I 
 came out here."" 
 
 " What fur ? " gravely. 
 
 " There are people here ; people who get sick, and 
 lonely, and tired, and I can help them ; I can make 
 them well, and help them to be good so that they can 
 go in at the ' Golden Gate ' when they die." 
 
 " Does you b'lieve thar's a ' Golding Gates ' ? " 
 wonderingly ; for his own belief in it had seemed to 
 fade from him in the presence of death and the grave 
 as he had lately realized them. 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " An' youuns mammy is thar ? " softly. 
 
 " Yes," 
 
 " An' my mammy ? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 There was a moment's silence ; then the thin little 
 face was raised again. 
 
 " I corned a fur ways an' I aint never sawn it." 
 
 " And I have never seen it, but I know it is there." 
 
 " Whar ? " 
 
 " On the other side the grave." 
 
 " The grave ? " 
 
 " Yes, where we will be buried." 
 
 "Like 'Lije Milton?" 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 The child turned away again to the fire that danced 
 and flickered up the chimney, as if he saw some vision 
 in the flames : and the doctor, thinking his own 
 thoughts, almost forgot the child. 
 
 " But 'Lije Milton never b'lieved as he'd git up agin," 
 came at last, rousing the doctor from his dream, "and 
 Joe says as 'Lije'd jest as lieve stay in thet thar hole 
 furiver, an' hisn woman tole me them same words, 
 her did." 
 
 " Maybe he would," the doctor answered, " but that 
 does not mean that he is going to stay there : you may 
 be willing to sit by that fire forever, but that does not 
 mean that you are going to do it."
 
 86 JERRY. 
 
 "That's true as mornin'," the child said slowly, " I'd 
 jest as lieve stay har, but I aint agoin' to : an' 'Lije 
 will hev to git up?" 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " When ? " 
 
 " I do not know." 
 
 " Joe 'Hows as it's named the ' Jedgment day,' " 
 deprecatingly. 
 
 " Some people call it so," the doctor answered. 
 
 " An' what does you call it ? " 
 
 " I call it going home," watching a wreath of smoke 
 as it floated away slowly. 
 
 " To youuns' mammy ? " the boy asked. 
 
 " Yes," and the doctor drew his hand across his eyes. 
 
 How persistently the child clung to the one love of 
 his life : and he pictured to himself what a poor, drag- 
 gled creature this mother had been, yet how divinely 
 the child's love wrapped her in its beauty. Her life 
 had been given for his ; and some day he would know 
 this. Then with a sigh the doctor roused himself. 
 
 " You must learn to read, Jerry," he said. 
 
 " Read ? " 
 
 " Yes, like this," taking a book from a table near 
 him, and opening it, "you see these little marks ? " 
 
 "I do." 
 
 " Well they are words, and a great many of these 
 words put together make a book ; a book like one of 
 these," pointing to the shelves. 
 
 The child looked about him in wonder ; on every 
 side were rows and rows of these things called ' books,' 
 what were they what did they mean ? 
 
 " And you must learn so that you can take one of 
 these and know what is in it." 
 
 " What fur ? " gravely. 
 
 " So that you will know everything without asking 
 any questions," the doctor answered, " and there is a 
 book that will tell you about the Judgment day, and 
 about the home where your mother has gone, and 
 about what you must do to get to your mother."
 
 JERRY. 87 
 
 The solemn eyes opened wide, and the boy came 
 close to this friend who would do so much for him. 
 
 " Show me it ?" almost breathlessly. 
 
 The doctor took up a small Bible that lay near, and 
 put it in the boy's hands. 
 
 " That will tell you all about it, when you learn to 
 read it." 
 
 The child went back to the hearth, but not to the 
 stool ; the crowding emotions drove all unnaturalness 
 from his mind, and he squatted down after his own 
 fashion. He turned the book over and over tenderly, 
 from time to time wiping his hands on his trousers ; 
 over and over, then he opened it nothing but little 
 black marks and dots nothing he could know or 
 understand ; it was disappointing, and he shut it up 
 again. 
 
 " It'll tell me the way to go ? " he asked wonder- 
 ingly. 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 " To tuck me right straight to mammy ? " 
 
 11 Yes." 
 
 " An' when I gits thar kin I tell her 'bout thet 
 bresh ? " 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 " An' 'bout ther big water I were feared on ? " 
 
 " You can tell her everything, Jerry, but it will not 
 be any use, for she knows it all now ; she is always 
 watching you, and is always near you ; you can not 
 see her, but she is always with you." 
 
 " My Mammy ! " looking quickly over his shoulder, 
 with a sort of terror gathering in his eyes "tell me 
 agin, doctor, I 'How I don't rightly on'erstan' youuns," 
 dropping on his knees and creeping to the doctor's 
 side. 
 
 " It will take a long time for you to understand, 
 Jerry," looking pityingly down into the anxious eyes, 
 " but you must believe what I say ; believe that your 
 mother is near you, watching you ; and when you are 
 good she is happy, and when you are bad she is sorry."
 
 88 JERR Y. 
 
 The child looked all about him where he knelt with 
 the book clasped in his hands, and a whisper crept 
 through the silence 
 
 " Mammy ! " 
 
 A mystery more strange than all others had come 
 to him which there was no hope of solving ; this, 
 however, made no difference, the doctor said he was 
 to believe it, and his lonely heart had grasped it and 
 was hugging it close. And the doctor watching him 
 saw the little hand reach out with an uncertain, long- 
 ing gesture ; if only he could touch his mother ! 
 
 And all the way home the happy thought went with 
 him that his mother walked beside him. Almost he 
 heard her footsteps and would pause to listen.
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 ' And with small, childish hands we are turning around 
 The apple of life which another has found." 
 
 T CLEAN furgot," Jerry said slowly. 
 
 He was squatting on the hearth, looking into 
 the fire, with the book the doctor had given 
 him held close in his hands. " I clean furgot 'bout 
 the gole, Joe." 
 
 " Folks mostly 'members gole," Joe answered, pack- 
 ing his pipe carefully. "An' I 'llowed as you never 
 knowed nothin' 'bout it, you'd ax the doctor." 
 
 " Aint you got no gole as you kin lemme see ? " the 
 boy asked. 
 
 Joe stirred diligently in the fire until he found a 
 coal to suit him, then picking it up deftly with his hard 
 fingers, he dropped it on his pipe. 
 
 " Mebbe I hes," he answered slowly, running his 
 hand deep into his trouser pockets. " Mebbe I hes 
 one piece as you kin see," and he drew out a five-dol- 
 lar piece, old and dingy. 
 
 " Look at thet," he said with some pride, " jest turn 
 it over an' feel of it." 
 
 Jerry turned it over obediently, but no exclamation 
 of admiration escaped him, no word of any kind, and 
 a look of disappointment clouded his face. 
 
 "It aint much purty," he said at last, holding it at 
 a little distance, " it ain't much yaller, nor much shiny, 
 it aint." 
 
 " It's ole," Joe granted, " an' heapser folks is hed 
 thet." 
 
 " What fur ? " looking up simply. 
 
 " What fur ! Lord, boy, sure ernough you dunno 
 
 89
 
 9 JERR y. 
 
 nothin' ! What fur? Great-day-in-the-mornin'! " 
 bringing his fist down heavily on the table, " why, fur 
 ever'thing, jest ever' blessed thing ! " 
 
 Again Jerry turned his eyes on the money that to 
 him meant so little good for everything. 
 
 " Good to git me to Mammy ? " he asked at last. 
 
 " You bet," Joe answered hastily, " fur if you 
 hev ernough, you aint agoin' to cuss, ner sw'ar, ner 
 steal, ner hev a-hankerin' alter other folks' truck ; an' 
 if you don't do noner thet, you kin git any- 
 whars." 
 
 " Mammy never hed none," thoughtfully. 
 
 " An' her never went no whars," Joe struck in con- 
 clusively. 
 
 " Her went to the ' Golding Gates,' " slowly, " 'cause 
 the doctor says so," the doctor being overwhelming 
 evidence. 
 
 Joe rubbed his hand all over his ragged hair : what 
 could he say ; his own knowledge embraced only bar- 
 ren facts and unproved beliefs. 
 
 " The doctor 'Hows as she hev gone to the ' Golding 
 Gates,' " the child repeated. 
 
 " An' I 'Hows it," Joe answered, " an' I 'Hows as 
 my Nancy Ann leetle Nan, I calls her mostly, hev 
 gone thar too." 
 
 " An' her never hed no gole," simply. 
 
 " Not rayly much," Joe answered hastily, "but jest 
 you rub thet gole in the ashes," he went on, chang- 
 ing the subject, "an' you'll see jest how it shines 
 an' shines 'tell it gits right in a feller's eye, it does." 
 Then more meditatively, " It seems like a eye don't 
 rayly count, it gits holt of a feller all roun', it do." 
 
 And Jerry stooping, rubbed diligently first one side 
 of the coin, then the other, in the warm soft ashes 
 until the gold shone and glittered. 
 
 "It do shine," He said at last, turning it over in his 
 palm, " folks oughter keep it a-shinin'." 
 
 " Folks hes too much to 'tend to, they hes," Joe 
 answered, blowing clouds of smoke out in his satisfac-
 
 JERRY. 9 1 
 
 tion over having convinced Jerry of at least the beauty 
 of gold ; " they'll tuck thet to the sto'," Joe went on 
 instructively, " an' Dan Burk '11 give 'em a letter 
 truck ; fur all he's pisen cheatin' ! " again striking the 
 table. " When I come har he never hed nary a thing, 
 an' his'n woman tuck in what pore little washin' she 
 could git, her did ; an' now God-er-mussy ! thar 
 aint nothin' good ernough fur her nothin' ; an' my 
 pore leetle Nan air dead ! " 
 
 Jerry sat silent, turning the gold over in his hands : 
 he did not understand all of Joe's words, but being 
 accustomed to this mistiness of comprehension, he 
 said nothing. 
 
 There was a long silence, then Joe knocked the 
 ashes from his pipe. 
 
 " An' the doctor wants ter see me ? " he said. 
 
 " He do," Jerry answered ; " he wants to see you 
 'bout sumpen, I dunno rightly what ; but he says, says 
 he, ' Jerry, tell Joe I wanter see him right pertickler,' 
 says 'ee, an' I says, says I, ' Doctor, I will.' " 
 
 " Thet's cl'ar," Joe said slowly, "an I'll go to-mor- 
 rer, I will "; then to the boy, " gimme the gole, boy, 
 it's to buy wittles, it is." 
 
 And Jerry delivered up the money he had made to 
 shine, the money he did not as yet know the meaning 
 of, but that, nevertheless, had a mysterious fascination 
 for him. 
 
 He had turned it over many times, had looked at it 
 with a longing desire to know its full value and mean- 
 ing : he should have asked the doctor about it, and 
 must surely remember to do it the next time he saw 
 him. He would go and see him again very shortly, 
 for there was growing up in his heart an absorbing 
 adoration of this man this man who had first made 
 him well, and had now made him happy. Had told 
 him his mother was near him always had given him a 
 book to tell him the sure way to reach her. 
 
 " I loves him, I do," he said to himself, and Joe 
 hearing the indistinct whisper roused from his revery.
 
 92 JERRY. 
 
 " What's thet youuns says ? " he asked. 
 
 Jerry looked up 
 
 " I says as I loves the doctor," he answered gravely. 
 
 " I 'How I do too," and again Joe rubbed his stubbly 
 hair, " he's a rale gentleman, he is, ceppen he's mos' 
 too hones'." 
 
 " I wonder ! " Jerry said slowly. 
 
 " It's so," Joe went on, " the doctor jist helps all 
 the mean, pisenes' mean trash thet comes to Dur- 
 den's, an' he never axes a center pay, he don't." 
 
 " What's pay ? " and Jerry pushed the fire that had 
 fallen a little apart. 
 
 " Well," and Joe's tone was well-nigh hopeless, " if 
 youuns aint the all-beatenes' boy I hev ever saw ! 
 aint you never done a job afore you leff home ? " 
 
 " I hepped Mammy hoe the crap," Jerry answered, 
 "an" I hepped her split .rails, I did, an' I 'llowed I 
 could tuck a few to lay roun' her, I did." 
 
 Joe was in despair almost ; only one thought the 
 child seemed to have his mother, and the grave he 
 had heaped with brush how could anything be ex- 
 plained to him ? And into Joe's half-developed mind 
 crept the thought that whatever Jerry took hold of he 
 would never let go never. While the child's strangely 
 simple question found him always without an answer, 
 and about things he had thought himself in full 
 knowledge of. 
 
 " Pay means to gie a feller pay when he works fur 
 youuns," Joe began ; " an' the docter works on all 
 the trash as gits sick, an' they never gie him a 
 cent." 
 
 " Bid you pay him fur a-workin' on me ? " the 
 child asked. 
 
 Joe shook his head. 
 
 " He 'llowed as you didn't rightly b'long to me 
 nohow an' he wouldn't tuck no pay : an' when Nancy 
 Ann an' my leetle baby died he never tuck no pay 
 nuther, 'cause he 'llowed as I were too pore, he did ; 
 but I'll pay him yit, you bet ! " slapping his pocket
 
 JERRY. 93 
 
 that jingled as if there were more gold pieces there 
 like the one he had shown Jerry, " I'll pay him 'cause 
 I loves him, I do." 
 
 "An" what kin I do?" the child asked slowly, "I 
 dunno nothin' ceppen to hoe, an' chop wood, an' to 
 tote water." 
 
 " You kin larn," Joe answered comfortingly ; 
 " when I were a little chap I never knowed nothin' 
 nuther, but I larned : jist keep youuns' eyes open, an' 
 youuns' yeers open, an' you'll larn a heap, you bet." 
 
 " An' I'll larn to read the book," Jerry added, tak- 
 ing his Bible from the floor where he had laid it while 
 he rubbed the money, " an" I'll read it to you, Joe, 
 'bout how you mus' git to Nancy Ann," he went on 
 simply. 
 
 " I'm 'bleeged, Jerry," Joe answered, taking Jerry's 
 offer as it was meant, " but I don't sot much store by 
 larnin," gravely, " but I reckon it'll take all you 
 kin git to git you along : folks as aint got much 
 natteral sense needs a heaper larnin', they do." 
 
 " An' I'll try to git it," humbly, "an" I'll ax the doc- 
 tor 'bout gole, I will." 
 
 "An" I'll go to see him in the mornin', I will," and Joe 
 began to bar the door and the window, and Jerry 
 crept away to his blankets in the corner, and Pete to 
 his leaves ; and when all was still Joe made his usual 
 rounds, and leaned his loaded rifle by the bedside.
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 " ' Nevertheless,' continues he, ' I, too, acknowledge the all but 
 omnipotence of early culture and nurture ; whereby we have either 
 a doddered dwarf-bush, or a high towering, wide-shading tree ; 
 either a sick yellow cabbage, or an edible, luxuriant green one.' " 
 
 A FTER Joe had been to see the doctor, Jerry had 
 \ been told that he was to go there every day that 
 he might learn to read and write. There was 
 no school in Burden's, and Eureka was too far for 
 Jerry to walk there every day ; so the doctor had 
 agreed to teach Jerry, and the money Joe would have 
 had to pay the school-master in Eureka, he was to give 
 to some poor people in Burden's, families the doctor 
 knew to be worthy of help. 
 
 " So I'm a-payin' fur you, Jerry, and you mus' 
 try to larn," Joe had said ; and Jerry, with a very 
 humble and dejected mind, had promised to make 
 every effort in his power. The feeling that he had to 
 learn because he had not enough natural sense was 
 dispiriting ; but it was some comfort to know that the 
 doctor had learned all these things, and if he had be- 
 gun life with a deficiency of mind, Jerry felt there was 
 hope. And he said mildly in answer to Joe : 
 
 "The doctor jest knows ever'thing, Joe, an' I 'llow 
 he hed to larn 'em ; I reckon he had mighty leetle 
 sense when he started./ 
 
 Joe shook his head. 
 
 "I clunno," he answered honestly, in spite of the 
 point Jerry so unconsciously had made, " I dunno 
 'bout hisn sense ; but if larnin' kin do thet much fur 
 any pusson, then I says larn, I do." 
 
 " I will," Jerry had said earnestly, and had trudged 
 away down the mountain-side with determination in 
 
 94
 
 JERRY. 95 
 
 every step. It was all a great mystery to Jerry, and 
 somehow since he had learned what books were, and 
 that they knew everything, he felt somewhat afraid of 
 them, and looked at the study as an educated child 
 would look on a haunted house. He dreaded the 
 room, but overcame his fears sufficiently to stay there 
 alone for hours when the doctor would leave him to 
 go on his round of visits. He would endure every- 
 thing in order to learn : his motives were simple, but 
 because of their simplicity were strong ; first, the 
 doctor had said he must learn ; and second, Joe was 
 paying precious gold for his learning.. But beyond 
 all this there was the longing to read the books that 
 would tell him everything, and show him the way to 
 his mother ; and with these motives behind him he 
 plodded patiently along the road to knowledge close 
 at his master's heels. And the doctor had asked him- 
 self if he were wise in the course he had begun with 
 Jerry : would not his own ignorant, narrow groove in 
 life be happier for him ? 
 
 Maybe ; but it was right to lift, be it ever so little, 
 every immortal soul. He had made a vow once to 
 help in some way every life that came in contact with 
 his own more than this, to seek out lives and strive 
 to raise them : a step might not be altogether clean, 
 yet people could mount by it. He would raise the 
 boy as high as was possible ; would give him as much 
 education as he would take this would be doing 
 only his duty. The life of this poor little waif was as 
 lonely as his own, and what was marvelous for his 
 class feeling the loneliness. Usually if they had 
 enough to eat and clothes to cover them, this was suf- 
 ficient ; but this child, living in comparative comfort, 
 knew there was something he missed, and was hunt- 
 ing for it vaguely blindly. Only a spark of soul, 
 maybe, but he would keep it alive, and perhaps light a 
 life that would be a beacon to many. 
 
 And the possibilities that he was setting up a " will- 
 o-the-wisp " could he overlook them ? How many
 
 9<5 JERRY. 
 
 chances of inheritance were there against this boy 
 what lay behind in his blood ? Still, he would try ; 
 for the child was surely above the average ; already 
 he had shown thought and gratitude : standing look- 
 ing up in the doctor's face, with his hands in his pock- 
 ets, he had asked gravely : 
 
 " Do gole keep a feller from cussin' ? " 
 
 The doctor took his pipe from between his lips the 
 better to see the sharp little face. 
 
 " Joe 'Hows as gole keeps a feller from cussin'," the 
 child went on, " and from stealin', and a-hankerin' 
 atter other folk's truck ; do it ? " 
 
 And the doctor answered slowly : 
 
 " Sometimes it does. Jerry," smoothing his mustache 
 over his lips that were smiling. 
 
 " An' gole gits aheaper truck ? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " An* pays you fur a-workin' on pore folks, an' sick 
 folks, an' pisen mean folks ? " eagerly. 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " An' I can't pay you," wistfully, " but I kin chop 
 wood, an' hoe, an' tote water, I kin." 
 
 "It does not make any difference, Jerry," was an- 
 swered gravely, " I was glad to make you well." 
 
 Then there was a silence while the boy from where 
 he stood looked pityingly on the man. 
 
 " An' nary a pusson he'ps youuns," slowly, " 'cause 
 you is big an' strong, an* knows ever'thing," the child 
 went on as if to himself, " an' I can't do nothin', 
 nothin' ceppen sot a heaper store by you ; an* I do, 
 fore God, I do ; jest you say, an' I'll do it sure, 
 jest sure ! Farwell ! " and then the door was shut, 
 and down the hall the heavy boots had tramped out of 
 hearing ; and the lonely man had listened and known 
 that into his life a true love and gratitude had come 
 like a sweet, fresh rain falling wastefully on fire-hard- 
 ened clay. True, still all that duty could do should 
 be done for the child. 
 
 And Paul, coming in and finding Jerry's slate full
 
 JERRY, 97 
 
 of poor little efforts at writing, propped on the table so 
 that the fullest light fell on it, and knowing whose it 
 must be, pondered on the meaning of this man's strange 
 life. What was the point of this new freak that made 
 a man like his guardian spend hours on this wretched 
 little creature. He had better be a clergyman at once. 
 And was this what his mother meant by being a man ? 
 Was this the hope entertained for him ? A feeling 
 that was hatred almost, came over him ; and he swore 
 a silent, angry oath that no such hope should be ful- 
 filled. 
 
 But he had a curiosity to see this boy, and one day 
 he waited for him one day when the doctor was out. 
 It was a crisp, cold day, with a thin covering of snow 
 rounding all the sharp outlines about the country, and 
 making the pine woods look like fairy-land. Very 
 cold in the early daylight when Joe went away to his 
 work ; and Jerry as he put things to rights, whistled 
 a straight sort of tune he had heard Joe whistle as he 
 sat idle on Sundays whistled on and on in calm con- 
 tentment, not knowing that the day would mark a turn- 
 ing-point in his life ; life was a good thing as it came 
 to him now. 
 
 His work was soon done, and shutting up the house 
 securely, he tucked his trousers deeper into his boots, 
 tied his hat down'over his ears with a woolen scarf, 
 and put on a coat of Joe's which, if rather large, was 
 warm. 
 
 A queer figure he made trudging across the white 
 country, his long coat flapping against his heels, and 
 occasionally sweeping the snow off some drift higher 
 than the rest, and his sharply-cut yellow face looking 
 out from the folds of his scarf. But the hollows in 
 his face had filled out, the angles had rounded down, 
 and the expression had changed in a way that was re- 
 markable. His eyes were wistful still, but there had 
 crept into them a keen, thoughtful look that asked a 
 question with every glance. 
 
 Still whistling the straight tune, he steadily over-
 
 98 JERRY. 
 
 came the obstacles of the steep, slippery path ; then 
 out across the sweep of the valley where the wind 
 seemed to gather up its scattered forces and attack 
 one on all sides, keen, bitter, merciless. 
 
 But the boy did not pause ; steadily on against wind 
 and snow until the road that formed the one street of 
 Burden's was reached, then he slackened his pace, and 
 even with this pause was almost breathless when he 
 reached the doctor's house. Still the end was accom- 
 plished, and up the steps and down the hall he went, 
 and in at the study door in perfect peace with himself. 
 
 Always reverent in his demeanor toward the study, 
 yet this time he paused longer in his closing of the 
 study door : a new presence was there, a person that 
 in all his visits Jerry had never before seen. Fair and 
 tall, but still a boy ; certainly a boy, for his trousers 
 were stuffed into his boots but such boots ! A round 
 fur cap was set on one side of his fair head a fur- 
 lined cloak, held in place by a glittering clasp, was 
 thrown back over his shoulders, and his hands, small 
 and white, were stretched out to the roaring blaze. 
 
 Jerry paused inside the door and looked at this new 
 person without any hesitation or expression of embar- 
 rassment ; the same honest observation that would 
 have been called forth by any unknown wonder, now 
 came to the front in honor of Paul *; for it was he who 
 occupied Jerry's eyes and thoughts. 
 
 " Well," Paul said slowly, giving the new-comer a 
 stare quite as unmitigated as Jerry's own, " is your 
 name Jerry ? " 
 
 " It are," gravely, coming toward the fire. 
 
 " It are, are it ? " Paul went on with a mockery in 
 his tone that was not lost on Jerry "you must love 
 lessons to come on such a day as this." 
 
 " I do," Jerry returned, beginning to divest himself 
 of coat and hat, "an" I loves the doctor too." 
 
 " That is really wonderful, and your coat," slap- 
 ping his legs with a riding-whip he held, "who made 
 that?"
 
 JERRY. 99 
 
 " I dunno," turning the clumsy garment over with 
 recollection only of the great comfort he found there- 
 in, for what were cut and fit to Jerry ? " Joe he gin it 
 to me, an' its rale warm, it are." 
 
 " Rayly ?" and Paul threw his hat on a neighbor- 
 ing chair, and his cloak on top of it, " Well, the doc- 
 tor are gone out, he are," he went on. 
 
 " Doctor's mostly out when I gits har," Jerry an- 
 swered calmly, but not without some appreciation of 
 the sarcasm contained in Paul's English ; for he was 
 beginning to realize the great gulf that separated his 
 language from that of his master, " an' I allers waits 
 fur him, an' I steddys my book tell he comes." 
 
 " You don't say ! " Paul went on, showing himself 
 master of the vernacular, " an' when he comes do he 
 say youun's is a good boy ? " 
 
 Jerry shook his head quietly enough, but the color 
 stole up slowly into his dark face 
 
 " He says, says he, ' Does youuns knows yer lessing, 
 Jerry ' ?" steadily " an' I says, says I, ' I'm a-sted- 
 dyin'," taking his place on the accustomed stool, "an* 
 then," with an expression of despair in his eyes that 
 quite amuses Paul, " I tries to say it, an' I'm thet flus- 
 tered I can't do nothin'." 
 
 Paul laughed with real amusement in his tones this 
 time, and asked his next question with an honest 
 desire for information. 
 
 " And the doctor looks like a meat-axe, don't he ? " 
 
 " A meat-axe ! " indignantly, " no, he don't nuther ; 
 he says, says he, ' Jerry, try agin,' ceppen the doctor 
 he says ' agen,' he do." 
 
 " The mischief ! " and Paul poked the fire vicious- 
 ly ; " when I miss," he went on, " he's as mad as the 
 devil, and does everything but fling the book at my 
 head." 
 
 Jerry looked his companion over from head to foot, 
 a look of scorn almost. 
 
 " I jest don't b'lieve thet," he said quietly, " I jest 
 don't b'lieve it."
 
 loo JERRY. 
 
 The quick color sprang into Paul's girlish cheeks 
 "The devil!" he cried angrily, looking down on 
 Jerry where he sat in his favorite position with his 
 elbows on his knees and his chin in his hands " I'll 
 beat the life out of you." 
 
 Jerry shook his head. 
 
 " No, you won't, nuther ! " a new light of defi- 
 ance shining in his eyes, "and you jest better not 
 try it." 
 
 Paul laughed lightly, already half ashamed of 
 threatening such an enemy. 
 
 "You need not be so uppish!" he said, with great 
 contempt, " do you suppose I would touch such a 
 dirty little beggar as you are ? You are a fool ! " 
 
 The color deepened in Jerry's face, and slowly he 
 rose from his place as the full meaning of Paul's words 
 reached his mind. 
 
 " I aint no beggar," and he drew his slim figure to 
 its full height, "an* I aint dirty ; an' you kin jest 
 take thet for youuns' lyin' words," and before Paul 
 could move to defend himself could in any way 
 realize what was coming, Jerry's rough hand struck 
 him fairly in the mouth. 
 
 But that was all Jerry did, for in a second Paul's 
 soft, plaited riding whip was wrapping itself round 
 Jerry's back and shoulders in quick, stinging blows 
 blinding, bitter blows that fell with bewildering 
 rapidity ! 
 
 It lasted only fora moment, then the smaller boy's 
 arms, hardened by toil, were wrapped tightly about 
 Paul's body, and Jerry strong with rage and hatred 
 bore him relentlessly back, heedless of all obstacles, 
 until Paul's spurs caught and he crashed down among 
 the chairs and stools, and in an instant, before he 
 could at all realize what was being done, Jerry was 
 sitting on top of him. 
 
 " Now jest dar' to say ther doctor's a meat-axe ! " 
 he cried, emphasizing his words by tapping his finger 
 on the end of Paul's nose, " an' jest dar' to say thet 1'se
 
 JERRY. ioi 
 
 a beggar an' dirty jest you dar' to say it, an' 
 I'll jest gouge youuns' eyes plum out," giving Paul's 
 nose a little tweak. 
 
 " I will kill you ! " Paul cried in a fury, trying in 
 vain to free his arms from where Jerry pinned them 
 with his knees, " damn you ! let me get up I'll 
 tell the doctor I'll have you put in jail I'll kill 
 you ! " 
 
 "When you gits up," Jerry answered quietly, his 
 success having restored his temper " but 1'se agoin' 
 to set right har atopper you tell the doctor comes, 
 I is ; ef you 'Hows thet I'm agoin' to let you git 
 up an' beat me agin, you is got the wrong pig by 
 the leg sure ; I aint agoin' to stir, I aint." 
 
 " Let me get up, I say," and Paul's voice sounded 
 constrained, for a dreadful thought had come to him 
 suppose the servants should find him in this horrible 
 position ! and his pride put its flag at half-mast : 
 " I will not touch you, I promise," then one step 
 lower " I will pay you, Jerry, just let me get up ? " 
 pleadingly "and I will never say a word about it." 
 
 " An' you'll take back what you cussed me ? " 
 gravely. 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " An' 'bout the doctor ? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " Well, I don't much keer," patronizingly, " git up," 
 and Jerry sprang nimbly from off his fallen enemy, 
 "but don't youuns never furgit this dirty beggar," 
 with stinging sarcasm, " an' thet trick of ketchin' a 
 feller roun' the legs is a rale good un, you bet ; a boy 
 'cross the mounting tole me thet ; its been a long time, 
 but I aint never f urgitted it, an' to-day it come in rale 
 handy," but Paul had gone in silent, unspeakable 
 rage, slamming the door after him. 
 
 What a black disgrace ! How could he ever revenge 
 it how could a gentleman retaliate on this little vag- 
 abond this vagabond he had waited to see ? " But 
 I'll pay him off if it takes my whole life," and locking
 
 102 JERRY. 
 
 the door of his room, he cast himself down on his 
 bed and cried like a girl. 
 
 And in the study Jerry was putting the chairs 
 straight, and shaking his head in a threatening way 
 as he swept the hearth. He was too much excited to 
 study, and at the same time very much pleased by the 
 realization of his newly discovered strength. 
 
 " I gits it a-cuttin' wood," he said, feeling his arms, 
 " an' I'll git some mo' cause it come in rale handy," 
 then he sat down with his elbows on his knees and 
 his chin in his hands, gazing into the fire. 
 
 What kind of person was this boy he had whipped 
 who was he, and where did he come from, and what 
 made him so fine ? 
 
 He talked like the doctor, and his Jiands and his 
 voice were like a child's what was it that made them 
 so different ? they were both boys. 
 
 " An' he looked at me like I was a dorg, he did," 
 the color coming into his face again, " but I punched 
 hisn's nose good, I did ; but he's rale purty rayly 
 purty," thoughtfully, as Paul's fair face came up be- 
 fore him. Still, he shook his head as he said " It's 
 rale purty, but thar's a leak sommers," and he could 
 not like it.
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 " The true gods sigh for the cost and tKe pain 
 For the reed that grows never more again 
 As a reed with the reeds of the river." 
 
 AND the doctor, coming in with an open letter in his 
 hand, sat down as if worn with a weariness deeper 
 than that of body, and closed his eyes with but 
 one glance in the direction of the boy. Jerry sat quite 
 still. 
 
 What ailed the doctor ? and anxiously watching him 
 all thought of Paul and the recent fray passed from 
 his mind. 
 
 Was the doctor sick was he going to die like 'Lije 
 Milton ? and a great terror came over the child. To 
 die like 'Lije Milton: the doctor die then the wider 
 question, must everybody die? It had never occurred 
 to him before, this idea, and who would bury the last 
 one ? 
 
 But the doctor, who saved every one; what would 
 become of all the people if he should die ? 
 
 Maybe he was dead now ! And the boy was afraid 
 to move, while his heart was rising up within him, 
 swelling with this great imaginary pain. 
 
 " I'll jest die too, "and in his preoccupation he said 
 the words aloud, rousing the doctor, who opened his 
 eyes with a sigh. 
 
 " What is it, Jerry ? " he asked. 
 
 " I were feared you were dead," was answered 
 hesitatingly, "an' I 'llowed I'd die too." 
 
 " Not just yet for either of us," and the doctor held 
 out his hand for the book. Then suddenly it came to 
 Jerry's mind that he did not know his lesson, and he 
 
 103
 
 104 JERRY. 
 
 began to feel anxious about the affair with Paul what 
 would the doctor say ? 
 
 " I don't reckon 1 knows it," he began, not for one 
 moment doubting that confession was a necessity. 
 
 Well." 
 
 " Well," slowly, " thar were a feller in here when I 
 come a rale purty feller," gravely, " an' he says, says 
 'ee, ' Does you love lessings ? ' says I, ' I do ; ' says 
 'ee, ' What do the doctor do when you don't knows 
 'un? ' says I, ' He says, Jerry, try agin,' says 'ee ' The 
 doctor looks at me liker meat-axe,' says'ee, ' an' mos' 
 chucks the book at my head,' says I, ' I don't b'lieve 
 it," his face beginning to color with the recent excite- 
 ment ; " then I f urgits rightly what corned next, 'cause 
 I were so mad ; but he cussed me a dirty beggar, he 
 did," his fists involuntarily doubling themselves, " an' 
 I ups an' knocks him in the mouth, I did, an' he 
 licked me liker dorg ! " 
 
 " What ? " and the doctor sat up straight in his 
 chair as the long story climaxed so astonishingly. 
 
 " Don't git skeered," and Jerry put his hand reas- 
 suringly on the doctor's shoulder, " I never hurted 
 him much; I jest tripped him up an' sot on him, I 
 did, an' I punched hisn's nose till he asked me please 
 to git up, he did ; but 1 never hurted him much." 
 
 The doctor was smiling now, a smile that broke 
 over his face as the sunlight breaks through a cloud, 
 and lighted up and transfigured every line of it, 
 making it look as it must have done in his youth when 
 all the untried, beautiful years and days lay before 
 him where to choose ; then his face became grave 
 once more and the lines about his lips hardened as 
 the thought came to him " Would Paul tell him of 
 this difficulty?" he thought not, Paul told him 
 nothing. 
 
 " I do not suppose that you did hurt him," he be- 
 gan coldly, " but I do not like it, and you must not 
 fight in my house: as long as you are here, Jerry, you 
 must behave like a gentleman."
 
 JERRY 105 
 
 "What's thet ?" quietly. 
 
 Again a smile flitted across the doctor's lips ; the 
 boy was so unconscious, and he answered 
 
 " I am a gentleman." 
 
 Jerry stood and looked at him with a curious 
 wonder growing in his eyes. 
 
 " An' you 'How as I kin be like youuns ? " draw- 
 ing a long breath ; " nary time, an' it's no use a-tryin' 
 it ; you kin jest as easy make a hick'ry stick outer 
 sourwood, jest as easy," then more slowly, " but I'd like 
 to," and his patient eyes looked wistfully at his friend. 
 
 " We must try, Jerry," and the doctor laid his hand 
 kindly on the boy. 
 
 " I will," the narrow face lighting up in its earnest- 
 ness. " I'll jest do ever blessed thing you says, I 
 will," and a new future, a grand, overwhelming pos- 
 sibility, opened before the child. 
 
 To be like the doctor : a thought that had only 
 dimly dawned on him when the question came up of 
 his learning to read ; that had never been a defined 
 thought, but only a glimmer of light that for one in- 
 stant had shone and faded. And now it had been put 
 before him not only as a possibility, but as an expecta- 
 tion and an end set for him by the exemplar himself ! 
 
 Jerry drew a long breath as he stood there trying 
 to realize this great thing : stood there rough and un- 
 trained, ignorant and a pauper, and set this end before 
 himself. Heretofore he had been one of many who 
 only lived from day to day ; to whom life is an acci- 
 dent that for some is smooth, and for some, rough : 
 now he had begun another journey with an end that 
 seemed far more impossible to him than the " Golden 
 Gates," had seemed. To try to be something, to try 
 to rise, presented a far more vague and intangible 
 outline to him than the effort to reach some place had 
 done. A realization of this future was impossible, 
 and he came back to the original suggestion as to 
 something he conlcl take hold of. He knew the 
 doctor ; every day he saw him, touched him, spoke to
 
 Io6 JERRY. 
 
 him ; and he could grasp this first proposition of try- 
 ing to be like him. 
 
 " An' I will," he said, speaking aloud as if he were 
 alone, " I will if it kills me." 
 
 And that night when the bitter wind howled up and 
 down the mountains, driving the snow until it banked 
 high against Joe's little house; and Joe in front of 
 the roaring fire smoked, and told of dark danger in 
 the heavy snows, Jerry sitting there scarcely heard, 
 for he was looking at his future in the flames, and 
 wondering. And in the midst of the most thrilling of 
 the stories he got up from where he squatted on the 
 hearth, and drew a chair forward. 
 
 Joe paused. 
 
 " I Hows as youuns aint a-listenin'," he said in a 
 rather injured tone. 
 
 " Yes, I is," and Jerry seated himself in the chair 
 gravely, " but I 'Hows as I'd ruther hev a cheer ; the 
 doctor don't never sit on the flo' ; leastways, I aint 
 never sawn him a-doin' it." 
 
 " The Lord hev mussy ! " and for many minutes 
 Joe sat silent, regarding his small companion with 
 doubtful looks. " Air youuns crazy, Jeremiah P. 
 Wilkerson ? " he said at last, " jest plum crazy ?" 
 
 Jerry shook his head. 
 
 " The doctor 'Hows as I mus' be a gentleman," he 
 answered, " jest like him ezackly ; an' I will," nod- 
 ding his head complacently, " I will if it kills me ! " 
 
 " An' the doctor 'Hows to give youuns a good bury- 
 in' ? " Joe asked with solemn sarcasm. 
 
 " I never axed him," Jerry answered literally ; and 
 as he hitched his heavy boot-heels on the rung of the 
 chair, a mild sense of self-approval swept over him 
 that was like a breath of summer air ; and he did not 
 know that Joe's story remained unfinished, the narra- 
 tor smoking slowly and in silence, only now and then 
 glancing at his preoccupied companion. 
 
 "Thet boy air a cur'us one, sure," Joe's thoughts 
 ran, " a reg'lar nubbin."
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 " As to the assertion that no amount of evidence could establish 
 the supernatural, we ask in amazement, ' On what is the super- 
 natural based ? Does it rest on anything higher than the idle 
 habit of mind induced by the observation of constant recurrences ? ' " 
 
 fight with Paul was a great event in Jerry's 
 life, and Joe chuckled over it with much satis- 
 faction, being proud of Jerry's " sperret." 
 
 " An' the wuss youuns air, Jerry, the wusser hisn's 
 lickin' air," he had said more than once ; but this 
 triumph was soon overshadowed by an occurrence of 
 solemn portent. 
 
 It was going to be a bitter winter ; everybody said 
 so, and Joe had stopped work some time before to 
 make preparation for it. Jerry worked with him 
 heartily enough ; coming home from the beloved 
 lessons an hour earlier that he might help Joe bring 
 the wood up from the gorges where the pines grew 
 best : helping him build a sheltered pen for the three 
 pigs that were to be kept and killed as needed : help- 
 ing him make a bin to keep the meal dry, and a box 
 in which to pack salt beef. 
 
 Jerry rather liked it ; there was a sense of plenty 
 and comfort about the preparations which he had 
 never experienced before. AH winter there would 
 be enough to eat, and enough to wear, and wood to 
 warm them. All this his father could have done, the 
 boy thought, but he never had, and the winters had 
 been black times of terror to .him and his mother. 
 
 But he said nothing to Joe about this ; drew no 
 comparisons ; for already he was imbibing some idea 
 of keeping faith since once the doctor had said to 
 him " You should remember you are speaking of 
 
 107
 
 lo8 JERRY. 
 
 your father " and the boy had felt his face grow 
 very hot : he did not realize why, but since then he 
 had not talked about his home nor his old life. In- 
 deed, he abhorred the thought of it, for gradually 
 there was growing on him the knowledge of the fact 
 that his mother had died for him. Sometimes he 
 would sit up quite still in the night with his little 
 bundle held close in his arms, and try not to long to 
 kill his father, try not to curse him and the great 
 brutal woman who was now his wife. For, living with 
 the doctor day after day, he was gathering to himself 
 a more clear and distinct understanding of right and 
 wrong, and of the vast difference existing between the 
 doctor and the people about him ; he was making 
 every effort to imitate and follow him in all things, 
 and his love for this man was boundless. But grow- 
 ing up with this adoring love he bore for his hero, 
 there was a deep grievance and bitterness : it was the 
 doctor's love for Paul that Jerry had learned to watch 
 for and suffer from ; for Jerry hated Paul. The slow, 
 cool scorn with which Paul looked at him ; the man- 
 ner in which he stood aside to let Jerry pass, as if the 
 danger of touching him was to be avoided the way 
 in which he vacated the library whenever Jerry en- 
 tered, was too much to be endured without breeding a 
 hatred deep and lasting. But if Jerry had known it, 
 Paul had also a great pain : if only it would not be 
 beneath him to whip this little cur this wretched 
 little pauper who had dared to fight and overcome 
 him ; and beyond was always the dreadful doubt 
 " Did the doctor know ? " 
 
 So the bitter feeling grew between the boys, and 
 Jerry's wonder as to the connection between Paul and 
 the doctor became one of the chief problems of his 
 life for he could not touch Paul if the doctor " sot 
 much sto' " by him. 
 
 He would have liked to have asked the doctor about 
 it, but the same feeling that now made him keep quiet 
 about his own affairs made him hesitate about asking
 
 JERRY. 109 
 
 questions. So he only watched that he might learn 
 with certainty what the feeling was between these two. 
 And the watching made him heavy-hearted ; for there 
 was something in each that he could not understand 
 nor copy, and they could talk of things of which he 
 knew nothing ; yet Paul was only a boy. 
 
 But there was always a brisk change when Jerry 
 went back to the little house under the rocks. Joe was 
 always there before him now, working busily and 
 whistling the one straight, endless tune they had in 
 common. 
 
 Each day the journeys for wood were made, until the 
 piles grew so high that Jerry thought they would last 
 forever. But Joe knew better, and worked day by day 
 while Jerry was in the settlement, and after Jerry came 
 home, far into the late evening. At last the stacks 
 had grown high enough even for Joe, and as the 
 covered pen was ready, Joe proposed that they should 
 go for the pigs before another fall of snow. 
 
 " It'll be a heavy one when it do come," he said, 
 looking at the clouds that were gathering ; clouds of 
 deathlike, ghastly white, " an' the devil couldn't drive 
 them pigs up these rocks then." 
 
 So Jerry came home earlier than usual, and they 
 set off. 
 
 " Jim Martin lives nigh ole Burden's mine," Joe 
 said, " an' you kin jest tuck a leetle spy in the hole, 
 Jerry." 
 
 Jerry's eyes opened very wide. 
 " I'm feared," he answered, forgetting in his excite- 
 ment that the doctor had told him to say ' afraid.' 
 
 " Most folks is," and Joe shook his head mysteri- 
 ously, " but I 'Hows as it can't hurt you jest to 
 peek in fur a minnit." 
 
 " An' the water ? " Jerry asked in a low tone. 
 " I 'How it's a-drappin yit," Joe answered, " an' it'll 
 keep on a-drappin' tell the ]edgt/ient day ; it soun's 
 powerful creepy, it do." 
 
 To see "ole Burden's mine ! " Jerry felt his hair
 
 HO JERRY. 
 
 rise up, and all his veins tingle ; to look in, and 
 maybe to see the gold glittering on the walls and floor, 
 as he thought it must, to hear that water dropping 
 all day and all night, never ceasing, never forming 
 into a pool or stream that any human eye had seen. 
 An indefinable trembling came over him as he tramped 
 down the path behind Joe, and he longed for yet 
 feared the termination of the afternoon. 
 
 " Thar's Jim Martin's," and Joe pointed to where a 
 thin curl of smoke floated up slowly from among the 
 rocks. 
 
 " Jim's house is piled thar plum aginst the rocks, 
 it are, jest fur orl the worl' liker dirt-dauber's hole ; 
 but my Nancy Ann 'llowed she never wanted no rock 
 wall to ourn house." 
 
 " I keep a-hean//o- something," Jerry interrupted, 
 laying great stress on the final g, which he found much 
 difficulty in pronouncing, " someth/'/^ a-roari/ig." 
 
 " It's a stream as comes down the mounting nigh 
 the mine," Joe answered, " an' it falls over the rocks 
 jest as purty ! " 
 
 " A falls," Jerry suggested, feeling quite sure he had 
 said the correct thing. 
 
 " Falls," Joe repeated, " the doctor names it thet 
 too," he went on, " so I 'Hows as youuns is correc* a 
 falls ; an' you kin see it from up thar, from a rock 
 as is jest ezackly over the hole of Burden's mine," 
 stepping a little aside from the path to where one 
 rock rose higher than the rest. 
 
 Jerry followed eagerly ; a short, sharp climb, then 
 he heard a slow, astonished exclamation from Joe. 
 
 " Great-day-in-the-mornin' ! " 
 
 The boy leaned forward ; and there, a little below 
 the level of the peak on which they stood, lying on a 
 thin, flat slab of rock that projected far out from the 
 dizzy cliff, was the doctor. 
 
 " Well, Joe," looking up to where they stood above 
 him. 
 
 " Evenin', doctor," Joe answered ; " weuns is agoin'
 
 JERR Y. HI 
 
 to Jim Martin's atter them hogs, an' I 'Itowed I'd show 
 Jerry the water." 
 
 " And it is very beautiful," the doctor said, turning 
 his eyes again on the somber gloom of the scene below 
 them. 
 
 On all sides the grim, barren rocks darkening down 
 into the deep gorge where the crowding pines dimmed 
 the shadows to blackness : and from the far cliff where 
 the light lingered longest, down from rock to rock 
 the silver water falling and crying aloud holding up 
 " white pleading hands " down into the black gorge 
 and out to lose its life in the hot, dry plains. 
 
 " I reckon it's sorry to come down," the child said 
 with a sigh ; and the doctor turned and looked at the 
 wistful face lifted to the far heights. Had the boy 
 read his thoughts the thoughts that came to him like 
 voices from his own life as he lay there watching the 
 water that forever was'falling like one in a dream 
 forever that weary cry ! 
 
 " An' Burden's mine is down thar," and Joe hold- 
 ing by a broken rock leaned over and pointed to where 
 below them the shadow deepened to the semblance of 
 a black hole. His voice broke harshly on the silence, 
 and the boy sighed once more and looked into the eyes 
 of the man below him. He could not tell what he saw 
 there, but it was the same thing that made him sigh. 
 
 " An' the rock youuns is on, Doctor, is mighty thin," 
 Joe went on as he stepped back to where Jerry stood. 
 
 " It has held me many times," the doctor answered 
 slowly ; then they turned and left him. 
 
 To Joe it was the place where the " water came 
 down an' looked rale purty " to Jerry it was a place 
 that made him afraid made him feel as he had done 
 when at last he had stood on the greatest height he 
 could reach, and saw the sun setting across the plain ; 
 a feeling that made him walk in silence after Joe, and 
 scarcely heed the talk of Durden's mine. Yes, he 
 would go and look, what matter if he were dragged in 
 to perish there ; it would be better than this feeling
 
 112 JERRY. 
 
 he could not understand. The doctor understood, for 
 the doctor looked into his eyes sometimes, and even 
 in his blind ignorance Jerry could see and know the 
 unuttered longing. 
 
 " He's lonesome too," he whispered to himself, and 
 followed silently down to where the black hole yawned. 
 
 Darker and rougher the gorge grew the path nar- 
 rowed to the merest thread of a track then there 
 came a level space covered with piles of debris from 
 the mine, and through the broad cutting in the pines 
 that once had been the road could be seen the vil- 
 lage of Burden's, that had grown from the few min- 
 ers' huts that at first had congregated around " Dur- 
 den's find "; and near by, the stream that fell so far, 
 fretted and fumed in the artificial channel which the 
 old miners had cut for it. 
 
 " They says thet the water rtinned right in har," 
 Joe explained as they stood in front of the mine, " an' 
 ole Burden got the fust gole outer the water ; alter 
 thet he foun' it in the rock, he did, an' he jest sot to 
 work an' dug a ditch over yon for the water, an' dug 
 in the cave fur the gole." 
 
 Then he led the boy nearer and nearer, picking his 
 way carefully over the rocks and rotting logs that were 
 strewn about the opening of the deserted mine, down 
 into a sort of basin, where they paused and looked up 
 to the slab far above them on which the doctor lay ; 
 and it looked so high and thin, such a precarious rest- 
 ing place ! 
 
 A few steps further, and the blackness of darkness 
 gathered about them. 
 
 " Listen ! " Joe whispered, pausing. 
 
 There was the sharp rattle of the stone they had 
 dislodged that rolled somewhere into the darkness ; 
 then through the silence came the drip of far-off 
 water slow heavy, regular, save that now and then 
 there came a double sound as though too much had 
 gathered for one drop a quick, irregular sound like 
 the catch in a sob or a sigh.
 
 JERRY. H3 
 
 The boy stood very still ; the silence and the dark- 
 ness seemed to grow about him and the sound of the 
 dropping water seemed to rise and swell, then to fade 
 and die like some creature crying ! He was awe- 
 stricken he was afraid to stir even to raise his hand 
 to touch Joe who stood so near ! Like one in a night- 
 mare who could not move nor cry ! 
 
 Great drops of sweat gathered on his temples he 
 trembled like a leaf in the wind ! was there anything 
 back there in the darkness ? anything coming toward 
 him anything ? that drawn, white face he had seen 
 in the coffin ! The dead eyes were open and staring 
 at him something touched him ! 
 
 A wild cry broke from his lips, and turning he fled 
 up the rugged opening falling, scrambling, breath- 
 less, until he lay sobbing under the ghastly white light 
 from the snow-clouds ; hiding his eyes and crying with 
 sharp, quick gasps. 
 
 " Great-day-in-the-mornin' ! " and Joe stood over 
 the trembling child in much wonder " I jest teched 
 you, an' sicher holler I never hearn what ails you, 
 anyhow ? " trying to raise the boy, " thar warn't noth- 
 in' to skeer you." 
 
 " I seen him I seen him ! " Jerry answered be- 
 tween his sobs " I seen 'Lije Milton ! " 
 
 Joe sat down on a rock overcome. 
 
 "'Lije Milton?" he repeated slowly "an" Lije 
 never b'lieved as he'd git up agin ! " 
 
 No doubts of the fact crossed his mind ; no ques- 
 tion as to how or why ; that Jerry had seen 'Lije Mil- 
 ton was a simple fact which proved to his mind that 
 the dead hero did not sleep in peace and quiet. 
 
 Gradually the sobs died away, and Jerry lifted him- 
 self as one exhausted. 
 
 " Less us go," he said, " less git away from this 
 place," and Joe followed obediently. 
 
 Jerry, somehow, was taking rank above him, and 
 this last revelation raised him into something of a hero. 
 
 All the slow way home they were silent, except for
 
 H4 JERRY. 
 
 the orders and cries to the hogs that were inclined to 
 wander in their going. Neither at supper was there 
 any conversation, and it was not until Joe had smoked 
 one pipe, and had fairly started on another, that he 
 broke the silence. 
 
 " It were surely cur'us, Jerry," he began, gravely, 
 " thet I've been agoin' there a heaper times, an' never 
 sawn ner hearn nothin' ceppen the water a-drappin' 
 naryer thing ceppen thet, an' thar's sumpen in it sure 
 jest sure," looking solemnly at his companion, who, 
 in a chair opposite, gazed steadily into the fire, " thar's 
 sumpen in it," he repeated, " fur it stan's to reason 
 thet 'Lije wouldn't hev come fur nothin' : thar's some- 
 thin' onlucky 'bout thet place fur youuns, Jerry, thet's 
 what it means," decisively, " an' you hed jest better 
 keep clar of thet hole." 
 
 " I will," Jerry answered, drawing his sleeve across 
 his nose, " I'll never go nighst it agin, you bet I 
 mean again," he corrected himself. 
 
 " Agin or again," Joe repeated, " don't make no 
 diffrunce to me ; I aint pertickler 'bout sich leetle 
 trash as thet, but don't you go anigh Durden's ; 
 mebbe thar's a heaper gole thar, but it aint fur 
 youuns," pushing the fire into a brighter blaze, "an* 
 I feels a kinder all-overish when I 'members how 
 youuns screeched when I jest barly teched you ; 
 sposen you gits yer leetle book an' read a spell," 
 throwing another log on the mass of coals, " it'll be 
 sorter cheerfuller to read 'bout the leetle boy as got 
 the fly in hisn's eyes," then more slowly, " but it beats 
 me how he done it." 
 
 " The doctor said it was the words he wanted to 
 larn me," Jerry answered, as he took his book down 
 from a shelf, " I spec it aint it is not for rayly true." 
 Joe's English was demoralizing, and Jerry puzzled 
 sorely over his words, speaking slowly and correcting 
 himself when he remembered. And Joe was very 
 lenient, treating these efforts as signs of the weakness 
 of Jerry's intellect.
 
 JERRY, .] H5 
 
 " Jest please yerself 'bout words, Jerry," he said 
 kindly; " I don't rayly hev no feelin' agin one word or 
 ernether ; it's orl one to me, jest so I kin on'erstan' 
 youuns ; now jest pole erlong 'but thet boy an' 
 hisn's fly." 
 
 So Jerry found the place and read slowly and 
 earnestly, holding the book to catch the firelight. 
 And Joe listened with much satisfaction, a look of 
 pride growing in his eyes as he watched the child ; 
 and when the page was turned Jerry paused, as he 
 always did, to show Joe the picture. 
 
 " It's jest as naytral," bending his gray head over 
 the poor woodcut, " thar's the leetle boy, an' thar's 
 hisn's fly a rale big 'un an' it's flewed away, it lies." 
 
 " ' The fly is out of my eye,' " Jerry read in a sort of 
 recitative. 
 
 " It jest is," Joe commented, " an' thet's what I said, 
 it flewed away." 
 
 It was more cheerful, the reading, and their spirits 
 rose in a measure ; but when bed-time came, Jerry, 
 by Joe's advice, brought his blankets and spread them 
 close by Joe's bed ; and once or twice in the night 
 Joe got up to put more wood on the fire, and waked 
 the boy to tell him to " quit a-cryin' so pitterful." 
 
 The darkness and the sobs together were more than 
 Joe could bear, and the next morning it was deter- 
 mined that Jerry should ask the doctor about his 
 vision in the mine. 
 
 Jerry's heart was very heavy as he trudged away to 
 the doctor's, for with the feeling that his mother was 
 always near him the feeling that had given him so 
 much comfort there was mingling now the mystery 
 of the dead who walked the earth because they were 
 not easy in their graves. Joe believed it firmly ; and 
 yesterday, had he not seen 'Lije Milton with his own 
 eyes? And was his mother wandering like this ? 
 
 She had died for him. 
 
 " If she had let Dad bust my head agin the chimbly 
 her'd a-been a-livin' right now," and he drove his hands
 
 Il6 JERRY. v 
 
 deeper into the cavernous pockets of his coat, Joe's 
 coat that Paul had laughed at. His heart was heavy, 
 yet with it there was a feeling of importance that sus- 
 tained him ; 'Lije Milton had come to warn him ! And 
 he held himself a little more erect. 
 
 The fire burned brightly in the study, and the 
 doctor was there when Jerry entered. 
 
 " Well, Jerry," he said, then returned to the book 
 he was reading, so that the questions which hung on 
 Jerry's tongue had to be put away until the lessons, 
 which were done mechanically that day, were over. 
 
 "We shall have some heavy snows," the doctor said 
 when they had finished, " and you may not be able to 
 come every day, Jerry, so I have arranged copies and 
 lessons which you can do at home on the days when 
 the weather is too bad." 
 
 " Yes, sir, and I'm very " pausing doubtfully 
 " much obliged to you," the doctor suggested gravely. 
 
 " Much obliged to you," Jerry repeated, then added 
 quickly, " I rayly rayly are ! " as if the copied words 
 did not satisfy him, nor express his gratitude. 
 
 The doctor smiled, then asked kindly : 
 
 l Did you get your hogs home safely ? " 
 
 " Yes, sir ; and, doctor," feeling that the time for 
 his revelation had come, " I went into Burden's 
 mine," his eyes growing wide as he spoke. 
 
 " Well." 
 
 The boy paused ; with the doctor listening, the 
 story seemed, somehow, to lose all importance. 
 
 " It is the truth, doctor," then in the excitement 
 that came over him, he returned to his own 
 special English : " Yes, sir, sure as I stan' afore 
 you, I sawn 'Lije Milton I did, an' Joe 'Hows as 
 he come to tell me thet the gole in Burden's mine 
 aint fur me." 
 
 "Bid you expect to buy Burden's mine?" the 
 doctor asked quietly. 
 
 Jerry shook his head. 
 
 " No, sir."
 
 JERRY. 117 
 
 " Then why should 'Lije Milton come back to tell 
 you that you must not have it ? " 
 
 Jerry looked doubtful. 
 
 "Joe said so." 
 
 " Well, Joe is mistaken : nobody can work Burden's 
 mine unless they first buy it, and it will take a great 
 deal of money to do that." 
 
 " Is Durden's mine full of gole ? " the boy asked. 
 
 " I do not know," the doctor answered, " I have 
 never examined it, but they say the new mine is much 
 better." 
 
 " An' I never sawn 'Lije ? " 
 
 " I do not think you did, Jerry," and the doctor 
 smiled kindly on him. 
 
 " Well, farwell," looking up longingly into the face 
 above him, " mebbe I can't git back to-morrow." 
 
 " Good-by, Jerry," holding out his hand. 
 
 The boy took it reverently, and looked at it almost 
 adoringly ; then for an instant his hold on it tightened 
 and he raised his eyes 
 
 "You goes to thet rock a-heaper times?" he 
 asked. 
 
 " The rock over Durden's? " with some curiosity in 
 his tone. 
 
 " Yes, sir." 
 
 " Very nearly every day," waiting for what the 
 child would say next. 
 
 There was a pause, then still holding the doctor's 
 hand Jerry drew a little nearer. 
 
 " Joe says it's awful thin," pleadingly, " an' you'll 
 fall, please, doctor? " 
 
 The doctor shook his head. 
 
 " You and Joe need not be anxious," he said, " that 
 rock will outlast me." 
 
 Jerry turned to the door 
 
 " Farwell," he repeated, " but I'm afraid fur you," 
 then the door was shut, and the sound of his footsteps 
 died away before the doctor moved. 
 
 It had been so long since any one had cared since
 
 Il8 JERRY. 
 
 wistful eyes had watched for good or ill to him so 
 long! 
 
 Far back in the years there had been eyes whose 
 faithfulness and love had never faltered ; eyes that 
 looked at him now from out the shadows when the 
 day darkened from out the fire from out his books! 
 Eyes he had turned away from eyes 
 
 " that looked into his eyes with smile 
 That said ' be strong,' yet covered anxious tears the while! " 
 
 So long ! And now these humble eyes looked up and 
 pleaded for his safety watched lest ill should come to 
 him loved him, believed in him. 
 
 Poor little waif : poor little ignorant heart still half 
 asleep ; was it kind to shake it free of dreams to 
 make it open its eyes to the broad, blinding light of 
 knowledge the merciless light that spared nothing ? 
 
 The fresh shadowy dawn wherein he now lived, was 
 it not better ?
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 " Like dry and flimsy autumn leaves that blow 
 From all far distances, until by chance 
 They meet and rest within some sheltered spot : 
 So lives oft come together, and so rest, 
 Until some wilder wind sends them apart 
 To longer wanderings on the ' lonely road.' " 
 
 THE day Jerry came home from the doctor's with 
 his bundle of books and copies was the last of 
 the open weather, and the winter closed in with 
 cruel coldness. 
 
 For days the snow fell : the world lay motionless : 
 no sound of wind, no movement, a death-like stillness 
 while the snow-banks grew higher and higher the pine 
 branches drooped and cracked sharply under the 
 growing weight and in the long, bitter nights the 
 beams and logs of the house groaned and strained 
 shuddering as with a sudden blow from an unseen 
 hand. 
 
 The wild creatures roamed and cried through the 
 dark hours, coming nearer to man, growing fiercer and 
 bolder in their hungry need. Each day as the door 
 was opened, a path had to be cleared through the snow 
 before Joe could do anything toward the day's work. 
 Then in the long hours when Joe was gone, Jerry 
 lived a lonely life in the dark house with window and 
 door barred, and only the fire and Pete for light and 
 company. Joe taught him how to load and use the 
 rifle, and charged him not to hesitate to fire on man 
 or beast. 
 
 He fed the hogs with the rifle close at hand, and 
 watched with a nervous fascination the great tracks 
 that day by day came about the house ; and some- 
 
 119
 
 120 JERRY. 
 
 times he heard the creeping footsteps and wild cries 
 as he sat spelling over his lessons by the firelight. 
 
 A dreary life, until one day Joe brought home a 
 window-frame fitted with glass, and screwed it in the 
 window. 
 
 " You kin see now, Jerry," he said, " an' kin read 
 youuns' leetle books," and the boy looked up very 
 thankfully. 
 
 After that he worked diligently, sending his papers 
 to the doctor when Joe happened to pass that way, 
 and in return receiving words of commendation, and 
 freshly arranged work. And in the long evenings he 
 explained to his friend the processes by which he 
 worked, and showed him all his papers, until over Joe's 
 manner there came a change. He treated the boy so 
 tenderly, listened to his words and explanations so 
 proudly, and when Jerry read aloud sat silent and 
 admiring. Out among his friends he spoke of Jerry 
 as " my boy " and made allusions to the future when 
 Jerry should stand with the best. 
 
 He bought the boy a cot ; toiling up the slippery 
 trail with it on his back ; and Jerry's eyes opened wide 
 with delight and wonder. Then he brought a new book 
 from the doctor, and made a little shelf for Jerry to 
 keep his books and papers on. And Jerry, grown 
 white and a little thin from his winter's captivity, 
 looked gravely out of the window, and wondered what 
 all this attention from Joe meant. 
 
 He was growing very silent as the days went by, 
 and was learning to brood in the enforced loneliness 
 of his life. 
 
 From Joe he had heard all that he knew of Paul and 
 his connection with the doctor ; that Paul was the son 
 of a friend who in dying had given him to the doctor, 
 though some people thought that Paul was enough like 
 the doctor to be his own : that Paul was very rich, and 
 one day would own most of the mine in Eureka ; and 
 the reason Jerry had seen so little of him during his 
 earlier visits to the doctor, was that Paul was daily in
 
 JERRY. I2t 
 
 Eureka learning from the engineer all about the mine 
 and mining. 
 
 " He'll hev a heaper gole sure," Joe had said thought- 
 fully, "but I 'Hows thet thar's some as'll hev as 
 much." And Jerry had listened with a dull pain at 
 his heart. 
 
 The doctor loved Paul the doctor worked for 
 Paul's interests ; and Paul, a rich man, would pass 
 Jerry by like the dust in the road. 
 
 It was a bitter thought to Jerry. 
 
 It was not often during the long winter that the boy 
 could go to the doctor ; but each time he came home 
 with a clearer and more mortifying knowledge of 
 his own deficiencies, and of the distance that lay 
 between even Paul and himself while the doctor 
 seemed hopelessly far. But with this knowledge 
 there came ever a firmer determination to over- 
 come all. 
 
 He worked eagerly carefully unceasingly ; doing 
 his sums, writing his copies over and over, and read- 
 ing his few books until he knew them very thoroughly. 
 He saved and spelled out every scrap of newspaper 
 that came into his hands, storing in his mind a strange 
 medley of words and ideas ; while through and over 
 all was the memory of the doctor's words that had 
 taken root and were bearing fruit in the boy's ways 
 and tones the suggestion that some day Jerry could 
 be as the doctor was. He thought of it by day, and 
 dreamed of it by night, building wonderful castles in 
 the air. He would be a gentleman some clay, and 
 have books all around his room ; he would have 
 clothes such as Paul had, and walk and talk as Paul 
 did only he would be stronger, and love his lessons, 
 which Paul did not. But one thing hurt him one 
 thing was a great disappointment to him he could 
 never touch Paul again, because Paul belonged to the 
 doctor. And not only did Paul possess the doctor's 
 love, but was protected by it from any revenge in 
 Jerry's power. He could never touch Paul again, even
 
 122 JERRY. 
 
 though he had a feeling that Paul did not love the 
 doctor had not Paul called the doctor a " meat-axe " ? 
 
 " But I whipped him for that," the boy would say to 
 himself, and feel startled at the sound of his own voice 
 coming back to him from the empty room. Each day 
 he tried to read in the Bible the doctor had given him, 
 but could make very little of it as yet : the words were 
 strange and different from the words in his books, and 
 he was often at a loss to understand them. But here 
 Joe occasionally was able to give him unexpected 
 help ; telling him roughly and vaguely some of the 
 stories brought to his mind by the names Jerry spelled 
 out. 
 
 " Adam he were the fust man as ever growed," he 
 said, " an' Eve were the fust woman, an' she were 
 made outer Adam's bones, she were ; an' youuns kin 
 read an' see as thet's the livin' truth : an' the critters 
 an' the yarbs were made fust to gie Adam sumpen to 
 eat." 
 
 " But the ' Golding Gates,' " Jerry asked, " it don't 
 tell about that." 
 
 Joe shook his head doubtfully. 
 
 " I don't ezackly onderstan' 'bout thet," he said, 
 " but I allers hearn thet the Bible telled all about it : 
 I knovved a preacher onest as telled me a heaper tales, 
 an' he 'llowed thet they corned from the Bible : an' the 
 doctor he tole my leetle Nan 'bout the good place, an' 
 he read it out the book thet thar wornt no mo' sufferin' 
 thar, ner no mo' cryin'. Lord ! I'll never forgit how 
 he sot thar an' read the book 'tell I'd jest as lieve 
 a-died alonger Nancy-Ann," looking meditatively into 
 the fire. 
 
 And Jerry, never thinking of turning to any but the 
 first part of the book, plodded on as faithfully, as 
 trustfully as he had journeyed toward the setting sun 
 because his mother had pointed there for the " golden 
 gates": he worked his way through verse after verse, 
 with full intention of reading the whole book because 
 the doctor had given it to him as his guide to his mother.
 
 JERRY. 123 
 
 And gazing into the fire, or out of the window, he 
 would dream and wonder without ceasing longing 
 for the snow to be over and the spring to come. He 
 grew to love old Pete, and was sorry when the hogs 
 were killed one after another, even though they lived 
 like princes in consequence of it, having plenty of 
 meat, and plenty of grease for their bread. 
 
 Jerry had never lived so well in his life, and he ap- 
 preciated all his comforts, but not as he would have 
 done a year ago ; for he wanted now something more 
 than food and clothes. In that little time he had been 
 educated up to unappeasable wants, and the beautiful, 
 happy time when he could be satisfied, was forever past. 
 
 The time when with childish eyes we look no further 
 than from hour to hour ; touching mysteries and 
 wonders as the butterflies touch the flowers ; glad for 
 the sunshine ; hearing music in the rain ; sleeping, 
 and dreaming golden dreams through the dark hours, 
 until Want comes to us held in the arms of Knowl- 
 edge want that creeps into our hearts and voices 
 looks longingly from our eyes walks with us all our 
 days, until death stills our longing with a friendly hand 
 upon our hearts. 
 
 And Joe watched and wondered : was it "books an' 
 larnin' " made the boy so quiet ; made him grow so 
 tall, and slim, and white ; and stand looking so long 
 and so silently out of the window ? 
 
 The boy was changing in every way, and between 
 the two a different relationship was being formed. 
 Jerry had risen to a great height in Joe's estimation, 
 and gradually all his pride and love had centered on 
 the boy. " My boy " he called him, and had a growing 
 ambition concerning him. He had not for one mo- 
 ment forgotten the fight between Jerry and Paul, and 
 each visit he paid to the doctor, in carrying back Jerry's 
 papers, he would look at Paul and smile in a way to 
 rouse all Paul's ire. 
 
 " Jerry's rale well," he would say, " an' gittin' rale 
 strong."
 
 124 JERRY. 
 
 And Paul would try to answer unconcernedly, but 
 once or twice he found the doctor's eyes fixed on him 
 with a criticising look in them that was anything but 
 calming : and the boy took Joe into his list of hates. 
 
 " I can not see what you find to interest you in that 
 stupid man and boy," he said to the doctor one day. 
 
 " Neither of them are stupid," the doctor answered, 
 not lifting his eyes from his book, "and the boy is 
 above the average in intellect : he is learning rapidly." 
 
 " And what good will his learning do him ? " scorn- 
 fully. 
 
 " The same good your learning will do you, possibly 
 more." 
 
 " More good ! " haughtily " I have a name and a 
 fortune to support." 
 
 " And Jerry has both to make," then the doctor 
 returned to his book. 
 
 Paul did not feel that he could say anything more 
 just then ; but the conversation rankled in his mind. 
 
 That Jerry should be put on an equality with him 
 was an insult hard to bear but that Jerry should dare 
 to found a name and fortune was a still more bitter 
 thought. He would brood and brood over the 
 thought sometimes ending with an oath sometimes 
 with a laugh : Jerry should work in his mine yet ! 
 
 But he told the doctor none of this. 
 
 So the winter had its day ; a long, merciless day 
 that seemed to have no end. 
 
 And many folded tired hands for aye and many 
 would have found their graves a warm refuge. Hard 
 and earnestly the doctor worked among the hovels in 
 Burden's and Eureka ; helping in money and words, 
 and skill. No weather stopped him no hardship 
 seemed to turn him aside ; and often Joe would come 
 home and tell many things he had heard of the doctor's 
 devotion to the people a devotion he could not under- 
 stand. And Jerry minding the house and the hogs 
 up on the mountain ; and Paul cursing his loneliness 
 down on the plain both wondered, and tried to find
 
 JERRY. . 125 
 
 some reason for this strange and uncalled-for sacrifice 
 of time, and comfort, and money ; but it was a riddle 
 neither of them could read as yet. 
 
 Only " eyes that have wept see clear " see clear and 
 far into the lives, and hopes, and sufferings of their 
 fellows only eyes that have wept have this second- 
 sight.
 
 PART SECOND. 
 
 " Get leave to work 
 
 In this world, 'tis the best you get at all : 
 For God in cursing, gives us better gifts 
 Than men in benediction. God says, ' Sweat 
 For foreheads,' men say ' crowns '; and so we are crowned, 
 Ay, gashed by some tormenting circle of steel 
 Which snaps with a secret spring. Get work ; get work; 
 Be sure 'tis better than what you work to get." 
 
 127
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 " There is no caste in blood, 
 Which runneth of one hue, nor caste in tears 
 Which trickled salt with all." 
 
 A RUMOR had come to Eureka, a rumor that 
 Eureka was to have a railway, and the town was 
 wild with excitement. 
 
 So many years had rolled by without one ripple to 
 mark their going, that this sudden waking up seemed 
 to bewilder the people. So many quiet years wherein 
 Jerry up on the mountain-side, and Paul in the valley, 
 had grown and developed " each after his kind." 
 Paul, absorbed in himself Jerry, clinging close to the 
 aim set before him in his childhood, absorbed in 
 dreams grown out of his study of his idealized master, 
 the doctor. Through all these years he had followed 
 without question in any direction the doctor had indi- 
 cated ; had plodded eagerly through anything the 
 doctor would teach him. But though a dreamer, his 
 education had opened his eyes to many things that he 
 would gladly have ignored. He now recognized his 
 own class very distinctly ; he realized the rank from 
 which he had sprung, and looking on them he saw the 
 haggard, stolid drudges the weary, dirty, ignorant 
 women and his mother had been such as these ? 
 
 He hated his class because they were so low, and 
 he hated himself for the feeling ; he hated social 
 grades and the " accident of birth," and history was 
 to him a black record of injustice, and suffering, and 
 wrong ; a narration of how the strong crowded down 
 the weak, and that only because they were weak. 
 And at last his dreams took shape, and to himself 
 
 129
 
 1 30 JERRY. 
 
 he seemed to come down out of the clouds. The 
 doctor's life-work had been to raise humanity his 
 own life-work should be to raise his class. 
 
 Wrong must be righted ; and in this wide western 
 land, where all had equal chances, all should rise. 
 
 The Master of Mankind had come down to earth 
 to lift up all humanity aye and had been murdered 
 by a mob! Even so ; but His teachings had lived, 
 and through eighteen hundred years had worked and 
 leavened the world ; and now the time had come for 
 reform ! 
 
 And what higher task could a man set for himself ? 
 surely he would be a reformer. 
 
 But with the patronizing patience of youth he deter- 
 mined to begin humbly : he would show that he was 
 not a wild theorizer ; he would be practical at the 
 start, and possible all through. And he asked the 
 doctor's advice about opening a free school in Dur- 
 den's, for he had decided that education must be the 
 first step in reform. 
 
 But the doctor shook his head. 
 
 " Make them pay you, Jerry," he said, " if it is only 
 ten cents a month ; putting a money value on it is the 
 only way to make them appreciate it." 
 
 "But many of them are too poor to pay," the young 
 man answered slowly. 
 
 " None are too poor to buy tobacco and whisky," 
 quietly; " besides, you are old enough now to think of 
 making your own living." 
 
 Jerry looked up quickly with the blood rising slowly 
 in his face, as the doctor went on: 
 
 "Joe is old now, and he has done a great deal for 
 you." 
 
 " I could not help it," Jerry answered eagerly, " I 
 was too young to know, when he first took me in, and 
 since then he has never allowed me to work ; my 
 education has been his pride." 
 
 " Very true, and it all has been quite right until 
 now ; but now," and as of old the doctor tramped up
 
 JERRY. 131 
 
 and down the room with his spurs rattling at his heels, 
 " now it will be good for you to work ; you will be 
 helped mentally and morally by working for yourself. 
 I think the school is a good plan ; but I advise you to 
 take the school already established in Eureka, and 
 make reasonable charges ; the schoolmaster is old 
 now, and never has been of any practical value." 
 
 " And what will he have to live on without his 
 school ? " Jerry asked. 
 
 " He has land ; land that will bring him in a little 
 fortune before long," thoughtfully, " besides he has 
 money put away : I will speak to him if you like, so 
 that you can secure the school-house and his influ- 
 ence." 
 
 Jerry looked doubtful : his intentions about the 
 great work he had chosen, had been so different. 
 He had pictured to himself a beginning where all 
 would be gratitude and good feeling : where he would 
 tell the people what he purposed doing for them, and 
 begin by being a hero ! 
 
 Now, the opening scene was all changed ; and he 
 put in a position to sue for patronage. 
 
 He had never spoken to the doctor of this great pur- 
 pose, and now, somehow, the disclosure seemed im- 
 possible, for there was no escape from the doctor's 
 reasoning : it was undeniably right that he should 
 support himself ; a thing that had not occurred to 
 him in his dreams. 
 
 And yet, how could he say to the people " I am 
 doing this entirely for your good but you must pay 
 me for it" ? How could a man professing to work on 
 a high moral plane, push cash payments? 
 
 And he answered slowly : 
 
 " Let me think of it, doctor ? " 
 
 " Of course." 
 
 And Jerry walked home slowly. 
 
 This conversation had taken place a year before the 
 railway excitement had touched the little towns of 
 Durden's and Eureka, and for that length of time
 
 132 JERRY. 
 
 Jerry had been schoolmaster in Eureka after the doc- 
 tor's plan. 
 
 It had made Joe very proud, and it was music in 
 his ears when he heard the people say " Mr. Wiiker- 
 son "; and when he saw Jerry making out his monthly 
 bills, or signing receipts as " J. P. Wilkerson," his 
 heart would throb with delight. But the height of his 
 joy was reached when the Eureka Star published a 
 flourishing notice of the " talented young schoolmaster, 
 Professor Jeremiah P. Wilkerson." 
 
 Fully realizing the absurdity of the position, the 
 amusement of the doctor, and the sneers of Paul, 
 Jerry found this notice hard to bear ; but his cup 
 seemed to overflow when he found that in his pride 
 Joe had taken the notice to Paul as a triumph for 
 Jerry ! 
 
 No scoffing remarks from Paul no labored ex- 
 planation even, would have made the old man under- 
 stand the amusing side of the notice or the little worth 
 of it ; and though feeling just as Jerry knew he would 
 feel, the doctor said such kind things to Joe that he 
 returned home greatly elated, and with two pins fixed 
 the bit of newspaper to the wall where he could see it 
 always without any trouble. 
 
 But the year had seemed a lifetime to Jerry. He 
 had had to unlearn so much to bear so much to be 
 disappointed in so much ; for outside of books he had 
 no knowledge. 
 
 His whole life, since Joe had taken him in, had been 
 spent between the little house under the cliffs and the 
 quiet of the doctor's study ; and this year of practical 
 work among the people had been a revelation to him. 
 
 Among the delusions which had been dispelled was 
 the one that Joe worked in Eureka. Not that Joe 
 had ever said that he worked in Eureka, but somehow 
 the belief had grown up with Jerry, until now he dis- 
 covered that a mistake had been made somewhere. 
 To his astonishment he found that few people in 
 Eureka knew Joe Gilliam that fewer still knew where
 
 JERRY. 133 
 
 he worked, and no one seemed to have asked what his 
 work was. 
 
 All this came to Jerry by accident, for it did not 
 occur to him to ask any questions about Joe : but 
 when later on he found that even in Burden's every- 
 body believed that Joe worked in Eureka, he felt as 
 if walking in a mist full of strange surmises concern- 
 ing the old man, and in his musing his thoughts took 
 curious shapes ; for why should there be any mystery ? 
 Back through all the years his thoughts had gone and 
 had found many things that could not be accounted 
 for. 
 
 Why had the house been so carefully guarded ? 
 What was there in it to tempt a thief ? And working 
 nowhere that Jerry could hear of, how did Joe make 
 his money ? For Joe surely had money. But even 
 this was a revelation" to Jerry ; for until he had gone 
 to Eureka and had seen the way in which Joe's class 
 lived, it had never occurred to him to question Joe's 
 mode of life. It had been so different from the doc- 
 tor's, where Jerry often lunched or dined, that it had 
 seemed to him coarse and rough ; but one insight into 
 a Eureka house, and his eyes were instantly opened 
 to the fact of Joe's superior mode of life ; and at once 
 he faced the mystery of the source of Joe's money. 
 
 So through these puzzles that were almost troubles, 
 and many others, the year had waxed and waned and 
 worn away as years will do if only one is patient 
 enough. And Jerry had rearranged all his plans and 
 ideas ; had patiently readjusted all his theories as to 
 poverty and want, placing them on a new basis that 
 he deemed firm and practical, and that he was sure 
 would stand all tests. 
 
 But suddenly, like the swift, unaccountable changes 
 in a dream, the greatest excitement ever known in 
 that region had laid hold on Burden's and Eureka : 
 the deepest and widest excitement that could touch 
 any small, unimportant place a railway was coming ! 
 As surely as the sun shone and the wind blew, a rail-
 
 134 JERRY. 
 
 way was coming, and hundreds of people with it. 
 Eureka was to be made a great city ; the value of 
 land was to reach an unheard-of figure, and all the 
 inhabitants would bloom into millionaires ! 
 
 How the report had come, or whence it had come, 
 no one knew ; but it was there among them like fire 
 on the prairies. Nothing could quench the talk it 
 roused, nor the hopes that flared and flamed in every 
 direction. 
 
 Money was coming to all without one stroke of 
 work being done : Fortune was walking calmly across 
 the hot, dry plains across mountains and rivers 
 steadily on to the town of Eureka, her chosen, favor- 
 ite child. 
 
 The days and the years had passed very quietly 
 until the talk of a railway had waked up the commu- 
 nity, and intoxicated it with the thought of wealth. 
 The people gathered on the corners with an eager, 
 hungry look growing on their usually stolid faces.; 
 stopped each other on the street to discuss this all- 
 absorbing possibility ; wild with delight ; shouting 
 and drinking ; betting their all as to where the railway 
 would enter the town, what land would be the most 
 valuable, and who had the best chances for the future. 
 
 It seemed to ring all the changes on the different 
 characters ; the parsimonious became absolutely stin- 
 gy, holding their money with an eager grasp as the pos- 
 sibility of getting more seemed to come nearer to 
 them ; the avaricious became greedy for it ; the reck- 
 less threw it away more wildly. The very children 
 and women caught the infection, fighting among 
 themselves, and drawing their husbands and sons into 
 the horrid drunken frays that seemed to occur in every 
 house and shop. 
 
 " I never hearn the like," and Joe paused in his eat- 
 ing and put down his knife and fork, " Eureky is jest 
 a-bilin' over." 
 
 " It will be a great thing for Eureka," Jerry an- 
 swered, then went on more slowly as if trying to un-
 
 JERRY. ^35 
 
 derstand his own words " and people talk of buying 
 the land in every direction." 
 
 " What fur ? " 
 
 " To make money," and Jerry's voice and expres- 
 sion were very grave. 
 
 Joe looked anxiously into the young face opposite 
 him. 
 
 " Does youuns want some ? " he said doubtfully. 
 Jerry looked up quickly. 
 
 " Do I want land ? " he asked ; " thank you, Joe, I 
 have no need for land, and I think it a wrong thing to 
 speculate in." 
 
 Joe took up his knife and fork to go on with his 
 supper, while a puzzled look came over his face. 
 With each year that had passed Jerry had become a 
 greater mystery to him, until now he had no real hope 
 of ever understanding him again. " His boy " had 
 developed entirely out of his reach and knowledge, 
 and Joe could only admire. 
 
 But this last enunciation was to Joe the strangest 
 of all Jerry's sayings that to speculate in land was a 
 sin. Was this a remnant of Jerry's youthful weak- 
 mindedness that education had failed to correct ? 
 And from this time Joe watched Jerry with careful 
 curiosity watched while Jerry strove in vain to right 
 himself and hold his place amid all this wild excite- 
 ment. 
 
 It seemed marvelous to Jerry how in the twinkling 
 of an eye all about him was changed, and he had to 
 stand and see not only his dreams and his theories 
 swept away, but the long year's hard work annihila- 
 ted, while this intoxicating greed for gain absorbed 
 the people in its whirling vortex. 
 
 Jerry had read a great deal about money and mon- 
 ey's power ; had thought that he had some knowledge 
 on the subject, and so thinking had built for himself 
 a bulwark of calm indifference to this thing that so 
 swayed the world ; indeed, he had determined to live 
 entirely above it.
 
 136 JERRY. 
 
 But now as he watched he began dimly to realize 
 that the cumulative, crushing, almost crazing influ- 
 ence of money was an awful thing, a thing to be 
 afraid of. He looked and listened appalled and as- 
 tonished, and his hopes for his class seemed futile. 
 How useless to try to make anything of these creat- 
 ures so far down in the scale of humanity ; so hungry 
 for this power that was in itself so unworthy, and of 
 which they could make only the lowest uses. 
 
 How he despised them, and how he hated the knowl- 
 edge that he had been born one of them. 
 
 Nor had he any opportunity to take counsel and 
 comfort from the doctor, for his time was fully occu- 
 pied by the school, and by the long conversations he 
 was now called upon to hold with his patrons, the 
 parents of his scholars. 
 
 Their confidence in Jerry first arose from his hav- 
 ing been called " Professor" by the Star, and now 
 they thought they could get no better views than his 
 as to the land speculators who were already creeping 
 into the towns. So they asked, and Jerry answered 
 unhesitatingly against these strangers, and tried to 
 show the people the dark sin that was hidden at the 
 core of the fair-seeming schemes these land-specula- 
 tors set forth to tempt them. 
 
 To speculate in land was a crime, he told them, and 
 the Government was responsible for it ; the Govern- 
 ment should hold all land and rent it ; should not 
 throw out God's gifts which should be dispensed fair- 
 ly, to be scrambled for by the crowd. Of course the 
 weak would go to the wall the weak who had every 
 right to life save the strength to hold it. 
 
 In answer, the plausible first speculators insisted, 
 that the land, having been thrown out for a general 
 scramble, would all be grasped by " sharpers," unless 
 they, with command of ready money, should be al- 
 lowed to buy it, in order to hold it for the poor 
 people who would come with the railway : this was 
 all they wanted to do, and would promise to sell it
 
 JERRY. ^137 
 
 fairly, with only enough margin allowed to pay them- 
 selves for their trouble and expense. 
 
 Their trouble ! 
 
 And Jerry enlarged on this phase of the question 
 with a sarcastic strength that won him scholar after 
 scholar, and made the people hold their land against 
 all temptations. 
 
 He was earnestly true in his opinions, and put them 
 forth with the strength that truth begets. He saw 
 many visions of the multitudes that were to come : 
 visions of poor people seeking new homes and new 
 openings in which to begin new lives. 
 
 They had always lived up five pairs of stairs, he 
 thought, with only enough land at the base to bear 
 the weight of the five stories ; but was this all the 
 land the livers in the tenements were entitled to? 
 Scarcely enough land to bury them in unless they were 
 buried five layers deep ? packed away like sardines 
 in a box ? 
 
 Their lives spent in horrible want and misery ; with 
 no right to God's sweet air and sunshine that is so 
 freely given. Looking out with hungry, hollow eyes ; 
 hunting in noisome garbage piles and gutters for dirty 
 refuse. Naked skulking starving until almost they 
 gnawed their useless hands that could find no work ; 
 while the broad, breezy fields were tilled by steam. 
 
 It was surely a black sin. 
 
 And in the depths of the fire Jerry saw visions of 
 model farms spreading far across the plains ; fair 
 homes where the scum from all the cities from all 
 the world, would settle and become honest citizens. 
 
 All they needed was room for expansion ; room to 
 be thirfty, and moral, and religious ; room to breathe 
 in, and looking up to realize their God realize Him 
 not as a careless " First Cause " who let the creatures 
 of his hand multiply until they overflowed his world 
 and crushed and crowded each other down to death 
 and hell ! Not so, but as the merciful Father who 
 made room enough for all, and did not send disease
 
 138 JERRY. 
 
 and misery as the cures for the mistake of over-popula- 
 tion ! 
 
 Jerry's heart was on fire with the time-old wrongs 
 of humanity, and his tongue was ready. 
 
 Shortly the Star caught up his views and poly- 
 syllabled them until they were scarcely to be recog- 
 nized : but Joe's heart swelled with pride. 
 
 " It were rayly liker preacher," he said over and 
 over to himself, and listened eagerly to all that reached 
 him about Jerry ; and in himself he began to realize 
 a most notable character ; one who had rescued from 
 poverty and obscurity a great light ! 
 
 Jerry was the " coming man " a man bound to rise; 
 a man with all the glory of no ancestry, of ignorance 
 and a log-cabin about his early years. 
 
 And Joe gathered the papers secretly, and paid Dan 
 Burk to read them to him ; for he was afraid to ask 
 Jerry. So Dan read the fiery columns to Joe, and 
 declared himself willing to extend Joe's credit to an 
 indefinite extent ; congratulated him on his boy, and 
 prophesied that some day Jerry would be President! 
 
 And Joe went home and made the fire, and ground 
 the coffee for supper, and in the midst stopped his 
 work and put it all aside, covering his face with his 
 hands. 
 
 " I oughter a-done this for youuns, Nan," he whis- 
 pered, " I oughter a-done it ! " then went away and 
 hid among the rocks, that Jerry might not find, when 
 he came home, that Joe had done his work for him. 
 Nan had always done her own work and crouching 
 down among the rocks he looked back at the little 
 house saying : " Surely it's God's truth that dead 
 folks come back surely it's God's truth." 
 
 Meanwhile in Eureka the talk ran high. Day by day 
 the reports and surmises grew more wild and numer- 
 ous : land values were run up to an imaginary price 
 that no fortune could compass then a sudden stop ! 
 
 The people were breathless and puzzled the specu- 
 lators, who had come with such laudable desires to
 
 JERRY. '139 
 
 spare everybody trouble, and to save land for the 
 poor who would certainly flock to this new opening, 
 were bewildered ! 
 
 " Somebody " had bought up all the public lands ! It 
 was declared that within a radius of twenty miles all 
 the Government lands were gone ! 
 
 There was a pause of deathlike stillness ; then a howl 
 of rage and curses went up against this mysterious 
 person who was to reap this immense fortune. People, 
 and speculators, and adventurers made common cause 
 against this crafty " Unknown "; and all small jeal- 
 ousies and animosities were merged in one great anger 
 against this person who had over-reached them. 
 
 And Jerry, boiling with indignation, denounced the 
 " Unknown " openly and without stint : the soulless 
 creature who had done this wicked thing ; had spec- 
 ulated on the necessities of the hungry hordes that 
 would surely follow the road. 
 
 His visions were all swept away ; for the land about 
 Eureka was all gone ; bought up to be held until the 
 crowd should flow a living stream across the moun- 
 tains to this " promised land," only to find the sharpers 
 before them ! 
 
 It was a black crime, but a crime legalized by the 
 Government ; and God would surely curse such a Gov- 
 ernment and Nation.
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 " Drink to lofty hopes that cool 
 
 Visions of a perfect state ; 
 Drink we last the public fool, 
 Frantic love and frantic hate." 
 
 HIGHER and higher the excitement ran : who was 
 this mysterious buyer ? 
 
 The newspaper was sarcastic, then angry, then 
 bitter ; Jerry's articles grew longer and more darkly 
 withering ; but all to no purpose, the Unknown did 
 not reveal himself. 
 
 Nearer and nearer the fateful railway came: built 
 only from the nearest town, it seemed to come with 
 magical rapidity. It had worked its way now to one 
 of the lowest passes in the mountains, and before 
 long all doubt as to where it would come into Eureka 
 would be over. 
 
 And as time went on public opinion slowly but 
 surely came to the one verdict, that this unknown per- 
 son had bought his land in the right place: the town 
 of Eureka would spread all over his domain, if he 
 would allow it. 
 
 Higher and hotter the talk rose, and reports flew 
 hither and thither. Then one morning, one cloudy, 
 cold spring morning, a morning Jerry never forgot ; 
 whose piercing dampness often touched him ; whose 
 cloudy heaviness often weighed him down in after- 
 days, a notice appeared in the Star a notice short 
 and terse, offering high wages to workmen to lay off in 
 lots this great tract of land ; and the doctor's name 
 was signed to it. 
 
 140
 
 JERRY. , 141 
 
 Jerry's heart seemed to stand still ; and a silence 
 seemed to fall over the town. 
 
 The doctor. The hero, the friend, the trusted 
 benefactor of the town. 
 
 Jerry turned away silently from the man who had 
 shown him the notice ; he wanted to be alone, for he 
 felt as if some hand had wounded him sorely. 
 
 His hero doing this thing, speculating in what was 
 man's inalienable right, Land ; the dust from which 
 God made him. 
 
 Had not the doctor often discussed with him the 
 sin of speculating in land ? More than this, had they 
 not extended their discussions to the finer point of the 
 injustice that lay at the foundation of large estates ; 
 and had not the doctor disapproved to a great extent 
 of it all ? How, then, must this action be read. 
 
 Was he doing it for Paul Henley ? 
 
 Jerry's face darkened : this thought seemed to hurt 
 him more than all the possible sufferings of the immi- 
 grants who were expected ; and that this was so, made 
 him ashamed. Yet, was it possible that the doctor 
 loved Paul to this extent that beautiful, delicate, 
 useless creature. 
 
 Jerry clenched his fists. 
 
 Was Paul made of different flesh and blood that he 
 could not guide a plow ; could not dig ; could not eat 
 common food, nor wear common clothes ? Had God 
 made him of finer stuff ; so fine that his guardian was 
 driven to wrong-doing in order to provide for him ? 
 
 For twenty-four hours the country side made no 
 sign, no sound ; then whispers crept about ; angry, 
 malignant whispers, that intensified as the day 
 went on. 
 
 All these years that the doctor had been among 
 them, they said, pretending to devote his time and 
 money to the bettering of his fellow-creatures, he had 
 been making his plans for this grand stroke of busi- 
 ness. In his long rides about the country undercover 
 of visiting the poor and sick, he had been searching
 
 142 JERRY. 
 
 the land for gold ; been working hard in his own in- 
 terests, and in the interests of his adopted son, Paul 
 Henley. 
 
 They declared that he had been for years in secret 
 communication with this railway company, and had 
 known all along how things would turn out. That he 
 had bribed the Government to let him have the land 
 for next to nothing ; had bribed the railway company 
 to come in over his land, and to put the shops and 
 station on his land. 
 
 More than this, he had bought up gold-land at the 
 same low price, deceiving the government. The re- 
 alization of the awful wickedness of these reported 
 actions and motives seemed to dart like a flash 
 through the usually stolid minds of the people ; and 
 within a day after reading the doctor's call for work- 
 men, they made up their minds that no hand in either 
 town would be lifted to work for him. 
 
 And listening, and thinking, Jerry found that a pub- 
 lic benefactor had no right to look after his own in- 
 terests ; he saw that once to begin a course of self-sac- 
 rifice is to be bound to it for ever ; the world watches 
 closely and never permits a retrogression, not the de- 
 viation of a hair's breadth from the prescribed path. 
 
 Prove your nose patient, and you prove it a poor 
 thing meant for the grindstone. Unselfish natures 
 prefer being imposed on, says the world, and benefac- 
 tors have no right to be anything but benefactors. 
 
 Meanwhile, Jerry felt like one walking in a dream ; 
 and after the first shock, after his mind had re-estab- 
 lished itself ; all the talk, even the printed notice, 
 seemed absolutely preposterous and impossible. 
 
 And all through the long day, during which he re- 
 ceived many visits from his patrons, it was very 
 clearly realized by him that not only all Eureka, but 
 all Durden's, had declared against the doctor, and were 
 ready to cry him down, and as far as possible to ruin 
 him. 
 
 Jerry could scarcely believe the situation, and more
 
 JERRY. 143 
 
 than once during his many interviews with the people, 
 he asked them if it were possible, even with this prov- 
 ocation, for them to condemn this man who had spent 
 years in their service ; who had been their friend in 
 every phase of life ; who had set no limit to the time 
 nor the money spent for them. 
 
 And the answer came sharply if the doctor had not 
 pretended ; if from the first he had declared his inten- 
 tions, they would not have blamed him ; but he had 
 won their confidence by false pretenses so that he 
 could cheat them, and this they could not forgive. 
 
 Jerry's repeated assurances that the doctor had 
 bought the land for some good purpose, and not as a 
 speculation, were not heeded, for all the facts of the 
 case, as far as the people could see them, were against 
 the doctor. The buying of the land was one fact ; 
 the notice in the Star was another fact ; Jerry's igno- 
 rance of the transaction was a third fact ; and the 
 fourth fact, which every one knew, was that for years 
 the doctor had been buying up the interests in the 
 Eureka mines in the name of Paul Henley. 
 
 All this evidence could not be disputed, and Jerry 
 could only retreat on the declaration that, after all, 
 there was no real reason why the doctor should not buy 
 the land ; no real reason why the people should blame 
 him for his course ; no reason save that he had given 
 them so much that they felt they had a claim on all. 
 
 He determined after much hesitation that he would 
 go to the doctor and ask him for some explanation ; 
 and yet, how could he do such a thing ? what right had 
 he to question any act of this man ? how dare he look 
 beyond his word and teaching ? 
 
 Besides, the doctor knew all that had been said 
 about this transaction before he revealed his name, 
 and if he had cared for the opinion of the people, he 
 would have printed his explanation along with his call 
 for workmen ; and if he had cared for Jerry, he would 
 have given him long ago some hint that would have 
 stopped his pen, and so would have been left unsaid
 
 144 JERRY. 
 
 many hard things which had irritated the people 
 against the unknown buyer. 
 
 And with this last unavoidable conclusion, Jerry 
 faced a truth that he had long realized, but from which 
 he had turned away the truth that the doctor had 
 never loved him. For years, ever since he had real- 
 ized that the doctor was in every particular different 
 from those about him, Jerry had watched him carefully, 
 and by means of the deep love he bore him had learned 
 that the doctor's life was one long struggle to lose him- 
 self in anything that would absorb him. Through all 
 disguises Jerry had seen this motive in all that the 
 doctor did for the people about him ; and when he 
 turned to his own case Jerry still saw this motive. 
 The discovery hurt him, for always the thought fol- 
 lowed, " I am a work that keeps him from remember- 
 ing I am a duty that satisfies his conscience; only this 
 I am to him." It was through his love that Jerry had 
 felt in the doctor's nature the lack of this same love : 
 found that the doctor had another theory than the one 
 he held as to honest love and honest hate : the doctor 
 never flinched from his duty to all the world, nor to 
 any segment of it that came within his reach, but he 
 did no 1 : love it. 
 
 And bitterly it had come home to Jerry that all the 
 adoration he had without question lavished on this 
 his Ideal, had fallen unheeded, if not unseen. This 
 knowledge had not come to him all at once, but grad- 
 ually, like the shadows that follow the morning sun- 
 light all is still bright, but when you look attentively 
 the shadow is where the sunlight was. 
 
 The doctor was a mystery that with all his love 
 Jerry could not solve. He was learning new lessons 
 about him now, but his heart was growing heavy with 
 the new wisdom. 
 
 For years Jerry had realized in some measure the 
 doctor's suffering, and had pitied him. Too often he 
 had seen him sit for hours and never turn a page too 
 often had seen the mask drop from his face and a deadly
 
 JERRY. 145 
 
 weariness take possession of it too often had found 
 him lying face down on the rock over Burden's Mine 
 too often he had seen these and, other signs not to 
 know that his past needed sympathy. All this had 
 made him love this man with a pitying love that was 
 pain : but now the new wisdom that hurt him took the 
 form of the question " Was the doctor greedy for 
 gain was it possible that this pitiful weakness touched 
 his idol?" 
 
 That there must have been sin in his past to cause 
 all the suffering in his present, Jerry never doubted, 
 but he had made sure always that they had been the 
 sins of a noble nature ; but avarice could his idol 
 fall so low as that ?
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 " Necessity, whose sightless strength forever 
 Evil with evil, good with good must wind 
 In bands of union which no power may sever : 
 They must bring forth their kind, and be divided never." 
 
 TOE listened silently to Jerry's report, first of the 
 I notice, then of the determination of the people not 
 ~ to work for the doctor ; and finally of all the evil 
 things they said of him. 
 
 Then he laid down his pipe and leaned forward with 
 a hand on either knee. 
 
 " I've been a-tellin' him ever sence I knowed him," 
 he began in a slow, conclusive voice, " as he were 
 a-helpin' orl the p'isenest mean trash in the country, 
 an' I says, says I, ' Doctor, the least leetle wind'll blow 
 trash in folks' faces,' says I," then with a long-drawn 
 breath " Cuss their measly hides ! " and he took up 
 his pipe again. 
 
 " Of course it is all right for the doctor," Jerry said 
 as if convincing himself, " all right for him to do as 
 he has done." 
 
 " To speckylate in Ian' ? " and Joe paused once 
 more in his smoking; " 1'llowed as youuns jist 'spised 
 sich doin's ; the papers says you do, an' Dan Burk 
 'Hows thet you do, an' as youuns is got the rights on 
 it." 
 
 Jerry pushed his hair from his forehead nervously. 
 " I mean that the doctor will do it in the right way," 
 he answered anxiously, " the doctor will not speculate; 
 he has bought the land for some good purpose." 
 
 " To gie it away ? " Joe suggested sarcastically, 
 " pay fur the Ian' pay to lay it out, an' gie it away ? " 
 146
 
 JERRY. i 147 
 
 He shook his head. " The doctor's mighty easy 
 fooled, but he's got mo' sense ner thet." 
 
 " He may put the lots at a very low rent," then Jerry 
 left the fire and went out into the darkness. He did 
 not want to talk about this matter yet, for in his own 
 mind he had come to no conclusion. Up and down 
 he walked on the level bit of path that the doctor had 
 trodden so slowly, when years before he spent the day 
 at Joe's house to watch that the life came back to 
 Jerry's poor little body. 
 
 Up and down in the darkness, trying not to judge 
 his hero, his friend, his exemplar and help to all that 
 was good and true ; putting away forcibly all thought 
 of self, and of the position the doctor had allowed him 
 to take ; pausing in his walk where the doctor had 
 paused to say " If God will ever forgive me ! " that 
 short, pathetic prayer that told so much and yet so 
 little just there Jerry paused and said " He can not 
 do wrong ! '" then he went in again to where Joe still 
 smoked by the fire. 
 
 " It must be all right, Joe," he said, sitting down 
 slowly. 
 
 " I aint never blamed him yit," Joe answered ; then 
 more patronizingly than he had spoken to Jerry in 
 years, he went on 
 
 "I aint got much larnin', Jerry, but I'se knowed a 
 heaper folks sence I kin 'member, an' one thing I jest 
 will say, thet no man aint a-goin' to gie away liker 
 fool fur moren twenty yeer, an' orl of a suddint turn 
 roun' an' cheat folks fur money as he don't need ; I 
 I don't b'lieve it no moren I'd b'lieve a p'inter dorg 
 as tole me he couldn't smeller mink. It's no use 
 a-talkin' to me thet away," and he knocked the ashes 
 out of his pipe with unusual vehemence, packing it 
 again as if protesting against the need of any justifi- 
 cation of the doctor " An' youuns, Jerry," he went 
 on more quietly, " as knows the doctor bettern mos' 
 folks ; you kin stan' by him better," then more 
 slowly " If I didn't hev sicher sighter work on han'
 
 148 JERRY. 
 
 darned if I wouldn't lay out the Ian' fu-r him my- 
 seff ! " 
 
 Jerry did not answer, for Joe's mention of his work 
 made him think for the moment of the mystery in 
 which he lived between these two unknown lives. 
 
 "Pore doctor," Joe said at last, bringing Jerry 
 back from his musings, " aint thar no way of you 
 a-heppin' him, Jerry ? " 
 
 Jerry shook his head. 
 
 " I will go and see," he answered, " but if he had 
 wanted my help he would have told me long ago, and 
 have stopped my writing," the words were said unin- 
 tentionally, and Jerry was angry with himself for 
 having exposed this sore place, especially to Joe, 
 whom he felt, somehow, would be glad to widen a 
 little the distance between himself and the doctor. 
 Joe blew out a cloud of smoke. 
 
 " You dunno the doctor yit," he said, with a little 
 grunt that might have been a stifled chuckle " he 
 never blazes no road behind him, he don't, an* he 
 aint a-goin' to persuade you not to bust yer brains 
 out agin a tree, if so be you hes a mind to do it ; 
 an' he never 'splains nothin', ner axes nothin'." 
 
 Jerry listened and had no answer ; rather, his heart 
 grew cold within him as Joe went on, because of the 
 confirming truth in the old man's words 
 
 "An* he'll gie you cloze, an' wittles, an' firewood ; 
 he'll gie you as much as a house, but you mus' sot 
 thet house right fur over yander, right fur, 'cause 
 he don't want no pusson's shed j'ined onter hisn's, 
 you bet : he gies away liker fool ; but, Lord ! he 
 don't want nothin' a-trailin' alter him : but orl the 
 same, I 'llowed as you mout he'p him." They were 
 hard things that Joe had told, but they were true ; he 
 knew they were hard too, but it was not in his human- 
 ity to refrain from this little exposition of the man 
 who had for years supplanted him in the life of " his 
 boy," he had taken the second place very quietly, 
 but he felt a little triumphant just now.
 
 JERRY, i 149 
 
 And the next afternoon when Jerry made time for 
 his visit to the doctor by giving a half-holiday, he re- 
 membered all these hard sayings of Joe's, and would 
 allow to himself only that he was going to explain his 
 own action, and to warn the doctor of the feeling that 
 was out among the people. Several leading men had 
 been to see Jerry during the morning, and from them 
 he had gained his view of the state of the community. 
 
 All were angry and indignant, and very impatient 
 to make known to their late friend this new feeling 
 which had developed toward him. That morning an 
 angry notice had appeared " declining to work for the 
 doctor at any price no one would lift a finger for the 
 man who had deliberately cheated the town out of all 
 it had hoped to make by the railway," and the notice 
 was signed " The citizens of Eureka and Burden's." 
 
 Jerry had read it angrily, for he knew that the baffled 
 speculators were at the bottom of it. These slow 
 thinking, shiftless natives as in his heart he called his 
 own class would never have had the energy nor the 
 sense to make a combined move : they might be keen 
 at a bargain, but they had to be taught to think, 
 taught that sin was hidden inland speculations. And 
 he became more angry with them ; naturally, but un- 
 reasonably so ; when he remembered that he had 
 taught them the chief lesson on this point. 
 
 His object and his work had been true and right ; 
 but like most honest men who long to be benefactors, 
 he had done too much ; or perhaps his pupils had 
 pushed his theory too far. 
 
 He had denounced the Government for selling its 
 land, and the people saw the reason in this ; he had 
 denounced the people who had bought this land as a 
 speculation to the detriment of their fellow-creatures, 
 and the people followed him here also ; but he had 
 not thought of providing for the contingency of an 
 honest man buying this land for honest purposes. 
 
 " And who would have dreamed of such a thing ! " 
 he said to himself with unconscious sarcasm and in
 
 150 JERRY. 
 
 much bitterness of spirit when he found out who the 
 mysterious buyer was, and that the people had applied 
 all his teachings to him. " Who would have believed 
 such a thing ! " and the people showed their faith in 
 his judgment by refusing to believe it. 
 
 Hurriedly and angrily he tramped along the road ; 
 he wanted to have a long talk with the doctor, and 
 the time spent in reaching his destination provoked 
 him. After much argument with himself he had de- 
 termined to explain to the doctor the position he had 
 taken, and why he had taken it. It had been a hard 
 decision to reach after Joe's words, but he felt that he 
 could not .be silent now, and so be identified with 
 the people's notice : but beyond all these motives he 
 had a hope that the doctor would let in some light on 
 his own action, and he longed for this light with a 
 great and loving desire. 
 
 Alas, he reached his destination to find the doctor 
 indefinitely absent, and a note as his only alternative. 
 And the writing of that note was the hardest thing 
 he had ever tried to do. If he still believed in the 
 doctor, as he assured himself that he did, what had he 
 to say ? Say that his articles in the newspaper did not 
 point to the doctor say he was sorry for the doctor 
 say he hoped that he would be just about the land, 
 or say that he knew he would ? If he believed in the 
 doctor any of this would be worse than folly if he 
 did not believe in him ? 
 
 And he laughed a little bitterly at himself because 
 he wanted to say all these things, at the same time 
 asserting violently that he believed in this friend of his 
 life ! 
 
 He pondered long, then left only a few lines to say 
 that he had seen the refusal of the people to work for 
 the doctor, and had come over to put himself at the 
 doctor's service. He made no comment, only the sim- 
 ple offer, then went his way slowly feeling himself in 
 a more complicated position than before. 
 
 He could not retract his own opinions he could
 
 JERRY. 131 
 
 not explain the doctor's position, nor could he publish 
 the fact that he had offered his services to his bene- 
 factor and so take a decided stand by him, for this 
 would seem like parading his gratitude, he could 
 only stand still, and probably be misjudged by both 
 sides : and this was hard. 
 
 All the way home he turned the matter over and 
 over in his mind, but could see no way to better things: 
 he must wait, and if the doctor sent any answer to his 
 note, abide by that. 
 
 " Well," was Joe's greeting when later he came in 
 and found Jerry standing by the fire with a troubled 
 look on his face, " well, is you an' Paul agoin' to start 
 to work to-morrer ? " 
 
 Jerry turned away. 
 
 " The doctor was out," he answered shortly, putting 
 the supper on the .table, " and I had to leave a note." 
 
 "An" Jim Martin," Joe went on, drawing up his 
 chair; " Jim Martin he come along a-steppin' as jest as 
 swonger, and a new feller alonger him; says I ' Hardy, 
 Jim, whar's the railroad a-comin',' says I; says 'ee, ' Joe 
 Gilliam,' says 'ee, ' we are cheated,' says 'ee, ' an' the 
 road aint going to do no good '; ' why, Jim,' says I, 
 ' I hearn as you done mader pile anyhow,' says I ; 
 ' Lord, Joe,' says 'ee, ' who on airth telled you sicher 
 spin as thet,' says 'ee; says I, Jim, ' I hearn it,' says I, 
 ' I hearn as youuns buyed orl the spar' Ian', 'cause 
 you done saved orl the money the doctor's been 
 a-givin' you ever sence he come,' whoopee ! " and 
 Joe laughed as Jerry had never seen him laugh before. 
 " You oughter seen him, Jerry; he looked like he'd 
 been a-settin' oner nester ants, he did ; " then more 
 slowly, "It's jest what I'se been a-tellin' the doctor, 
 a-he'ppin' orl the trash in the country, an' notter man 
 to he'p him now." 
 
 " I hope he will let me do something," Jerry said, 
 but his hope was very small, and died the next morn- 
 ing when he found on his desk in the schoolhouse a 
 sealed note from the doctor thanking him for his offer,
 
 152 JERRY. 
 
 but saying he had telegraphed for workmen ; which 
 fact Jerry was not to mention. Very short the note 
 was, but it was some comfort to know that the doctor 
 trusted him to this extent even. This was his first 
 feeling, then the news in the note made him thought- 
 ful. Telegraphed for workmen ; and Jerry pondered 
 over this fact as, lighting a match, he burned the note. 
 
 That was where the doctor had gone the day be- 
 fore : he must have ridden day and night to have 
 reached even the nearest post-station, and must have 
 sent a man on from there with his message ; and 
 what would Eureka say ? and what would Burden's 
 say ? 
 
 The doctor had education, talent, money ; of course 
 he would triumph in the end ; but what would he have 
 to go through with and contend against before that 
 end came ? 
 
 And was it right ? 
 
 Jerry broke the pencil he was sharpening. 
 
 He taught very vigorously that week, so that the 
 children made tremendous strides in learning, and 
 the one small tree behind theschoohouse was denuded 
 of almost all the hopeful branches it had put out dur- 
 ing this eventful spring. This outward vigor was the 
 sign of the growing excitement and anxiety in Jerry's 
 mind. Looking back he could not understand how 
 Eureka, kept so long in the background, had come so 
 suddenly to the front. Burden's story was common 
 enough. The mine had been discovered by a poor 
 man, who had come from a poor community in the 
 Eastern States ; the rush of people consequent on this 
 discovery had come from the same part of the coun- 
 try ; they brought no capital, and the scheme failed. 
 This was the reason given by the doctor. The story 
 Jerry heard from old Joe made the failure seem un- 
 accountable ; the mine was a good mine, Joe said, 
 but haunted. 
 
 That a superstition should so sway people was 
 strange . it was true that the people who had come
 
 JERRY. 153 
 
 were simple, uneducated, agricultural people, not am- 
 bitious, and contented with very little. Still, it was 
 strange that they should not dig for the gold that Joe 
 said " lay all about in Burden's Mine." And here 
 again the doctor said that though he had never made 
 an examination, he was sure that the Eureka mine 
 was much better than Burden's. Whatever was the 
 cause, Burden's had failed ; then the old story fol- 
 lowed, when the people could not get home again 
 and had spread themselves on the plain, and returned 
 to their old habit of planting small " patches." 
 
 The discovery of the Eureka mine was the next 
 event ; the doctor, who had arrived about that time, 
 united with 'Lije Milton in buying up the interests ; 
 they had worked patiently and cautiously, and had 
 been repaid. 
 
 All this Jerry could easily understand ; but who 
 was it that had now made the fact known that the 
 land was full of gold so full of gold as to bring a 
 railway there ? Who had had influence enough to 
 persuade capitalists to run such a risk ; capitalists 
 having sufficient power to force the stock up until 
 now, before its destination was reached even, many 
 fortunes had been made by the road. Who could 
 have managed this ? 
 
 The question had come in the wake of a natural 
 sequence of thought and reasoning, and the answer 
 stared Jerry in the face. Only one man could have 
 done it one man who had bought all the available 
 land near the town one man who held most of the 
 interests in the Eureka mine ! 
 
 True, not an acre of private land had been 
 touched, nor had any such offer been made only the 
 public lands had been taken. Not a pocket in Eureka 
 had been injured by this gigantic speculation ; not a 
 soul in either town could say they had lost a penny, 
 or had missed a penny they would have made but 
 those who were coming ? 
 
 " For some good purpose he has done it," Jerry
 
 154 JERRY. 
 
 said ; " I know it I know it ! " And still he was not 
 sure. 
 
 For two weeks the longest Jerry had ever spent 
 the towns remained in a quiescent state. The ex- 
 citement about the land speculation was starving for 
 lack of new developments ; the railway excitement 
 had grown old, and the people watched anxiously to 
 see what would come next. 
 
 Nearer the railway came ; it was known how that 
 many stations along the road had required only a 
 week's time in which to make towns of themselves ; 
 and yet Eureka and Burden's had not stirred ! In- 
 deed, they could not stir ; no one could speculate or 
 make any money further than would come to them 
 from their private lots ; and had they not been told 
 that to sit still and hold this land would make them 
 rich ? 
 
 The people were in a rage, and the speculators in 
 despair ; while the quiet prairie, and the grim, un- 
 touched mountain-side where gold was said to lie in 
 lumps, seemed to mock them ! 
 
 How easily they had been outwitted ! and many 
 curses, that were not more than half smothered, fol- 
 lowed Paul and the doctor whenever they rode through 
 the town. Once more Jerry went to see the doctor, and 
 once more missed him ; and a nod as the doctor can- 
 tered by the schoolhouse was all that Jerry had seen of 
 him. Was he angry ? Jerry wondered ; did he suspect 
 him of being disloyal ? The blood mounted in the 
 young man's face, and he remembered Joe's words 
 that the doctor neither gave nor asked explanations 
 he could not ask one. 
 
 Meanwhile, the speculators worked quietly among 
 the people, and as the railway neared the town and 
 the excitement increased, they offered higher prices 
 for the land. And in the town there were men who 
 had combined all the teachings given them, making a 
 theory of their own. Thus they stopped work, be- 
 cause in any case selling their land would make them
 
 JERRY. 155 
 
 rich ; and they did not sell because only to hold the 
 land would make them rich also. 
 
 And they waited in vain ! 
 
 Day by day they scrambled for food while they 
 watched with eager eyes for the promised money to 
 pour into their laps ; and the eager eyes grew hollow 
 and hungry. They had defied the doctor, and so 
 could not ask work of Paul Henley or the Eureka 
 engineer ; and not having planted gardens, they were 
 starving. 
 
 At last one desperate woman struck the keynote of 
 the position, and for many, solved the question. She 
 chose a time when her husband was drunk, then 
 sought the Land Agent ; the amount he offered 
 seemed fabulous, and the bargain was closed. The 
 drunken husband made " his mark " before the 
 drunken magistrate, and the land passed into the 
 hands of the Agent. Sober, the man made the best of 
 it and of a shrewish wife, and other men sold their 
 lots and houses. 
 
 Suddenly the town waked up : the one lodging- 
 house was filled with these homeless creatures ; and 
 their old homes assumed a wonderful appearance. 
 They were whitewashed, houses and fences ; the lots 
 were plowed and laid off to look like thrifty gar- 
 dens, seed were actually planted, late as it was ! 
 
 The former owners began to regret ; and Jerry 
 looked on angrily. 
 
 Then one day, as the bright May sun blazed trium- 
 phantly over the broad plains, a wagon-train turned 
 slowly into the town. 
 
 And all Eureka turned out at the doors, even Jerry 
 and his school came out to look ; and they said 
 " immigrants." But this was no common party ; there 
 was a director to it who evidently knew his business : 
 he stopped his train in front of the schoolhouse and 
 asked his way to the chief engineer of the mine. 
 
 Eureka was watching, and saw Engineer Mills come 
 out of his door and point to an empty house near by ;
 
 156 JERRY. 
 
 then the party turned in that direction, and disap- 
 peared from all curious eyes. 
 
 Now indeed, all Eureka was roused ; very slowly, it 
 is true ; but roused before the next day dawned to 
 the fact that these men were workmen and had 
 come to do the doctor's bidding ! 
 
 The town was in a stir. Knots of people, men and 
 women, gathered on the corners and in the shops ; 
 and Jerry felt anxious. He went about a little to 
 sound the people, and found the sentiment divided. 
 
 The two shopkeepers of the two villages, Dave 
 Morris and Dan Burke, who were leaders, were 
 amiable ; for this influx meant trade ; and Titcomb, 
 the editor, was amiable also ; but the laborers were 
 furious, for this meant that they had been ignored, 
 and that their revenge had failed ! 
 
 And Jerry began the afternoon session with much 
 trouble on his mind. 
 
 How long that day was to Jerry he could not ex- 
 press, but in the evening when his work was done, he 
 found a new feeling abroad. The shopkeepers had 
 joined the mob ; for these workmen did not mean 
 trade ; they had brought their own supplies every- 
 thing, and more, that a colony would need. Curses 
 were spoken out loud, now that the leaders had turned, 
 and nobody seemed surprised nobody defended the 
 absent man who had been their friend for all these 
 long years. 
 
 Jerry questioned* bitterly should he be silent, or 
 should he speak and try to check these things that as 
 yet had not been said exactly in his hearing ; for the 
 people still respected his connection with the doctor : 
 but he turned away silent, his words would have no 
 effect now, and if he spoke what could he say ? and 
 he made his way slowly out of the town. 
 
 Joe listened with the greatest delight to the news 
 of the new workmen, and of their having brought 
 everything with them that they could need. 
 
 u Fur onest the doctor hes hed sense," he said
 
 JERRY. 157 
 
 slowly, "an* fur onest these durned fools will see thet 
 money an' larnin' kin beat 'em orl holler ! I'm rale 
 glad, I am ; an' I'm glad the doctor buyed the Ian' 
 an' started out fur hisn's seff ceppen if it's fur Paul," 
 he added slowly. 
 
 Jerry kicked the fire viciously, and Joe went on : 
 
 " But I can't, to save me, see the sin of speckylatin' 
 in Ian'," he said, " I works fur another feller, an' 1 
 makes my money ; an' I tucks thet money an' I buys 
 Ian', an' if I kin fin' a feller fool ernough to gimme 
 twicest as much as I paid fur the Ian', thar aint no sin 
 in thet ; less it's a sin to be a fool." 
 
 " And there are a hundred people nearly starving," 
 Jerry began wearily, " because they have no land to 
 plant ; and you living in plenty, have it all held back 
 for the money it will bring : money you do not need 
 I call that sin." 
 
 " I 'Hows as I worked fur the money," Joe retorted, 
 " 'Merricky's a free country, an' if I gits 'long faster 
 ner another feller, thet aint no sin." 
 
 " But it's a sin to grind the other down to starva- 
 tion point that you may make more than you can pos- 
 sibly want," Jerry went on, but without any enthusiasm 
 in his voice : he was so weary of his own arguments ; 
 and his teachings had brought him so little satisfac- 
 tion. He actually felt a cowardly wish growing on 
 him that he had never said a word on the land ques- 
 tion, but had allowed all to take their chances. 
 
 " An' if I dunno nothin' 'bout t'other feller," Joe 
 went on slowly, " ceppen what I reads 'bout him, or 
 gits Dan Burke to read 'bout in the paper ; fur sartain 
 youuns's don't spec me to write him a letter an,' say 
 ' Come out har, an' tuck somer my Ian" fur nothin' ? " 
 
 " That is the very question," Jerry retorted ; " if 
 Government holds the land, then every man is free 
 to rent only so much as he can plant, and everybody 
 will be provided for." 
 
 " An' if I gits me a steam-plow, as I hearn tell 
 'bout by somer these new fellers," Joe suggested,
 
 158 JERRY. 
 
 watching Jerry's face keenly " I kin jest plant the 
 whole perrairy, I kin, jester hummin' ; an' I 'How 
 thet wont leave much fur 'tother feller ? " 
 
 " Very well," Jerry admitted, " and you make an 
 enormous crop of corn, and the price goes down ; the 
 people who have no land, have no taxes to pay, 
 so can afford to buy your cheap corn : every year 
 doing this, your prairie wont pay for itself ; for 
 provisions produced in such quantities will be too 
 cheap." 
 
 Joe looked on him with an expression that was as 
 near contempt as he could bestow on Jerry. " I 
 aint no fool, Jerry Wilkerson," he said, " to plant 
 one thing orl the time 'tell folks throws it way," 
 emphasizing his words with his pipe, "I'd plant 
 'taters \ 'taters, sir, as can't be feed fur mules 
 an' hosses ; then the corn'll run up high ernough, I 
 reckon." 
 
 " Perhaps," Jerry answered slowly, looking down 
 another vista of consequences that Joe's words had 
 brought to his mind the advances in labor-saving 
 machinery. The effect that this would have on all the 
 problems of the day, and especially on this land prob- 
 lem, was a question that needed an answer ; and the 
 answer needed much thought. 
 
 " Perhaps," he said, then looked up angrily ; " you 
 say America is a free country, Joe, but because she is 
 free, is that a reason why she should be without a con- 
 science ? Because I am out of prison is that any rea- 
 son why I should steal and murder ? " 
 
 Joe looked up in astonishment. 
 
 ' Is youuns gone plum crazy ? " he said at last, " I 
 never spoke no word 'bout stealin' ner murderin', 
 Jerry." 
 
 " No, but because you are free to make money and 
 to buy land, is that any reason that you should for the 
 love of gold crowd others out until they die of star- 
 vation ? " 
 
 Joe shook his head slowly.
 
 JERRY. ' *59 
 
 " If I heJ a-been thet mean, Jerry, the buzzards 
 woulder bed youuns longger-go you bet ! " 
 
 The argument was useless, and Jerry turned away. 
 
 " God will surely bless you, Joe, for what you have 
 done for me," he said ; then went outside into the 
 darkness that he might think.
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 " Come near me ! I do weave 
 A chain I can not break " 
 
 HOW long we live before we realize that life is the 
 one breath we breathe the while we say " I 
 live " before we are content to draw from every 
 day its fullest uses and benefits unglorified by dreams 
 of to-morrow before we learn that whatever effort 
 we may make to touch another life, it can but end in 
 a longing that is never satisfied. 
 
 Each soul lives and dies alone. 
 
 Day by day we knit bonds that bind until the blood 
 flows, but do not join we tremble for the life of this 
 one, or the love of that one we feel our hearts die 
 because this life has passed away from our grasp, or 
 that love has failed us in our need all this we do, 
 fighting through our little day, and when the end 
 comes we must let go, and journey out along the 
 " lonely road " without a footstep timing ours, or a 
 hand clasped in our own. 
 
 And now when difficulties began to gather about 
 him, Jerry found that by some strange chance he stood 
 alone. Not only alone, but opposed to the one man 
 who could have helped him : whose views he would 
 have sworn that he not only knew, but held. And 
 when under the test of this crisis the degradation of 
 his class was fully revealed to him its greed, and its 
 ingratitude, and he realized the immeasurable task 
 he had set for himself in the raising of this class he 
 acknowledged to himself without reservation, that he 
 had been a fool, and began to look for some way out of 
 the dilemma. Indeed, under the cool shadow of re- 
 
 160
 
 JERRY. 161 
 
 action he was tempted to trample under foot all high 
 resolves, and to laugh to scorn all enthusiasm. 
 
 But no time was left him in which to beat a retreat, 
 for the next morning he found a crowd collected in 
 front of the school-house ; men, and women, and 
 boys. 
 
 He stopped for a moment ; were they waiting for 
 him waiting to compel him to face this issue ? On 
 a nearer view, however, he found that they were watch- 
 ing the house where the doctor's workmen lodged. 
 
 Would there be a difficulty, he wondered ; and his 
 step grew slower, for he would not lift a hand against 
 the doctor. 
 
 At last he mounted the little platform ; for with all 
 his tardiness of gait he reached it at last, and the 
 crowd seeing him coming turned from where they 
 watched for the workmen and gathered about the lit- 
 tle porch. There were murmurings and cursings from 
 among them, and as Jerry put the key in the lock a 
 man stretched over and laid his hand on the latch. 
 
 " I don't mean no harm, Mr. Wilkerson," he said, 
 " but we want to ask a few questions before you goes 
 in." 
 
 Jerry looked about him slowly on the upturned 
 faces, then putting his hands in his pockets stood 
 still and waiting. There was silence for a few seconds, 
 while Jerry's thoughts flashed backward over all he 
 had written and said to these people, knowing that 
 every word was about to be brought home to him 
 now, to force him to take sides : his blood boiled at 
 the thought ; but he would not take the initiative : at 
 last a middle-aged man stepped to the front. 
 
 " Mr. Wilkerson," he began, taking a piece of to- 
 bacco from his mouth, and carefully putting it in his 
 pocket, " had the doctor any right to buy so much 
 Ian' ? " 
 
 " Yes," Jerry answered, " as much land as he had 
 money to pay fof." 
 
 " An' take it from aller us ? "
 
 1 62 JERRY. 
 
 " Did you intend to buy ? " sarcastically. 
 
 " Well, yes," slowly. 
 
 " Well, it seems to me that you have had time 
 enough," Jerry answered ; " the prairie has been be- 
 fore you all your lives, why did you not take it in and 
 work it ? All these years you have been free to search 
 the hills for gold ; why have you not done it ? " 
 
 " 'Cause it wasn't any use tell the railroad come," 
 the man answered. 
 
 " You have known for months that the railroad was 
 coming," Jerry went on. 
 
 "Well, an' if we did, we never had no money to 
 plunk down all at onest fur the Ian'," and an angrier 
 tone crept into the man's voice, for he felt in a con- 
 fused way that this was not the Wilkerson of the news- 
 paper. And truly, Jerry was questioning from under 
 the reaction that had come, and the man answering 
 from his life-long views, and not from Jerry's new 
 teachings, which were not enough his to be used. But 
 Jerry, rejoicing in the slowness of the man, which 
 kept him from saying, " You told us not to buy it," 
 cried out : " Nonsense ! tell the truth ; say that all 
 the money you could have saved you have put in 
 whisky ; and now when a great opportunity has come, 
 a great opportunity to make fortunes, you have no 
 money put away that you can invest. This is the 
 truth, and you know it ! " becoming more excited as 
 he went on, " and all that you have to find fault with 
 to-day is that another man has looked ahead, and has 
 provided himself with money that he can double 
 double and treble if he will ; aye, he can possess this 
 whole country ! " 
 
 " God made the Ian' for all," was called out angrily 
 from the crowd, " an' you said so yerself." 
 
 " And why have you been too lazy to take it ?" Jerry 
 retorted ; " did you expect the Almighty to fence it in 
 for you, and write your names on the fences ? is this 
 what you expected ? You could have bought this 
 land for fifty cents an acre ; but fifty cents would buy
 
 JERRY. 163 
 
 three drinks of whisky, and you wanted the whisky, 
 and the land would keep." 
 
 " An' so it would," was called out. 
 
 " And so it did," Jerry cried sharply, " kept until 
 two months ago. I am not going back from anything 
 I have written in your paper : I said there that it was 
 wrong to speculate in land as wrong as to speculate 
 in water, or air, or sunshine, if such a thing could be, 
 for all these things are necessary to life, a/id are meant 
 alike for all ! Speculating in land is in my eyes a 
 sin, and I consider it every man's duty to warn every 
 other man against a thing that seems wrong, and so I 
 warned you. You had no money to invest, for, as I 
 have said, you have saved nothing ; but if you had 
 had bags of gold, I should have done my best to keep 
 you from speculating in land," and there came a 
 little catch in his voice as he remembered his deser- 
 tion of his higher principles at the beginning of his 
 speech ; and yet, these people were so low ! 
 
 " But now," he went on, his excitement increasing 
 unreasonably as he realized that already he had taken 
 the position of champion to these low creatures. And 
 as this realization became more clear to him, his words 
 became more harsh " But now you are not troubled 
 because you think the doctor has done a wicked thing 
 in buying this land ; you are troubled only that he 
 has done a thing you were unable to do ! You 
 are angry because this man who has been your friend 
 for all these years, who has given you time, and 
 money, and help in every way, you are angry be- 
 cause he has now the opportunity to better himself. 
 You let any smooth-tongued villain turn you against 
 him, you refused to work for him, you take all my 
 words and apply them to him, for whom, God knows, 
 they were never meant ! 
 
 " My words were meant to warn you against the 
 miserable land-sharpers, not meant for this man, too 
 high and too noble to be for one moment doubted ! 
 The doctor has bought in a great tract of land ; we
 
 1 64 JERRY. 
 
 do not know yet what he will do with it ; but I say, 
 and I mean every word that I utter, that if he had 
 bought the United States, I would be sure that it was 
 for some good purpose, I would be sure that it was 
 for the benefit of the many, and not for his own bene- 
 fit," and as Jerry spoke his own full confidence came 
 back to him, and with it a great shame that he had 
 for one moment doubted this man. 
 
 " Now," he went on, while his voice grew raspingly 
 tlear, " if any man has anything to say against the 
 doctor, let him remember that he has Jerry Wilkerson 
 to fight," and taking out one pistol he laid it on the 
 low, flat rail that went round the little porch, and put 
 his hand on the second, that was still in his belt. 
 
 The crowd swayed a little, and backed away trom 
 the evil-looking weapon, and from the shining eyes of 
 the young man, looking very dangerous as he stood 
 in the level rays of the morning sun, holding his fast- 
 cooling audience at a dreadful disadvantage. It was 
 no rare thing in Eureka for men to be shot on much 
 less provocation than this, and the day was not yet 
 far spent enough for any excitement to have culmin- 
 ated, or for the men to have recovered from the 
 drinking of the past night : their nerves were still 
 tremulous, and they moved away from the platform. 
 
 " We never meant no harm to you, Mr. Wilkerson," 
 they said, "but all the same it's durned hard lines ! " 
 
 Then the door of the next house opened, and the 
 workmen came out in a solid body ; and Paul Henley 
 was with them. They stopped a moment on the steps 
 as if awaiting some advance from the mob gathered at 
 the school-house ; and in that moment the doctor 
 rode up. 
 
 He stopped between the two crowds and looked 
 about him : on the one side Paul, and the clean, re- 
 spectable workmen ; on the other the wretched mob, 
 dirty, thriftless, malignant, people he had worked 
 for but had not bettered ; and in the midst, standing 
 high on the platform, with the sun shining full on the
 
 JERRY. i65 
 
 pistol he had placed in front of him, Jerry, the one 
 whom for so many years he had carefully trained and 
 taught ! 
 
 Only for a second the doctor paused, then nodded 
 to Jerry, and rode on to the workmen. 
 
 He knew that the feeling of the community was all 
 against him he knew that at any moment a bullet 
 might find him ; but that was nothing. He had held 
 his life with a loose grasp for so many years, that he 
 scarcely remembered to heed any danger that threat- 
 ened it. If one weighed possible results always, or 
 always feared death, life became only a burden, he 
 said ; so that life or death meant very little to him, 
 and he stood in the morning sunlight a ready mark 
 for any man who thought himself wronged or de- 
 frauded. 
 
 Not long he talked to the men ; then Paul's horse 
 was brought, and the party moved off quietly, steadily, 
 almost like drilled men, and every one completely 
 armed, as could be seen plainly. 
 
 The crowd about the school-house was very still ; 
 they were deeply impressed by these orderly, strong- 
 looking new-comers ; nor had they forgotten Jerry's 
 words, nor the menacing pistol that still glittered 
 under their eyes. 
 
 It was not safe to trouble Mr. Wilkerson, they 
 thought, for in no position had he shown any fear. 
 In their eyes he had defied and bitterly criticised the 
 doctor, whatever he might affirm to the contrary ; 
 and now he had not only defied and criticised them, 
 but had abused and threatened them also : had stood 
 there one to many, and had not flinched. 
 
 But besides all these considerations for keeping 
 quiet, they were also interested in watching a reporter, 
 who stood in the shade scribbling busily. 
 
 There was much of deep mystery to them in this 
 man, and it was something far beyond their compre- 
 hension that any man should spend his time in writing 
 down everything that was done in the town, and take
 
 1 66 JERRY. 
 
 the trouble to send it away to be put in a news- 
 paper ! 
 
 And so intent did they become in watching him, 
 that they did not know when Jerry went into the 
 school-house ; and realized no more than he did that 
 this retreat was a great boon to the reporter. 
 
 " The school-master finding the mob unwilling to 
 make any assault, retired into the school-house." 
 
 So the reporter wrote while the dirty crowd watched 
 him ; and Jerry, hurt and angry, tried to find peace in 
 his room. 
 
 " But it is thought that Eureka will soon see excit- 
 ing times " the reporter went on; and Jerry, thinking 
 these same thoughts, but wholly unconscious of his 
 position as a mob leader, determined to wait after 
 school, and warn the doctor: for the doctor could 
 not know, as well as he did, all that was threatened 
 against him.
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 " So, one standing strong in the prime of his years, 
 With his life in his grasp, looketh back through dim tears 
 
 To the days of his youth : 
 
 To the fair dewy dawn of his fresh young life 
 E'er his soul had been stained by the hardening strife 
 
 Through which he had won." 
 
 JERRY waited very patiently on the school-house 
 steps, with his warning on his lips. Sat there 
 alone, watching the evening light that drifted 
 slowly across the plains ; while behind him the moun- 
 tains loomed black and gloomy, with the patient 
 shadows huddling together about their feet waiting 
 until their hour should come to possess the land. 
 Before him stretched the road that formed the one 
 street of Eureka, where in front of the wretched shop 
 the men squatted in groups and rows, chewing, and 
 holding what might be termed " silent converse " with 
 each other ; while the women sat in the doorways of 
 the miserable shanties, and up and down the road the 
 children and hogs disported themselves indiscrimin- 
 ately. A wretched, squalid scene ; and made more 
 so by the contrast with the few houses which the 
 speculators had been able to buy and repair, and 
 which shone out here and there like the " whited sep- 
 ulchres " they were. A hopeless scene ; yet all 
 about it was the exquisite glow of the evening light ; 
 a cloud of light that reached to the black hollows of 
 the mountains. God had not forgotten these creat- 
 ures, and the place was not so wretched that his glory 
 could not rest there ? So Jerry thought, but also, 
 " they heed no light nor beauty, what use to strive 
 with them and destroy one's self for their benefit? " 
 
 167
 
 1 68 JERRY. 
 
 Alas ! All the " warmed over " enthusiasm of the 
 morning had deserted him, and he covered his face 
 with his hands. He would not think of these people ; 
 instead, he would think what he should say to the 
 doctor ; he tried faithfully, but in spite of all his 
 efforts could only think, "What will the doctor say 
 to me ?" 
 
 His conscience was clear, and the doctor, if he 
 thought about it at all, must know this ; and the old 
 answer that came to all his reasoning on this matter, 
 came once more, " the only thing to be explained 
 was the doctor's course toward him " and there had 
 been many opportunities for this if the doctor had 
 willed it. 
 
 Still, he would wait and warn the doctor: it was all 
 he could do, and however painful the interview might 
 prove, he would do this service ; a service the doctor 
 would scarcely value because he did not realize the 
 extent of the danger that threatened not only him- 
 self, but his workmen. 
 
 So Jerry waited, and, in spite of all his reasoning, 
 hoped that his warning might clear away the cloud 
 that had come between them. 
 
 All was very still save the idle clatter of the chil- 
 dren in the street, and the occasional calling of one 
 woman to another : all was very still, when as the 
 sun vanished the fine, clear tone of a horn sounded 
 through the evening, and Eureka stopped to listen ! 
 Clear and sharp, almost imperative, yet sweet ; a tone 
 Eureka had never heard before ! 
 
 Once more it sounded, while Jerry watched the 
 shadows stealing slowly from their dens in the moun- 
 tains ; then the usual noises of the time and place 
 resumed their sway. But it was not long, for they 
 ceased again when the doctor's workmen came walk- 
 ing down the street, and behind them the doctor 
 riding slowly. 
 
 " He has sent Paul home for fear of danger," Jerry 
 thought, and the loneliness about his life seemed to
 
 JERRY. ^169 
 
 enlarge and to join hands with the creeping shadows 
 on whose edge he stood, waiting to warn this man he 
 loved so well. Quietly the men moved, seeming to 
 pay no heed to the sights and sounds about them ; 
 talking among themselves, and to their leader who had 
 a horn slung about his shoulder. They did not look 
 like common workmen, now that he saw them more 
 nearly, and he wondered what was their station in 
 life. 
 
 He waited patiently while the doctor gave direc- 
 tions, and talked with the men, then as he turned to 
 ride away raised his voice 
 
 " Doctor ! " 
 
 " Well, Jerry " how sweet the name sounded on 
 his lips ! 
 
 " I wish to tell you, sir, that there is more danger 
 in the threatenings of these people than you may sus- 
 pect," his words came quickly enough at first, then 
 more slowly as the doctor watched him with a look as 
 if only politeness made him listen " they mean some 
 of the things they say." 
 
 " I have no doubt of it," was answered quietly. 
 
 " And you will be careful, Doctor ? " almost plead- 
 ingly. 
 
 " I am never very rash, Jerry," drawing his hat on 
 more securely, preparing to start, " but I am very much 
 obliged to you for your warning ; good evening " 
 then Jerry stepped back and said no farewell, because 
 he could not. 
 
 However much we may think ourselves prepared 
 for a great sorrow, or a great pain, when the blow 
 falls there is in it always a keener cruelty than we 
 expected. There seems to be always some additional 
 refinement of the agony that we had not looked for, 
 and that makes us say " If it had been done without 
 this, I could have borne it." No matter how widely 
 we may have spread our lines of defense in order that 
 the poor heart hiding in the center might be some- 
 what protected, the blow when it falls seems to break
 
 170 . JERRY. 
 
 through every guard. For who can measure the force 
 of a stroke which another is to deal us ? 
 
 And so, though for a long time Jerry had been con- 
 scious of the fact that he represented to the doctor 
 only a part of his duty, he now found to his hurt that 
 all along he had had in his heart an unrecognized 
 hope that he was something more. A hope that he 
 knew only when he looked on its dead face as the 
 doctor rode away. Mechanically he took up his 
 dinner-bucket and books, and began his homeward 
 journey. He could not realize all at once what had 
 happened to him he was not sure that anything had 
 happened. Only he seemed again to be the lonely 
 little child, cast loose from all his moorings. Had he 
 read the doctor's actions aright, and did they say 
 " You are old enough to take your own path, my duty 
 by you is done " ? 
 
 For years he had listened to and learned from this 
 man : for years he had looked up to him and been 
 guided by his counsels, had made him his ideal and 
 hero, had loved him with that strongest love that 
 man gives to man, and now all was done. Either by 
 the vile insinuations of enemies, or by idle reports, 
 by a simple misunderstanding, or through indiffer- 
 ence, this man he thought so strong had been turned 
 from him. 
 
 His life seemed shattered ; for he was young and 
 trustful still, and had grown up to this love and influ- 
 ence as the flowers grow up to the sun. He had had 
 no great sorrows since his childhood to take the edge 
 from his feelings, no betrayals to loosen his faith in 
 mankind ; on the contrary, all had so fallen out in his 
 life as to make him trust implicitly and love unques- 
 tioningly, and this revelation of the mutability of all 
 he clung to was very bitter. He had been taught the 
 most liberal views ; had been encouraged to tell fear- 
 lessly his opinions ; had been told that the truth must 
 be spoken at all costs, and adhered to : had learned 
 from watching the highest life that had come within
 
 JERRY. X I7I 
 
 his experience, that all lives are lost that are not lived 
 for others. And now on his first essaying to cham- 
 pion the right ; to teach what he thought were the 
 highest, purest principles his teacher and exemplar 
 turned from him ! 
 
 He could not understand it nor realize it all at once, 
 and had no feeling save a great sorrow that was 
 deepening down into a corroding bitterness. 
 
 He hated himself for being so sorely smitten by the 
 loss of this friend who could so easily cast him aside : 
 and he determined that no eye should see his sorrow 
 or realize his humiliation. 
 
 He did his evening's work quietly, almost mechan- 
 ically : told Joe, whose keen old eyes watched him 
 questioningly, of the gathering at the school-house ; 
 of his speech ; of the fact that he feared a real diffi- 
 culty, and had warned the doctor. Told even of the 
 horn that had sounded so " thin and clear " to call the 
 workmen home. 
 
 He seemed to hear it now, sounding through the 
 beautiful tinted air, sounding all to rest, sounding 
 the last hour of his love and trust ! 
 
 It seemed as if he would hear those high, clear tones 
 through all the coming years ! 
 
 And he hastily opened a paper Joe had bought from 
 Dan Burk, a large, important paper from the far- 
 away outside world. He paused a moment, for facing 
 him, in huge type, heading the telegraphic column, 
 was his own name ! 
 
 " J. P. Wilkerson " then on the next line " Great 
 and continued excitement in Eureka ! Townspeople in 
 Arms! Mass Meetings held by Wilkerson, the school- 
 master, and leading man of the town ! Dark threats 
 against the imported workmen ! Notwithstanding his 
 immense interests, which may be seriously involved, 
 Mr. Paul Henley and his guardian, supported by 
 Engineer Mills of the Eureka mines, keep a firm front ! 
 Grand article from the Eureka Star written by Wil- 
 kerson ! Base ingratitude of the latter's position ! "
 
 172 JERRY. 
 
 Then followed a garbled version of one of Jerry's 
 articles. 
 
 Steadily he read it all through while Joe watched 
 him, steadily to the end ; then he laid the paper 
 down without a word, and sat quite still, looking into 
 the fire. 
 
 So this was what was being said of him; this vile 
 caricature was what had turned the doctor from him. 
 It could not be possible ; it was so absurd that even 
 in the midst of his anger it made him laugh almost. 
 The people were armed, but that was a custom ; who 
 would think of going unarmed in that wild country ? 
 And there were threats against the workmen ; but the 
 enormous falseness of his position as ungrateful and a 
 mob-leader, was manifest must be manifest to the 
 doctor. Then his face grew darker : Paul held up as 
 a model of manly firmness Paul, who on every occa- 
 sion quietly stood behind the doctor ! 
 
 " Notwithstanding his immense interests " ah, that 
 was the keynote ! Paul owned all that vast tract of 
 land ; Paul would be master of immense wealth this 
 was the keynote ; this was what made people call him 
 manly, and brave, and calm ! Money bought all these 
 golden opinions, money threw a halo around his 
 boyhood's enemy ah, the power of this pitiful gold ! 
 
 For a long time they sat silent '. Joe smoking slowly 
 and Jerry gazing into the fire with the bitterest of 
 bitter thoughts surging through his brain, and a mass 
 of hatred and anger gathering in his heart that would 
 suffice to wreck his life. 
 
 At last Paul had gotten the better of him. It made 
 no difference that he had followed with unfaltering zeal 
 every suggestion that the doctor had ever made to 
 him ; it made no difference that he had studied and 
 worked beyond his strength sometimes ; it made no 
 difference that he had admired and loved so faithfully : 
 all this made no difference, Paul had won the day. 
 
 There was some freemasonry among these well- 
 born people ; a birth-mark that made them under-
 
 JERRY. X I?3 
 
 stand each other ; a class brotherhood that made them 
 stand by each other. He was one of the " common 
 herd " and must stand back : a duty had been done by 
 him ; a life-long obligation laid on him that held him 
 fast bound him hand and foot. They could push 
 him to one side and go on their way ; but forever he 
 must watch that no act of his crossed their paths or 
 wishes. 
 
 He hated himself he hated his position, almost 
 he hated Joe because he had not left him to die on 
 the roadside ! 
 
 " Well," Joe said, as he carefully picked out a 
 suitable coal to light his pipe, '-'how does it suit 
 youuns ? " 
 
 " It is all a stupid lie," Jerry answered with deliber- 
 ate slowness, as if afraid to say too much. 
 
 " Dan Burk says it's orl true," Joe went on, " an' 
 thet orl the country jest swars by youuns," rubbing 
 his hands with much satisfaction, " an' he says 
 as you could make the people do anything you 
 likes." 
 
 Jerry sat silent : he was sore and hurt, and did not 
 wish Joe to see how much he had been humiliated. 
 
 " An' it beats me," Joe went on, " why you don't 
 jest tuck the people an' make things go youuns' way: 
 I'd jest tuck aholt of Durden's an' play the devil 
 alonger Eureky an' thet Paul Henley," then with a 
 chuckle " Dan allers names him ' Polly,' he do." 
 
 Still Jerry sat silent, and Joe could not read him; 
 but the suggestion took hold of him with a sweeping 
 grasp: why not take this power offered him the 
 power of the people and match it against the power 
 of money ? why not take hold of the opportunity now 
 before him, and make the first bold stroke for his fort- 
 une: why not take the lead and be the ' people's 
 man ' ? 
 
 So he sat and brooded, while Joe smoked diligently 
 and spoke occasionally of the brilliant future that 
 might be before Jerry.
 
 174 JERRY. 
 
 " An' Burden's Mine is jest fuller gole " he said at 
 last as if to himself. There was something in the tone 
 that made Jerry think Joe had unintentionally be- 
 trayed himself, and he looked up suddenly into Joe's 
 eyes; but after one little flicker of the eyelids they did 
 not flinch. Steadily the men looked at each other, 
 and many things surged into Jerry's mind, steadily 
 he looked with knowledge growing in his eyes and 
 shining on Joe, steadily, until Joe rose restlessly and 
 knocked the ashes out of his pipe. 
 
 " It's time to turn in," he said, and left Jerry sitting 
 in front of the dying fire. 
 
 Long he sat there revolving many things: piecing 
 together many tiny circumstances; mere straws of cir- 
 cumstances that now pointed straight through the 
 mystery he had not allowed himself to try to solve 
 the mystery of Joe's money. He remembered quite 
 distinctly the night Joe had first shown him a piece of 
 gold, how he had heard other pieces jingle in his 
 pocket: he recalled the strange stories that were kept 
 afloat as to the horrors of Burden's Mine: and he re- 
 membered that Joe had offered to buy land for him; 
 and yet Joe worked neither in Burden's nor in Eureka. 
 
 Joe had never trusted him the doctor had turned 
 from him, yes, he was alone. 
 
 Slowly the cinders fell and were buried in the gray 
 ashes; slowly the great logs burned through and 
 broke, sending wild flurries of red sparkles up the 
 broad chimney, slowly the night waxed and waned. 
 The long procession of his days passed before him and 
 left him longing for a weary, ragged, silent woman with 
 gentle eyes. He turned from this first real problem 
 of his life that stood up and faced him so relentlessly, 
 and almost he longed to return to the dense ignorance 
 of his childhood, if so he might touch again the love 
 that had died for him. He seemed to hear the thud 
 of the blow that killed her, and his blood crept cold 
 and tingling through his veins ! 
 
 " Mammy mammy ! " he whispered, while the dead
 
 JERRY. X I7S 
 
 ashes piled in gray heaps, and the cold dawn crept 
 under the door " Mammy mammy ! " with a death- 
 like longing to hold the poor work-hardened hand in 
 his. 
 
 What were all the world without some love on which 
 to base his life ?
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 "Great Need, great Greed, and little Faculty." 
 
 next morning the crowd was about the school- 
 l house door again, and the reporter standing in the 
 shade scribbling. Jerry regarded him now as a 
 personal enemy; for he must be the one who gave such 
 false pictures of him and of Eureka to the world. And 
 yet, should not he thank this creature who had swept 
 away the film of imaginary friendship which had 
 blinded him ? clearing his eyes that he might more 
 fairly judge of this friend who, when he cried for 
 bread, gave him a stone ? 
 
 Jerry did not linger this morning, but kept up his 
 long swinging stride until he reached the schoolhouse 
 door; and when the people closed about him, he did 
 not take his pistols out. 
 
 " Well," he said, looking about him; and the spokes- 
 man of the day before came to the front. 
 
 " These fellers," he answered, pointing to the house 
 where the doctor's workmen lodged, " these fellers 
 gits two dollars an* a half a day." 
 
 " Do you pay it ? " Jerry asked. 
 
 The man shook his head. 
 
 "That aint the question," he answered; "the rale 
 thing is jest this-away: day in an' day out we men 
 have been a-payin' the doctor at the price of a dollar a 
 day when we worked out a sickness"; then pausing a 
 moment, " I do allow that there was never no charge 
 for widders and orphins; but I aint no widder," with 
 much animation, " an' I've worked for every blessed 
 baby at a dollar a day ! " 
 
 "An" me ! " 
 
 T76
 
 JERRY. M77 
 
 " An' me ! "came from many in the crowd. 
 
 " And what work did you do for the doctor ? " Jerry 
 asked, determined to be just, and feeling bitter enough 
 to humanity at large to keep to his determination. 
 
 " We chopped wood." 
 
 " Any negro could have done that." 
 
 "An* raked the yard," was called out. 
 
 " Or that," Jerry added scornfully. 
 
 " An' worked on the road." 
 
 " And that did you as much gocd as it did the doc- 
 tor," Jerry cried. 
 
 " An' hauled rock." 
 
 " But did not get the rock out." 
 
 "No," fiercely, "but I'm a man, I am; an' if my 
 work aint wuth but a dollar a day, there aint nary a 
 feller that is wuth more." 
 
 " Very well," and Jerry put his hands in his pockets; 
 " it has taken me more than ten years to learn enough 
 to teach this school, and do any of you pay me a dol- 
 lar a day?" looking around scornfully "one dollar 
 a month is what the richest man in Eureka pays me 
 for teaching his child; and when a man sends me two 
 children, he pays me one dollar and a half a month to 
 teach them both. Did it take you ten years of hard 
 work to learn how to rake a yard, or to chop wood, or 
 to haul stone ? You know that it did not, you know 
 that there is no fool who can say it took him more 
 than one day to learn these things; and yet you claim 
 a dollar a day. You say your time is worth that much, 
 and you know that is a lie; for if you had not been 
 working for the doctor, and paying him for curing 
 your wives who support you, you would have been 
 lounging about in Dan Burk's or Dave Morris's 
 shop, and drinking up at least fifty cents a day. You 
 are not worth a dollar a day, any one of you, and you 
 should pay the doctor for keeping you away from 
 whisky. Now I do not want to hear any nonsense 
 about this land question; I said it was a sin to specu- 
 late in land, and I say it still. But I say it is a blacker
 
 1 78 JERRY. 
 
 and more damnable sin to drink; to starve your chil- 
 dren; to work your wives to skin and bone, and then 
 to kill them in some drunken fury ! " his eyes flashed 
 viciously on the crowd: it was only a few hours ago 
 that in the early dawn he had recalled the thud of his 
 mother's death-blow. " Have none of you ever beaten 
 your wives until they could not move ? Have none of 
 you shed the blood of an unoffending fellow-man be- 
 cause you were crazy with bad whisky ? I know you 
 have: and there is not one man in this crowd whose 
 wife is decently clothed this day, or his children 
 decently fed. 
 
 " These men who have come to work for the doctor 
 are men who have paid much money to learn to work 
 as they are working now, and they deserve what pay 
 they get. You," with infinite scorn, " could no more 
 do this work than your miserable cur dogs could, and 
 you know it. I am not afraid of you, and I will tell 
 you the truth if I have to kill you afterwards : for my 
 pistols are better than yours, and I shoot equally well," 
 putting his hand on his belt. " But this I say : you 
 would be greater fools even than I take you to be if 
 you attack the doctor or his men. You have lost this 
 chance for making money, but I will see that another 
 opportunity comes to you. Only save your money 
 and do not sell what land you own ; promise me this 
 and I will be your friend through all." 
 
 " It's all blamed true," the spokesman acknowl- 
 edged, " an' if you'll watch for us we'll be satisfied ; 
 eh, fellers ? " 
 
 " There's been some damned hard words said," one 
 man demurred. 
 
 " But pisen true," another amended. 
 
 " If you say much more, Jim Davis," Jerry cried, 
 " I'll flog you like a dog ! " he was bitterly angry ; 
 he hated his kind ; he would have liked to .beat and 
 beat, like a brute and cruelly hurt something. The 
 words he had said helped him because they were so 
 venomously true. He scarcely knew himself, so
 
 JERRY. 179 
 
 vicious was the change that had come over him ; and 
 he stood glaring at Jim Davis and almost longing to 
 see him step into the ring that at his challenge the 
 crowd had instantly formed. 
 
 And the reporter across the road watched, and 
 listened, and scribbled, and Jerry thought what a fine 
 heading he was making. The least thing that could 
 be said was that he was whipping the mob into his 
 views. 
 
 And at last, when Jim Davis backed dewn, Jerry 
 longed to thrash the reporter. 
 
 " Well," and he looked around the ring of disap- 
 pointed faces, " you wont fight if I have said hard 
 words ; I think you are sensible, although I will be 
 honest enough to say that I should like to beat some- 
 body to-day." 
 
 " Good for you ! " was called out. 
 
 " I would," Jerry went on ; "I would like to whip 
 that man over yonder who is writing lies about us to 
 the Eastern papers." 
 
 The crowd turned instantly, and as the clear voice 
 reached him the reporter looked about anxiously for 
 a place of retreat. 
 
 " But none of you must touch him," Jerry went 
 on, " do not dare to touch him, for his lies are going 
 to help us. I only want you men to keep sober ; 
 to save your money, and to save your land ; and the 
 day will come when we can show that Eureka and 
 Durden's have men in them as good as can be brought 
 here." 
 
 " You bet, Mr. Wilkerson ! " and a cheer went up 
 from the crowd. 
 
 " And if the strangers determine to build up one 
 town, we will build up the other, and if you will help 
 me, I know the race will be an even one." 
 
 Again the applause rose heartily, and the young 
 man felt the thumping of his pulses and the surging 
 of the blood in his veins. 
 
 " But you must trust me," he went on, " and if the
 
 i8o JERRY. 
 
 time of waiting seems long, you must not grow im- 
 patient. I will promise to watch and to work honestly, 
 for I long to see things change in these towns. I 
 came here half dead, and one of your number took me 
 in ; and the doctor saved my life as he has saved the 
 lives of many of you. No man must touch him : no 
 man must dare to lift a finger against him or his, for 
 \ I promise to kill the man who does," pausing while 
 the crowd swayed uneasily ; then more slowly, " and 
 you know I am not afraid?" looking about as if 
 waiting for an answer, an answer that did not come. 
 "I have nobody in this world, and death means very 
 little to me : but while I live I shall try to help those 
 about me. I am one of you : I am poor as you are : 
 I belong to the same class that you do, and ever since 
 I have had sense enough to think, I determined to do 
 all in my power to help my own class." 
 
 " An' we'll stand by yer, Mr. Wilkerson." 
 
 " I hope you will," more slowly, " for if you will not 
 help yourselves, I can not help you. I do not wish 
 you to come here to the schoolhouse again, but I want 
 you to work. Take work from any one who will give 
 it to you, and put up your money somewhere else 
 than in the whisky barrels. Now I must go to my 
 work ; and remember, I do not get a dollar a day." 
 
 He turned and went into the schoolhouse with all 
 the excitement gone from him, and a weariness creep- 
 ing over him that made him long to lie down and die. 
 
 What a fool he had been ! what a wild scheme this 
 was that had laid its hold on him, and how could he 
 dare to make any promises to these people ? 
 
 He shook himself savagely : his scheme was as 
 good as many schemes of which he had read schemes 
 that had succeeded. The doctor had taken Eureka 
 as his hobby ; all of his and Paul's investments had 
 been made there ; why should not Jerry take Bur- 
 den's ? It was only two miles away ; it had plenty of 
 land about it that was still untouched ; it had gold ! 
 
 Eureka would fill up rapidly and overflow ; these
 
 JERRY. ^ 181 
 
 men who promised to stand by him must be made to 
 buy the land about Burden's must be made gradually 
 to sell their lots in Eureka. And some day, if he 
 could possibly without ingratitude or treason, he 
 would open a grand new speculation that would make 
 Burden's shoot far ahead of Eureka ! He put his 
 face down in his hands, for the children had not 
 come yet, and his scheme grew and grew before his 
 covered eyes,- -grew and glittered with applause and 
 gold, and he saw himself a great financial and political 
 success ! 
 
 But behind the gilded picture a far-off memory came 
 of a dull, gray evening, when the ghastly snow-clouds 
 hung low, and the wind cried up the gorges like a 
 human creature ; of a wild leaping stream that wailed 
 as it fell, and wrung white, helpless hands ; of a child 
 whose soul went out in dim, unrealizing sympathy for 
 the water that came from the far sun-lightened heights 
 to the gloom of the valley. Had it come to him then, 
 some dim foreshadowing of his life ; some prescient 
 dream of the failing from the high endeavor to die on 
 the sandy plain ? The path roughened and the gorge 
 darkened in the picture, and the blackness of desola- 
 tion gathered about it, and the water that dropped 
 forever ! Never ceasing, never failing ; dropping on 
 and on, and never making a stream dropping on the 
 stillness like a sob or a sigh heavy, regular, slow. 
 He could hear it now with the broad morning light all 
 about him : and he tried to shake himself free from 
 the vision of the drawn dead face that had so terrified 
 him years ago. He was nervous from loss of sleep : 
 he was weakly superstitious : he was a fool ! 
 
 And he was glad when the children, trooping in, 
 brought him back to the tiresome reality of his life. 
 
 Maybe the gold and the success did lie down among 
 the dead in the darkness ; still it was more enticing, 
 more worth than the narrow, high path of duty he had 
 imagined himself traveling when he put his shoulder 
 to this educational wheel. Who would ever realize
 
 1 82 JERRY. 
 
 the earnestness of his labor ? who among these care- 
 less, ignorant little beasts would ever look back on him 
 as anything more than the man who had taught them 
 their letters ? who would know the sublime truth of 
 his endeavor, the great end he tried to put them in 
 training for? Among the hundreds of thousands of 
 schoolmasters, how many had been even thanked or 
 reverenced how many remembered ? 
 
 So he reasoned from the gospel of Justice scarcely 
 knowing the gospel of Love.
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 " Friends, this frail bark of ours, when sorely tried, 
 May wreck itself without the pilot's guilt, 
 Without the captain's knowledge." 
 
 IT was a bold, wild scheme that he had thought out 
 in his long night's vigil ; and one too rash for any 
 
 but a young and practically ignorant man to have 
 imagined. He had no realization of the difficulties 
 that stood in his way ; he had no conception of the 
 mass of work to be done, nor of the great confidence 
 he must not only inspire, but retain, before he could 
 make even a beginning. 
 
 He had no thought but of the bitterness and anger 
 that had sprung to life in his breast under the injus- 
 tice of the doctor's treatment, and the insulting 
 patronage of Paul's manner. He would succeed, he 
 would obtain this power and hold it ; he would make 
 these people, who scorned and distrusted him, at least 
 remember him. 
 
 But how should he begin ? 
 
 The question was a momentous one ; one wrong 
 move at the beginning and he could never recover 
 himself. And yet he must begin at once ; he must 
 take some steps to keep up the feeling he had inspired 
 already. The people were in an excited state, and 
 unless something were done to fix them, their energy, 
 born of disappointed avarice, would disperse in a 
 series of street rows. 
 
 He must formulate his scheme at once, and make 
 his first move. 
 
 He taught absently, and dismissing his school earlier 
 than usual, walked down to Dave Morris's shop. A 
 little crowd of loungers were grouped about the door, 
 
 183
 
 184 JERRY. 
 
 and sitting on the counters ; the long, narrow room 
 was dark and dirty, and pervaded by the mingled 
 smells of rancid bacon, bad whisky, and stale tobacco 
 smoke ; and the floor almost could have been plowed 
 and planted, so dirty was it. 
 
 Dave Morris's shop was, in truth, the most misera- 
 ble specimen of a poor country-store ; and its fre- 
 quenters seemed to be among the lowest of the 
 low. 
 
 There were women there, too, lounging and drink- 
 ing as the men were ; and girls, and boys, and little 
 children. Involuntarily Jerry paused on the thresh- 
 old : it was the first time he had seen his class in one 
 of its natural and favorite lairs, and the sight was a 
 shock to him. Joe and the doctor had kept him from 
 even the sight of these things while a boy, and since 
 he had been his own master, he had never thought of 
 investigating this place that had been but a name to 
 him. He had read of such places, and had heard 
 this special place discussed ; but he had not realized 
 the degradation of his fellows. 
 
 For a moment he felt ashamed of having come there 
 at all, or of having in any way associated himself with 
 these people. Then the thought came back to him, 
 that when first he had looked forth to his life in 
 search of a worthy work, he had intended to help 
 these people. He had intended being a benefactor ; 
 now the scene had shifted his motives had changed, 
 and he intended to be a master. Still this memory 
 of his high motive comforted him a little. He had 
 not begun his mission in the way he had at first 
 dreamed of doing, and it was well that he had not ; 
 for he found that to work for these people for love or 
 for charity wa,s simply to insure a loss of all their 
 faith. They were incapable of understanding any 
 such high motives, and what they did not understand 
 they would not trust. 
 
 In all the years that the doctor had worked for 
 them, they had come to look on him only as a person
 
 JERRY. "185 
 
 whose learning had had some strange effect on his 
 brain. It had taken many years for them to learn to 
 trust him ; and at the last, it was only because some 
 leaders like 'Lije Milton and Dan Burk had stood up 
 for him. 
 
 It was hard to convince them that a man in his 
 right mind would have done all he did for them for 
 thanks only. They had never been brought firmly to 
 believe it, and the last few months had made them 
 know, to their own satisfaction, that their distrust was 
 not misplaced. Now they hated him ; while Jerry 
 unconsciously had made himself a hero by taking his 
 honest and uncompromising stand on the land ques- 
 tion. They saw, too, that Jerry was not afraid of 
 them : he had not spared words, and if the occasion 
 came, he would not spare bullets. 
 
 He was the town's talk, and the people's hero ! 
 
 Jerry was not aware of this when he stood in the 
 doorway of Dave Morris's shop ; but through all his 
 reasoning and excuses he was aware that he had let 
 go the only thing that could excuse his being in that 
 low place he was lowered in his own sight, and felt 
 penetratingly the disgrace of using such tools as these. 
 And yet, though the moving motive of his schemes 
 was no longer their elevation, yet the success of his 
 scheme must elevate them. 
 
 He paused a moment in the doorway, thinking an- 
 grily how ugly these men and women were. Seeing 
 them one at a time in the sweet sunshine of the plains, 
 or in the shadows of the mountains, they were not so 
 revolting ; their surroundings were not fitted to them, 
 and so in a manner mitigated their wretchedness. 
 But here, where everything had been selected with a 
 view to suiting their tastes where everything was an 
 outgrowth of their own natures, the picture was hor- 
 rid in its degradation and filthiness. 
 
 " Mr. Wilkerson, you do me proud," and Dave Mor- 
 ris, the proprietor, stepped forward " what will you 
 have, sir ? "
 
 1 86 JERRY. 
 
 " I want the latest paper you have," and Jerry laid 
 a small coin on the counter. 
 
 But Morris was not as yet, nor in small coin to be 
 paid by this rising man ; and he spun the little piece 
 of money back to Jerry, and slapped the greasy paper 
 down in front of him. 
 
 " Notter cent, Mr. Wilkerson ; notter cent, sir," he 
 said grandly, " I'll be damned if Dave Morris is the 
 feller to take ' spons ' from the friend of the people, 
 sir ; no, sir! " 
 
 The little coin still rolled as he spoke, and Jerry 
 with his hands in his pockets watched it as it neared 
 the edge of the counter and at last dropped on the 
 floor at his feet ; then he looked up. 
 
 " I came to buy a paper," he said, with a slow dis- 
 gust that even these people could see, " and not to 
 beg one, nor to hear you swear at yourself," and he 
 turned away, taking the paper up carefully because it 
 was greasy, and leaving the money on the floor. 
 
 In an instant Dave Morris was over the counter, 
 and standing in front of his customer ; Jerry stopped 
 and looked full in the bloated, brutal face, and the 
 thought flashed through his mind that this was not 
 the wise " first move " he had intended to make. But 
 it was unavoidable, and if it ruined his influence in 
 the towns ? The thought was like a reprieve if it 
 ruined his influence he could get out of this wretched 
 position. " Well," he said ; and the crowd made a 
 ring as if they had been drilled to it. 
 
 " Do you think because you've got a little damned 
 learnin'that I'm agoin' to take your impidence, durn 
 you ! you " 
 
 There was one swift blow that scattered the words 
 which would have been spoken, and a heavy thud as 
 Dave Morris measured his length on the floor, and 
 Jerry dropping the paper stood with a pistol in either 
 hand. 
 
 " I want fair play," he said, looking round him in 
 the dead, startled silence that followed his quick blow ;
 
 JERRY. " 187 
 
 for the crowd was as much stunned almost as Morris ; 
 " You can help Mr. Morris up, if you like," Jerry went 
 on, stepping back a little, " but I want all to under- 
 stand that I will take neither words nor favors." 
 
 His words rang clear and angry, and the reporter 
 in the doorway and the outsiders in the street paused 
 to take in the meaning. "Take no favors!" this 
 man was crazy: But Jerry did not think of them as 
 he stood over his fallen foe, who would not get up. 
 Several moments he stood there ; then with a scorn- 
 ful smile he put away his pistols, and picking up the 
 paper turned to the door. " I shall be in town all day 
 to-morrow," he said significantly ; and the crowd 
 made way for him to pass. He felt more disgusted 
 and angry with himself than ever ; he felt dirty and 
 low, but he knew that the people were looking at him 
 from every hovel, for the noise of the fray already 
 had sped from lip to lip, and that even in the midst 
 of his self-contempt he must appear as if nothing had 
 happened ; so he opened his paper. 
 
 Involuntarily his step slackened as again he saw 
 his words and his name heading a column. Fiery 
 words that he had not written, vile actions that he 
 had never contemplated committing. 
 
 He read on and on, walking slowly, while his tem- 
 per got up and his self-disgust died a natural death, 
 and as in the morning he longed to beat somebody : 
 almost he could have turned back and again attacked 
 Dave Morris. His first feeling of relief in thinking 
 that perhaps by striking Dave Morris he had destroyed 
 his own growing influence, and so had freed him from 
 the difficulties which were gathering about him, had 
 vanished ; and the consciousness that possibly he had 
 done the most unwise thing that could have been done 
 for his cause, in thus hopelessly offending one of Eu- 
 reka's potentates, now added to his irritation. 
 
 Dave Morris was a leader ; a man who held in his 
 hands the fates of most of the people ; for as they 
 were all in debt to him, they were all afraid of him.
 
 1 88 JERRY. 
 
 Through him Jerry could have swayed the town; 
 could have ruled even the whisky trade, which was 
 his greatest enemy. 
 
 Surely he had made a dangerous first move. 
 
 Once out of the town and away from the oversight 
 of his kind, his pace slackened, and he trailed his 
 paper at his side. A dangerous first move : and if it 
 ruined him, would it not be better to live in peace and 
 quiet up among the rocks, pursuing the literary life 
 the doctor had trained him for ? live there quietly 
 with his own thoughts and books for company ? 
 
 Then the sudden recollection came to him that now 
 that he could no longer go to the doctor's library, he 
 had no books. The blood stole slowly up into his dark 
 face ; how much he owed that man ! how boundless 
 was the debt of obligation ! 
 
 He folded up the paper and his step became firmer; 
 his scheme must not fall through. Already he had 
 changed too much, changed through learning and 
 unlearning, ever to settle again into the still trustful- 
 ness of his past life ; and he began to review his latest 
 action more quietly. He had knocked Dave Morris 
 down, thus making an enemy of the chief man of 
 the town; but also he remembered that Dave Morris 
 had refused to get up ; and that the crowd had seen 
 this : would not this tell in his favor ? their chief 
 lying prone before them, entirely conquered ? 
 
 His eyes flashed a little ; perhaps, after all, it had 
 been the best and wisest thing that could have hap- 
 pened ; and his step became more brisk. At all 
 events he would tell Joe, and hear his judgment of 
 the matter. He made the fire and cooked the supper 
 as usual, and when Joe came in there was no extra 
 excitement either in Jerry's voice or manner. 
 
 " I had to knock Dave Morris down to-day," he 
 began. 
 
 Joe looked up slowly. 
 
 " Dave Morris ? " he repeated. 
 
 " Yes, Dave Morris," and Jerry poured out the
 
 JERRY. 189 
 
 coffee; "he cursed me," he went on, " and I knocked 
 him down. He was afraid to get up," he added, with 
 a little satisfaction creeping into his tone, " and I 
 told his friends that I would be in town all day to- 
 morrow." 
 
 Joe took his cup of coffee. 
 
 " I'll be thar too," he said quietly, " Dave knows me, 
 an' he knows thet nobody pesters me ner mine, 'thout 
 thar's a buryin'." 
 
 " You must not take it up, Joe," and Jerry's voice 
 had grown softer; it had been so unexpected, this 
 sympathy " me or mine " this man loved him. 
 There was no duty nor expediency here. " I can 
 manage him, Joe," he went on ; "you must not get 
 into any difficulty for me, I am not worth the trouble." 
 
 Joe cleared his throat. 
 
 " Thet's orl right," he said, " an* you makes me 
 feel bad, Jerry ; makes me feel bad like I did when I 
 picked youuns up out yander," pointing over his 
 shoulder ; " you kep* on a-cryin' ' Mammy, I aint got 
 nobody ! ' an' it jest knocked me orl to pieces, it did," 
 pausing thoughtfully in his eating, but never raising 
 his eyes to Jerry's face, " you talked like me in them 
 days, you did." 
 
 " And I wish that I had never changed," and 
 Jerry's slim, nervous hand clasped Joe's rough, work- 
 hardened palm. He was tired and excited, and this 
 unexpected championship, coming so quickly on the 
 heels of the doctor's desertion, shook his self-control 
 more than he would have thought possible. " I re- 
 member when I began to try to be like the doctor," 
 he went on more rapidly, " and I made a mistake, Joe. 
 I would rather be like you." 
 
 " Youuns do me proud, Jerry," was all Joe said, nor 
 did he turn his hand to take Jerry's: his class did not 
 understand this kind of sensitive demonstration; they 
 said few words and made few motions, and both words 
 and motions were clumsy. But this man was true ; 
 and Jerry felt it with a force and keenness that became
 
 190 JERRY. 
 
 pain. This man had sheltered, and fed, and clothed 
 him for all these years, and now was ready to fight his 
 battles. 
 
 A love that had done all, and had asked no return : 
 for the first time this fact flashed across Jerry's mind, 
 and with it the pain that came with the knowledge 
 that he could make no return. 
 
 He did not love Joe, and never had; from the first 
 he had felt himself Joe's equal, and later on his 
 superior; but now the relation between them came 
 home to him in a new light, and he realized what it 
 was that had made his life so smooth. And now 
 love from him to Joe was not natural, and never had 
 been cultivated. All these years he had loved the 
 doctor, day and night his effort had been to please 
 him; but it had gone for nothing: this love had been 
 shivered and broken into invisible poisoning frag- 
 ments, and would wound him evermore. 
 
 Love Joe ? The question was a new one, and he 
 withdrew the hand Joe had not taken. He had been 
 a fool to try to climb to any height did not height 
 mean loneliness ? Why had he striven for any more 
 than his class usually needed: was it only because the 
 doctor had led him on ? Must there not have been 
 something in him that answered to the impulse: who 
 knew what there was in his blood. 
 
 He finished his supper in silence, and when all was 
 put away he spoke again. 
 
 " There is no need that you should go to Eureka, 
 Joe," he said. 
 
 " Mebbe I knows morer about Dave Morris 'an you 
 do, Jerry." 
 
 " Well, he can but kill me," Jerry answered. 
 
 " That's orl," Joe granted, " an' killin' wouldn't 
 mean nuthin' to you, ner nuthin' to me, rightly ; 
 but," taking his pipe out of his mouth, " it'd mean a 
 heap if you wuz a-lyin' har, an' couldn't lif a eye 
 ner a han" when I come home," drawing a long breath, 
 " it'd make a heaper diffrunce," then a silence fell be-
 
 JERRY. 191 
 
 tween them until Joe spoke again : " Ever sense 
 you usen to squat over thar nigh the fire, an' ax 
 me, 'An' what's a buryin', Joe?' when you never 
 knowed nuthin' ceppen what I telled you ; ever 
 sence then I aint been satisfy to steddy 'bout 
 doin' 'thout you, Jerry, an' I aint agoin' to be 
 satisfy." 
 
 Jerry rose, and stood looking down into the fire ; 
 was it an abounding love that remembered the pitiful 
 sayings of his childhood ; or was it that in a life as 
 empty as Joe's, small things would be remem- 
 bered as long as life lasted. There was no rush 
 of thought nor of feeling to raise the annihilating 
 storms that sweep through lives that are edu- 
 cated and sensitive ; there never had been any- 
 thing for Joe but the monotonous living from day to 
 day. Jerry's train of reasoning failed him abruptly, 
 and all the unexplained things in Joe's life rose up 
 before him. 
 
 In this common life there was a mystery he had 
 guessed at only, how could he say what there had 
 been ? What did he know of Joe's life ? 
 
 He turned slowly. 
 
 " Tell me all about your life, Joe," he said. 
 
 For one instant Joe looked up, and there was a 
 thrill in the voice that spoke to him, and a light in 
 the eyes that looked down on him, that he did not 
 understand, and that made him look away. 
 
 He could not grasp the longing for companionship 
 that was moving Jerry he thought only, " Jerry is 
 cur'us, sure ! " 
 
 His life ? 
 
 Joe had never summed it up had scarcely realized 
 that he had had the spending of a life. 
 
 "I 'Hows as I don't jest onderstand youuns, Jerry," 
 he said slowly. 
 
 Jerry walked across the floor, then back. 
 
 " You have lived a long time," he said. 
 
 " Moren sixty yeer," Joe answered, " Moren sixty
 
 19 2 JERRY. 
 
 yeer ; but I dunno rightly the day, not the rale day," 
 and he wondered how this concerned Jerry. 
 
 " And how have you managed to live all these 
 years ? " Jerry went on, with a hopeless tone creeping 
 into his voice. 
 
 " I most allers had ernough to eat," was answered 
 calmly. 
 
 Enough to eat. 
 
 Jerry walked to the door, and out along the little 
 path that led to the trail. The stars glittered ; the 
 wind that came so far seemed to speak to him ; and 
 he thought " Is the soul of Nature the only soul that 
 mine can touch ? " 
 
 Did he stand alone, in that he reached above the 
 formula " enough to eat " ? 
 
 Up he climbed, unheeding the roughnesses, unheed- 
 ing the fatigue ; up until he was above the billowy 
 mist that hid the plain the flat, helpless plain that 
 could not reach to any height. 
 
 And for him, was it any use that he should reach up 
 forever? The people he thought to raise, did they 
 have any other wish in life than Joe had ; did they 
 know or want any other answer to his question than 
 " I have enough to eat " ? 
 
 Long ago he had toiled, and journeyed, and hoped, 
 and at the end had found a barren height and the far 
 plain glorified ! 
 
 All about him as he stood the moonlight fell broad 
 and shining ; the ragged shadows lay clear-cut and 
 black as ink ; the wind rose and fell ; the stars looked 
 down like patient eyes, and at his feet the silent mist 
 waves gathered and broke noiseless spirit-waves 
 tearing themselves against the cliffs. 
 
 Was it any use to leave the plain ? Did not the 
 light reach it as surely ; did not the streams reach it ; 
 and from the heights what else did one see save only 
 the plain glorified ? 
 
 Money was all that was needed to glorify anything : 
 Money !
 
 JERRY. 193 
 
 And up there in the darkness he seemed to see the 
 bewildering glitter of gold ; he seemed to remember 
 all the things done and sacrificed for gold since man 
 was made ; since the world smiled in its beautiful 
 youth. What caused this enchantment ? What had 
 given gold this weird power that so enchained all the 
 world ; that brought from men their bodies and 
 hearts their lives, and honor, and souls ? 
 
 Had God made all this fair world, and then in all 
 the cracks and crannies put this snare, this bewilder- 
 ing, shining ruin, that the poor souls he had created 
 might destroy themselves for it ; delve and toil 
 through all their lives for this one thing that in itself 
 was nothing ? 
 
 Why should not anything else have the same value ; 
 or why should not the world find enough to surfeit 
 poor humanity, and make gold a drug in the market. 
 Think of all the vast sums that had been gathered 
 and lost ; think of all that was in use ; think of all 
 that still lay hidden in the earth ! Why not gather it 
 all together ; work it all out ; scatter it broadcast 
 through the nations, and so destroy this devilish 
 snare ? Scatter it until the world could spend and 
 hoard no more, -and it would be like the autumnal 
 leaves, or " like as when one heweth wood " ; like the 
 poor chips that are not worth the gathering. 
 
 How they would glitter and gleam in the sunlight, 
 these piles that would be gathered for the nations ! 
 how coldly they would shine when the moonlight 'fell 
 upon them ! 
 
 He shook himself. 
 
 He was losing his mind. He must go home ; Joe 
 would want to shut up the house ; and he turned and 
 with deliberate slowness retraced his steps. He had 
 climbed a long, rough way without knowing it, and 
 the return was very slow. 
 
 He would carry out his scheme : but first he must 
 win the people entirely ; and then when all was ready 
 he would tell Joe, and search into the worth of Dur-
 
 194 JERRY. 
 
 den's Mine. Money was needed for the scheme ; and 
 it must be saved, or begged, or borrowed ; and to 
 what extent would Joe help him ? 
 
 It was wild and rash, maybe, this fight he was be- 
 ginning against money and station ; but it would be a 
 fair test of the stability and worth of the masses. 
 Money would be entirely absent from their ranks, and 
 the fight would have to be fought before any capital 
 could be won. It was an interesting problem, and 
 one he was beginning to long to work out. 
 
 And after ? 
 
 He drew a long breath : and after would be the 
 gold, and the luxury, and the power which would 
 place him on a level with his rivals, which would let 
 him look the doctor in the face and say " I am suc- 
 cessful, and in my success I thank you and say, ' I 
 have been true to you always.' " 
 
 Success could humble itself and be called nobility 
 failure could be servile only.
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 " We are men of ruined blood; 
 
 Therefore comes it we are wise. 
 Fish we are that love the mud, 
 Rising to no fancy flies." 
 
 IT was a still, gray day, with an unhealthy coolness 
 and dampness in the air for August. The clouds 
 
 hung low and heavy ; not a leaf stirred in the 
 gloomy gorges, and on the spreading plains there was 
 not a movement. An unnatural, blank stillness, as if 
 the world were dead. 
 
 Jerry walked the long way with even, quiet steps ; 
 Joe had gone away long ago, but whether to his usual 
 work or to the town, Jerry had not asked. No words 
 had passed between them as to the possibilities of the 
 day, and Jerry thought it not unlikely that Joe had 
 repented him of the rash and generous ardor of the 
 night before. 
 
 Slowly he pursued his way, his hat drawn down 
 over his eyes, his pistols well at hand, and his eyes, 
 and ears, and mind all alert for any sign of an enemy; 
 for if Dave Morris struck it would be in secret : a shot 
 from behind some tree or rock. 
 
 And what difference would it make ? If his life 
 were taken, all this difficulty would pass away with 
 one or two triumphant shouts from the opposite camp, 
 then he would be forgotten save by Joe, perhaps. 
 Would be buried out in the rain-gullied graveyard, 
 near 'Lije Milton, maybe, whose dead face had come 
 to him in Burden's Mine. He remembered so well as 
 he tramped along in the gray stillness, the terror and 
 wonder of that time, and the signs that Joe had read
 
 196 JERRY. 
 
 in the circumstances. And the doctor's explanations, 
 that he well remembered explained nothing. The 
 doctor had turned his mind away only ; had thrown 
 on 'him the burden of an explanation. 
 
 " Do you expect to buy Burden's Mine ? " he had 
 asked, " else, why should 'Lije Milton come to you ? " 
 Buy Burden's Mine ? how strange it all seemed that 
 now he should want to buy Burden's Mine and the 
 question came up to him, how could he find out about 
 it, and who owned it now ? 
 
 The doctor would know, and perhaps Engineer 
 Mills, but they were enemies : could he ask Joe ? 
 
 He paused a moment : he had had so many sus- 
 picions, would it be quite honest to ask Joe ? Of 
 course it would ; it showed a darker suspicion still 
 for him to hesitate. If he knew where to find Joe he 
 would go back at once and ask him. 
 
 He walked on slowly : his school would be waiting, 
 and if he were not there Bave Morris would declare him 
 a coward ; and all the unwise impatience which he 
 had shown yesterday, and which he might at this 
 juncture turn to good, would be used against him. 
 Twenty-four hours would make no difference in his 
 knowledge of Burden's Mine. 
 
 At last the town was reached, and all was as quiet 
 as if no creature had ever heard of a railway. The 
 doctor's corps of workmen stood about the door of 
 their house waiting to start to their work ; and up and 
 down the street Jerry could see the children loitering, 
 waiting for the school-bell to ring. 
 
 There was no sign of any excitement, and Jerry un- 
 locked the door with a little feeling of surprise that 
 his orders should be obeyed so literally. 
 
 Slowly the hours of the mowiing came and went, 
 and at last the miners' bell for dinner rang, and, the 
 children dispersing to their homes, Jerry opened his 
 dinner-bucket. 
 
 He was provoked almost that he had heard nothing 
 of his yesterday's broil : he had expected certainly,
 
 JERRY. 197 
 
 before this hour, some threat or overture from Morris, 
 and was a little disappointed at the quiet of the day. 
 Later he would walk up the street and get another 
 paper ; the mail came in again this day, and he wanted 
 to see the latest accounts of himself, and of the 
 town. 
 
 Would Morris sell a paper to him, he wondered ? A 
 knock came at the outer door, a quiet, respectful 
 knock as of one who hesitated to disturb him. 
 
 " Come in ! " he called. 
 
 And, hat in hand, Dave Morris stood before him. 
 
 " Good-mornin', Mr. Wilkerson." 
 
 " Good-morning," and Jerry rose with his hand well 
 round on his hip. 
 
 " Hope you don't bear no malice, Mr. Wilkerson ? " 
 Morris asked, leaning on the back of the chair Jerry 
 had offered him. 
 
 " I have no need to bear malice," Jerry answered, 
 looking him over from head to foot. 
 
 " Thet's true," slowly, not looking up, " the knock 
 come from you ;" then sitting down, " but I've come 
 for peace to-day, durned if I aint." 
 
 " No cursing, please," and Jerry before he sat down 
 laid a pistol on the table. 
 
 Morris paused a moment, while a dull red heat crept 
 up his face ; why did not he kill this young man ? but 
 this question found no utterance, and he began 
 slowly : 
 
 " I've come to say, Mr. Wilkerson, thet if there's 
 anything I kin do to help you on a bit, I'm ready : 
 I'm your friend, I am." 
 
 Jerry gathered up the remains of his lunch and put 
 them back into the bucket. 
 
 " An' if you want me to stop the fellers from buyin' 
 whisky," Morris went on, " I kin do it," looking up 
 slowly ; " I heard you the mornin' that you said for the 
 fellers not to put up their money in my whisky 
 barr'ls ; an' I'm agreed to it provided," pausing 
 and fixing his eyes on Jerry's eyes that looked at
 
 198 JERRY. 
 
 him so steadily " provided I know your idea," 
 cautiously. 
 
 " I have none," and Jerry cocked and uncocked his 
 pistol carelessly. 
 
 By some means whether fear, or hope of gain, 
 Jerry could not decide this man had been made 
 anxious to join him, and Jerry saw his advantage. 
 Again the trigger of the pistol clicked sharply in the 
 silence. 
 
 Morris moved his chair uneasily ; a loaded pistol 
 turned about recklessly in another man's hands is not 
 a pleasant or reassuring sight, 
 
 " You had ideas the mornin' you talked to the 
 fellers," Morris said at last. 
 
 " And you heard them," Jerry answered. 
 
 " I did, but I think I'd like to hear 'em again." 
 
 There was a moment's pause, then Jerry answered : 
 " I told them that I wanted them to take all the work 
 they could get, never mind who gave it to them ; I 
 told them I wanted them to keep whatever land they 
 owned either in Eureka or in Burden's ; I told them 
 that I would watch for them, and that whichever 
 town the strangers built up, we would build up the 
 other ; I told them that when the time came we should 
 need money, and that they must save all they could." 
 He ceased, and Dave Morris's small, bleared eyes 
 watched him keenly. 
 
 " An' you'll build up a town without no money ? " 
 he asked. 
 
 "I have said we would need money," Jerry an- 
 swered curtly, "and that the people must save it." 
 
 " Live at a dollar a day and save money ? " 
 
 " It can be done easily." 
 
 " An' then what ? " skeptically. 
 
 Jerry looked up coldly. 
 
 " I do not know why I should tell you my plans," 
 he said. 
 
 " You don't, don't you ? " and Morris put a piece 
 of tobacco in his mouth with a swaggering air, " I tell
 
 JERRY. 
 
 you I kin save more money for you in Eureky, than 
 all the men there." 
 
 " Do it, then." 
 
 Morris looked at him with distrust in his eyes ; no 
 man who was not entirely independent would speak so 
 shortly ; and he answered slowly : 
 
 " Thet's right easy said, Mr. Wilkerson ; but I don't 
 know that I'm goin' to stop a good whisky trade 
 without knowin' what's to do afterwerds." 
 
 Jerry was silent for a moment : what Morris said 
 was true ; it would be useless to try to save the 
 people's money as long as Morris sold them whisky ; 
 nor could he expect him to stop his chief trade with- 
 out some prospect of compensation ; yet to reveal his 
 plans would be ruin ; and Jerry was puzzled. 
 
 Dan Burk ! the name flashed into his mind like a 
 beam of light. Burk was a higher type, and could 
 manage Morris and Eureka too. 
 
 " Very well," Jerry answered carelessly, while his 
 plans formed themselves rapidly rn his mind, " if you 
 can not trust me, you need not help me. Besides, I 
 think my work will lie in Durden's, and there are those 
 there who will do as I wish and ask no questions"; 
 then laying down his pistol, and crossing his arms on 
 the table, he looked straight into Morris's face. " I will 
 give you a friendly warning," he said ; " your trade is 
 going to fail you : the men who live here, soon will 
 have no money to spend at your shop, for the new 
 people who come will rather employ the new men who 
 come with them, and there will not be work enough 
 for all. More than this, new people who know what 
 decent things are will not trade with you, and you 
 will be simply crowded out." 
 
 Morris's face flamed with color ; he shuffled his feet 
 restlessly, while his hand sought the leather belt about 
 his waist. Jerry did not seem to heed him, and only 
 changed his position sufficiently to begin a^ain his 
 idle play with his pistol. 
 
 " This place will be taken in hand by great cap-
 
 200 JERR Y. 
 
 italists," he went on quietly, " and the people here 
 can expect to hold their own only a little while longer ; 
 then they must move further west, or retreat to Dur- 
 den's. They have ma*de enemies of two of the lead- 
 ing men, and must expect no favors." 
 
 " An' you done it for 'em ! " Morris brok^ in 
 angrily. 
 
 " And am glad that I did," was answered coolly, 
 " for now I can put them in a better condition than 
 ever before ; and make money faster for them : only 
 they must trust me." 
 
 Morris's whole expression changed, and he leaned 
 forward eagerly. 
 
 " Is Dan Burk the feller ? " he asked, " is he the 
 feller you think of to help you ? " 
 
 Jerry laughed a little. 
 
 " So long as you are not the man," he answered, 
 " I do not know that any part of this scheme is your 
 business." 
 
 Morris rose hastily. 
 
 " Damn " then his voice died away in his throat, 
 for Jerry's pistol covered him, and its little mouth 
 looked huge, and the shining hammer was drawn far 
 back ! One moment he glared on the quiet, dark face 
 opposite, then sat down slowly ; and Jerry, who had 
 not moved, laid his pistol down and waited for Morris 
 to speak. He had not long to wait, then Morris 
 asked sullenly : 
 
 " What'll you pay me to stop the whisky trade ? " 
 
 " Nothing." 
 
 "An" how's it goin* to help me? " anger creeping 
 into his voice again. 
 
 "You will be a more honest man," Jerry answered, 
 smiling, " and will allow other men to be more honest 
 and decent, and you will be better in health." 
 
 " An' my fambly'll starve." 
 
 " Not more than other families you have ruined." 
 
 " Mr. Wilkerson " menacingly ; but the children 
 began to come in, and Jerry rose.
 
 JERRY. 
 
 201 
 
 " I will be here this afternoon at five," he said, 
 " and to-morrow at twelve if you wish to see me again." 
 
 Baffled and angry, Morris rose : there was some- 
 thing in this young man that he could not grapple 
 with : he hated him bitterly for his insults and slights 
 that would have cost any other man his life, but he 
 was afraid of him. Morris had killed men for far 
 less. But now he stood twisting his hat about in his 
 hands, while Jerry watched him, and waited for his 
 going watched and waited silently, with his eyes 
 fixed on the ugly, sullen, face. It was only a moment 
 or two he had to wait, then the greasy old hat was 
 donned, and Morris turned to the door. " I'll come 
 to-morrer," he said, and made his way out through a 
 group of children. 
 
 Jerry drew a long breath, partly of satisfaction, 
 partly of doubt. Had he been wise to refuse so 
 entirely this man's support and assistance, basing his 
 plans on Dan Burk, to whom he had not as yet 
 spoken on the subject ? And would Morris come 
 again to-morrow, or would he form a rival party ? 
 
 The long, gray afternoon dragged its weary length ; 
 the children droned through their lessons ; and in the 
 pauses the crickets cried their ceaseless monotone. 
 Nothing stirred in the clouded stillness; and when 
 the tasks were done and the children dismissed ; when 
 the gray day showed its death by growing yet more 
 gray and still, Jerry heard the bugle-call rise soft 
 and clear echoed back by the great mountains until 
 it died slowly from the world. 
 
 There was an inexplicable pain to him in the sound 
 of that horn, almost as if he had been called and 
 could not answer could not go. As if he had left 
 all he cared for ; as if in some unwilling way he had 
 descended from his sphere and station. 
 
 Then with a bitter scorn of self he would remember 
 that he had been born to no station, as the meaning 
 of the word was taken ; and the sphere he had moved 
 in until it seemed his by right, had been opened to
 
 202 
 
 him through charity. He was only one of the " com- 
 mon herd " a favorite phrase of Paul's one who 
 would have to make a name and place ; and who 
 would have only such foothold in life as he cut for 
 himself. 
 
 He laughed a little bitterly. 
 
 " A key of gold fits most locks," he said to himself 
 as he went his way up the rough mountain path.
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 " We pant, we strain like birds against the wires ; 
 Are sick to reach the vast and the beyond ; 
 And what avails, if still to our desires 
 Those far-off gulfs respond ? " 
 
 " Contentment comes therefore ; still, there lies 
 
 An outer distance when the first is hailed, 
 And still forever yawns before our eyes 
 An utmost that is veiled." 
 
 JERRY was glad that he had the fire to make and the 
 supper to cook, for this every-day work brought 
 him back to a realization of his position and of all 
 he owed Joe, for whom he now had a much higher 
 respect than for either himself or the doctor. 
 
 The corn-bread was assuming a most approved 
 brown tint ; the bacon was crisping and curling ; the 
 coffee was bubbling and muttering-in the pot, sending 
 out a grateful fragrance. Homely, coarse fare, and 
 Jerry knew it. He had read of the banquets and 
 feasts of ages gone, and had read modern novels 
 about the many alluring ways of feeding people which 
 fashion invents and money pays for. He had read it 
 all with a sort of scorn at first, but later with a changed 
 feeling that grew to be a longing to see the sights and 
 hear the beautiful sounds of music and laughter that 
 must fill in these pictures. And lovely women : he 
 had read of them too, and paused a moment as he 
 turned the bread that was browned on one side ; how 
 would they look ? He had never seen one save once 
 when he was alone in the doctor's study, and before 
 him on the table lay a case, a red morocco case. It 
 was different in shape from any he had ever seen 
 before, and what could it contain ? It did not occur 
 
 203
 
 204 
 
 to him that there was any wrong in opening it, and he 
 unhooked the clasp without one tremor of his honest 
 boyish heart. 
 
 A sweet fair face, that was more delicate than any 
 he had ever seen: he did not know if it were beautiful, 
 for he had no standard ; he had never seen any faces 
 since he could remember, save those of the work- 
 hardened, slovenly drudges about the towns where he 
 lived ; but there was something in the picture that 
 held him. It looked so small and fine, like some of 
 the flowers he had seen among the rocks, but had 
 never picked because somehow he knew that one 
 touch would kill them. 
 
 The eyes met his with an expression as if they once 
 had pleaded for protection, but afterwards had learned 
 a look of bravery ; and the mouth was pained. 
 
 " Poor little thing," he had said, and had sighed as 
 if he knew the sorrow that looked from her eyes. He 
 felt that he would have spent his life in saving her 
 from ill ! 
 
 Of course he was a fool, and that face was only a 
 picture, maybe of the doctor's mother or grandmother 
 who had died long ago. 
 
 Poor woman ! 
 
 Then he shut the case ; a new thought had flashed 
 on him ; maybe this face had been the one face that 
 the world had held for the doctor? And had she 
 died ? and so he had come out to waste his life on the 
 people. Was this the secret of that life ? 
 
 But the memory of that face never left Jerry en- 
 tirely, and it became the nucleus about which all his 
 youthful dreams grouped themselves. If he could 
 only know a face like that : could only move in a 
 world where such refinement was common. Paul 
 could, but he could not : could not until he made a 
 golden key. 
 
 He turned the bread carefully while he pondered 
 on the discontent that had culminated so suddenly in 
 his heart. If the doctor had not turned from him he
 
 JERRY. '205 
 
 would have been satisfied always with the old life ; but 
 now all was changed and he was filled with a restless 
 ambition and jealousy : feelings which he fully recog- 
 nized, and a year ago would have despised. Now he 
 must rise if it took a lifetime to mount one step ! 
 
 Perhaps when he was an old man he would see slich 
 faces about him. When his eyes were too dim to see 
 almost, and his ears too dull to hear, and his heart 
 too weary to love, then all these things would come 
 to him ! 
 
 " Well," and Joe stood in the doorway. 
 
 " How are you ? " Jerry answered, and turned to the 
 table. 
 
 " Thar's a paper," and Joe laid the printed sheet 
 down, " it cusses youuns wuss an' wusser ; durned if 
 I'd stan' it." 
 
 Jerry put the paper on the shelf. 
 
 "I will have my say some time," he answered. 
 
 " An' Dave Morris says as youuns is welcome to the 
 paper when you wants it." 
 
 " Dave Morris ? " 
 
 " Thet's what I said," sitting down near the table. 
 
 " You have been there to-day ? " 
 
 "I hev." 
 
 Jerry poured out the coffee in silence : questioning 
 was not customary between them, and what else there 
 was to be told must await Joe's pleasure. The supper 
 was over and the few things washed and put away : 
 then Jerry lighted the lamp and took up the news- 
 paper, and Joe filled his pipe. 
 
 Truly, as Joe said, the abuse and misrepresenta- 
 tions seemed to culminate in this paper. There was 
 nothing too false to be said nothing too wild to be 
 predicted ; and at the end a comment by the far-off 
 city editor, that many of the idle and worthless in the 
 city were coming out to throw in their lots with the 
 " redoubtable Jeremiah P. Wilkerson." Jerry read it 
 over again " the idle and worthless," the paper said : 
 what should he do with them ? His heart sank within
 
 206 JERR y. 
 
 him. The little ball he had set rolling was taking 
 such appalling proportions. 
 
 " Dave Morris says as youuns is the peskyist var- 
 mint as ever he's knowed," Joe broke in, taking his 
 pipe from his mouth, " an' I says, says I, ' Dave, 
 Jerry'll kill you 'thout thinkin',' says I," and Joe 
 chuckled contentedly to himself. 
 
 This described his ideal hero, a man who " killed 
 without thinking," and that Jerry should hold this 
 proud position, and hold it in the estimation of the 
 man who harried all Eureka, was to him an infinite 
 satisfaction. 
 
 Jerry put down the paper ; he was anxious to know 
 of Joe's interview with Dave Morris. 
 
 " Morris came to see me to-day," he said. 
 " An' come back mashed jest as flat ! " Joe an- 
 swered with a readiness that showed his pleasure. 
 " An' I axes him, ' Dave, did you skeer Jerry ? ' 
 Lord ! " slapping his leg, " you jest oughter seen 
 him, Jerry ; I 'How he'd a-liked to eat me jest whole, 
 he would ; says he, ' Joe Gilliam, youuns aint got 
 but one hide,' says he, cussin' awful, ' an' if you 
 keeps on a-pesterin* me I'll jest use it up,' says 
 he." 
 
 " And you ? " Jerry asked. 
 
 " I jest knocked him down," pleasantly, " I gin him 
 a eye thet'll not look purty fur a while," and Joe 
 chuckled a little " but I tole him as a rotten apple 
 were mighty good fur it." Then Joe returned to his 
 pipe. 
 
 He had gone to Dave Morris's shop to intimidate 
 him, and had succeeded in doing not only this, but in 
 addition had knocked the man down. This had been 
 his day's work, and he had been happy in it ; Jerry 
 had knocked Dave Morris down one day, and he, the 
 next ; what more could Eureka need to prove to her 
 that these men from the Durden's side were superior ? 
 Knowing the people, Joe knew that his and Jerry's 
 reputations were made now ; and that no man in
 
 JERRY. '207 
 
 either town would touch them without much thought 
 and calculation as to the consequences. 
 
 It was a happy feeling that came over Joe ; a calm 
 assurance that he had done his duty by Jerry, and at 
 the same time had won renown in Eureka. Surely a 
 good day's work. 
 
 Then Jerry looked up suddenly. 
 
 " Who owns Burden's Mine ? he asked. 
 
 The fire still threw its quaint shadows ; the lamp 
 still burned with unwavering brightness ; it must have 
 have been Joe's eyes that flickered and winced until 
 the room seemed dark flickered for a moment so 
 that he could not see the face of the younger man 
 and when he spoke his voice had changed. 
 
 " Burden's Mine ? " he repeated " Burden's Mine ? 
 I dunno fur rayly." 
 
 So Jerry had heard what he had said by mistake 
 the other night. 
 
 And Jerry took the shade from off the lamp, and 
 looked at the wick as if something ailed the light. 
 " I thought you would know," Jerry said slowly, while 
 many surmises as to Joe's words flashed through his 
 mind unbidden " and that you would tell me about 
 it ; for if I know who owns it, and can find out from 
 the owner its value, I can the more easily persuade 
 the people to buy land in Burden's." 
 
 " An' open the mine agin ? " was questioned in a 
 lowered voice as of one in fear of some catastrophe. 
 
 " Of course that would be the plan," raising the 
 paper again between him and Joe, " that, or find gold 
 somewhere else near at hand ; I suppose it lies all 
 about here." 
 
 He had not looked at Joe since he asked the ques- 
 tion about the ownership of the mine, and now went 
 back to a pretense of reading in order to be able to 
 collect his thoughts and reason them free from his 
 suspicions. 
 
 And Joe sat still with his pipe going out, and his 
 eyes fixed blankly on the fire.
 
 208 JERRY. 
 
 It had been many a long year, many a long year 
 since he had been warned that some bad end would 
 come ; many a long year since he had been pleaded 
 with to come away and let the place alone ; many a 
 year. 
 
 He glanced furtively at the corner where the dog 
 Buck lay sleeping ; then vaguely up along the rafters ; 
 then back again into the leaping fire that, even though 
 it was August, did not seem able to warm him now. 
 
 The Devil had made gold, she had said ; God had 
 nevef made that thing that ran men crazy ; the awful 
 gold that shone in their eyes until they could see noth- 
 ing else. And she had made him bury her in a place 
 where there was no mark of gold ; no trace of the 
 kind of rock that held it, else somebody would come 
 some day and dig her up to hunt for gold, and she 
 and the baby wanted to rest. And gold would break 
 his heart some day, she said : would it ? 
 
 It was very long ago since his " little Nan " had 
 warned him very long ago, but dead people surely 
 came back surely ! And he knew the path so well 
 and every rock by the way ; and everything was so 
 convenient there ; his eyes knew the darkness, and 
 his back knew the angles and curves in the rocks ; 
 and his lantern, would it burn anywhere else or his 
 pick break any other stone ? And the nuggets ; the 
 little shining nuggets, he had found so many of them 
 washed down by the water that dropped and dropped 
 forever, and that far back in an unknown corner helped 
 to make a stream that flowed away lost itself. And 
 all that he gathered was for Jerry, all of it ; and if 
 others came in all else that would be found should 
 have to be divided. 
 
 No, of course there was no gold in Burden's Mine! 
 and he drew his chair nearer the fire. 
 
 " Thar's gole in the water thet runs down the 
 mountain," he said at last ; and Jerry looked up. 
 
 " I suppose there is gold all through that gorge," 
 he answered, "even if the old mine is worn out";
 
 JERRY. 209 
 
 then more slowly, " It is not the mine that I want so 
 much as it is all the land about it." 
 
 Joe knocked the ashes out of his pipe and filled it 
 freshly ; " I 'Hows as it aint lucky, the gittin' of gole," 
 he said ; " my Nancy Ann says, say she, ' Joe, don't 
 you tech no sich work,' says she, ' 'cause I 'Hows the 
 devil made gole ; God never done no sicher thing as 
 thet,' says she, ' to shine an' shine in a man's eyes tell 
 he can't see nothin' else,' says she "puffing slowly at 
 his pipe, " an' youuns done hed a warnin', Jerry, a 
 rale warnin'," almost angrily, " an' you 'Hows thet 
 it's a sin to speckylate in Ian', an' is jest a-bein' cussed 
 out 'bout it, an' now you is jest a-hankerin' atter 
 it." 
 
 " Not as a speculation," Jerry answered ; " I want it 
 to help those who have been hurt by speculators. I 
 want to give our people who have lived here always, 
 as good a town as these new people expect to have ; 
 I want to give them mines to work in that will cause 
 the railway to build a station at Burden's also ; I want 
 to give them a good school ; I want to make the men 
 more sober and decent, and the women more clean 
 and respectable ; I want " 
 
 " To maker fool of yourself, Jerry Wilkerson," Joe 
 struck in unexpectedly, while the angry color flashed 
 into Jerry's face. " Youuns hes been a-livin' in the 
 doctor's steddy a-drinkin' books an' papers ; an' 
 Burden's an' Eureky's been a-livin' in dirt, an' a- 
 drinkin' whisky ; 'an' they loves it, yes, jest like 
 youuns loves the books an' the papers, they do ; an' 
 lemme tell you jest one perticler if you wants 
 to start this po' trash off, you'll hev to promise 'em 
 money, an' piles of it ; an' if you don't give it to 
 'em, they'll kill you in a minute ; jest you 'member 
 thet ! " shaking his head, " orl they wants, or knows 
 'bout, is whisky, an' terbackey, an' dirt ; they's usen 
 to it an' born to it an' likes it. Lord ! " taking a 
 puff at his pipe, " an' the wimmins is satisfy 'cause 
 they 'specks to be beat, an' needs it too,"
 
 210 JERRY. 
 
 Jerry had turned away, and again had raised the 
 paper before his face. 
 
 "I do not agree with you," was all he said when 
 Joe's voice ceased. 
 
 " Orl right," and Joe chuckled to himself, " but 
 thar's one thing I'm gettin' to be powerful sure 'bout, 
 an' it's thet the doctor onderstan's these mean critters 
 better'n I 'Mowed jest at fust ; he do thet." 
 
 Jerry moved his feet impatiently. 
 
 " It's the Lord's truth," Joe went on ; " an' when 
 they've jest plum killed you out, they'll stan' squar' 
 up to the doctor an' to Paul, jest you watch an' see " 
 looking anxiously at the paper behind which Jerry 
 hid himself " 'cause the doctor an' Paul jest stomps 
 on 'em 'thout axin' no questions, they do, jest 
 stomps 'em clean out ; " then more slowly, " I aint 
 got much larnin', but I knows a pig loves its mudhole, 
 an' a dorg is better fur beatin', an' it aint agoin' to do 
 no good to tuck them things away. They's mad 
 alonger the doctor now, 'cause youuns is done showed 
 'em thet they's been 'posed on ; but they aint .agoin' 
 to 'member thet long ; an' when they gits to doin' 
 nothin' ceppen steddy 'bout youuns Lord ! you'll 
 hanker alter gittin' shed of livin', you bet ! " 
 
 "And you do not know who own Burden's Mine ? " 
 Jerry repeated coldly. 
 
 " No, I dunno," he answered slowly, then moved 
 his chair outside where no more such questions could 
 reach him.
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 " and also this 
 Fell into dust, and I was left alone." 
 
 DAN BURK would know. 
 This thought had come to Jerry in the night, and 
 he determined to follow it up. As far back as 
 he could remember, he had heard Joe speak of Dan 
 Burk more than of any one else save the doctor ; and 
 Jerry felt quite sure that Dan could tell him all he 
 wanted to know, and more, for Dan was an older in- 
 habitant than Joe, and would know more of the local 
 history. 
 
 Another fact of which Jerry was now convinced 
 was that Joe got his money from Durden's Mine, 
 which made his lack of knowledge as to the owner- 
 ship seem more strange. But Burk would know, and 
 Jerry was determined to make Burk tell him all that 
 was known of the mine. Durden's had been always a 
 strange story to him ; as long as he had believed what 
 the doctor had told him, that the better find was at 
 Eureka and had remembered what Joe had told him 
 in his childhood about Durden's as a fairy story, 
 he could understand the desertion of Durden's ; but if, 
 as Joe had lately revealed, Durden's mine was full of 
 gold, why had it been deserted surely not for a ghost 
 story ! It was true that the people were not aggres- 
 sively energetic; and as the Doctor and 'Lije Milton had 
 invested in Eureka it was natural, perhaps, that the 
 people should follow ; but still, Joe's assertion of the 
 richness of the mine made the facts hard to be under- 
 stood. And now that he had committed himself so 
 far that he could not go back, he must get at the truth 
 of the story.
 
 212 JERRY. 
 
 His scheme was far within the bounds of possibil- 
 ity ; and success would bring him money, the one 
 thing ne needed to put him on a level with Paul, and 
 to compel the doctor to respect his shrewdness at 
 least. 
 
 He would go to Dan Burk in the morning before 
 school, and if he gained any information it would help 
 him in his interview with Morris. 
 
 He left home as early as Joe that day, only waititig 
 until he was out of sight. He thought he had never 
 known Joe to take so long to go ; he was excited and 
 restless, and the waiting was trying. 
 
 The paper he had read the night before had put 
 new thoughts into his mind ; he was known out there 
 in the East much more than where he lived, and was 
 looked on as a crafty mob-leader as a violent com- 
 munist as a dangerous demagogue ; and men were 
 coming out to cast in their fortunes .with his to fol- 
 low him wherever he should lead. 
 
 This sudden thought had demoralized him for a 
 little while, but now he had recovered himself, and 
 was determined to be ready for all who should come. 
 A new excitement was creeping into his veins ; his 
 army that was to do battle against influence and cap- 
 ital ; that was to win for all who came after a foot- 
 hold and a hope ; that was to make him triumphant 
 this army was fast doubling itself. The " halt, and 
 the maimed, and the blind " were coming, " with 
 neither scrip nor purse " coming to test a great 
 question, and to prove once more, in the long, dark 
 history of the world, the power of the people ! 
 
 He walked more rapidly to keep pace with his 
 thoughts. Of course Joe would not have worked in 
 Burden's Mine all these years, his thoughts ran on, 
 unless there was gold to be found there. It would 
 hurt him to stop, but the avarice of one man could 
 not stand against the gain of the many ; Joe had had 
 long years in which to lay up store, now he must 
 stop ; indeed, he was too old to do such hard work,
 
 JERRY. 213 
 
 and once well started, Jerry knew that he could sup- 
 port them both easily. 
 
 Early as it was, Dan Burk's door was open, and he 
 and his shop were both dirty. There were no 
 loungers about as yet, however, and Jerry felt he had 
 done well to come at this hour ; for besides the quiet, 
 Dan had had nothing to drink. 
 
 " I wanted to see you, Mr. Burk," Jerry began, 
 " and had no other time ; can you spare me a half- 
 hour ?" 
 
 " I reckon," and Dan placed a chair for his vis- 
 itor. 
 
 " Who owns Durden's Mine ? " the question was so 
 sudden that Dan started, with a betraying look of 
 wonder in his eyes. 
 
 " Durden's Mine ? " doubtfully. 
 
 " Yes," and Jerry did not move his eyes. 
 
 " What do you want to know for ? " cautiously. 
 
 " Tell me ; you will not lose anything by it," and 
 the two men looked fully and searchingly into each 
 other's eyes. The suspicious, treacherous eye of the 
 shopkeeper the tired, keen eyes of the clever school- 
 master who had just now begun to measure his 
 strength against the world. 
 
 " All right," and Dan laid his hand on Jerry's knee, 
 "it's Mis. Milton's." 
 
 For a moment Jerry looked at him in silence ; was 
 he telling the truth ? Could this be the truth and Joe 
 not know it ? 
 
 " I'll go with you and ask her," the man went on, 
 his face reddening angrily under his companion's eyes ; 
 " has Joe lied ? " 
 
 " That will do ! " and a look flashed on him that 
 made the words die on his lips ; he had heard of the 
 difficulty with Morris. 
 
 " And she owns all the land near it ? " rising. 
 
 " She does." 
 
 " Will she sell ? " 
 
 " She will, an' be glad."
 
 214 JERRY. 
 
 Then Jerry turned away, looking out the door and 
 down the road to the doctor's house ; he could see 
 the chairs on the piazza, and some one tramping up 
 and down ; how strange it was that he could not go 
 there now, artd ask advice when, and where, and 
 how had the breach between them begun ? 
 
 " You will not mention this," he said at last, turn- 
 ing his eyes again on Burk, " if you do " 
 
 " It's all right all right, Mr. Wilkerson, all right," 
 the man interrupted eagerly, " it's for you to remem- 
 ber, please, that I aint said nuthin'." 
 
 " Very well," and Jerry walked away. 
 
 Joe had lied ! and he drew a long breath. Joe, 
 whom he had trusted more than he would have 
 trusted himself ; Joe, whom he had looked on as the 
 one honest man he knew ; Joe, whom in the last few 
 weeks he had put far above the doctor for the exquis- 
 ite quality of sincerity ! 
 
 He walked rapidly, and his heels struck sharply on 
 the hardened soil. 
 
 Who could be trusted ? 
 
 Slowly the long story unwound itself, this one clew 
 showed him all. 'Lije Milton had owned the mine ; 
 had been unable to put workmen into it because of 
 the mysterious sights and sounds that haunted it ; 
 had gone in himself 
 
 Jerry's thoughts stopped, and a cold sweat came 
 out on him, and his mind went groping back to that 
 day when he had gone to see 'Lije Milton buried ; 
 what were all the circumstances what had Joe told 
 him ? 
 
 He could not remember, save that 'Lije had met 
 with some injury in the mine from which he had never 
 recovered. 
 
 He-drew his hand across his brow, and sat down 
 on a stone. If only he could recall and be able to 
 put together all that had been told him. How long 
 had old Burden been dead ; how long had Joe been 
 gathering gold on his own account ; how long had
 
 JERRY. 215 
 
 'Lije Milton owned the mine ? He remembered that 
 'Lije had been the discoverer of the new mine in 
 Eureka, and reaping gold from there, had been con- 
 tent, probably, to let his old property go. 
 
 Jerry rose slowly: he would not think these thoughts 
 any longer ; he dared not formulate any theory on 
 the slight basis he had, and the suspicions that had 
 come to him were too dreadful to be retained for a 
 moment. Besides, if 'Lije had met with any tangible 
 foul play while in the mine, he would certainly have 
 had his revenge. He felt relieved when he reached 
 this conclusion, and put all thoughts away from him 
 save that Burden's Mine had a bad name, and so 
 would be sold at a great discount. He must by some 
 means get money to buy the property, so securing it 
 to his scheme ; and he must find some person who 
 would be figure-head to hold this land and sell it out 
 in lots to the people from Eureka. 
 
 The scheme grew as he walked, and took clearer 
 and clearer shape in his mind. 
 
 Faster and faster he tramped ; his eyes shining, and 
 a slow color creeping up his dark face ; and he saw 
 himself a rich, successful man. 
 
 And Joe ? 
 
 The memory came over him like a cold wave, and 
 he tried to put it aside. Joe was a liar, but not a 
 murderer of his friend ; facts disproved that. 
 
 And most men seemed to be liars ? 
 
 He took his hat off ; his head was hot and throb- 
 bing, and he hated himself that he had found cause 
 against this man who had clothed him and fed him. 
 It was treacherous to judge him. .Joe had gathered 
 gold secretly, and had hoarded it all these years ; why 
 not, if he found pleasure in it? He had gathered it 
 from another man's possessions ! 
 
 The thought came unexpectedly, and put yet another 
 face on the question : Joe had stolen his money. And 
 yet, could it be called stealing if he had made a find 
 in a place that others had deserted ? had deserted
 
 216 JERRY. 
 
 from stupid superstition, while Joe had been brave 
 enough to go in and work there ? Could it be stealing? 
 
 Perhaps not ; yet, who was it that he had heard 
 talk of the horrors of the old mine ; who had said it 
 was death to go there ; who had been so mortally 
 terrified at the nervous vision of his childhood ? 
 
 Had it been a nervous vision ? 
 
 Even after all these years he did not like the 
 memory of it. 
 
 He put on his hat ; it was ridiculous to deal in such 
 fancies, and be swayed by them. If Joe had stolen 
 the chance and the gold, it was not his care he was 
 not the keeper of Joe's conscience. 
 
 He walked steadily on, and into the town. He 
 would have to turn Morris away again to-day ; he 
 had not learned enough to answer him yet. He would 
 have made overtures to Burk that morning, but what 
 the man had told him had shocked him from his pur- 
 pose : he would go again to-morrow and make his 
 inquiries the more sure from having had time to think 
 them over. 
 
 The day seemed endless : the children stumbled 
 and struggled with their lessons in a way that was 
 exasperating ; "they seemed bent on making mistakes, 
 on disobeying orders, on being kept in and whipped. 
 The atmosphere was heavy and clinging ; the smell 
 of onions and dirt was intensified, and Jerry's .nerves 
 seemed to strain, and tingle, and long for freedom. 
 He must have something better than this. 
 
 The day waned, and the tasks and punishments 
 were settled ; the future statesmen, and presidents, 
 and " reigning belles " had gone home to their hovels; 
 and Jerry, locking up his desk, heard the horn ring- 
 out so fine and clear. He listened ; when he became 
 rich and could claim success, he would have a band 
 of instruments such as he had read of, and would 
 ask the doctor to come and hear them play. He would 
 have this horn multiplied a hundred-fold, and every 
 note his own, and calling to him.
 
 JERRY. 217 
 
 Always he had read of music with a longing : it 
 would mean something to him : once in the night a 
 traveler had passed down the trail thrumming a 
 guitar, and Jerry had heard the sound ; heard it 
 coming like the throbbing of a heart coming with a 
 cry so vague, so unfinished only a cry with so much 
 left unsaid. Coming nearer and nearer until it seemed 
 to throb all about him as he sat up in the darkness 
 listening. Beating, crying, pleading with him to fill 
 out the unworded measure. 
 
 Fading down the black gorge, the sobbing, broken 
 cry passed away. 
 
 Would music be like all the other things he had 
 found in life a fragment ? Would he be striving 
 always after some unfinished measure ? 
 
 Again the sound of the horn swept'by him, and he 
 listened with an impatience that was unbearable. 
 Why had he been for all these years an idle dreamer, 
 wasting so much time preparing himself for the 
 cramped, chance life of a writer: feeding himself ill 
 on dreams and vagaries that seemed now to possess 
 him and to weaken him ? 
 
 He closed and locked the door with an angry 
 vehemence that had no foundation save dissatisfac- 
 tion with himself. He had been such a fool ! Would 
 he be able now to gather himself together, and to 
 stand entirely alone ; could he put aside all associa- 
 tions, all qualms of conscience, all feeling, and con- 
 quer success ? And he wondered vaguely if many 
 of those whom the world called successful had con- 
 sciences.
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 " Then every evil word I had spoken once, 
 And every evil thought I had thought of old, 
 And every evil deed I ever did, 
 Awoke and cried." 
 
 IT was very dark, and the entrance was dwindling 
 to a point of light. Still Joe seemed to know the 
 
 way with wonderful accuracy, and walked the 
 rough path with the stealth and swiftness of a cat. 
 
 A little further and he paused, felt along the wall, 
 fitted his hands slowly and carefully into a crevice, 
 then swung himself over some danger so well known 
 to him, that dropping safely on his feet he drew a short, 
 sharp breath. He stopped a moment just where he 
 had dropped, until he lighted a small lantern which 
 he took from a ledge in the rock, then moved on. 
 Carefully and slowly he went now, crawling like a 
 great spider, scraping himself against the wall. Only 
 a little space was lighted by the lantern, but the ledge 
 of rocks on which he walked stopped far within that 
 radius. Steadily on, looking neither to the right nor 
 to the left, but only on the next step he must take ; 
 carefully, cautiously, slowly, with his eyes shining and 
 his breath coming heavily. One misstep and he would 
 never be heard of again : one man had made this mis- 
 step ; he was sure of it, although no one else was ; he 
 knew because he had heard the legend of this narrow 
 way from Dan Burk, who had been the near friend of 
 old Burden. 
 
 And beyond this narrow way he had found the cave 
 the story had told about; and where, unknown to Burk 
 even, the old man had hoarded great treasure. 
 
 There was something strange about this mine ; some 
 devil of greed and deception seemed to inhabit it. 
 
 218
 
 JERRY. 219 
 
 He was safe over the narrow way now, and putting 
 his lantern down, he began to change his clothes with 
 rapid, stealthy movements. The whole man seemed 
 transformed and alive ; seemed to have shaken off the 
 stolid heaviness he wore in the outside world, and in- 
 stead moved about with nervous quickness. Having 
 arrayed himself in a rough, worn suit of clothes, he 
 put his usual apparel in a corner, then paused and 
 made a little wailing cry, a peculiar sound that in an 
 instant seemed to be repeated by a hundred voices ; 
 taken up again and again ; coming back sometimes 
 loud, sometimes low; seeming to die away, then wak- 
 ing suddenly to one more repetition ; weird, startling, 
 awful ! 
 
 He listened, and seemed to know when it was fin- 
 ished, then made the little sound again, this time not 
 waiting, but going deeper into the gloom, leaving the 
 little cries to wander up and down the hopeless dark- 
 ness until they died, up and down until the merciful 
 silence hushed them. 
 
 Joe lighted two more lanterns standing in niches in 
 the wall, then looked anxiously around the low arched 
 recess that almost was a room. 
 
 The walls look dull and dead, and here and there 
 were worked into deep holes ; especially on the side 
 overhanging a stream which ran the entire length of 
 the room : a stream that appeared without visible 
 reason in one corner of the room foaming white and 
 strong against the fretting barriers, and disappeared 
 suddenly through a low arch in the corner furthest 
 from Joe's place of entrance. Across its place of exit 
 was stretched a net of finest wire ; and deeper in the 
 narrow crack, a web of cloth. 
 
 Low Joe stooped and peered with his glittering eyes 
 that seemed to enlarge and gleam as he caught sight 
 of the shining particles washed by the water against 
 his catches. 
 
 "A good haul," he muttered, "a rale good haul," 
 then he rose, and took down from the jagged ribs of
 
 220 JERRY. 
 
 the cave fresh nets of wire and cloth. Carefully he 
 fixed them in place before he removed the standing 
 catches, waiting patiently for a few moments that the 
 disturbed water might resume its usual flow ; no 
 smallest grain must be lost. Carefully he removed 
 the nets that held the gold, emptying their hoard into 
 a flat pan of water ; dipping them again and again ; 
 examining them with 'bated breath. 
 
 "Orl fur Jerry," he whispered, stirring the glitter- 
 ing particles with his hungry-looking hands, "an* 
 a good lot ; an" he dunno, damn it !" tying a fine 
 cloth tightly over the whole pan, " dunno nothin* jest 
 ceppen hisn's books: talkin' so fine 'bout t'other folks, 
 an' what he 'Hows they orter hev : he aint got good 
 sense 'bout thet, God bless 'im ! an sich shinin' 
 eyes." 
 
 Carefully the string was untied when the last drop 
 of water had been drained from the pan, and the cloth, 
 with the valuable sediment inside, was gathered 
 together and tied like a bag, then hung near a small 
 iron stove filled with charcoal. 
 
 Slowly the fire lighted and grew red and glow- 
 ing glancing through the one opening in the cylin- 
 der like a great red eye, dull, burning, watchful of 
 the poor warped soul that only lived while in this den! 
 who seemed endued with new life ; who vibrated 
 and glowed as he watched the steam that floated 
 about the wet bag. It would not take very long to 
 get dry, then he would get all the particles out, even 
 to the least dust ; shake it clear and clean into the 
 little leather bag that soon would be full enough to 
 take to Eureka. 
 
 If only Jerry would have a little sense ; just a little, 
 he thought, as he squatted before the charcoal stove, 
 looking steadily into the red eye. 
 
 If only Jerry knew anything besides books : he had 
 learned too much ; he had learned more than Paul, 
 his thoughts ran on, for Paul only knew how to get 
 and spend money ; he did not know that a man ought
 
 JERRY. 221 
 
 to think about other men having money : Jerry had 
 learned too much. 
 
 He rubbed his hand back on his stubbly gray hair : 
 if Jerry only knew gold ; if Jerry could only see what 
 gold could get could only spend gold ; Jerry would 
 be like Paul, he would take all he could get and never 
 ask where it came from. 
 
 Maybe if Jerry could be sent to where Paul came 
 from, he would learn to be like Paul. 
 
 The idea crept into the anxious mind, and the deep- 
 set eyes seemed to catch fire from the red eye of the 
 stove, and to light up as the new possibility loomed 
 before them. 
 
 Jerry must go East. 
 
 At last the problem was solved : Jerry must learn 
 to spend money ; he must learn to love it, then Joe 
 would be left in peaceful possession of his den. 
 
 The red eye of the stove seemed to flash the 
 stream seemed to lift up its voice almost into a laugh ; 
 and from the black abyss the cries seemed to wake 
 and come back to the lonely worker. He listened. 
 
 " I hears it sometimes," he whispered, " when I 
 aint never made no soun' ! " and he looked over his 
 shoulder as if he expected to see a vision. " It'd orl 
 a-been fur youuns, Nan, if youunshed a-lived ; Iswar 
 afore God ! " putting his hands over his face " I 
 swar ! " 
 
 The stream laughed on and on, washing high up 
 against the nets ; the eye of the stove glared at the 
 dull wall ; the lanterns flickered and flared as myste- 
 rious draughts of wind reached up and touched them 
 with invisible, ghostly fingers : and the cries were 
 they echoing still through the blackness of that awful 
 passage ? Were the souls wrecked by this fatal den 
 waking and sobbing in the distance ? 
 
 " I swar, Nan ! " and the lean, work-hardened body 
 swayed back and forth where it crouched " I sw'ar ! " 
 
 Surely the dead came back surely. 
 
 The man rose to his feet hurriedly ; he must make
 
 222 JERRY. 
 
 some movement. Close over the stream was his 
 work, and standing in the cold water he swung his 
 pick with even, regular strokes ; breaking the rocks 
 into very small pieces that dropped into the stream. 
 The water and his hammer would do the rest of the 
 work for him. 
 
 On and on he worked, his strokes falling fast and 
 hard, his breath coming sharp and thick. On and 
 on only stopping now and then to step from the cold 
 water that he might warm his feet near the stove. It 
 would be his death some day, this standing in the 
 water : he had seen many a miner ruined in this way ; 
 either drawn up with rheumatism and left a helpless 
 cripple, or dying suddenly from some congestion 
 caused by cold. He knew that in this place and in 
 this work he would meet his death ; he knew that 
 sooner or later the end would meet him here. Maybe 
 walking that narrow ledge he would slip over with a 
 last long cry that would live to haunt some future 
 worker. 
 
 Steadily the strokes fell : it was all for Jerry. And 
 he must persuade Jerry to go East ; to see the things 
 that made money valuable. There was nothing out 
 here in the wilderness to make men love money. But 
 he had seen such things long ago when in the East he 
 and Nancy were nearly starved ; it was then that a 
 man had persuaded them and a lot of other people to 
 move West where a friend of his, Mr. Burden, had 
 found a mine. They had had hard times that made 
 him long for money, and made him come to this wild 
 country. But when they reached the place they found 
 that old Durden had disappeared in the mine some 
 time before, and the place was closed because the 
 people were afraid. They were simple, superstitious 
 country people content if they had room to plant a 
 little patch, and live from hand to mouth. There had 
 been no regular miners nor adventurers among them. 
 
 His Nan would have been content with a little 
 patch ; but Joe had dreamed golden dreams ; and
 
 JERRY. 22$ 
 
 besides it was too late that year to plant a garden. 
 Then it was that in despair he had explored the mine, 
 had found the black hole, and on its brink a little nug- 
 get that some creature must have dropped there. 
 
 He remembered now the intense, wondering joy of 
 that find ; and how he had taken it to Dan Burk, the 
 one shop-keeper of the whole region, who was at that 
 time reduced to as great straits almost as Joe. It was 
 then that with much cautious questioning they meas- 
 ured each other, and determined to trust each other. 
 Joe was not so much afraid of the mine as he was of 
 hunger and death for himself and his Nancy ; and 
 Burk, who was afraid of the mine, knew all its secrets 
 or thought that he did. 
 
 He knew that the shaft beginning in a cave opening 
 into which the stream, turned out of its course by 
 Burden, had once flowed, that this shaft had run into 
 an awful abyss which the people said had no bottom, 
 and into which the stream must have fallen originally : 
 that on the other side of this abyss there was a large 
 cave about which the Indians had left a story. 
 
 When by accident the workmen had broken into 
 this hole, the last Indian left in the settlement came to 
 see it and told his story. He said that on the other 
 side of this hole there was a cave in which there was 
 a stream that washed out quantities of gold ; that his 
 tribe hearing of this treasure-house had conquered the 
 tribe owning it. The battle had been fought out on 
 the plain, and the conquered tribe, when desperately 
 pushed by their enemies, had driven their wives and 
 children through the cave and into this hole, them- 
 selves jumping in after, doing this rather than become 
 prisoners, and lose their places as braves. He went 
 on to say that, after this, no good luck had come to 
 his tribe any more, that the Great Spirit fought 
 against them in every battle, until in the days of his 
 father they had closed and concealed the entrance to 
 the cave. That he had never known where it was. 
 
 Long consultations had been held between old Dur-
 
 224 JERRY. 
 
 den and his few helpers ; but the men refused to 
 brave the dangers of such a crossing for any amount 
 of money. The huge bonfire built on the edge of the 
 hole showed a narrow tunnel that seemed to have 
 neither bottom, nor top, nor end ; the only vestige of 
 any foothold being a narrow ledge of rock that could 
 be reached only by swinging across a section of the 
 hole. There was talk of a bridge, but there was no 
 skill there to throw one across the hole, and even while 
 they talked strange sounds had come from the hole ; 
 they were made to listen by the Indian : it was the 
 crying, he said, of the murdered women and children. 
 
 So the last man of the victorious tribe had spoken ; 
 with his hand resting on the shoulder of old Durden, 
 and something shining in his eyes that made old Dur- 
 den advise against the bridge. 
 
 Later, old Burden had heard further from the In- 
 dian : a whispered story of hidden treasure, that made 
 him risk the dreadful passage ; and Dan Burk said he 
 had found much. 
 
 The shaft that in the first instance had diverged 
 from the bed of the stream, but that in breaking into 
 the abyss had come into it again, was once more 
 turned aside ; and the men, who would not attempt to 
 cross the hole, agreed willingly to work there. 
 
 So all day long the men worked busily, and in the 
 night the old man went and came on his dangerous 
 journeys ; for day and night were the same in that 
 black place. For fear of having to share his gains, 
 Durden revealed his find to one man only, and to 
 him only because he needed a place of exchange for 
 his nuggets and dust. 
 
 Dan Burk had agreed to keep his secret for a cer- 
 tain share of the spoil, and had made money on the 
 bargain, until once the old man went, but came no 
 more. 
 
 Search was made until they came to the hole that 
 so held all in awe, and no man would go further. 
 They heard dreadful sounds and cries, they said, and
 
 JERRY. 225 
 
 saw strange shadows looming up in the darkness, so 
 that they turned back in terror, and the mine was 
 deserted. 
 
 The people had hard times then until the doctor 
 came and took command, and 'Lije Milton, who had 
 bought Burden's on a speculation, found the new 
 mine at Eureka ; then peace came again, and old Dur- 
 den was forgotten save as a ghost. 
 
 But during those dark days one man dared all, and 
 crossing the dreadful abyss crept along the narrow 
 ledge. He found the hidden treasure, and found also 
 that his predecessor had not shared fairly ; but care- 
 fully in strong boxes were little bags, clumsily but 
 safely made, and full of dust : and in another box a 
 shining pile of golden coin. 
 
 The old man had not carried out for exchange all 
 that he found hidden, but he had brought back and 
 stored afresh all the money he had gained. And all 
 his tools were there, and the charcoal stove, but no 
 other sign of him ; and Dan Burk's theory was that 
 he had lost himself in trying to 'find the old entrance 
 to the cave. Joe, who knew so well the perils of the 
 passage, said he had fallen into the hole. 
 
 And Joe, was he to reveal all that he had found ? 
 It was surely his, he had risked an awful death to 
 win it ; a death Dan Burk would never have risked. 
 No, it was not stealing ; and when his friend 'Lije 
 Milton wondered about the old story, he did not tell 
 his secret : 'Lije had plenty, and where he worked 
 was not Lije's mine, but an old Indian cave that 
 belonged to no one. 
 
 Of course it was not stealing ; and if Jerry would 
 only let him be, or if he could only find the old en- 
 trance to the cave! 
 
 He stopped in his work and laid his pick down : 
 there was one place he suspected as the end of the 
 old entrance passage, and once he had explored 
 it for a little distance ; not very far, but far enough 
 to realize that the dangers of it were too manifold for
 
 226 JERRY. 
 
 him to dare a hurried investigation : and he could not 
 be absent for any length of time without an explanation. 
 
 He took up a great stone pestle to crush the pieces 
 of rock that had fallen into the water. 
 
 Jerry must go East to learn to love money, then Joe 
 could have his days free from observation. 
 
 Surely Jerry must go East: the thought took stronger 
 and stronger hold on him : Jerry must learn the worth 
 of this money he had won from the hands of Death. 
 
 He had worked hard to get it ; had spent sparingly 
 to hide it, for he had learned to love the shining stuff 
 for itself. It seemed to get into his eyes as his Nancy 
 had said, and to shine and shine until he could see 
 nothing else. How heavily freighted he had been 
 sometimes, when crossing that narrow ledge ; how 
 carefully while Nancy slept had he dug a hole in the 
 corner of the house ; how secretly night after night 
 had he put away his treasure. And was it all to be 
 cast to the crowd to be scrambled for when Jerry came 
 into possession ? 
 
 He had not divided the found gold-dust with Dan 
 Burk, nor the box of money ; but only divided a part 
 of what he got each day. He had found in the engi- 
 neer of the Eureka Mines a man who paid more fairly 
 for the gold, and who asked no questions, as he was 
 in constant receipt of private stores of this sort. Every 
 man who had a little " find " of his own tried to hide 
 it from his fellow-man ; and all these little hoards 
 went to enhance the value of the Eureka Mine. Of 
 course it all came from this mine ; and the shares ran 
 up ; and the engineer's salary was increased ; and his 
 speculations grew ; and Joe's secret was safe. As to 
 Dan Burk, his share diminished steadily, and Joe grew 
 more importunate in his demands ; for he could get 
 a better price, he said. 
 
 Of what use was it that Dan th-reatened to tell of 
 the cave ; Joe's retort came readily " Tell 'em, an' 
 show 'em the way." 
 
 It was hopeless ; no one would attempt that passage
 
 JERRY. 227 
 
 when gold was so easily found elsewhere : and Dan 
 was quite sure that even Joe would not attempt it for 
 the small amount brought to him as his share. He 
 knew quite well that Joe was cheating him, but what 
 redress was there ? So Dan determined to make what 
 he could by holding the secret ; but was very willing 
 to sell any information to Jerry when he came to him 
 with his eyes gleaming so dangerously, and his words 
 coming so sharp and quick. He had not thought it 
 safe to thwart Jerry ; and by helping him he might 
 gain something. 
 
 Poor Joe ! 
 
 Long ago he had removed all the treasure from the 
 cave and stored it where a written paper would reveal 
 it. And the paper was sealed and in the doctor's 
 keeping : he knew the doctor would see his wishes 
 strictly carried out if he did not know where the 
 money came from ; but once acknowledge the source 
 of his gains, and he knew that strict justice would be 
 done : justice such as Jerry believed in ; and the 
 money would be divided out to every soul who had 
 the remotest claim on the mine. So the paper re- 
 vealed nothing save where the money was, how hidden, 
 and declaring it all to be for Jerry. Nor was the 
 doctor to read this paper unless Jerry willed it so ; 
 and since the recent misunderstanding Joe felt an 
 extra degree of security in the thought that Jerry 
 would not show the paper to the doctor. 
 
 It was all well sto"red now, and if any misstep left Joe's 
 place vacant, the money he loved so well, and the young 
 fellow his love bade fair to ruin, would both be safe. 
 
 But the old lost entrance : if only he could find 
 that, no law nor justice could disturb him, for none 
 could prove that he was working in Durden's Mine. 
 
 The cave was his own find ; Dan Burk had heard 
 of it only as a tradition, a wild story that meant little : 
 Joe, however, had worked his way to it, and surely 
 had a right to what he found there. 
 
 Only he must find that old entrance.
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 " Hadst thou understood 
 The things belonging to thy peace and ours ! 
 Is there no prophet but the voice that calls 
 Doom upon Kings, or in the waste, ' Repent '? 
 
 O rather pray for those and pity them, 
 
 Who through their own desire accomplished bring 
 
 Their own gray hairs with soirow to the grave '' 
 
 papers came daily now ; filled with warnings, 
 and vituperations, and news of the horde that was 
 preparing to come to Burden's. 
 
 Only too swiftly were the shortening days flying by; 
 and the railway seemed to loom terribly near to 
 Jerry, while day by day his fame grew until he found 
 himself a hero. 
 
 Dave Morris and Dan Burk had voluntarily come 
 into his plans, and had agreed to advance money for 
 the scheme on any terms he chose to name. 
 
 Burk accepted the position as " Land Agent," and 
 bought all the land about Durden's Mine. Dave 
 Morris put so high a price on his whisky that none but 
 the best-paid miners, and the new civil-engineers be- 
 longing to the despised " doctor," could avail them- 
 selves of the luxury. And of the first new people who 
 came, Morris made good use : he persuaded them to 
 give great prices for the land about Eureka, so reliev- 
 ing the Eureka people of their properties, and allow- 
 ing them to move to Durden's with money to invest. 
 
 Jerry watched with intense interest the extraordi- 
 nary sales that Morris made for his Eureka friends : 
 listened as the strangers were made to read the 
 pamphlet put out by the engineer of the Eureka 
 
 228
 
 JERRY. 229 
 
 Mine, in which all the lands in and about Eureka were 
 represented as gold lands : listened afterwards as the 
 Eureka people were persuaded to buy lands in the 
 Burden's settlement : and listening wondered that 
 Morris did not stand higher in the world. 
 
 Morris's own Eureka lot went for the highest pos- 
 sible price, part of which was invested in Burden's 
 land, the rest being generously lent to forward the 
 new scheme. 
 
 Eureka was in a state of the wildest excitement : 
 lands changed hands from hour to hour ; were sold by 
 telegraph even, the operator making a small percent- 
 age in the general upheaval ; and all the money, fol- 
 lowing Bave Morris's, fell into the hands of the new 
 land agents, Baniel Burk & Co. 
 
 Even to Jerry who stood behind the scenes who 
 pulled the wires even to him it seemed like magic. 
 And when with Ban Burk he went to see Mrs. Milton 
 about buying the mine, he felt as if some strange 
 power, other than he knew, was working for him. 
 
 Instantly she acceded to their request. 
 
 " Burden's hes allers been onlucky," she said, and 
 willingly gave up the mine and ail the adjacent lands 
 for relatively a small amount. 
 
 And Joe, left outside of all plans and arrangements, 
 watched, and listened, and wondered in his own anxious 
 mind how Jerry had accomplished it. Things were 
 taking such a strangely sudden turn that he could not 
 satisfy himself with any solution save that Jerry, and 
 not Ban Burk, was the moving power ; even though 
 Jerry kept himself well in the background. No one 
 but Jerry would have had the sense to direct such a 
 move as this, and carry it out so successfully. 
 
 Land in Burden's could have demanded almost any 
 price ; yet stranger than anything that had eVer 
 happened in his experience, Joe saw that the price 
 was never increased ; and this convinced him that 
 Jerry was manager. 
 
 Rapidly the people from Eure-ka began to erect
 
 230 JERRY. 
 
 their small houses in all directions : their small houses 
 that they were allowed to move from Eureka to Dur- 
 den's. The lots were not laid out with the beautiful 
 regularity of the great tract of land about Eureka, but 
 they were sold or rented much more rapidly. Dur- 
 den's was surely favored in its situation ; high up 
 from the plain, and with plenty of water, it was 
 cooler and more healthy than Eureka ; and Jerry 
 wondered that the doctor had not chosen it instead of 
 Eureka as his center of operations. And every day 
 as Jerry went to his school, he was stopped and con- 
 sulted as to the future of Burden's, and the advisa- 
 bility of buying land there. Was gold to be found 
 there was there money to be made by holding the 
 land was it better and safer than holding land in 
 Eureka? 
 
 And to all these questions he answered yes ; and 
 revealed his position further by saying that this was 
 the chance he had promised to find and secure for the 
 people ; and he wanted them to understand that it 
 had his fullest sanction. To prove this, they could 
 see that no matter what the demand for land might 
 be, the price of the land was never raised. He came 
 forward now when this last fact had been sufficiently 
 observed and proved, so that he could act without 
 being suspected as a speculator, and took hold of the 
 scheme with a strong guiding hand ; and the people 
 flocked to him. 
 
 Three new "finds" had been made in Burden's 
 gorge, and the regular miners, thrown out of work in 
 Eureka, were leading the way in opening them up 
 most successfully. 
 
 Jerry's heart burned within him : money and people 
 came in rapidly : Burk and Morris carried out his 
 every wish, and rendered a strict account of every trans- 
 action. A committee had been appointed" and called 
 the " Town Committee," and of this Jerry had been 
 elected chairman. The first resolution passed was 
 one prohibiting the sale of liquor in the settlement : a
 
 JERRY. 231 
 
 strange law, the old inhabitants thought ; and looked 
 on Jerry as a sort of supernatural creature. After 
 this a corps of workmen had been detailed to cut 
 -wood for the Community, and to bring it down from 
 the mountain-side : this the" Town Committee "shared 
 out according to the number in each family. The 
 " Town Committee " had in their hands also the open- 
 ing of the mine, in which every Commune man was to 
 buy shares, and be paid regular dividends as soon as 
 they could be declared. Any gold found on private 
 lands was the property of the land-holder ; every man 
 who held shares in the public mine had to do a cer- 
 tain amount of work there, or put a man in his place ; 
 for private finds must not be worked to the detriment 
 of the public good. 
 
 Eureka stood still and breathless : would this mar- 
 velous enterprise prove entirely disastrous to them ? 
 It was a question that grew more grave as day by day 
 there were fresh defections from the Eureka colony : 
 day after day men came and cast in their lots with the 
 Burden's Commune ; for so Jerry had named it ; and 
 the Eastern papers, taking it up, rang with it, and 
 Jerry became more and more notorious. 
 
 But, amid all the toil and tumult, one came and 
 went silent and unnoticed. Going out from his house 
 before day ; before the brisk new town that fast was 
 climbing up to the mine's mouth was astir ; and 
 coming down in the darkness when all were at their 
 evening meal. 
 
 Like a bent shadow he came and went ; every day 
 stooping a little more ; every day the frost gathering 
 a little more thickly on his stiff hair. He was un- 
 heeded in the general rush : left outside of all plans : 
 left outside of all that filled Jerry's life. He knew 
 that Jerry was the leader ; he knew that Jerry had 
 stopped teaching the school that now had been moved 
 from Eureka to Burden's ; he knew that Burden's 
 Mine had changed hands ; he knew that Jerry had 
 lost all confidence in him ; he knew that the man,
 
 232 JERRY. 
 
 Dan Burk, whom he had saved from starvation, he 
 knew he had betrayed him : and deeper down in his 
 old heart he knew that not for much longer could he 
 walk in his old paths, and reap his golden harvest. 
 
 The old mine was like a home to him like mother 
 wife children : all the ties of life were for him 
 concentrated in that black hole, and in the glittering 
 particles he found there. How could he live his life 
 day after day, and all the object gone out of it : hour 
 after hour sit and smoke idly by the fire ; hearing in 
 imagination only the laugh of the stream, that in these 
 years had come to seem the voice of a friend ; and 
 seeing in memory only the great red eye of the stove ? 
 
 For many years he had lived there, working alone 
 in the darkness ; with at first the need of the money 
 for spur afterward for love of the money, later for 
 the love of the wistful eyes of the boy who looked to 
 him for everything. 
 
 The little, thin voice and patient, humble face, so 
 sorrowful, so lonely. 
 
 Somehow the boy had taken a deep hold on him, 
 and all the gold he gathered was to provide for this 
 little creature. It had made him work all the harder : 
 he had been happy in paying for his education and 
 clothes : in each winter providing for all his wants ; 
 in making the house and the living gradually better 
 for him, and in each day adding to the store of gold. 
 He had been proud of Jerry's absorption in books 
 and dreams ; proud of the gradual change that left 
 such a distance between him and Jerry, and lifted the 
 boy to the level of Paul and the doctor. It had never 
 occurred to him but that Jerry loved him, although 
 toward the last Jerry's devotion to the doctor had 
 hurt him a little. But now ? 
 
 Now his boy had turned from him entirely had 
 joined with a stranger in betraying him was living 
 his life apart, without any reference to him. 
 
 It had been for Jerry's good that he had deceived 
 him about the mine ; yet from that night Jerry had
 
 JERRY. 233 
 
 never uttered one word in his hearing of the hopes 
 and wishes he entertained for his scheme. 
 
 The more Joe thought and suffered, the more surely 
 he came to one conclusion. Only one thing was left 
 to be done ; only one plan that could save him and 
 teach Jerry wisdom : it was to send Jerry East that he 
 might learn to love money, and while he was absent, 
 find the old entrance to the cave. This done, he would 
 be safe in his possession safe to gather and hoard the 
 gold that Jerry would one day appreciate, and appre- 
 ciating would come back to his old relations with his 
 truest friend. 
 
 But how could he accomplish this end ? He had 
 not been near Dan Burk for a moment's speech even, 
 since the mine changed hands ; a tacit understanding 
 made them avoid each other ; and now all Joe's gold- 
 dust went to Engineer Mills of the Eureka Mine. 
 
 He must approach Burk once more, however, to 
 get his assistance in sending Jerry away : and he felt 
 quite sure he could find means to make Burk per- 
 suade Jerry to go. 
 
 He had stopped work while he brought to a con- 
 clusion these thoughts of many weeks ; and now 
 storing in his pocket the last little bag of gold that 
 he had gathered, he set his nets to last for two days, 
 for to-morrow he must go into Eureka to sell the 
 dust. He did not know what might happen any day, 
 so he busied himself making all safe behind him ; 
 there was nothing there to tell any tales except the 
 nets and the little black stove, things of little value ; 
 friends who could not betray him. 
 
 It was late now, very late ; Jerry would be at home 
 by this, and the supper ready, but for all that he must 
 see Dan Burk. 
 
 Carefully he chose his way through the new settle- 
 ment that had climbed the mountain-side, down into 
 the old village which was nearer the level of the 
 plain : carefully, for people might ask questions if 
 they saw him in the town at night.
 
 234 JERRY. 
 
 Dan Burk was at home, sitting in his shop, that 
 looked much improved : it was clean, and without the 
 smell of bacon and whisky that had never been absent 
 before. The Community had provision depots now, 
 and Dan's place served only as a shop for clothes and 
 tools. Besides, his business as land agent kept him 
 busy, and in the future would pay him better than 
 selling whisky. 
 
 More than this, Dan's shirt was clean., and his black 
 hair brushed to a painful state of sleekness. He 
 turned when the door opened, and recognizing his 
 visitor, he rose. 
 
 For a moment he paused, then pushed his chair 
 back and came forward with a suspicious profusion of 
 welcome. 
 
 " H' are you, ole pard, h'are you?" he said, 
 " durned if I aint real glad to see you," holding out 
 his hand. 
 
 " I'm well as common," Joe answered, and stood 
 still with his hands in his pockets. 
 
 There was a pause while Dan rubbed his overlooked 
 hand down his sleek hair, with a doubtful look creep- 
 ing into his light eyes. 
 
 " Take a cheer," he said at last. 
 
 " No, I'm 'bleeged," and Joe took one hand from 
 his pockets to push his hat back, " I aint got much to 
 blate 'bout." 
 
 " All right," and Dan cleared his throat that had 
 become strangely dry. 
 
 " You knows orl of Jerry's doin's," Joe began, 
 with both hands again in his pockets, and his keen, 
 deep-set eyes fixed steadily on Dan's half-averted 
 face, " an' I don't ; an' you knows somer my 
 doin's, an' agin you don't," pausing solemnly after 
 this last thrust that made Dan look round, "no," more 
 slowly, " you dunno orl, damned if yer do ! " with an 
 angry light gleaming in his eyes that made Dan wince 
 a little. 
 
 " But I aint come jest to jaw, tier to tell you
 
 JERR y. 235 
 
 nothin' 'bout me," more mildly, " but sumpen 'bout 
 Jerry." 
 
 " About Mr. Wilkerson ? " and Dan was all atten- 
 tion. 
 
 " Thet's what I said," Joe answered, " 'bout youuns' 
 Mr. Wilkerson an' 'bout my Jerry : an' it's jest thet 
 he aint got no sense ceppen 'bout books. Great-day- 
 in-the-mornin' ! why, man, Jerry dunno nothin' mo' 
 'bout money an' a baby, he don't," and Joe shook his 
 head solemnly. 
 
 " He knows how to git it, all the same," and Dan 
 laughed in a relieved way. 
 
 " Orl the same he aint agoin' to keep it," Joe said, 
 " ner he aint agoin' to let you keep it, an' don't yer 
 furgit it ! An" he's jest agoin' to shar an' shar alike 
 orl roun' this town ; jest you watch," waxing more 
 earnest ; "I knows thar aint nobody agoin' to make 
 no forchins 'roun' this town tell Jerry larns to love 
 money : durned if they will ! " 
 
 " Learns to love money ? " Dan repeated slowly, 
 " Lor, Joe, you're plum crazy ! " 
 
 " Orl right," and Joe shook his head slowly, "orl 
 right, an' when you keeps on a-seein' Jerry jest 
 a-spreadin' orl the money roun' even ; an' keeps 
 on axin you fur 'counts ; an' a-buildin' a meetin'- 
 house, an' a schoolhouse, and a-stoppin' folks from 
 cussin' an' whisky, you'll 'member me, an' mebbe 
 you'll say, ' Ole Joe warnt crazy nuther.' Mebbe 
 you'll 'member, an' mebbe you'll cuss 'cause you 
 'members." 
 
 "'Members what, Joe Gilliam ? " and Burk uttered 
 some oaths even now before the prophesied time. 
 
 " 'Members as Joe Gilliam said to sen' Jerry to the 
 East whar he'd larn to love money ; 'cause when a man 
 don't love money hissef, he's jest sartain to 'spise them 
 as dp," pausing as if to give his words more weight, 
 " an' thet's the reasin as Jerry 'spises the doctor 
 'cause he spekylates in Ian' to make money ; an' 
 thet's the reasin as Jerry 'spises me, 'cause I tole him
 
 236 JERRY. 
 
 I bet on money, I did. An' if a man 'spises money 
 he aint agoin' to save none, ner to let nobody save 
 none ; an' don't you furgit it." 
 
 Burk stood without motion, and looked at his com- 
 panion, while a great wonder grew slowly in his eyes : 
 was the old man losing his mind ? 
 
 Joe went on slowly. 
 
 " Jerry aint never seen nothin' as money kin buy," 
 he said, " an' he don't keer nothin r 'bout it ; he kin 
 git vittles, an' cloze, an' books, an' thet's orl he wants, 
 an' he dunno nothin' mo'." 
 
 " Darnation ! " and a new light seemed to be coming 
 to Dan. 
 
 "I knows it's true," Joe went on, "an* Jerry aint 
 agoin' to let nobody hev no moren thet, he aint ; an' 
 he's agoin' to make orl go to school, an' go to meetin', 
 'cause Jerry don't know nothin' ceppen books." 
 
 Burk stood silent: this model community, with no 
 possibility of private gains, was not his ideal town ; 
 so far he had rendered a strict account of all money 
 in his hands ; but he had not made his calculations 
 on this senseless honesty lasting forever, but only 
 until the enterprise was fairly started. He had voted 
 for schoolhouse and church, thinking they would 
 look well in the circular which the Town Committee 
 had put out, and would make the place more attract- 
 ive to outsiders. 
 
 " An' he'll tuck in orl the trash as'll come alonger 
 the railroad," Joe went on, " 'cause when orl the Ian' 
 'roun' Eureky were sold, Jerry were jest a-rippin* 'bout 
 folks not a-gittin* a shar' of Ian'. Youuns hearn him 
 a-talkin' 'bout God a-makin' the Ian' fur orl, jest like 
 the sun and the wind wuz " ; then reflectively, " Mebbe 
 it's so, then agin' mebbe it aint, 'cause if God 'llowed 
 fur orl to hev the Ian' I reckon it 'ud a-been fixed up 
 thet away like the sun an' the wind wuz ; thet's what 
 I "Hows." 
 
 " An' it's true as mornin'," Dan granted. 
 
 " An' I dunno as orl God made were made fur ever'
 
 JERRY. 237 
 
 pusson," Joe went on instructively, " 'cause I knows 
 as God made me, an' I'm durned if I'm fur ever' pus- 
 son ; durned if I are ! " 
 
 " That's so," and Dan looked still more grave. 
 
 This " all things in common " arrangement was a 
 mystery to him ; his ideas of justice and equality were 
 circumscribed ; it was not just that any one should 
 have more of this world's goods than Dan Burk, he 
 thought, but if Dan Burk gained more than his breth- 
 ren, it was because Dan Burk was a sharp fellow. 
 As he had realized Jerry's enterprise, it looked like a 
 fair opening for a few to make fortunes ; but now 
 Joe had put a new face on it ; and Dan paused and 
 thought very deeply. He realized the truth of all 
 that the old man had said ; and looking back he could 
 see plainly very convincing proofs that Joe's warning 
 would benefit all who heeded it. 
 
 For how could they know of the wild desire for 
 wealth and success that now possessed Jerry ; how 
 could they know of the deep plans he was laying for 
 the future thinking night and day of ways and means 
 to persuade some capitalist to interest himself in the 
 mine, growing thin and careworn with the strain and 
 longing that was on him. How could they know of 
 the consuming bitterness that held him that almost 
 would have caused him to sell himself if that would 
 secure the success of his plans. 
 
 To Dan Burk, he was the cool, calm, far-seeing 
 man, directing with consummate skill the workings of 
 the little community ; a controlled, fearless man who 
 commanded the confidence of the people. 
 
 To Joe, he was still the wild dreamer who could 
 realize nothing but the injustice of existing laws, and 
 the needs of his fellows ; who had no want nor care 
 for money ; who despised all practical things. 
 
 " I'll gie him the money to go, an' to spen'," Joe 
 went on, breaking the silence that had fallen, "you'll 
 wanter feller what onderstan's ; a rale engynar to 
 open Durden's agin," slowly.
 
 238 JERRY. 
 
 " That's so, and Dan looked interested. 
 
 " Sen' Jerry to git him," Joe pursued, " jest you 
 come to my house to-morrer night, an' tell Jerry 'bout 
 goin', an' I'll fix the ress ; jest you come," then 
 Joe turned away, but paused as he turned, " an' if 
 you tells Jerry thet I've a-been har," he said slowly 
 over his shoulder, "you'll never git in Burden's 
 Mine, 'cause I knows the way of keepin' folks out," 
 mysteriously, "but if you'll do my say, I'll pint the 
 way myseff : farwell," and he walked slowly out, shut- 
 ting the door after him, and leaving Dan Burk pon- 
 dering deeply. 
 
 This was the best opportunity in the world ; and 
 the pay Joe required for leading the way into this 
 mysterious mine was that Jerry should be persuaded 
 to go at his expense to get an engineer the engineer 
 who was now the greatest need of the community. 
 
 It was strange pay, that this young man must be 
 made to love money. What motive lay hidden under 
 all this ? In Burk's estimation old Joe did not have 
 much sense ; and think, as he would, Dan could not 
 solve the problem. 
 
 But of course he would accept the offer ; that part 
 was plain enough. He would go the following night 
 to Joe's, and make the proposition ; then Joe must 
 manage the rest. 
 
 And old Joe, toiling up the steep path, felt his point 
 was gained ; rejoiced that he had been able to spread 
 the toils for the feet of him he loved the best ; had 
 been able to set forth the temptation so that the 
 young heart might most surely be led astray and be 
 absorbed by the meanest of passions ! 
 
 Poor old man ; doing in his loving ignorance the 
 greatest ill to the one creature he loved the creature 
 for whom he would have given his life !
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 " O we live, O we live 
 And this life we would survive, 
 Is a gloomy thing and brief, 
 Which, consummated in grief, 
 Leaveth ashes for all gain. 
 Is it not all in vain ? 
 
 HOW strangely the way had been opened ! 
 Jerry could not account for it ; could not under- 
 stand Joe's action in the matter. Since the begin- 
 ning of his enterprise he had been wearying himself 
 over the problem of how to get an engineer and 
 assayer, and have the mine opened before the railway 
 and the general rush of immigrants should come. 
 
 The new " finds " which had been made had been 
 sufficient to give work to those who had come already ; 
 who had toiled down the long stretch of plain that lay 
 betwen the rival towns, and the place where the rail- 
 way was crossing the mountains ; they had drifted 
 slowly down with the circulars of the Burden's Com- 
 mune in their hands, and had passed Eureka by ! 
 
 Burden's had smiled over this ; and Jerry had got- 
 ten a post-office list and mailed his circulars to every 
 postmaster in the East ; and looking back he had 
 laughed at the demoralization caused by the first 
 notice he had had of emigrants coming to him. Now 
 he saw the advantage to be reaped from his notoriety, 
 and put aside his fears. Only he must be prepared : 
 the mine must be opened ; the railway must be 
 extended to Burden's, and timber and tools must be 
 ready for the building of houses. And how was all 
 this to be accomplished ? 
 
 He had grown thin and worn thinking it over by 
 
 239
 
 240 JRRR Y. 
 
 day and by night, and seeing no solution. Suddenly, 
 the way had opened before him plain and straight, 
 with not one difficulty to perplex him. 
 
 It was yet three months to the day on which the 
 railway had promised to reach Eureka ; and though 
 railway promises were seldom kept, yet even four 
 months, if they took so long, was a short time. Still, 
 going immediately, he might accomplish all his work 
 and get back in time to meet the incoming tide of 
 people. Another thing that he had worked for and 
 had gained was the defection of one of the doctor's 
 imported land-surveyors ; a young fellow named 
 Greg, whom Jerry had discovered to be the son of 
 one of the Eureka syndicate. After identifying Greg, 
 Jerry, worked hard for him, and at last won him from 
 Eureka to Durden's by the fair method of showing 
 him the new " finds," and by allowing him to look over 
 the Durden's land that lay up the long, dark gorge. 
 
 So Greg had come over ; had bought a lot, and had 
 built a little house for himself ; telling the doctor that 
 as he had come to seek his fortune, he must go where 
 he saw the best opportunity of making it. 
 
 This was a serious blow to Eureka, and more of the 
 inhabitants sold their little lots, and brought their 
 houses over to Durden's. 
 
 And now Greg was the very man Jerry needed ; 
 he could vouch for the promise of Durden's, and for 
 Jerry's honesty of purpose and success. Greg was 
 the very man ! 
 
 Already he had written a letter to a leading paper 
 in the East, telling them the truth about Jerry and 
 Durden's. Telling how that Jerry had been driven 
 into the position he had taken ; telling of his honest 
 aversion to the land speculation ; telling of the wonder- 
 ful success of the little colony he had undertaken to 
 care for and protect, the little colony that had left 
 Eureka because it had felt itself wronged. 
 
 Greg was young himself, scarcely so old as Jerry ; 
 and all his youthful enthusiasm had gone out to Jerry
 
 JERRY. 241 
 
 when he heard from Jerry's lips the story of Jerry's 
 venture. It was after he had agreed to buy land in 
 Burden's that this history was told him, for Jerry 
 would not, however much he needed Greg, win him 
 on any but practical grounds. 
 
 But now Greg was heart and soul a " Durdenite," 
 and wrote his letter with all the fervor of a new 
 adherent. 
 
 Jerry was a hero ; Jerry was a genius ; Jerry was 
 quixotically honest and strong. And the greedy- 
 pocketed old men of the Eureka syndicate looked in 
 each other's eyes with solemn doubt as they read the 
 ardent letter. Could it be that they had made a mis- 
 take and been deceived ? 
 
 And a communication of serious import began its 
 journey out to the doctor. 
 
 And now when the way seemed so clear for Jerry 
 to go East, Greg rose to still greater importance. He 
 could give Jerry letters to his father, who was presi- 
 dent of the railway, and so could secure him a hear- 
 ing in the Board ; also he could introduce him and 
 his enterprise to numbers of fabulously rich men. 
 
 Burden's was enthusiastic, and Greg was elected 
 to the town committee immediately, and was appointed 
 also one of three commissioners who were to regulate 
 things during Jerry's absence. Ban Burk, Bave 
 Morris, and Greg were the three ; and Jerry felt sin- 
 cerely thankful that Greg was there, for could he have 
 trusted either of the others? But to Jerry, Joe's 
 action was a mystery still, for immediately on Burk's 
 making the suggestion that Jerry should go East, Joe 
 had volunteered the money. 
 
 "What little I'se got is agoin' to be yourn, Jerry," 
 he said, " an' youuns mise well tuck it now if you 
 wants it." 
 
 The old man was smoking in his regular place near 
 the fire, and did not turn his face toward the two who 
 were talking near the table. 
 
 Ban came to the fire quickly.
 
 242 JERRY. 
 
 " What's that, pard ? " he asked. 
 
 "I says as I'se got the money fur Jerry to go," Joe 
 answered slowly, taking his pipe out of his mouth and 
 looking up into Dan's face, " I aint got much," he 
 went on, looking into Dan's eyes steadily as if defying 
 some accusation he saw there, " but it's all to be Jer- 
 ry's when I'se gone, an' he kin hev it now if he hes a 
 mind to it ; thet's what I says? " 
 
 Jerry sat quite still, suffering more acutely than 
 ever before in his life. His conduct seemed to blacken 
 to the darkness of sin as he listened to Joe's words. 
 He had thought himself so true, and Joe so false ; 
 himself so magnanimous, and Joe so avaricious as to 
 hold back a whole community for his own gain when 
 he refused to give the name of the owner of the mine. 
 
 And now ; now after he had cut the' old man off 
 from all interest or knowledge of his plans and hopes ; 
 after this he had come forward and had given all 
 his hardly won savings that the venture might not fail 
 and that Jerry's fortunes might be secured. 
 
 What could Jerry say ? 
 
 He sat still with one hand shading his eyes from 
 the light : and Dan Burk, standing silent by the fire, 
 looked anxiously from one to the other. There was 
 a long silence while Jerry repented and Joe smoked ; 
 then Jerry rose and stood behind Joe's chair. 
 
 " I thank you very much, Joe," he said, and the two 
 practical minds, listening, wondered why his voice 
 trembled so, "and if ever the Community succeeds," 
 he went on, " they will have you to thank." 
 
 " Orl right," and Joe moved his pipe to the other 
 side of his mouth. 
 
 Even Dan was embarrassed in the silence that fol- 
 lowed Joe's words, and shuffled his feet uneasily for a 
 moment, until Jerry suggested that he should call a 
 meeting of the town committee for the next morning 
 in order that these plans should be laid before them. 
 
 " An' say thet he pays hisn's own way," Joe put in, 
 " an' don't name Joe Gilliam's title ; 'cause Dur-
 
 JERRY. 243 
 
 den's aint nothin' to me, an' I aint nothin' to Dur- 
 den's." 
 
 " All right, pard," Dan answered, " an' the day 
 after thet, Mr. Wilkerson, you kin start," then more 
 slowly, " an' you kin have my nag to ride to the pass " ; 
 then Dan said good-night and went away, and Joe 
 and Jerry were left alone together. 
 
 It was a painful moment to the young man ; he 
 could not change the fact that Joe had told a lie about 
 the ownership of the mine ; he could not blame him- 
 self for not ignoring or not condoning the falsehood, 
 and without implying some such action what could 
 he say ? 
 
 " An' if you'll stay thar awhile, an' spen' orl the 
 money I'll gie you," Joe said, breaking the silence 
 so suddenly and unexpectedly that Jerry started, 
 " an' spen' it on seein' orl thar is to be sawn; an' on 
 gittin' orl the books an' good cloze like Paul 1 ; if you'll 
 do as I say 'bout this, I'll show youuns' engynar orl 
 thar is in Durden's Mine; an' I'll do it sure." 
 
 Jerry listened with a growing wonder in his mind ; 
 what could be Joe's motive ? But he promised, and 
 at the meeting next day made a speech in which he 
 announced his plans with such clearness and preci- 
 sion, and showed such a firm conviction of their suc- 
 cess, that Mr. Titcomb, the editor of the Eureka Star, 
 who had been invited to attend the meeting, rose and 
 declared his intention of moving his whole business to 
 Durden's if the committee would permit ; and of 
 changing the name of his paper from the Eureka Star 
 to the Durden's Banner ! And the permission being 
 given instantly, the meeting broke up with cheers and 
 a general congratulating of all parties. 
 
 The news was all through both towns before the 
 sun set ; the news that Mr. AVilkerson was going east 
 with letters to Mr. Greg's father ; that he was to ask 
 for an extension of the railway to Durden's, and to 
 bring back an engineer to reopen Durden's Mine. 
 Further, that the Star, the pride and glory of Eureka,
 
 244 JERR Y. 
 
 was going to desert them for Burden's, and be called 
 the Durdens Banner ! 
 
 Even the doctor looked grave when this news 
 reached him, but he said no word. Large sums had 
 been spent in buying the land about Eureka, and in 
 laying it out ; large sums had been spent in extending 
 the Eureka mine, in improving the machinery, and 
 in raising the wages of miners ; and larger sums still, 
 in bringing lumber from long distances that the emi- 
 grants might have it for building. 
 
 And now must all this fail could it fail ? Was it 
 possible that he was to be thwarted by Jerry's venture, 
 that at first had seemed so small and so wild as to be 
 ridiculous ? 
 
 At first he had watched with some amusement what 
 he thought to be the vagaries of a^ very young man's 
 course ; withdrawing all counsel and sympathy that 
 the course might be untrammeled. Later, he watched 
 with interest, and a growing appreciation of Jerry's 
 power over men ; but now there was some wonder, 
 and a little anxiety mixed with his opinion of his pro- 
 tege". Would the little waif he had trained and edu- 
 cated succeed at his expense, and at Paul's? 
 
 He rose from his chair and marched up and down 
 the room as in the old days when Jerry came to learn 
 his letters. 
 
 Strange results had come from that long day's 
 watch up on the mountain-side, when he had waited 
 to save the boy's life ; strange results, with stranger 
 things yet to come ; and the doctor felt a growing irri- 
 tation within him, and a determination not to be con- 
 quered. He must go East and fight the battle there. 
 
 But Eureka was almost discouraged. 
 
 The land-agents had bought in at very high prices 
 all the lots the departing inhabitants would sell ; had 
 built houses, and fences, and laid out garden plots 
 and small fields; had improved the one street, and re- 
 established a shop on a more decent footing than Dave 
 Morris's shop had ever occupied ; finally, had white-
 
 JERR Y. 245 
 
 washed the whole town until it shone and gleamed 
 far across the wide plain. All this was very well: and 
 all about Eureka's outskirts was the doctor's vast tract 
 staked off in streets and lots that were all neatly 
 numbered with white numbers on little black boards, 
 giving it the appearance of a Government graveyard. 
 But in spite of all these advantages, Eureka was 
 standing still. The land-agents, shaken in their belief 
 of her future success, watched with great anxiety the 
 few scattered emigrants coming up the plain from 
 where, to the south of them, the railway was crossing 
 the mountains ; watched them solicitously ; even went 
 out to meet them, but only to find the Burden's cir- 
 cular in their hands, and a Burden's man guiding 
 them on to the daring little town. 
 
 When Greg left Eureka there was a general failing 
 in spirits ; but when the news came of the defection 
 of the Star, their hopes followed their spirits, and 
 the people began one by one to go to the doctor where 
 he lived in the midst of Burden's prosperity, to ask 
 his opinion. 
 
 " Things look dark," he answered them gravely, " but 
 I think I can right them by going East ; and I shall 
 go as soon as I can put things in a condition to be 
 left." 
 
 And Paul, fuming and fretting, cursing his fate and 
 Jerry's impudence, grew thin, and white, and worn 
 with hatred. It was the first time in his life that he 
 had ever been thwarted except in the doctor's training; 
 the first time that he had been unable to dictate terms 
 save in that one never-to-be-forgotten battle when he 
 and Jerry met, and Jerry conquered. Was this greater 
 battle of later life to have this same termination ? 
 
 It should not, if he died in the struggle ! And one 
 of them would have to die, for it was a struggle that 
 could end only with life. 
 
 Meanwhile, he declared that he could not live in 
 Burden's without the doctor, and during his absence 
 would go over to Eureka and stay with Engineer Mills.
 
 246 JERRY. 
 
 So the old place was shut up for the first time in 
 more than twenty years ; for it was as long ago as 
 that, that an unknown man had ridden into the town, 
 and bought old Burden's house, paying cash for it; 
 a fact that had raised him to a great height in the 
 estimation of the people, and also had put hope in 
 their desponding hearts : for the mine was closed, and 
 they were out of work, and without a leading spirit 
 among them. 
 
 For more than twenty years the doctor had lived 
 there, lost to his former life and friends ; lost to all 
 the world save the little circle about him. And now 
 he was going back to his old haunts, to look in eyes 
 that would scarcely know him ; to clasp hands whose 
 touch he had almost forgotten ; to hear voices whose 
 tones would bring back to him times and things he 
 had striven through all these years to bury ! 
 
 After he had given his word that he would go, he 
 walked the long, dark library back and forth the live 
 .night long back and forth back and forth : and 
 open on the table the picture of the fair face Jerry had 
 seen. The face he loved to look on the face that 
 had wrecked his life but not the face that haunted 
 him. The face that haunted him was the face of one 
 whom he had deserted whose sad eyes had looked at 
 him last from behind Convent bars. 
 
 And now he was going back, he would see her again, 
 the woman he had loved to his ruin he would hear 
 her voice would touch her hands once more would 
 have to say farewell, and come away once more 
 would have to fight to the death the remorse and the 
 longing that had darkened all his days ! 
 
 Would the battle be as hard would it hurt him now 
 as it had done once ? 
 
 Still, he must go.
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 " Gold ? yellow, glittering, precious gold ? . . . . 
 Thus much of this, will make black, white; foul, fair ; 
 Wrong, right: base, noble; old, young; coward, valiant. 
 Ha. you gods! why this ? What this, you god ? why this 
 Will lug your priests and servants from your sides; 
 Pluck stout men's pillows from below their heads: 
 This yellow slave . . . 
 
 Will knit and break religions; bless the accursed; 
 Make the hoar leprosy ador'd ; place thieves, 
 And give them title, knee, and approbation, 
 With senators on the bench." 
 
 IT was a bewildering scene that lay spread before 
 Jerry's eyes ; and nothing that he had ever read 
 or imagined had prepared him for it. 
 
 He had seen many strange things since he had left 
 Burden's in the early dawn of a cloudy day ; with a 
 valise borrowed from Greg, strapped on behind his 
 saddle ; and all the gold Joe had given him converted 
 into a check on Greg's father. It was safer than to 
 travel with so much loose gold, Greg said. 
 
 " An' jest you tell youuns' par, Mr. Greg, to gie 
 Jerry jest as much money as he hes a min' to spen'," 
 Joe had said, when at last he had been brought to 
 trust the check, " an' what he gies Jerry over thar I'll 
 gie you over har; 'cause Jerry's my boy jest like you 
 is hisn." 
 
 And Greg had promised, while Jerry protested, 
 until Joe came near enough to whisper : 
 
 " If you don't spen' the money, I aint agoin* to 
 show no way to the mine ; and don't you fur- 
 git it." 
 
 So Jerry said no more, and Greg added a post- 
 script to his letter of introduction saying that Jerry 
 
 247
 
 248 JERR y. 
 
 was to have unlimited credit, himself standing security 
 for the money. 
 
 More than this, Greg had written to his father to 
 take Jerry to his own house during his stay in the city. 
 The letters had gone the day before, immediately after 
 the meeting of the committee ; and also a telegram to 
 Greg's brother to meet Jerry on his arrival. 
 
 So Jerry had started on his journey with a feeling 
 that he would meet friends at the other end ; but even 
 with this assurance he had many more doubts and diffi- 
 culties in his mind than he had had long ago, when he 
 set forth, a poor, friendless, half-starved little creature, 
 on the one journey of his life. 
 
 The first car he traveled in from the Pass to the 
 first station on the other side, where the regular trains 
 came in, was a battered box-car that seemed strangely 
 like an old friend ; and if only it had been full of loose 
 hay, he would have imagined himself back in his old 
 trousers and ragged shirt, with his little bundle under 
 his arm. Poor little wretch ! 
 
 At the end of the journey, when he was transferred 
 to a ferry-boat, and felt the shiver and the thud of 
 the engine heard the clang of the bell, and watched 
 the water slipping by he remembered, with a pity that 
 was pain, the deadly terror of the friendless child. 
 And how wonderful his escapes had been! surely he 
 had been spared for something. 
 
 Then in the rush on the docks he had seen a face 
 so like Greg's, that he felt as if a piece of Burden's 
 had reached this great center of life before him. 
 
 He was sure it was Greg's brother, and introduc- 
 ing himself was warmly welcomed, and then stowed 
 away in a carriage that seemed to run on velvet 
 wheels. 
 
 " Of course you know you are to stay with us," the 
 young man said, " my father and mother are very anx- 
 ious to meet you, and to hear about Charlie ; indeed, 
 my mother wanted to come down after you herself." 
 
 " Your mother ! " Jerry repeated, " how very kind! "
 
 JERRY. 249 
 
 then he fell to wondering how a civilized mother and 
 children behaved to each other. 
 
 It all had been very strange to him ; the grand 
 house that seemed so deadly still after the din of the 
 street ; the stately woman with kind brown eyes like 
 her boys, and soft gray hair, who came forward to 
 meet him with both hands held out in welcome ; and 
 soft lace and ribbons and silk floating about her 
 almost like a cloud. 
 
 Then afterward the tailor had been a strange expe- 
 rience ; and his new clothes a still stranger one ; and 
 he laughed as he looked at himself, and wondered if 
 Joe would know him. 
 
 It had been stranger than any fiction he had ever 
 read ; but this sight that sketched before his eyes now, 
 was the strangest of all ! 
 
 The glittering horseshoe of lights and brilliant 
 colors ; the soft rustle of silken garments ; the shim- 
 mer of jewels ; the delicate faces that seemed to 
 beam and smile from every side, and that all seemed 
 beautiful ; the graceful courtesy of the men who bowed 
 or rose, or sat as some fair woman willed ; it was mar- 
 velous to him ! 
 
 And this was what education and civilization did 
 for the human race ; this was what gold wrought ? 
 
 He sat silent and observant ; watching from his 
 place in a silken-lined box, with a jeweled fan in his 
 hand, that he had been taught laughingly by the fair 
 girl at his side to wave gracefully ; watching while 
 his heart sank within him, as he wondered how his 
 daily life would seem when this dream was ended. 
 Ended, and he had gone back to live with those creat- 
 ures among whom he had grown up : those creatures 
 who yet were men and women with the same hearts, 
 and souls, and humanity as these people ; those dirty 
 drunkards and bedraggled drudges out in Burden's 
 and Eureka were free, and equal ; had rights and 
 votes ; had everything except money ! 
 
 No wonder the world worshiped money ; no wonder
 
 250 JERRY. 
 
 there was magic in the gleam of gold ; no wonder men 
 toiled and slaved for it. What were life worth lived 
 as those poor creatures lived it out where he had come 
 from ? Who would not rather die striving for the 
 glittering power, than sink to such degradation ? He 
 had read and thought about life as he was living it now; 
 he had watched the doctor and Paul, and the differ- 
 ences between them and the people about them ; and 
 now he was among people who were as they were 
 people with soft voices and gentle ways : and he 
 longed with a bitter longing to have been born one of 
 them. 
 
 " Honest toil," and " self-made men," and all the 
 other cries built up to comfort those who could not do 
 better, rang very false in his ears. Good things and 
 to be commended, of course ; and he hated himself 
 and cursed his low blood that must be the cause of 
 these weak longings. 
 
 Yet, he knew that many of these about him were 
 newly risen to this grade of life ; that to them he 
 looked as they did ; and, successful, he would com- 
 mand to all appearances a station equal to theirs : this 
 was all true and yet ? 
 
 He watched Mrs. Greg as she sat, an exquisitely 
 finished picture of what a woman should be ; if he had 
 had such a mother ! 
 
 The thought died in its birth his mother ? His 
 face burned ; no love could have been truer than hers 
 none could do more than she had done for the one she 
 loved she had died for him. 
 
 Suddenly the lights about him were darkened ; the 
 hum of voices was hushed, and from some unseen 
 place he heard the sweetest sound that ever had come 
 to his ears. The cries of the wild creatures that he 
 used to hear in the white winter nights when the snow 
 lay over all the dead land ; the wail of the wind as it 
 swept up and down the gorges, whispering humanly 
 among the black pines ; the blackness of the mine and 
 the water that dropped forever ; and the stream that
 
 JERRY. 251 
 
 fell from the far sun-lightened heights into the black- 
 ness of the gorge, its voice was there too, and its 
 white hands thrown up in despair ! He heard it all in 
 the music that stole about him ; rising, sweeping over 
 the silent host of people ; falling, sighing down to a 
 far-off whisper. 
 
 And all his longings were there ; and all his fears 
 and hopes ; and all the tumult of his soul seemed 
 to thicken and darken, until he longed to hold up his 
 hands like the falling stream, and cry aloud ! What 
 was it that made him find in that music a tone that 
 told all the loneliness of his life; all the pathetic pain, 
 and hunger, and fear of his childhood ; the love of his 
 mother, and her wild cry as she caught him from his 
 death ; the wistful look he remembered in her eyes ; 
 it was all there in that music played for the rich, and 
 the happy, and the beautiful ; and what right had he 
 to find his poor ragged life there ? 
 
 Slowly the beautiful picture that hung before him 
 rolled silently away ; the music faded from about him ; 
 and the people on the stage began a mimic represent- 
 ation of life. It was well put on the stage, the critics 
 said, and all the parts were well sustained. Jerry 
 could not tell ; but he heard every word, and to him 
 it was all real ; real joy, real sorrow, and at the end 
 real failure and despair. He lived through it all, and 
 when the curtain rolled down again, he was sorry that 
 the people about him spoke to him. 
 
 " We will wait for the farce," they said, "the play 
 was too sad to finish the evening with" ; so they waited, 
 and the music floated about them once more. 
 
 Something drew his eyes caused him to look up 
 he never knew what the power was ; but opposite him, 
 looking down on him, was a face that surely he knew ; 
 a face that was neither old nor young ; but it held his 
 eyes. 
 
 How was it he knew it so well ? how was it that, like 
 the music, it mingled with all his memories, so that it 
 seemed a part of them ?
 
 252 JERRY. 
 
 " Who is she ? " he asked of Miss Greg. 
 
 " I do not know," she answered, " we have lived 
 here only a little while, and we do not know many 
 people." 
 
 Through all the silly farce, that only provoked him, 
 he watched the face that haunted him so strangely, 
 and mixed itself in with his past. He had no eyes for 
 the girl who sat with this almost phantom woman ; he 
 had no eyes for anything but the exquisitely sad eyes 
 that now and then looked at him so earnestly. 
 
 Who was she ? how and where had he ever seen 
 her ? And while he puzzled the evening wore away, 
 and they drove home through the glittering streets to 
 an entertainment given in his honor. 
 
 "You are a lion, Mr. Wilkerson," Mrs. Greg said 
 kindly, " so many have read of you in connection with 
 the gold-fever in Eureka, and with the new railway ; 
 and since you have founded a rival town and mine, 
 the interest in you has doubled." 
 
 "And Paul Henley, do you know him?" Jerry 
 asked, while his heart beat a little faster for her words. 
 She shook her head. 
 
 " Only through my son's letters," she answered, 
 " and Charles does not seem very favorably im- 
 pressed," she went on in a lower tone ; " he says that 
 Mr. Henley's temper was never very pleasant, but 
 since your success he has been unbearable ; because, 
 I suppose, you have outwitted him and his guardian 
 so entirely." 
 
 Then the people began to arrive, and Jerry was in- 
 troduced to numbers of portly gentlemen and slim 
 dandies, to anxious mammas and pretty daughters, 
 and discovered that all he said was listened to with 
 the most marked attention, so marked that almost 
 it embarrassed him. 
 
 The older men plied him with questions as to what 
 he had done, and what were his intentions for the 
 future ; but here his natural reticence helped him. 
 What he had done he told frankly enough ; what the
 
 JERRY. 253 
 
 plans for the future were, he told them was not his 
 secret. 
 
 But, as the evening wore on, Jerry found himself 
 more and more the attraction. Bewilderingly the 
 truth began to* dawn on him that he was a success ; 
 that in the eyes of these people he was a rising man ; 
 that these men who had millions at their command 
 looked on him with confidence, because in their esti- 
 mation he had proved himself clever enough to outwit 
 their trusted agent, and so undermine a plan that was 
 supported by all these millions. Could this be true ? 
 had he done it, and how ? 
 
 " And the railway, will I be granted an extension 
 of that ? " he asked. 
 
 Then they shook their heads and rubbed their fat 
 chins, and said that this question was now before the 
 Board ; and they would give Mr. Wilkerson a hearing 
 just as soon as their man should be on the ground to 
 state the case for Eureka. And it would not be long 
 now, as he had telegraphed that he would be with 
 them shortly. 
 
 The doctor was coming ! 
 
 Jerry passed his hand over his eyes as if to clear 
 them. 
 
 At last they were to meet face to face, and tell their 
 stories openly ; at last he would hear an explanation 
 from this man he loved so well ; this man for whom 
 he would so readily give his life ! 
 
 Then the evening was over, and the people went 
 away, and Mrs. Greg said an especially gentle, kind 
 good-night to him, 
 
 " How proud your mother would have been ! " she 
 said, with her jeweled hand on his arm, and in her soft 
 eyes bright tears of sympathy. 
 
 His mother. 
 
 And he looked into her face with a strange pain 
 tugging at his heart ; he had forgotten his mother, 
 and this stranger remembered her.
 
 254 JERRY. 
 
 " She is dead," he said slowly, "dead long ago." 
 Dead long ago poor, weary mother ; poor, vvornout 
 
 drudge that this fine, lady would not have looked at ; 
 
 dead in his place ! t 
 
 And turning away he went to his room, while all the 
 
 pride and triumph faded from him.
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 " Who calleth on thee, Heart ? World's Strife, 
 With a golden heft to his knife : 
 World's Mirth, with a finger fine 
 That draws on a board in wine 
 
 Her blood-red plans of life : 
 World's Gain, with a brow knit down . 
 World's Fame, with a laurel crown, 
 Which rustles most as the leaves turn brown 
 
 Heart, wilt thou go ? " 
 
 DAY after day passed for Jerry in sight-seeing ; in 
 dinners and lunches ; suppers and operas ; plays 
 and drives. Each director of the railway enter- 
 tained him, and many people besides who had children 
 to place well in life. And Mr. Greg gave him care- 
 ful instructions and advice as to the tone to take with 
 each important person he met ; and Jerry heeded 
 with rare wisdom, and being possessed of much nat- 
 ural tact, was winning day by day more and" more 
 favor and influence. 
 
 In company he found himself remembering and 
 copying the doctor in his ways and words, and Paul 
 too : almost it seemed to him that he was a different 
 person ; he could not be the same Jerry who fed the 
 pigs, and chopped the wood, and cooked Joe's supper. 
 With money slipping like water through his fingers ; 
 going for all sorts of things of which he had not 
 known until now, but that now seemed necessities ; 
 with each day brimful of change and pleasure, 
 and luxury, he wondered how he had lived the nar- 
 row life of the past ; and he wondered how much 
 money Joe had. 
 
 For now at any cost he must have money. The 
 thought had grown into a desire ; the desire had 
 
 255
 
 256 JERRY. 
 
 spread into a longing a longing that pervaded 
 every moment of his life. A thirst, he had called 
 it once when speaking to the half-starved creatures 
 in Eureka. Hard words for those poor wretches 
 who had no greater longing for gold than these grand 
 people. And now, as if in judgment, the thirst for gold 
 was on him ; the fatal plague-spot had appeared, and 
 had spread until to him success meant life failure 
 meant death ! 
 
 And so many chances against him still. 
 
 At last one day they said that the doctor had come. 
 Two weeks, that had seemed like two years, had 
 passed by him in this new life ; and now came the 
 climax and Jerry wondered as to the results. 
 
 He had never lived before : he knew this now when 
 he felt the fever in his blood that made him long to 
 face and conquer the world J He longed for the 
 hearing that would be given him before the Board ; 
 he longed to tell his story, and watch that grave, 
 severe face, whose calm he had never seen broken. 
 
 Long ago he had been chilled by this calm, and 
 had learned to keep his dreams in the quiet of his own 
 heart. 
 
 "You are a dreamer, Jerry," the doctor had once 
 said, "and dreamers are never practical." 
 
 Now he would have a chance to prove himself ; 
 now the doctor would find that he had made stand- 
 ing room for himself among these worldly men, who 
 were nothing if not practical money-gatherers. 
 
 More practical in their winning and hoarding than 
 poor old Joe was, who toiled day by day in the 
 bowels of the earth ; closer in their transactions than 
 stingy Burk ; more anxious about their gains than 
 besotted Morris ! Yes, even among these he had 
 made himself a success ; and the doctor would see it, 
 and feel it, and hear it on all hands. It was worth 
 ten years of life, this success that was as much social 
 as it was financial.
 
 JERRY. 257 
 
 The music was more beautiful, if that were possible, 
 than it had been since the first evening he heard it : 
 and the scene, though more familiar, was equally 
 bright. Jerry leaned against the side of the box, with 
 a gay party all around him, who were impatient that 
 the play should be over and leave them free for the 
 ball that was to follow. 
 
 But to Jerry the music came as of old it came to 
 Saul ; and he listened thankfully, while the burning 
 spirit within him was laid to rest. Yet the music 
 seemed in some sort to take its keynote from the 
 thoughts that held him ; seemed to vibrate and quiver 
 with the struggle that would fill the next day. For 
 on the following day he was to plead his cause to 
 stand or fall before the man for whose commendation 
 he would have done anything. Would he be able to 
 rouse him ; once to shake him from that calm ; once 
 to make him break his self-control ? 
 
 He looked up to the box opposite, where he had 
 always looked for the face he had not seen since the 
 first night, but that nevertheless had haunted him ; he 
 looked up now 
 
 Now, and almost a story was told him almost a 
 mystery was revealed. She was there, looking up 
 into the doctor's eyes. 
 
 Jerry drew a long breath ; he knew now where he 
 had seen her face ; he remembered even the shape of 
 the case, and the red of the morocco ; he remembered 
 the trick of the little catch, and the face that had met 
 his eyes. 
 
 " There is your friend up there with Henley's 
 mother," Mr. Greg said, bending over Jerry ; " it was 
 strange her husband should give away his boy Pauf, 
 give him away so that his own mother should never 
 see him again "; then Mr. Greg turned away to 
 auswer some remark. 
 
 Paul's mother ? 
 
 Jerry could not account for the involuntary shudder 
 that had thrilled him at Mr. Greg's words. Why
 
 258 JERRY. 
 
 should he object to this woman being Paul's mother ; 
 why should he feel as if for her sake he must hate 
 Paul ? The fact of her being Paul's mother would 
 account for the doctor's interest in Paul ; for one 
 glance as they stood together told Jerry that the 
 doctor loved her. If so, why should not they finish 
 their story now that she was free ? And could it be 
 this that had silenced the life of this man that had 
 driven him out from his place in the world ? Just 
 for the love of this woman who had meanwhile 
 loved and married another ? Jerry shook his 
 head. 
 
 This could not be all ; there was something deeper 
 than this, something no mortal eye could see, some 
 overwhelming sorrow to warp so strong a life. 
 
 And Jerry seemed to see the long, low house with- 
 out fence or garden, with the black mountains for a 
 background, and the wide plains stretching shadowless 
 in front. He could see the dim library ; he could see 
 the flickering of the firelight, and hear the clanking of 
 the doctor's spurs as he strode up and down. Which 
 was real, that lonely home on the plain, or this life 
 that seemed to have caught the glamour from the 
 " Golden Age " ? 
 
 And this man, so perfectly dressed, standing with 
 such easy grace, so at home amid all this richness, 
 was this the real man, or was the reality the one he 
 had known out yonder in his rough hunting suit ? 
 
 Which was the real man which was the real life f 
 And Jerry's mind wandered during the play; and the 
 music mingled and wove its way through all his 
 thoughts and questions. 
 
 But the next day would tell all ; the next day, that 
 would stand a mark forever in his life ! 
 
 And a cold, dreary day it was, with the rain falling 
 down persistently on the drenched world. Trickling 
 in little streams from the omnibus drivers' hats, and 
 from their thin horses ; falling mercilessly on the poor 
 scraps of humanity hunting greedily in the garbage
 
 JERRY. 259 
 
 barrels ; making hasty little runlets around the cor- 
 ners of the pavements ; and seeming as if striving 
 with its thousand little tones to drown the noises of 
 humanity. 
 
 Jerry stood watching the passers-by, watching the 
 omnibus men and horses watching the drenched bar- 
 rel-pickers. They were very pitiful, the blurred pict- 
 ures he saw between the raindrops that trickled 
 slowly down the shining plate-glass windows. This 
 was the wrong side of the gilded picture of city life, 
 the wrong side of which he had read, but as yet had 
 not seen. These figures were some of the poor creat- 
 ures who were crowded out of life ; who were pushed 
 to the wall to die ; who were looked on as surplus 
 population that had no right in the world ; who should 
 never have been born, and for whom disease and starv- 
 ation were the only remedies. 
 
 These were the people he had planned to help ; 
 these were the people for whom he wanted the land 
 saved, the people no one cared for, who had no chance 
 in life. Had he stood to his purpose ? 
 
 He moved his hand across his eyes slowly. 
 
 In all these weeks he had had but one thought the 
 success of his venture as a speculation ; and now he 
 was pledged, almost, to have no other thought. 
 
 Having accepted favors from these rich people, he 
 was under bond, almost, to succeed ; had promised 
 almost that money should be made for them from 
 Burden's. If the railway went there his plan would 
 succeed ; if the railway went there it would be to make 
 money for these rich people. 
 
 As a looker-on, how he would have despised such a 
 state of things, how he would have launched all his 
 power against such seeming injustice ! Yet, as an 
 actor he was bound and held down, a slave to the 
 money of these people, to the money that had be- 
 come a necessity to him. 
 
 More and more gloomy his thoughts became as he 
 stood in the rich, warm room, looking out on the fall-
 
 260 JERR Y. 
 
 ing rain that seemed to sing a requiem for the darker 
 side of life. 
 
 How would the day end how would he stand to- 
 morrow at this hour ? It was in vain that he made an 
 effort to arrange the words he would say they slipped 
 away from him hopelessly ; he could trust only that 
 when the time came his excitement would help him. 
 Butthrough all one thought haunted him one thought 
 that he was afraid would take all his strength away, 
 and leave him without a case, the thought that he 
 had not been true to his earlier purpose. He had be- 
 gun to work for the good of his own class ; now he 
 was working only for the success of his venture. Its 
 success might mean the good of the people, but he 
 knew that if it did not mean this, he would pursue the 
 success just as eagerly. He had not been true. 
 
 So he brooded gloomily, looking out on the falling 
 rain, and behind him the women near the fire con- 
 versed in their soft tones, and worked their useless 
 embroideries. 
 
 He had no right as yet to such a place as this in the 
 world ; he had not been born to it, nor as yet had 
 reached it through any work of his own. Joe and the 
 doctor had brought him up and educated him through 
 a pure sense of " mercy and loving-kindness "; he 
 was now spending Joe's money, and by its power hold- 
 ing an undeserved position in society. He felt that 
 he was an impostor, and the feeling had driven him 
 into telling his story to these kind women. He had 
 tried to tell it truly ; he had tried not to soften any 
 of the roughnesses, nor to lessen any of his obliga- 
 tions ; and yet, when he finished, they gave him the 
 gentlest sympathy ; and Mrs. Greg's eyes had filled 
 with tears over the poor little ragged waif ! 
 
 " Think if my boys had suffered so," she said. 
 
 Was this a woman's natural way, Jerry wondered, 
 to take the pathetic part of a life and spread it over 
 all the sins and wickednesses ; were women always so 
 merciful ? He did not know enough of women to
 
 JERRY. 261 
 
 draw any conclusion ; but he felt sorry that he had 
 said anything, it made him feel weak and pitiful, as if 
 he had been complaining, or asking for sympathy. 
 Among men it would have been different : how he 
 had arrived at his present position, to whom he was 
 indebted, would make no difference to men ; all they 
 would want to hear would be how he intended to make 
 a success of his town. It would be no concern of 
 theirs whose lives or teachings served as his steps to 
 success ; their only question would be, is he success- 
 ful, and how much advancement can we count on from 
 this man's success ? If he ruined the doctor in this 
 struggle, if he took from old Joe the one occupation 
 and joy of his life it would be nothing to these men 
 nothing to the greedy crowd watching out in Dur- 
 den's, following close on his heels with hungry eyes 
 fixed on his every movement, ready with grasping 
 hands to tear him down if he but seemed to fail them 
 for a moment ! 
 
 He looked out at an old, bent, ragged creature stir- 
 ring in a refuse barrel ; hooking out scraps of meat, 
 moldy bones, decayed vegetables ; fishing in the 
 dust-barrel of the Gregs ; and Mrs. Greg's eyes were 
 still wet with tears over the story of his life. 
 
 Suppose Joe had wept only ? 
 
 He turned from the window and walked hurriedly 
 down the room ; he was becoming more and more 
 vile every moment. How could he think of anything 
 except the kindness of these people ; and that if he 
 failed he would have no better place in the world than 
 the beggar he had been watching. Never ! never 
 while he had life and strength ; never while he had a 
 mind to conceive and guide, would he yield one inch 
 of this position he had stormed. He must lead he 
 would lead ; he would have this money that made the 
 world so beautiful to those who gained it : that left 
 all bleak and cold to those who were worsted in the 
 fray. And some must fall in this wild, grinding con- 
 flict ; a man could take care only of himself ; and
 
 262 JERRY. 
 
 with all their efforts some could not accomplish even 
 this. This was the new lesson he had learned from 
 the civilized and educated. 
 
 Then Fred came to tell him that the carriage was 
 ready, and it was time to go : and Mrs. Greg insisted on 
 his buttoning his overcoat more securely and Isabel 
 pinned a pansy to his buttonhole. " You must suc- 
 ceed," she said, while Fred laughed at them for having 
 any doubt. 
 
 " The old gentleman has had a fresh letter from 
 Charlie," he said by way of comfort, " and he intends 
 reading it to the Board before Wilkerson begins his 
 speech." 
 
 " Then I will not fail," Jerry answered, while a new 
 light carrie into his eyes ; his eyes that had never lost 
 the wistful look that had won him so much in his life ; 
 " it will seem like a piece of the old life come to urge 
 me on to better it and to help it up " ; then he and 
 Fred went away, and Isabel waved a farewell from 
 the window.
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 " ' Be strong, 
 
 Take courage ; now you're on our level now ! 
 The next step saves you ! ' I was flushed wiih praise, 
 But, pausing just a moment to draw breath, 
 I could not choose but murmur to myself 
 ' Is this all ? all that's done ? and all that's gained ? 
 If this then be success, 'tis dismaller 
 Than any failure.' " 
 
 IT was a handsome room in which the Board met ; 
 richly furnished and warm, and with plenty of 
 
 light and space. But this day it was a little crowded, 
 for many of the stockholders were there to hear and 
 vote on the road being extended to Burden's. 
 
 They were a little late, Fred and Jerry, and Mr. 
 Greg, who was chairman, was impatient over the 
 delay. 
 
 " Do not look anxious," Fred said as they mounted 
 the stairs, " else they will think it a personal matter." 
 
 Jerry started a little, the advice was so good, and 
 mentally he thanked Fred for it ; aloud he said, " Our 
 being late does not look like too great anxiety." 
 
 And truly as he entered the great room, with a smile 
 on his lips, and a pansy in his buttonhole, he did not 
 looked troubled. The doctor watched him curiously 
 as he came in : tall, well-made, easy in his movements, 
 meeting all with an air of quiet equality ; being cor- 
 dially welcomed by the great bankers and stock -brokers, 
 and railway men ; and seeming to think nothing of it. 
 
 Could this be jerry ? His clothes fitting him per- 
 fectly ; with even an air of distinction about him ; 
 and, stranger than all, come to meet him on equal 
 ground come to cross swords with him ! 
 
 Things had changed marvelously. 
 
 263
 
 264 .JERRY. 
 
 Then their eyes met, and Jerry felt the hot color 
 creep slowly up into his face as he remembered the 
 day that now seemed so far away the day when 
 this man had shaken him off so coldly. But he had 
 a clew to the secret now ; he had found it the night 
 before in that woman's face. She had absorbed the 
 doctor's heart and life ; and he, Jerry, was only a 
 part of the missionary work he had done either to fill 
 up his life, or as atonement for something in his past. 
 
 This last was a new thought, and flashed like a 
 stream of light on Jerry's mind ; and he turned to 
 look again on this man who puzzled him so. What 
 was hidden in that life ; hidden behind the inscruta- 
 ble sadness of that grave, cold face ? 
 
 A bow was all their greeting, and they took their 
 seats the width of the room apart. Only a moment ; 
 then the meeting was called to order, and Mr. Greg 
 rose to say that, before introducing his young friend 
 Mr. Wilkerson, he wished to read a letter he had re- 
 ceived that morning from his son, who being in Dur- 
 den's could give the latest news. 
 
 Then he read a letter telling of the success of every- 
 thing that had been touched ; that the new lodes in- 
 creased in riches as they went deeper ; that even if 
 the old mine were not reopened, and even if the road 
 was refused them, it would pay to transport by wagon 
 all that the town needed, and all that she would have 
 to export. That it was an ascertained fact that much 
 of the gold-dust purporting to come from the Eureka 
 Mine had been gathered in Burden's gorge and sold 
 to Engineer Mills. Then the young man added : 
 " Never shall I cease to thank Mr. Wilkerson for the 
 opening he has given me, and for the way in which he 
 showed me my best advantage. He used no persua- 
 sions, he asked me only to look for myself and decide 
 on the truth - of his representations. Now, I consider 
 myself a rich man in owning the land I at present 
 hold in Durclen's gorge." 
 
 There was a little murmur when Mr. Greg finished;
 
 JERRY. 265 
 
 and it was moved that Mr. Wilkerson should now 
 state his case and his wants. 
 
 It was a tremulous, exciting moment for Jerry ; he 
 had never made a speech in his life save to the people 
 in Eureka, and how would he do it ? One moment he 
 paused, and in that moment heard an inimical stock- 
 holder say in an aside : 
 
 " I suppose his talent lies in addressing mobs." 
 
 The blood sprang into Jerry's face as he laid aside 
 his overcoat and mounted the platform where Mr. 
 Greg sat. The aside had made him angry ; they 
 should not scoff at him ; he would make his speech 
 and carry his point. 
 
 He shook himself a little, as if his clothes were 
 not quite in their usual place ; then drawing himself 
 up, he put his hands in his pockets and looked out 
 quietly over his audience. 
 
 He knew nothing of the usual etiquette of bowing 
 first to the chairman, and then to his hearers ; he 
 knew nothing of beginning, " Mr. President, and gen- 
 tlemen of the Board "; he knew nothing of gestures ; 
 he knew only that he had something to say, and must 
 say it convincingly or fail ; and that these people were 
 willing that he should fail. 
 
 " I heard a gentleman say a moment ago," he be- 
 gan, and his voice rang clear and fresh, and a little 
 angry, " that he supposed my talent lay in addressing 
 mobs ; it may, or it may not ; but I can say truly that 
 in all my life I never have made a speech save to what 
 this quiet company would Call a mob. I saw them 
 called a mob in your newspapers, where I had the 
 honor of being called their leader ; and both about 
 me and about them a great mistake was made. They 
 were poor, and they were ignorant, if that constitutes a 
 mob ; and they were human creatures who had been 
 wronged ; and, rightly, this should have converted 
 them into a mob "; the color in his face deepening, 
 and his eyes flashing as he looked over the upturned 
 faces. " Those poor people had lived in that far-off,
 
 266 JERRY. 
 
 lonely region for more than twenty-five years ; a re- 
 gion that had ceased to have even the excitement of 
 being on the frontier, or near an agency ; had lived 
 there on scanty wages, contented with the thought 
 that if any good days ever came, they would have 
 their share in them. The good, days came, and they 
 were pushed aside ! They had been improvident, 
 had been wasteful, had been ungrateful to one who 
 had spent much money and time in helping them; and 
 they deserved to be pushed aside ? 
 
 " Perhaps, but remember that they were as ignorant 
 as beasts mentally and morally they were blind ! 
 
 " Long before this issue, I had determined to help 
 them ; determined, if such a thing were possible, to 
 raise the whole class, because it is the class I spring 
 from," and he looked straight across at the doctor, 
 who was watching him intently. " So these people 
 believed me that I was their friend ; believed I meant 
 to work for them, and yet I had to abuse them round- 
 ly had to knock one man down before I could make 
 them see things as they should see them for their own 
 good " and a hearty " Good enough ! " that sounded 
 strangely like a Eureka comment, came from some 
 one in the audience. " Maybe all this made them a 
 mob," he went on, " but they are quiet enough now. 
 They followed the advice given them, and held their 
 lands in Eureka until the price offered was as high as 
 it could be forced.; they then sold, and bought the 
 land held for them in Burden's gorge : and they got 
 it, good gold-land, for half the price which had been 
 paid them for their lots in Eureka. 
 
 " We then elected a town committee, printed circu- 
 lars which we sent to every post-office in the East, 
 opened three new finds within a quarter of a mile of 
 each other ; and we stopped the sale of liquor. 
 
 " This is what we have done without capital ; the 
 money to buy the land and the old mine was advanced 
 by a man who made it selling gold-dust to the Eureka 
 Mine ; he has been selling them gold-dust ever since
 
 JERRY. 267 
 
 the Eureka Mine was first opened," he paused a mo- 
 ment, arrested by the intent look on the doctor's face; 
 " this man's name is Daniel Burk," he added, while 
 the interest faded from the doctor's eyes. " For the 
 future we need an engineer to open the old mine, 
 which has been closed for all these years only because 
 the people were superstitious. The original owner 
 disappeared in the mine, and the people deserted it. 
 
 "If we can secure an engineer, I and others have 
 pledged ourselves to go with him to the end of the 
 tunnel in order to reassure the Burden's people ; the 
 new miners who come in will not heed the old story. 
 But we need machinery, and a competent man to 
 direct us. You have spent millions in sending your 
 railway out to this gold region, and already you have 
 made millions from the speculation : this is well, but 
 it is better still to know that a little further on there 
 are as many more millions waiting for you : extend 
 your railway to Burden's, and take stock in Burden's 
 Mine. 
 
 " If you will not help us," and he paused a moment, 
 " we can wait, and grow slowly : we can save money 
 until we have enough to open the mine, without out- 
 side help : then the tide of immigration will flow in on 
 us, and we will succeed in spite of all odds, and dictate 
 terms to Eureka and to you." 
 
 Now they applauded him, and he felt his heart rise 
 up within him. 
 
 " For or against Eureka," he went on, " I have 
 nothing to say ; and most unintentionally was I led 
 into making the towns rivals. I heard of the railway 
 and I warned the people against the land-sharpers ; 
 I warned them, and explained to them that simply 
 holding the land they had would bring them money in 
 the end. I persuaded them that to buy land as spec- 
 ulation only, so depriving the poor, who were coming 
 out to find room enough to live, of all hope of new 
 homes, was a sin. Suddenly, enough land was secured 
 to make a new town, and their little lots seemed value-
 
 268 JERRY. 
 
 less ! It was hard, and I did not blame them that 
 they turned on me. Then I had to seek something 
 for them, and like a revelation it came to me to build 
 up Burden's again and I will do it," proudly, " for 
 when failure means death, success will be fought for 
 hardly ! These people have put all they own in Dur- 
 den's, and can not hope to make another venture if 
 this fails them. 
 
 " If you will help us, it will be the best invest- 
 ment you ever made : if you turn from us, we will 
 be patient." 
 
 Then he sat down amid a clapping of hands and 
 words of commendation, and waited with a sick heart 
 to hear what the doctor would say. 
 
 Would he undo him ? Were there any points kept 
 in abeyance that would pull down his whole venture ? 
 His speech had not been as good as the words he had 
 said to the poor people out in Eureka : he was not as 
 angry he was not as earnest he felt trammeled and 
 bound ; the people and the occasion seemed unreal, 
 and the life about him was a sham ! They had enough, 
 these people ; and should be compelled, not begged, 
 to help those who needed. Something, surely, was 
 very wrong with humanity ! 
 
 " Mr. President, and gentlemen of the Board," the 
 doctor began, standing in his place, " all that Mr. Wil- 
 kerson has said is true, perfectly true. But all that I 
 have written you of the Eureka Mine is true also. That 
 Engineer Mills has bought gold from outsiders, is no 
 wrong ; and it was not to be expected that he should 
 label each little lot. The land that was bought around 
 Eureka is my private affair ; and if it fails I shall be 
 the only loser. As to extending the road to Burden's, 
 I can see no objections to it ; and as I have at heart 
 also the greatest good of the greatest number, I hope 
 it will be done. The work of Mr. Wilkerson needs 
 no word from me; his plans have been well conceived, 
 well executed, and surprisingly successful. You can 
 not lose anything by investing in Burden's Mine ; nor
 
 JERR Y. 269 
 
 will you lose anything that you have invested in 
 Eureka. 
 
 " I have come here at the request of the land- 
 agents who have invested in Eureka. They have 
 been very much disheartened by Mr. Wilkerson's suc- 
 cess. 
 
 " They have not capital enough to enable them to 
 hold the land they have bought : if they sell at a loss 
 it will injure the reputation of the town, and for a 
 time the mining interests. I came to advise for their 
 good, and for your good, that the company buy the 
 lots the agents now hold, and hold them as private 
 property. The two towns will be one eventually and 
 their interests be merged into each other : one can not 
 grow without helping the other ; and for the sake of 
 the money which already you have invested in Eureka, 
 I strongly advise that the land values be not allowed 
 to decline. 
 
 " I have with me a map of the town, and of the num- 
 ber of lots that will have to be bought in also their 
 values. I can vouch that no higher price has been 
 put on the lots than the agents paid for them." 
 
 Then he sat down amid a surprised silence. 
 
 Where was the expected struggle between these 
 rival towns and leaders : where was the great excite- 
 ment that had possessed the company when they met: 
 where was Jerry's enthusiasm ! 
 
 He sat quite still through it all : listened while the 
 short, quiet sentences fell so coolly and calmly : felt 
 that he had made a fool of himself ; and discov- 
 ered a slow, dull anger creeping through him. 
 
 The two towns to be made one : their interests to 
 be identified ; only that Burden's was allowed to grow 
 first ! 
 
 Where was the opposition ; what could he do ? 
 whom could he antagonize? And he had not injured 
 Paul; but only a private venture of the doctor's, about 
 which he knew as little now as at the very first. 
 
 No explanation had been made ; no light had been
 
 270 JERRY. 
 
 thrown on anything, save on the one fact that his at- 
 tack on the doctor had served only to strengthen Paul's 
 fortunes : for, of course, it was more safe that the 
 company should own the town of Eureka, than that 
 chance adventurers should hold the land. Of course 
 the company would see that the town succeeded ; and 
 if they extended the railway to Burden's, and put 
 their money in the Burden's Mine, there could be but 
 the one issue for the whole matter : the towns would 
 be made one, and their fortunes rise and fall together. 
 And from the first, the doctor had intended this 
 had foreseen it. 
 
 He longed to be alone ; he longed to walk for 
 miles and miles ; maybe he so could still this throb- 
 bing anger that was increasing every moment ; he 
 wished that the people in front of him had been 
 the poor Eureka mob that he might abuse them ! 
 
 How had this thing happened ; how had he been 
 such a blind fool ? 
 
 All about him there was a hubbub of voices ; a 
 group gathered about the doctor ; a group about Mr. 
 Greg, and close packed about himself Jerry found 
 the mass of the company. 
 
 Congratulating him shaking hands with him 
 telling him that his success had brought Eureka and 
 the Birectors to terms ; and that now his fortune was 
 secure. 
 
 So it was : and he talked and laughed, and shook 
 hands, and understood that his point was gained, 
 although no official action had been taken as yet. 
 
 Then he and Fred found themselves outside in 
 the pitiless rain that still fell ; but a liveried servant 
 held an umbrella over them, and the carriage waited 
 with open door. 
 
 The ladies were enchanted, and at lunch Mr. 
 Greg rubbed his fat white hands over the morning's 
 work. 
 
 " And you can go to the ball to-night, my boy," he 
 said, patting Jerry gently on the shoulder, " feeling
 
 JERRY. 271 
 
 yourself rich because of the land you own in Dur- 
 den's." 
 
 Rich because of the land he owned ! 
 
 A new and dreadful realization came to Jerry he 
 owned no land. Burden's might make millions, and 
 not one cent would come to him ! 
 
 The room and all its beautiful furniture seemed to 
 waver for a moment. 
 
 Dan Burk Dave Morris Charles Greg, indeed, 
 every man in Durden's was secure in his possesions, 
 secure in the protection of the Commune. 
 
 He only had been left out. 
 
 Blind to everything except the success of his ven- 
 ture, and the triumph over Paul Henley and the doctor, 
 he had forgotten himself until now now when all the 
 best land had been sold, and not one foot of it his. 
 
 And even if it were still there, he had no money to 
 buy it with. He was spending money fast enough 
 now, but it was Joe's money, which he had bargained 
 to spend that the old man might be persuaded to 
 show the safe way into the mine. Once back in Dur- 
 den's he would not have a cent. 
 
 He dressed for the ball with a heavy heart : how 
 could he rectify this mistake ? 
 
 He was still more of a lion in the glittering 
 assembly where he was taken at the end of the 
 exhausting day ; for besides the wit and wisdom he 
 had made evident, it was said that he possessed acres 
 of undug gold ! 
 
 So of course he was courted and smiled on, and 
 Isabel Greg was looked on as the young woman most 
 likely to capture the prize. Even beautiful Edith 
 Henley looked with interested eyes on this " ruffian " 
 and " wretched ragamuffin " of her brother's letters. 
 He was a success, and surely looked like a gentleman ; 
 and the next day she wrote Paul a letter that roused 
 every evil passion of his nature, an innocent letter, 
 save that it was full of Jerry's success, and the doc- 
 tor's compromise !
 
 272 JERRY. 
 
 An'd under all these admiring eyes poor Jerry stood, 
 longing for one moment's quiet where he could col- 
 lect his thoughts, and look his situation in the face. 
 To betray his position or his anxiety by word or 
 look would be ruin ; for after such an acknowledg- 
 ment who would believe anything but that the whole 
 scheme was a fraud. It was not usual for men so to 
 leave themselves out of reckoning ; and these people 
 would not believe him. 
 
 Poor Jerry ! he longed to be back in the wilds 
 where a man could look as he felt, and where every 
 man carried law and redress in his belt. There one 
 was free, here one was bound by a thousand little 
 fetters that galled at every turn. 
 
 At last his chance came ; for a moment he stood 
 alone, and in that moment he stepped through a 
 long window near which he stood, into a conserv- 
 atory. 
 
 All about him beautiful flowers, and at great dis- 
 tances the dim lights : inside the throb and swell of 
 the music, outside, the stony street the cold wind, 
 and the rain falling ceaselessly. 
 
 He sat alone in a dark corner with his face down 
 in his hands, trying to still the tumult within him, 
 saying over and over to himself that he must be 
 calm and strong, for now a great question lay before 
 him. 
 
 " The land you own makes you a rich man " 
 these words had never left him, nor the knowledge 
 that had come with them the knowledge that he 
 was as destitute now as when Joe had picked him 
 up. 
 
 His head sank lower. 
 
 More destitute : then he had been conscious of 
 cold and hunger only ; now he was filled with knowl- 
 edge, and knowledge revealed a thousand wants that 
 served to make his poverty infinite. A thousand 
 wants that all centered in money. 
 
 His thoughts paused for a moment, and a calm,
 
 JERRY. 273 
 
 clear light seemed to shine within him. Let all suc- 
 ceed ; let the prosperity and the good he had insti- 
 tuted live and bloom about him live and multiply a 
 hundred-fold, yet not touch him save through the 
 peace within his soul ! Go back to his old ideal 
 realize his first high calling show the world a man 
 higher than these paltry ends of fortune ! 
 
 Sink out of men's minds go back to nothingness ? 
 And what would the world say "A wild dreamer a 
 fool ! " Suddenly he lifted his head, for voices ap- 
 proached him, and one voice was so familiar. 
 
 " Things have not changed, Judith," the voice said, 
 " and you are as far from me now as then ; for the 
 wrong I did lives still ; even if within convent walls, 
 she lives and I am not free," and a little way in front 
 of him Jerry saw the doctor standing, holding in his 
 hands the hands of the woman whose face had so 
 haunted him. 
 
 " I am not free," the deep voice went on, " and my 
 life is now too near its close for me to hope for free- 
 dom, even if that hope were righteous." 
 
 " And must your whole life be one great sacrifice, 
 Paul ? " and the voice was so low and sweet that Jerry 
 listened to it as he had done to the first music he had 
 heard, " one long self-annihilation ? " 
 
 " One great expiation, rather, even as hers has 
 been," and the doctor put the two hands he held 
 together, folding his own about them, " and I must say 
 good-by, dear, and this good-by will mean forever !. " 
 
 Then they passed on ; and the dim lights made 
 broken shadows ; and the flowers cast out their sweet- 
 ness recklessly ; and the distant music rose and fell 
 for the glittering throng to dance to ! 
 
 Good-by forever ! 
 
 The young heart listened with a dim sense of the 
 infinite sadness that lived in the words ; and in the 
 music that was meant to be gay in that pulsing, throb- 
 bing waltz with a minor cry through all its chords ! 
 
 This practical, money-getting, soul-crushing age ;
 
 274 JERRY. 
 
 is this the music it dances to ? This proud, hard 
 Nineteenth Century that vaunts itself that it neither 
 fears nor loves that glories in tearing the veil from 
 the " Holy of Holies " that the mob might be as free to 
 touch and see as the " Anointed of the Lord " ! that 
 analyzes every throb of brain and heart ; that laughs 
 faith and hope to scorn, holding only certainty : that 
 shuts charity into hospital wards : that teaches the 
 " survival of the fittest"; that tests prayer and crowds 
 down the weak and the poor to death and annihilation. 
 Hailing " labor-saving " inventions with a shout of 
 triumph, and trusting to disease and death to clear 
 the overcrowded garrets and cellars ! 
 
 Clamoring and battling for gold ; and legislating 
 on the crowded prisons and lunatic asylums ! This 
 great " Iron Age" that has no heart save the thud of 
 machinery is this the music it dances to? 
 
 Do the eliminated, foolish heart and soul find their 
 refuge here ? Sobbing through all the songs and 
 dances crying out to the throb of beating feet ! 
 
 Do we hear the heart of the Nineteenth Century 
 pulsing in its music the saddest music the world has 
 ever heard ?
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 "Oh, Soul! 
 To stand there all alone 
 
 And without hope ! 
 To watch the years come one by one, 
 Sad faces from the old days gone 
 Eyes full of memories pale and wan 
 
 And hands that grope 
 
 About thy weary heartstrings, without hope ! 
 Waking old chords, and long-hushed cries, 
 
 And loving tones 
 
 And warning words, and patient sighs 
 And pleading prayers from long dead eyes 
 And trampled hopes, and broken ties 
 And sins and joys that restless rise 
 
 With smothered groan 
 And tears that weigh like lead ! Aye, writhe, 
 Thou Soul ! " 
 
 THE excitement was all over now, and the reaction 
 was a most painful thing to Jerry. 
 
 The day before had been one bewildering whirl 
 of astonishing events : the success of his appeal ; the 
 revelation of the condition of Eureka ; the realization 
 of his own position ; and at the ball the little scene 
 that had passed before him like a dream. 
 
 There was a weariness over his body and a dull 
 pain in his head when the daylight stole through the 
 window, finding him still awake ; turning over and 
 over in his mind the chances for his future. 
 
 All was accomplished now that he had come to 
 arrange : a company had been formed called " The 
 Burden's Mining Company," the railway was to be 
 extended, and a mining engineer and assayer to be 
 sent out. 
 
 All this had been decided the day before, and there 
 
 275
 
 276 JERRY. 
 
 was nothing left to do now, but for Jerry to go home 
 and put things in motion there. 
 
 For Burden's he had been entirely successful ; but 
 for himself what had he done ? 
 
 He dressed very slowly, for he dreaded the time 
 when he must appear as the successful man ; and 
 longed to go away and hide from all whom he knew. 
 The rain was still falling, but the scene within was 
 bright enough when Jerry entered the breakfast-room, 
 humming softly one of the waltzes that had been 
 woven into his thoughts the night before. 
 
 The table with its shining silver and glass, and 
 delicate china, and flowers that made all sweet ; the 
 fair women ; the successful old man reading his paper 
 by the fire. Jerry paused a moment to take it all in : 
 if he had had such a home. And yet, young Greg 
 left it all to gather gold ? He must gather too ; for 
 years he must gather, then he could have all these fair 
 possessions about him as this old man had. 
 
 A pleasant " good-morning " greeted him as he sat 
 down ; and a " By the way, Wilkerson," from Mr. Greg 
 as he laid his paper across his knees. 
 
 Jerry looked up quickly. 
 
 " You had better let me take stock for you to-day 
 in your mine," laughing ; " you are bound to take it, 
 you know, in order to give us confidence." 
 
 " Of course," Jerry answered, while there flashed 
 through his mind the memory that he had nothing. 
 
 " Your credit with me is unlimited," Mr. Greg went 
 on, " those were Mr. Gilliam's instructions." 
 
 " I know," and the cup that Jerry took from Isa- 
 bel's hands trembled as he put it down. 
 
 " How much shall I put you down for ? " 
 
 The point-blank question was startling, and Jerry 
 paused a moment : it seemed hard that Joe's savings 
 should have to go to buy shares in a mine that for 
 more than twenty years he had worked alone ! 
 
 " Of course the stock is bound to rise," Mr. Greg 
 went on, " for we can make it rise : in two weeks it
 
 JERRY. 277 
 
 shall have doubled its value ; after that, much will de- 
 pend on how you manage things in Burden's ; but 
 now 
 
 " I will take as much as I can get," Jerry said 
 quietly. 
 
 " As much as you can carry ? " Mr. Greg suggested 
 doubtfully. 
 
 Jerry shook his head. 
 
 " As much as I can get," he repeated with a smile ; 
 " I know Durden's, and I should like to own the whole 
 thing." 
 
 Mr. Greg rose and stood before the fire, brushing 
 his hair back with a quick, nervous motion, while a 
 new expression seemed to change and sharpen the 
 whole shape of his face. 
 
 " Are you in earnest ? " he asked slowly. 
 
 Jerry stirred his coffee quietly. 
 
 " I am," he answered, " 1 know Durden's." 
 
 Mr. Greg walked the length of the room and back 
 again ; was this young man trying to play the game 
 on the company that the company intended playing 
 on Wall Street ? 
 
 " Do you know how these things are worked up in 
 the market?" he asked, pausing near Jerry's chair. 
 
 " No," Jerry answered, while he wondered if they 
 could hear the thumping of his heart, " no, I know 
 nothing of such things ; but I know Durden's, and I 
 know that gorge can not be exhausted ; you can gather 
 gold for ever, and never find the last," with a laugh ; 
 " almost one drinks it in the water," and the eyes that 
 looked up into Mr. Greg's glittered with a new light 
 and the old man turned away. 
 
 " I shall come out there myself," Fred put in ; " you 
 and Charlie shall not have it all your own way." 
 
 Mrs. Greg shook her head. 
 
 " One is enough out there, Fred," she said ; " put 
 your venture somewhere else." 
 
 " I shall make a fortune, and then draw out," Fred 
 answered.
 
 278 JERRY. 
 
 " And I shall stand to it and make millions ! " and 
 there was an exultant ring in Jerry's voice that gave 
 Mr. Greg more confidence in the venture than the 
 visible gold would have done, " I will gather in piles 
 and piles of gold," the young man went on, while the 
 color crept up his dark face, and the light in his eyes 
 gleamed brighter, " I will pile it up as I used to pile 
 the chips when I cut wood," the old simile coming 
 back to him that had been in his mind when he stood 
 alone in the midnight high up among the rocks the 
 old simile that had been with him when the thirst for 
 gold first seized him, " and if I get so much it will 
 not be worth any more to me than the chips," he 
 added, with a sadder tone creeping into his voice.. 
 
 " Hurrah for you ! " and Fred put back his head 
 with a hearty laugh, " Mr. Western Millionaire grow- 
 ing melancholy because he is apt to have money scat- 
 tered about him like chips very good ! " and he 
 laughed again. 
 
 Jerry looked up slowly. 
 
 "What will be left for me to do when I have 
 enough ? " he asked. 
 
 Mr. Greg shook his head slowly, folding up the 
 paper. " We never get enough," he said, " it is a 
 want that is never satisfied "; then to Jerry, "Will you 
 come down to the office later ? " 
 
 " Yes, Mr. Greg, by twelve," and the door closed 
 on the old man, grown more thoughtful over the Dur- 
 den's venture ; and the young people and Mrs. Greg 
 were left alone. 
 
 " Remember the matinee at two," Isabel suggested. 
 
 " I will," Jerry answered slowly, " as it is my last." 
 
 " Your last ! " came in three different voices. 
 
 Jerry nodded. 
 
 " I must get back now as quickly as possible," he 
 said, " to gather in all those millions Fred laughs at"; 
 they had grown very friendly in the time they had 
 been together, and had fallen into the way of saying 
 " Fred " and " Jerry," for Jerry, somehow, seemed to
 
 JERRY, 279 
 
 be one of them, "and you must have all your pack- 
 ages for Charlie ready to-day, for I shall leave in the 
 morning," and he walked to the fire. 
 
 " We shall miss you so much," Mrs. Greg said 
 kindly, while Isabel looked into her cup pensively. 
 " You have come to seem like one of my own boys," 
 she added. 
 
 " And you have been so kind to me," Jerry an- 
 swered, coming and standing close at her side, " you 
 have shown me what a home and a mother can be." 
 
 And strangely across his memory there drifted the 
 vision of a humble grave built round with rails, and 
 covered in with brush ! 
 
 Then he went down among the crowded offices ; 
 up and down the narrow streets ; in and out the great 
 Exchange where lives and souls are brought and sold ; 
 in and out, learning the way in which great ventures 
 are put on the market : signing away hundreds, and 
 running up the value of Burden's even in the mind of 
 Mr. Greg. 
 
 Then to the luxurious lunch, and glittering theater, 
 where the music throbbed, and humanity imitated its 
 own sorrows and joys ; pictured misery for happy 
 people ; and made false mirth for the weary and 
 heavy-laden. And Jerry listened as to a dear voice 
 
 that he would never hear again, it was the last time ! 
 ****** 
 
 And out in the far-off blackness of Burden's Mine 
 an old man struggled vainly almost. It was very 
 dark, " a darkness that could be felt " he had heard 
 that read from the Bible once ; and he put out his 
 long arms vaguely. 
 
 He was very weary and weak, for his food had given 
 out long ago ; he did not know how long ; and his 
 light had gone too ! He put his hand over his face 
 as if he needed more darkness, and a little groan broke 
 from his lips. 
 
 Had old Burden died in this way ? Some one had 
 said that he had set out to hunt for the Indian way
 
 280 JEKR Y. 
 
 into the cave, and never had come back. Maybe he 
 had died just here, and had not fallen into the hole ; 
 and maybe his bones, grown white and dry, were close 
 beside him ! 
 
 A great shudder went over the crouching form, and 
 the long arms felt about on the ground hurriedly ; but 
 all was smooth and cold. 
 
 If he sat here he would starve ; he must go on or 
 die ! 
 
 Die ! die, shut up in this black darkness without a 
 voice to comfort him, or a hand to give him strength ; 
 without a soul to breathe a prayer, or tell him God 
 was good ! 
 
 He flung his arms up, and clasped his toil-worn 
 hands together. 
 
 " My God my God ! " he cried, and the hoarse, 
 deep voice rolled back and forth through the black 
 rents and chasms. " Good God, cuss the damned 
 gole cuss it, cuss it ! " and the wild prayer faded 
 away in a faint whisper. 
 
 Once more he sat quiet, with his head down in his 
 hands. If he sat still he would starve ; he would 
 die here in this darkness ; anything would be better 
 than that ! And he crawled on slowly on his hands 
 and knees. He was afraid to walk, afraid he would 
 step off some awful chasm, and for days lie maimed 
 and dying. So he moved cautiously, and the move- 
 ment gave him hope. Why should not this long pas- 
 sage, that seemed so endless, be that lost entrance to 
 the cave ? 
 
 It always tended upward ; this was what made him 
 so weary ; it was always going up and up ; it had 
 not dipped for a long time now, he could not say for 
 how long. 
 
 But he had prayed too earnestly ; God could not 
 let him die here. 
 
 " An' Nan, her prayed fur me too," he whispered, 
 then crawled more slowly as the thought came to him 
 that it made no difference that he had hidden safely
 
 JERRY. 281 
 
 such store of gold : and again his whisper fell on the 
 silence, " Orl fur gole, an' it can't he'p me now, not 
 now an' it can't he'p me when I'se dead an' gone 
 notter cent ! " 
 
 On and on through the darkness, slowly, painfully. 
 
 " An' I'se done sent Jerry to larn to love gole ! oh, 
 God, I never knowed 1 never knowed ! " sobbing as 
 he crawled, with the penitent tears dropping on the 
 hard, smooth floor. Tears that were too hopeless for 
 such old eyes to shed ! 
 
 On and on, muttering to himself ; praying aloud ; 
 stopping to feel about nervously for the bones of the 
 dead man that he might find anywhere the poor old 
 man who had died for gold, as he might die if his 
 strength gave out before he reached the end. 
 
 Was there any end ? 
 
 He had heard the doctor say that all through these 
 mountains there were long caves and cracks that often 
 had no openings. It was strange how everything he had 
 ever known or heard came back to him now ; he re- 
 membered even things his mother had told him when 
 he was a little boy. He remembered the first furrow 
 he ever plowed, and how across it the sunshine 
 slanted up the hillside to the door where his sisters fed 
 the chickens ; and the spring where all the washing 
 was done. He could remember the wooden trough 
 his father had placed there and the gourd that was 
 always near. And the tubs were blue, he remembered 
 that distinctly ; and the soft lye-soap was kept always 
 in an open gourd. And Jim Mabry had given 'Liza 
 Jane a ring, and she took it off always before she 
 washed the clothes because it turned her finger black. 
 Yes, he could remember it all as if it were yesterday ; 
 remembered it as he crawled, and prayed for his life 
 in the awful darkness. 
 
 A poor old man who had nothing to show for his 
 days save a hoard of gold ! 
 
 Poor little Nan, she used to come there too, to wash 
 clothes at the spring ; and had " given her word "
 
 282 JERRY. 
 
 there, and Preacher Rowls had married them poor 
 little Nan ! 
 
 And again in the bitterness of his memories he cast 
 himself down on the rocks. 
 
 " My God my God, I never knowed ! " 
 
 Would God help him now ? It had been so long 
 since he had prayed. Yes, and he gathered himself 
 together once more, and urged his much-tried strength 
 to its utmost limits. 
 
 He was old, and he was weary and weak from hun- 
 ger ; and an awful thirst burned in his throat. That 
 was what made him think of the old spring and the 
 dry, brown gourd. Ah, that was the sweetest, fresh- 
 est water he had ever tasted. 
 
 Oh, for only a mouthful ! Then the awful memory 
 came to him of the rich man down in hell crying for a 
 drop of water. He had heard a preacher read that 
 once : all his money could not help him then burn- 
 ing up with thirst and fire, and praying for one drop 
 of water. 
 
 Had many people died for gold ? Judas ; yes, that 
 was the name ; Judas sold his God for money ; Judas, 
 he remembered that now. He had heard the doctor 
 read that once to poor 'Lije Milton when he was sick; 
 and 'Lije had died for gold ! 'Lije ? A deeper groan 
 broke from him, and he cast himself down on the 
 floor. 
 
 " An' I he'pped to skeer 'Lije ! " he cried, beating 
 on the rocks with his clenched hands. " Oh, God, it 
 were the gole done it the gole done it ! " writhing 
 in his remorse. " I never knowed as it would a-killed 
 him I never knowed ! " 
 
 Then he lay quite still ; he had thought of 'Lije be- 
 fore, and the thought had driven him on and on until 
 he had come too far to turn back ; and now, if he 
 thought of him again, he would be too weak to go on; 
 he would lie where he was and die. And if he died 
 in here the doctor would give Jerry the paper that told 
 where to find all his money; and Jerry would take it
 
 JERRY. 283 
 
 and love it, and he would not be there to tell him of 
 the awful curse that came with the love of gold. He 
 must get out if he could, to warn Jerry ; and he raised 
 himself and crawled on. 
 
 Little Nan had said that God did not make gold ; 
 that the devil made it and put it in all the cracks of 
 the earth to buy men's souls with : and it was true. 
 How many dug through days and nights down under 
 the earth, bringing up gold, and yet men never had 
 enough. 
 
 Little Nan was right ; God did not make gold. 
 
 Poor little Nan : but God would help him, because 
 she had prayed for him so often : yes, God would set 
 him free from this black hole this cursed mine, that 
 had murdered all who entered it : God would surely 
 set him free. 
 
 His breath seemed to leave him, his lifted hands 
 touched a wall in front of him ! 
 
 Was it so ? Had he not turned in some way and 
 touched the side wall ? 
 
 He was afraid to feel, and make sure ; for suppose 
 the passage stopped here ! He could not go back, he 
 had not the strength ; besides, after he had left the 
 cave a long distance he had come to a place where the 
 way was very narrow, and hung over a stream that 
 roared until it confused him, and now he was so weak 
 he would fall in. 
 
 Must he feel all about him, and find that cold stone 
 wall ? He drew himself together and put his face 
 down between his knees. 
 
 " Oh, God ! she were good she were good," he 
 pleaded, "an' she prayed fur me; oh, God! she 
 prayed fur me." What else could he pray ? what else 
 did he know ? One had prayed for him long ago, 
 when life was fresh and strong, and he knew she was 
 good, and God must have heard her prayers surely. 
 
 He put his hands out cautiously the poor, work- 
 hardened hands that had done many kindly deeds, 
 which the terrified heart did not seem to remember
 
 284 JERRY. 
 
 now, when in his dire distress all his mistakes and sins 
 loomed up before him. 
 
 Poor old weary, tremulous hands ; surely God 
 would set them free ! 
 
 Carefully he felt over the wall on one side, across 
 the low roof, down the other side, then again up to 
 the roof. He knew which side he had come from ; 
 he knew that behind him stretched that endless black 
 passage ; but in front? 
 
 He paused with his hands above him, touching the 
 roof 
 
 " She were good, God, and she prayed fur me," he 
 said. 
 
 Then slowly down in front of him he moved his 
 hands slowly slowly and the wall was there ! A 
 moment he paused one moment when all his life 
 seemed to rise and sweep before him ; all his life, and 
 all the faith he had had that for her sake, the one 
 creature who had loved and prayed for him for her 
 sake God would save him her sake who had been 
 good ! 
 
 All came over him now, and he was shut in here to 
 die by inches to die ! 
 
 " Oh, God ! " a long, wild cry a last supreme 
 appeal in his agony, and he fell forward against the 
 wall the wail that shut him in from life and hope ! 
 
 The sinking sun shone clear and red, wrapping the 
 plain in a rose-stained cloud of light, and sending 
 long rays of gold up to the highest peaks, tinting and 
 glorifying all the scarred, storm-beaten mountain- 
 side. It beautified Eureka, lying still and white on 
 the plain, and Burden's, climbing bravely up the 
 gorge ; and far up among the cliffs it touched a thin 
 slab of rock that had been pushed from its place, and 
 in its fall tearing from their hardly-won homes all 
 the lichens and little vines that had grown about 
 its edges. The sun touched all this very gently, 
 making silver lights in the gray hair of the old man
 
 JERR Y. 285 
 
 lying face down across the fallen slab, with his long 
 arms stretched out above his head. 
 
 Was he dead, lying there half in and half out the 
 black hole ; had he died in his search for the way that 
 was lost so long ago ? But at last he had found it : 
 high up among the cliffs overlooking the wide plains 
 and busy towns, overlooking his own little home, and 
 in touching distance, almost, of the place where he 
 had buried his little Nan ! 
 
 In a dip in the rocks where the earth had so gath- 
 ered and deepened that even some trees could grow 
 there, there she had chosen to be buried ; and now 
 very near the old man was the rough headstone he 
 had put up, with her name clumsily chipped on the 
 surface. 
 
 The sun touched that, too, and the little shadowy 
 pines. 
 
 Had Joe made his last find right there by her 
 grave ?
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 ' ' The past rolls forward on the sun 
 And makes all night." 
 
 ' * T T AS the doctor come ? " and young Greg looked 
 1 anxiously in Paul's face as he opened the door 
 of the doctor's house in answer to Greg's 
 knock. 
 
 " Yes," and the door was opened wide enough for 
 Greg to enter. 
 
 Down the long hall he went, and into the library 
 where the glowing fire was grateful aftei the keen 
 November winds that swept across the plain. 
 
 The doctor rose, holding out his hand to Greg. 
 
 " How are you ! " he said ; then, " I left your 
 family quite well." 
 
 " Thank you," Greg answered ; " I heard from 
 home to-day ; but it is a greater satisfaction to hear 
 of them from one who has seen them face to face." 
 
 " Won't you stay and dine with us ? " the doctor 
 went on, when they were seated. 
 
 Greg shook his head. 
 
 " I can not this evening, thank you," he said ; " I 
 have come to you on very anxious business old 
 Gilliam" the doctor looked up quickly--" is in a very 
 precarious state, I think." 
 
 " Fever ? " 
 
 " No, nor can I satisfy myself at all as to what ails 
 him," Greg answered, " he was missing for two or 
 three days ; I know this, because Wilkerson begged 
 me to go up and see him every evening, and I did 
 until a little while ago he was missing for four consec- 
 utive evenings. I felt uneasy, but I did not like to 
 
 286
 
 JERR Y. 287 
 
 make inquiries, for he is such a peculiar old man ; so 
 I waited until four days ago, when I went up and 
 found him in this strange condition. He eats very 
 little, and refuses to leave his house, or to give any 
 account of his health. His only admission is that he 
 wants to see you, and he wants Wilkerson. Can you 
 come ? " 
 
 " Of course," and the doctor gave orders for his 
 horse. " Wilkerson ought to be here this evening," 
 he went on, " for he was to leave New York twelve 
 hours after I did." 
 
 " That is fortunate," Greg said in a relieved voice, 
 "for the old man will not last much longer." 
 
 " Is it so bad as that? " and the doctor paused in 
 his preparations ; " you really think the old man is 
 going?" 
 
 Greg nodded, and the doctor made more haste. 
 
 " Perhaps you had better go back to him," he said 
 to Greg, " and I will follow ; have you brandy ? " 
 
 " Plenty," rising ; " I have kept him alive on it." 
 Then he went away, and Paul, leaning gloomily against 
 the mantel-piece, asked if the doctor would be gone 
 all night. 
 
 " Probably," was answered shortly ; then he gave 
 orders to a servant to take a horse to Eureka for 
 Jerry ; to make a point of meeting the wagon that 
 came in, and to tell Mr. Wilkerson to make great haste. 
 Then he was gone in the falling evening, gone as 
 swiftly as might be up the lone trail. 
 
 Was the old man going out on the " lonely road," 
 to-night, he wondered ; the old man who was only a 
 gray-headed child ; the old man who had come to 
 seem a part of the place, almost like one of the storm- 
 battered rocks, so gray and quiet was he. He had 
 known him so many years, he would miss him. 
 
 It was strange how things fell out in this life ; the 
 old man going just when Jerry, the pride of his heart, 
 was beginning his career. 
 
 " And Jerry will be successful," he said to himself,
 
 zS8 JERR Y. 
 
 buttoning his coat more closely against the cold wind ; 
 " he knows how to manage men ; but he stands in a 
 dangerous place." 
 
 The lamp was burning brightly, and the fire was 
 flashing brilliantly into every corner of Joe's house 
 when the doctor entered. The clock ticked busily : 
 the dog breathed heavily in his corner ; Greg sat still 
 near the fire ; and on his bed, fully dressed, old Joe 
 lay with his eyes closed, and his hands crossed on his 
 breast. 
 
 " Well, Joe," and the doctor laid aside his coat and 
 hat as he stood by the bed, then put his slim white 
 hand on the old man's hand, grown so thin and trem- 
 ulous ; " how is it you are sick ? " he asked. 
 
 " I aint sick, doctor," and the dim eyes opened 
 slowly, " I'm jest called, I am." 
 
 " When, Joe ? " looking down sadly. 
 
 " It aint a-been long sence ; but I've done sawn orl 
 my sins, I hev, an' God's done sawn 'em too," panting 
 wearily, " an' I'm jest a-waitin' to see Jerry ; jest 
 a-waitin' fur thet, 'cause I've got a word fur Jerry, 
 I hev." 
 
 " Will you drink this ? " and the doctor held some 
 brandy to the white lips. 
 
 " I'll drink it fur youuns, doctor ; but I aint a-goin* 
 to say nothin' tell Jerry gits har," drinking slowly; 
 " he's a-comin', I kin feel it, he aint fur," then he lay 
 down again with a long, tremulous sigh. 
 
 " Kin youuns read to me, doctor? " he asked after 
 a little ; " Jerry's gotter leetle Bible sommers som- 
 mers roun* on the shelf." 
 
 And the doctor found it, the little black Bible he 
 had given Jerry to teach him the way to the " Golding 
 Gates " poor little child. 
 
 The deep voice read on and on ; the firelight 
 flickered over the rough walls ; the young man sat 
 still and listening, and the old man on the bed 
 breathed heavily. At last, far off, the clang of a 
 horse's hoof, on the rocky path, and a silence fell in
 
 JERRY. 289 
 
 the house all were listening. Again the sound came 
 sharply on the wind, and the old man rose on his 
 elbow. 
 
 " It's Jerry," he said, " I knowed I were a-feelin" 
 of him ; I knowed he warn't much fur ; I knowed* as 
 I were called fur to-night, an' he'd come," and the 
 deep-set eyes lighted up strangely ; " gie me a leetle 
 dram, doctor, 'cause I hes sumpen to say," theft he 
 lay quiet again until the doctor poured out the brandy 
 and raised him to drink it. 
 
 " An' I reckon Jerry's powerful honggry," the 
 hoarse voice went on, " powerful honggry, and thar's 
 bread thar, but thar aint nary time to eat now, I mus* 
 talk fust ; I've got sumpen to say." 
 
 Nearer came the ringing of the horse's hoofs, nearer 
 and nearer ; as fast as any horse could come on such 
 a night, up such a path : at last it stopped at the door 
 that Greg held open, and Jerry stood among them. 
 
 " Lord ! " and Joe passed his hand slowly over 
 Jerry's face, then down over his shoulder and arm 
 " Jerry," he muttered, " leetle Jerry a gentleman, a 
 rale gentleman," then he closed his eyes, and Jerry 
 looked anxiously from one to the other of the watchers. 
 
 The doctor shook his head ; and Jerry bent low 
 over his old friend, with a dull pain growing up in his 
 heart - how had this happened had he had anything 
 to do with it ? " 
 
 " How did you get sick, Joe ? " he asked softly. 
 
 Joe shook his head slowly. 
 
 "I aint agoin' to tell you thet, Jerry, ner no- 
 body ; nobody aint agoin' thar rjo mo' no mo' " 
 then he opened his eyes slowly " you is got the 
 paper, doctor ?" he asked. 
 
 "Yes, Joe." 
 
 " Gie it to Jerry when I'm done buried ; an' bury 
 me up yander by my Nancy Ann leetle Nan, I calls 
 her ; thar aint no gole thar whar she's a-layin'; an' hev 
 it writ on the stone as this is Joe Gilliam's las' find 
 hev it writ jest thet away ; " then rousing up suddenly
 
 290 JERRY. 
 
 he grasped Jerry's hands, his eyes burning brightly, 
 and his breath coming thick and fast " Thar's dam- 
 nation in the gole, Jerry, an' death in the mine ! 
 Don't go thar don't go thar. An', Jerry, I done sent 
 yot* over yander to larn to love money, an' to see what 
 it could buy, an" to larn to love it; but don't you do 
 it, Jerry, don't," with pitiful entreaty in his eyes and 
 voice, "my soul'll never res' if you gits honggry fur 
 gole; an' I aint agoin' to tell you whar I got mine ; 
 I aint agoin' to tell ! " taking his hands from Jerry's 
 and wringing them together as he sat propped up 
 against the doctor's shoulder, " an' I'm rale glad you 
 is done gotter lot of folks in the mine to shar* an" 
 shar' alike I'm glad," his voice falling lower, "an' 
 the way is mighty easy to find if you never tu'ns 
 to the lef never to the lef; thet's death death !" 
 closing his eyes. 
 
 The doctor put some brandy to his lips and he 
 swallowed it with difficulty. 
 
 " I were honggry fur gole," he muttered, " honggry ; 
 an' leetle Nan 'ud cry when I were gone orl day 
 pore leetle Nan ! I sees her aheaper times a-layin' thar 
 buried in the gole-dust an' it's a-chokin' her an' the 
 leetle 'un ! " starting wildly, " a-chokin' her an' her 
 can't git it out it's in her eyes, an' in her mouth her 
 mouth ! " struggling, and wringing his hands, " Leetle 
 Nan, I'll bresh it out bresh it out," slowly the voice 
 faded. 
 
 Greg covered his face with his hands ; the doctor 
 prayed with his lips close to the old man's ear ; and 
 Jerry stood white and still as a stone. 
 
 Slowly the death-dimmed eyes opened ; the words 
 of the prayer had reached the darkened mind " Fur 
 Jesus' sake ?" slowly; " leetle Nan usen to say thet ; I 
 hearn her in the night time " fur Jesus' sake" then 
 he lay quite still listening to the low voice. The 
 breath came slower and slower the chest heaved 
 laboriously the hard, brown hands twitched ner- 
 vously. One more breath was it the last ?
 
 JERRY. 291 
 
 The old face looked gaunt and gray the sunken 
 eyelids quivered ; again a long, tremulous breath ; 
 the eyelids lifted slowly, and a whisper swept past 
 them 
 
 " Thar's death in the mine, Jerry ;" then all was 
 still.
 
 PART THIRD. 
 
 " Be not deceived ; God is not mocked : for whatsoever a man 
 soweth, that shall he also reap. For he that soweth to his own 
 flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption." 
 
 293
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 " Dark, dark was all ! A mist, 
 A blinding, whirling mist of chilly snow, 
 The falling and the driven ; for the wind 
 Swept round and round in clouds upon the earth, 
 And birm'd the deathly drift aloft with moans, 
 'Till all was swooning darkness. Far above 
 A voice was shrieking with a human cry ! " 
 
 wind was howling wildly, and the snow falling 
 in swirling sheets, was scurrying across the wide 
 plain ; driving the snow against the great cliffs, 
 and banking, dangerously almost, on the frail new 
 houses. It had not been falling for an hour, and yet 
 all the land was covered. The fire burned hotly, 
 sending a vivid glow over Joe's chair that stood in its 
 accustomed place, and seeming as if it strove to touch 
 with one little shaft of light Joe's pipe that lay in the 
 crack between the logs where for years he had kept 
 it. Buck slept in his box ; the lamp shone brightly, 
 and Jerry, with his arms crossed on the table, and his 
 head bowed down on them, sat alone. 
 
 There was nothing to indicate that Joe might not 
 come in at any moment ; except that his clothes hung 
 long and limp against the wall that his hat was on 
 the peg behind the door, and that his boots stood in 
 the corner with some mud still on them, and their tops 
 drooping over one another. 
 
 The bread browned in the spider ; the coffee-pot 
 steamed on the hearth why should not the old man 
 come in ? Because the door was barred or because 
 the window was shut fast, blind and all was that a 
 reason ? 
 
 Lonely ? Jerry had never realized that such lone- 
 liness could be felt. 
 
 295
 
 296 JERRY. 
 
 Fresh from the whirl of gayety and excitement ; 
 fresh from the midst of luxury and praise, to this. 
 He raised his head and looked about him ; this was 
 all he owned ; all he owned, for the old man had died 
 with the secret of his " find " kept close. Jerry was 
 in despair : he had spent hundreds, and had pledged 
 himself for far more ; and now Joe was dead, and the 
 secret of where he found his gold was dead with him. 
 
 It was not in Burden's Mine ; that appalling truth 
 had come home to Jerry in the midst of that awful 
 death-scene like a merciless blow. For he had been 
 so sure that Joe got his gold in Burden's Mine, and 
 Ban Burk, who professed to know, had confirmed his 
 surmises, and now ? 
 
 A groan broke from his lips. 
 
 " Great God ! " he cried, " what shall I do ! " 
 
 What, indeed ! The next week the engineer would 
 come, and the examination of the mine begin. Never 
 go to the left, the old man had said, but had added 
 " There's death in the mine ? " Beath. Beath was 
 nothing compared with failure. He would suffer a 
 thousand deaths rather than fail. 
 
 What should he do. 
 
 He turned his head from side to side to deaden the 
 dull pain that had never left it since that bewildering 
 day in the Board room ; a heavy, heavy pain that 
 would not go. 
 
 He looked back all along his course ; how he had 
 been pushed and driven ; how his present position 
 seemed to spring on him full-armed, and he so unpre- 
 pared ; how blindly he had gone into this wild scheme 
 that no man with any experience would have dreamed 
 of attempting. It had wound like a coil about his 
 feet, a net spread so plainly that any eye could see. 
 Nothing but invincible ignorance would have dared so 
 much so regardless of all consequences. And now the 
 consequences were on him, and he was lost in a mist 
 of despair. 
 
 Would it not be better to put the engineer at work
 
 JERRY. 297 
 
 on the new finds ; while he searched for Joe's place 
 of work ? 
 
 Again he shook his weary head ; this would lose 
 to him the people's confidence : and a slow feeling of 
 resentment began to burn in him against the poor 
 dead man. He had not money to live on even, now 
 that Joe was gone : he was afraid to ask Greg if Joe 
 had repaid all of Mr. Greg's advances : he was afraid 
 to ask any question ; to meet Dan Burk ; to look any 
 one in the face ; for what better was he than a pauper 
 and a fraud ? At last he rose and shook himself ; 
 whatever else he might be, he was surely a fool and a 
 coward. He must not dream of flinching now, but 
 must fight this thing through whatever the end might 
 be. He must put the engineer to work in Burden's 
 Mine ; must go in himself regardless of the death that 
 was prophesied for him there. 
 
 He laughed. 
 
 It showed what an idiot he was to remember even 
 an old man's superstitions : and he tramped up and 
 down the little house until the floor shook. To mor- 
 row he would put on his old clothes and move into 
 Durden's ; he was going to live with Greg now, and 
 the change and new life would help to rouse him from 
 this wretched weakness and despondency : he would 
 move everything and shut up the old house for 
 a while. 
 
 Up and down he tramped until he felt better ; well 
 enough to put his supper on the table. 
 
 One week ago he was at that ball. He put his cup 
 down ; he seemed to hear again the minor chords of 
 the waltz that passed by him when he sat alone among 
 the flowers, and heard that last farewell ! He took up 
 his cup again, and emptied it ; he would lose his mind 
 if he allowed himself to brood in this way. He must 
 eat his supper, and then must read the sealed paper 
 the doctor had given him that morning after the fune- 
 ral. He had put off the reading hour after hour : 
 he had said that when he finished cooking his dinner
 
 298 JERRY. 
 
 he would read it ; then, when he had finished eating 
 his dinner then, when he had finished cutting his 
 wood because the storm was coming ; and then, when 
 he had finished cooking his supper. Now all was 
 done save the eating of his supper, and he could have 
 no further excuse. The paper was in the inside 
 pocket of his coat, he could hear it crackling a little 
 every time he moved : he was silly to put it off any 
 longer ; he would finish his supper and then open it. 
 
 Resolutely he set to work and made himself eat as 
 usual ; then he washed the few things and put them 
 away as he had done for so many years, then sat down 
 by the light. 
 
 It was a large, yellow envelope, with inky finger- 
 marks on it, and a long smirch where it had been 
 glued down. Jerry turned it over slowly ; no living 
 creature knew its contents : this thought gave him a 
 tremulous feeling as if a ghostly company were wait- 
 ing to see him read it, and to watch his action !. 
 
 He looked over his shoulder hastily, and the clothes 
 of the dead man hanging limp and straight against 
 the wall, fluttered slightly as a more violent gust than 
 usual, struck the house. A cold perspiration broke 
 out on Jerry's forehead ! For one moment he sat 
 quite still, then rose and took the clothes down, putting 
 them on Joe's bed. Of course the wind had stirred 
 them ; the wind was unusually high. 
 
 Then once more seated near the lamp, he took the 
 ugly envelope from the table, turned it over once, 
 then tore it open. 
 
 Was there anything in it?" 
 
 Nervously enough he held it before he looked, then 
 one little scrap of dirty white paper was all he found, 
 and on it in cramped, laborious, printed letters, these 
 words 
 
 " Een the dorg korner een the rafters een the 
 j'ists een the korners " that was all ! 
 
 Jerry put the paper down and looked about him 
 bewildered what did it mean ?
 
 JERRY. 299 
 
 The dog's corner ; that was mentioned first ; should 
 he go there ; and if he went what would he find ? In 
 the dog's corner he must look ! 
 
 He called old Buck from out his box, putting all 
 the remaining supper on the floor for him, then pulled 
 the box away. Carefully he rapped the floor, it was 
 hollow ; but all the floor was hollow. He took the 
 lamp from the table and looked more closely ; all the 
 boards were short, and were more compactly fitted 
 together : more carefully still he looked, and in the 
 darkest part of the corner he saw a place worn almost 
 smooth, and on the edges of it many finger-marks. 
 
 He thought for a moment, then put his fingers in 
 this place, and the floor came up ! 
 
 Jerry drew a long breath, and dropped it. He 
 walked up and down the floor once or twice : was he 
 dreaming, or was he a coward ? 
 
 Once more he approached the corner, once more 
 fitted his fingers it came up readily, and looking he 
 saw that a square of the short boards turned on well- 
 greased wooden hinges. 
 
 He had often seen such hinges, why should they so 
 astonish him ? Then he saw something else ; was it 
 another floor, or a box ? He ran his fingers over the 
 whole smooth surface, then carefully examining, he 
 found more finger-marks ; he fitted his fingers to 
 them one second then a lid was lifted ! 
 
 Had his mind deserted him suddenly ? 
 
 He passed his hand slowly over his eyes and brow, 
 then knelt by the open hole as if turned to stone ! 
 
 Was any one knocking, or crying, or was it the 
 wind ? 
 
 Hastily he sprang up, shutting down both floors, 
 and putting the lamp on the table. 
 
 Buck was eating his supper quietly ; the wind 
 howled despairingly, and he could feel the snow bank- 
 ing against the window. He could feel it falling flake 
 by flake, he knew he could, and some one was walk- 
 ing and wailing outside !
 
 300 JERR Y. 
 
 He covered his face with his hands was it Joe? A 
 shudder ran over him Joe longing once more to 
 count his hoard ! 
 
 With a wild shriek the wind came down the gorge, 
 striking like a human hand against the door and 
 window Jerry stood still, and cold, and white it 
 came across those lonely graves : those lives had been 
 sacrificed for this gold ! 
 
 Greg had left a flask of brandy on the shelf : he 
 needed strength now, and he would find it in that 
 flask. 
 
 He took a tin cup and poured some in it ; how 
 Fred Greg would scorn to drink from such a vessel ; 
 and yet, this was the same brandy Fred drank in the 
 East. It looked like melted gold as the light shone 
 through it : then he tossed it off. He stood still for 
 a moment : he was on fire there were broken stars 
 before his eyes, and red-hot blood in his veins ! He 
 walked to the book-shelf those were his books, he 
 knew every one of them and there was Joe's ax in 
 the corner, and Buck lying full length before the 
 fire. 
 
 Nothing ailed him, he had taken only a little brandy 
 to steady him after a day of unusual excitement ; he 
 had often seen men take more than he had taken. 
 
 Now he had strength to open those floors ; and 
 after that " een the rafters een the korners een 
 the j'ists," he laughed aloud. 
 
 Poor Joe, he said always " een " for " in." He felt 
 better now, quite strong and well, and had been a 
 fool to think he had heard voices, or footsteps, or 
 snowflakes falling a perfect fool ! 
 
 He walked to the corner, he knew what was there 
 now ; he knew that" his reputation was saved his 
 name made good. 
 
 Eagerly, greedily he lifted the two floors ah, those 
 little bags ; they could hold only one thing gold ! 
 Gold dust gold nuggets ? 
 
 Anxiously he opened one, one, two, three of
 
 JERRY. 3 01 
 
 them five, ten of them and a cry burst from his 
 lips ! 
 
 Gold money, firm and solid from the mint ! He 
 heaped more wood on the fire he spread a blanket 
 on the floor a blood-red blanket how the gold 
 would sparkle against it ! 
 
 And then bag after bag he emptied it how it 
 clinked how it rang piles and piles of it ! He was 
 drunk with the sight, and sat on the floor and smiled 
 at it, and talked to it like an idiot ; then suddenly 
 rising up with arms outspread he cast himself upon 
 the glittering heap ! 
 
 " Mine, all mine ! " he cried aloud ; a wild, sharp 
 cry that seemed to still the wail of the wind as it 
 passed, and an awful silence fell ! Had he made that 
 sound ? 
 
 He got up slowly : what ailed him, was he mad ? 
 of course not ; but foolishly he had emptied many of 
 his bags of gold : he must fill them all again and put 
 them back ; that corner was the safest place in which 
 to keep them. 
 
 Then the words came back to him " een the raft- 
 ers een the korners een the j'ists " he looked up ; 
 could gold be hidden up there in the rafters? he put 
 his hand up in the lowest corner of the roof ; and 
 something was there something soft and round. He 
 paused a moment : should he take it down and 
 examine it now, or wait until he had put away all his 
 gold, and replaced Buck's box. Poor dog, he waited 
 so patiently, so still and watchful near the fire. Per- 
 haps he was accustomed to see those little bags taken 
 out and emptied, emptied and counted over and 
 over again. Old Pete had had those patient ways too. 
 
 Slowly Jerry filled the little bags, packing them 
 tightly; had he done it too securely? He looked 
 about him bewildered; he must have, for there was no 
 gold to fill the last bag which he held in his hands. 
 He passed his hand slowly over his forehead and eyes 
 had an unseen hand filched any from htm ?
 
 302 JKRR Y. 
 
 Out again, hurriedly, eagerly, came all the little 
 bags; how many pieces had there been in each ? 
 Many of them he had not touched as yet; he would 
 count the pieces in these, and fill the others with the 
 same number of coins. 
 
 Bag after bag was carefully set apart on the floor; 
 the unopened ones opened and counted, and the rest 
 filled accordingly, and enough was left for the last 
 bag none had been taken. 
 
 Then he put them back; shut down the floors; 
 drew the box into its place, and watched as without 
 any command the great dog stepped into his resting- 
 place. 
 
 While he had been dreaming of the equal distribu- 
 tion of land and money, and making maudlin speeches 
 about the inalienable rights of humanity, old Joe was 
 gathering, and old Buck was guarding ! 
 
 Humanity had no inalienable rights had no right 
 to anything save what he could get and hold by his 
 own strength. Buck and Joe had been wise had 
 gathered and saved the one thing that would make 
 these ignorant hordes respect him, and stand back from 
 crowding him down; the one thing that would give 
 him power in the world. 
 
 He laughed a little, then stood still in front of the 
 fire trying to calm his excitement, and decide what he 
 would do. Should he hunt for and examine his treas- 
 ure now, or wait until daylight ? 
 
 For a moment he wavered; he might lose some in 
 the night; but in the daylight Greg might come upon 
 him at any hour he was more secure now. 
 
 He again took up the blurred, rudely written paper; 
 "een the rafters een the korners een the j'ists" 
 he would have to tear the house down ! Had the old 
 man designed this so that no one should have the 
 house he built so long ago for his little Nan ? But 
 now he must look. 
 
 The rafters were rough logs with the bark still on 
 them, and ran the length of the house; nor were they
 
 JERR Y. 33 
 
 very far apart, for the clapboards that stood for 
 shingles were nailed to them without any intervening 
 sheeting. Jerry was tall, and the house was low; he 
 could reach up arid touch every rafter except the three 
 in the peak of the house, and these he could reach by 
 standing on a chair. 
 
 He took it all in; almost he could see Joe's long 
 arms reaching up, and his bony hands fumbling about 
 the rough bark; and now he could understand why he 
 was not allowed to whitewash the inside of the house, 
 nor to move Buck's box. What a blind fool he had 
 been! If he had had any sense he could have read the 
 secret of Joe's life long ago, and the mystery that kept 
 him aloof from his fellows; it was all clear to him 
 now so clear that the only wonder was that he had 
 not seen it sooner. 
 
 Now he went back to the place where he had put 
 up his hand, and had felt the soft little bundle he had 
 been afraid to take down. He went back now and 
 lifted his slim, nervous hand that trembled foolishly; 
 it was there, he had not been mistaken, and he brought 
 it to the light eagerly. A little roll about the size and 
 shape of his finger, and wrapped in a piece of leather 
 that looked as if it had been cut from the top of an 
 old boot, and tied round with a leather string. 
 
 He sat down by the table, he was so nervous, and 
 untied it slowly it unrolled before him, an orderly 
 pile of bank-bills ! 
 
 One hour ago he had looked on himself as a ruined 
 man a pauper a fraud ! Now, who could say how 
 much he owned ? 
 
 He got up and poured more brandy into the cup, 
 but before he drank it he wound up the clock; this 
 task would take hours, and he must know when to 
 look for interruptions. An intense, excited quiet 
 seemed to have fallen on him now: he must work 
 steadily and systematically; he must know exactly 
 when he began his search, and carry it on quietly from 
 that point. He marked the place, then went regularly
 
 34 JERRY. 
 
 on, putting all he found on the table. Strange little 
 rolls wrapped in scraps of leather, or in pieces of the 
 skin of animals, or in squares of felt that looked like 
 the remains of old hats, and all of them carefully tied. 
 Some were hard, as if they were rolls of gold or silver, 
 and some were soft as the first bundle had been. 
 Carefully, slowly up and down the long rafters he felt 
 his way; up and down all the higher ones, filling his 
 pockets that he might not have to move too often. 
 
 How careful and ingenious the old man had been in 
 hiding his treasure! no one could possibly have found 
 it without some clue. Then he emptied his pockets 
 on the table; what a pile it made! and how should he 
 store it away ? One or two of the little packages he 
 had found stuffed in between the clapboards, how 
 many more might be there he did not know; but he 
 would find out, find out if he had to pull the house 
 down piece by piece ! 
 
 Carefully he went over it all again, very carefully ; 
 he must not miss one inch of that roof. He was not 
 trembling now, but he was cold, cold as death ! He 
 piled more wood on the fire ; the blaze mounted up 
 higher and higher the room was in a glow. Then he 
 looked about him ; there was his trunk he had bought 
 while he was gone, and his valise. Not in the valise, 
 but in the trunk that had a false bottom that opened 
 with a secret spring. A new invention the man had 
 told'him ; he would put all his money there ; the bills 
 would not rattle, and would lie flat ; and he could put 
 the extra covering on the rolls of coin to stop any 
 possible sound. 
 
 In a moment the trunk was open, and all his clothes 
 out on the floor, all his fine new things that had cost so 
 much money, and been put on with so much pride and 
 pleasure ; what did they matter now what did any- 
 thing matter ! Down, down to the bottom, down into 
 the false tray that was so deftly concealed ; one touch 
 and it flew open. Only one thing was there one 
 small bundle tied up in old newspaper. Jerry
 
 JERRY. 35 
 
 stopped ; his hands fell at his side, and the light 
 died out of his eyes. " Mammy mammy ! " he 
 whispered. 
 
 What came to him that he looked all about him ; 
 stood up, and turned, and looked about as if listen- 
 ing ; what did he see or hear ? 
 
 He turned the soiled, crumpled bundle over and 
 over in his hands. The same old paper he had put 
 about it as a child the same old paper he had left 
 there because he had not known that it was wretched 
 and dirty and that later he had left because of a 
 nameless pathos that appealed to him from every 
 smirch, and every wrinkle ! Now it came to him like 
 a voice or a touch from another world ; his life was 
 cut in two, and that other life he had lived had died 
 and been buried long ago. 
 
 He was another person : he could not be that wild 
 dreamer who had thought to equalize all the posses- 
 sions of the earth ; who would now have had him 
 give a roll or a bag to every person in the town ; 
 How strange he had been ! no wonder Joe had 
 laughed at him. 
 
 And this little bundle that, for all his life until now, 
 had been his only possession : poor little bundle, the 
 only inheritance of his life. 
 
 He turned to look at the table where his treasure 
 lay in piles and heaps now ! He thrust the bundle 
 far back in the bottom of his trunk far back in a 
 hidden corner : the night was going and he must 
 work. Hurriedly he began to drag the trunk across 
 the floor ; midway he stopped and lifted it ; it might 
 jar some of the little bundles from their resting-places 
 in the joists ; and he put it down very carefully near 
 the table, and began to pack. All the bundles of 
 bills he smoothed out evenly, laying them in exact 
 piles in the false tray; then the rolls he covered more 
 securely, putting them in even rows, and there was a 
 great space left. 
 
 " Een the korners," the paper had said. He took
 
 36 JERR Y. 
 
 the lamp, and moving his cot looked carefully on the 
 floor in the corner, while visions of another double 
 floor, as in the dog's corner, flashed across his mind. 
 
 But carefully as he looked, there were no marks ; 
 he tapped the floor, he tried the boards, but with no 
 success, and a feverish impatience began to pervade 
 him : what had Joe meant " Een the korners " ? 
 
 He lifted the lamp and looked up and down where 
 the logs crossed each other ah ! In each joint 
 there was a crack, an innocent natural crevice, but 
 they meant much to Jerry. There they were, little 
 rolls and bundles hidden away, pushed in carefully 
 and systematically, hidden entirely. Slowly but 
 surely he pulled them all out ; one after another with 
 an absorbed, intense expression on his face, and a 
 burning light in his eyes. One after another they 
 came out ; how many more were there, and how many 
 more in the other corners ? How much would he 
 have when he gathered it all together, how much ; 
 and would he ever find time and place to count it ? 
 
 Each corner yielded up its treasure, and he put it 
 away as he had done the rest, then paused and looked 
 about him. 
 
 He was very weary, and the night was nearly done ; 
 should he put away everything and rest until the day 
 came, or should he search further. He was very 
 weary, and his head felt strangely heavy ; was it the 
 brandy, or the pain that had worried him for so long, 
 turned to heaviness ? It was something he had never 
 felt before, and he must rest. 
 
 It would not do for him to be ill and all this money 
 about ; no, he must put the house in order, and rest ; 
 perhaps a little sleep would send the feeling away. 
 
 Slowly and heavily he moved about, shutting down 
 the secret tray, putting his clothes back as they had 
 been, and carefully rolling the trunk against the wall. 
 The fire ; yes, he must make that safe, it would 
 uever do to let there be any danger of that kind, 
 vith all this money about. How reckless he had been
 
 JERRY. 37 
 
 all these years, not knowing the wealth hidden all 
 about him ! 
 
 But now he was very weary ; he must rest ; but he 
 would not put the light out, a light would be a safety 
 to the house ; seeing it thieves would think him 
 awake, and be afraid to break in. But yet the light 
 might guide some wanderer there, some traveler lost 
 on the trail ; so he must turn it very low, for it would 
 not be safe to take strangers in with so much money 
 about. 
 
 He must be careful now, very careful, for no one 
 must know of his wealth ; no one must know. Nor 
 must he undress, that would not be safe ; and the old 
 rifle must be loaded and cocked by his bedside ; that 
 was what Joe always did ; Joe, who was so clever to 
 gather and to hide ! 
 
 He felt better lying down : but had he left any of 
 the little rolls in his pockets that he could not lie 
 easy ? And he felt about him on the bed and in his 
 pockets ; no, they were all safe in the trunk ; unless 
 he had dropped some on the floor. He did not re- 
 member hearing any of them fall, and yet they might 
 have ; would it not be better to get up and look ? 
 
 Only he was so weary ; let him rest a little while 
 longer, then he would look ; yes, he would look, for 
 perhaps he had left some on the table, and that would 
 betray him to Greg. 
 
 Was Greg there in the room had he come softly 
 over the snow from Durden's ? 
 
 He must get up ; he must ! If Greg found it out 
 everybody would know, and they would force him to 
 share it out never never ! 
 
 He must hide it : he must send it to old Mr. Greg 
 to buy shares, and make into millions and millions ; 
 until it would be scattered about him like chips around 
 the woodpile yes, like chips ! 
 
 And so he tossed and dreamed, half asleep half 
 awake while the night waned, and the wild wind 
 blew the snow-clouds away and let the morning stars
 
 3S JERR Y. 
 
 shine and glitter, and the moon turn all the snow- 
 covered world to silver. 
 
 Clear and crisp, and cruelly cold when the red 
 sun rose and shone on the work of the busy snow 
 clouds, and stole under Jerry's doorway, following a 
 little drift of snow that had driven in, and lay across 
 the floor a beautiful, unheeded stream of gold; stole in 
 to show that a new day had broken over the land, and 
 a new time and chance wherein man might begin his 
 life afresh. 
 
 A beautiful new day ; a resurrection from the 
 death of sleep ; a clearing of the soul from troubled 
 visions that once more it might look up to God's glad 
 light and turn away from sin and darkness ; one more 
 gift of time and opportunity sweeping in a golden flood 
 before each life !
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 " Howbeit all is not lost : 
 
 The warm noon ends in frost ; 
 The worldly tongues of promise, 
 Like sheep-bells, die off from us 
 On the desert hills cloud-crossed ! " 
 
 IT was late when Jerry roused from his restless 
 dreams, and he wondered vaguely what had come 
 
 to him, and if he had slept at all. The fire had 
 smoldered into a gray heap ; the sun shone under 
 the door, and old Buck lay with his nose up on the 
 edge of the box blinking at the unaccustomed dark- 
 ness at this hour. 
 
 Jerry sat up and looked about him : it surely had 
 been a black, wild, snowy night when he lay down, 
 and now the sun was shining. 
 
 He got up slowly, staggering a little just at first, 
 and his head was very heavy ; that was the brandy, 
 yes, he had taken some brandy. Then slowly across his 
 memory came all the scene of the night before ; and 
 he covered his face with his hands could it be true 
 possibly ? 
 
 He walked to the window and pushed open both 
 sash and blind, and the sight of the whitened world 
 reassured him that he had not lost his mind. But it 
 was cold, bitterly cold. 
 
 Quickly he made the fire and put on the kettle ; 
 now he would go out to the bathing pool and put his 
 head under the spout of the spring, that would clear 
 his brain so that he could think. 
 
 The fire burned brightly, and Buck came out of his 
 box to sit near it ; things were beginning to look 
 more natural. 
 
 309
 
 310 JERRY. 
 
 Jerry took out a suit of the rough clothes he had 
 worn always, and that Joe had put away for him in 
 the old wooden chest : he would put them on when he 
 came back from the spring, and things would seem 
 more real. 
 
 Once out in the crisp cold air he started at a full 
 run up the little snow-covered path : he used always 
 to run on cold days, and somehow he had a wish now 
 to do as he had done always ; he wanted to take a 
 fresh hold on the old life that had been so real and so 
 happy ! Yes, it had been happy, but he had not real- 
 ized it at the time ; this new life, into which he had 
 stepped so suddenly, seemed like some strange dream 
 from which he must soon be roused ; he seemed to be 
 able to stand off and look at himself as if he were some 
 other person. He could see himself smiling, and talk- 
 ing, and bowing in the beautiful rooms that were full 
 of light and music and lovely women : he could see 
 himself down among the busy offices with his face 
 grown keen and sharp after gam : he could see him- 
 self mad with joy over his heap of gold ! And the per- 
 son who looked was a grave young man, with rather 
 a sad face, who trudged back and forth to the humble 
 schoolhouse in Eureka ; a sad young man with a 
 heart all wounded and embittered by the love cast 
 back on it. 
 
 Ah, that had been the turning-point ! If only the 
 doctor had not cast him off. 
 
 The thought was bitter to him still, and hastily he 
 pushed his head under the rough spout. The little 
 icicles hanging on the side broke and fell clinking 
 down with a sharp rattle ; he laughed a happy little 
 laugh, the sound took him back so entirely into the 
 old days. And the water was so cold, his head felt 
 clear and sound in a moment. 
 
 Now he could go back and cook his breakfast and 
 make his plans in a cool, sensible way. 
 
 He rubbed his hair round and round with a rough 
 towel ; Joe had made him do it in this way always,
 
 JERRY. 3H 
 
 and he was finding Joe to be a very wise old man in 
 many ways. 
 
 And they had been happy together in all those long, 
 quiet years that were gone they had been very happy. 
 And the study under the doctor had been so pleasant 
 and good, and he had found when he went out into 
 the world that he knew more than most of the young 
 men ; nor had their ways and manners been strange 
 to him. Yes, his life had been happy ; picking his 
 way slowly back to the house ; but there was no reason 
 why this new life should not be happy also why not? 
 He took off. his " city clothes " and put on the rough 
 suit that seemed so much more real and substantial ; 
 and made up the bread for his breakfast, and the 
 coffee, and sliced the bacon that he would fry when 
 the bread was nearly done. It was all so much as 
 usual that he felt quite sure Joe was at the spring and 
 would come in soon. 
 
 Busily he swept the floor, stepping softly lest he 
 should jar some of the little bundles out of the joists ; 
 but when he remembered all the years that he had 
 been coming in and out, and Joe, stamping heavily, 
 he thought there could be no such danger. 
 
 Then looking up, his eyes fell on the little flask ; 
 that was what had made him so wild the night before ; 
 so miserable this morning, and it should not stand 
 there to tempt him, he would pour it out Greg had 
 plenty more. It made a little hole in the snow as he 
 poured it a little round hole like a bullet, and the 
 smell sickened him bringing back the horror of the 
 night. He put the empty flask back on the shelf, 
 and arranged the table for his breakfast : it was 
 better to do things with the usual regularity, it 
 would help to calm him from the excitement of 
 the past week, and allow him to think quietly of his 
 future. 
 
 He would send his trunk down to Greg's, and what- 
 ever else they would need out of the house ; and Joe's 
 clothes and tools he would give to some poor emi-
 
 312 JERRY. 
 
 grant there were plenty of them who would be glad 
 to get these things. 
 
 His books he would pack in the old chest, and take 
 them with him too : he paused, and a sudden thought 
 came to him that made him turn and look at the chest. 
 Surely it would hold all his books even with a false 
 bottom put in, and his gold bags packed between. 
 And books were heavy, so that the weight of the chest 
 would not be noticed, and he would pack the gold so 
 as not to rattle ; this was a good plan, and he felt 
 relieved. 
 
 As to the house ; and he paused again in his slow 
 eating to look up at the roof it would have to come 
 down, and what excuse could he give for taking it 
 down himself ? This thought worried him ; he could 
 not say it was from love to Joe, affectionate recollec- 
 tion of the old man who had been all to him. A real 
 pain an acute, accusing pain for the poor old man, 
 crept into his heart. Until now, no thought of love 
 or of mourning had come to him ; it had been painful, 
 and he had missed Joe, but that had been all. 
 
 And he hated himself for the coldness of his heart. 
 
 No, he could not claim love as a motive for pulling 
 down the house himself ; he could not use the kind 
 old man's memory in this way. He would pull down 
 the house and say nothing about it, and when it was 
 all down he would move it into the town, it would 
 make a good house for somebody. This was the best 
 plan, and surely it was nobody's business. 
 
 The dog was fed, the things put away, then he went 
 to the bottom of his trunk once more ; all was safe, 
 and he put his clothes back more carefully, and on 
 top he put the rest of his coarse clothes : it would be 
 best to dress as he had always dressed, and to live as 
 he had always lived, for too much public money passed 
 through his hands for it to be safe for him to change 
 in any way. 
 
 And not even Greg must know of the extent of his 
 fortune, for no one would be loath to suspect him of
 
 JERRY. 3*3 
 
 knowing Joe's " find," and of concealing the knowl- 
 edge in order to reap all the advantage. 
 
 Now he must prepare the chest ; and the lid from 
 the second floor in the corner would make an excel- 
 lent false bottom, for it was thin and light. 
 
 The tools were all there, and he knew pretty well 
 how to use them ; it would not take him long ; then 
 he must go down and see Greg. 
 
 Quickly the hours slipped by, so busy was he, but 
 all the little bags were safely stowed away, with space 
 left for what he might find in the joists. 
 
 And gradually, as he worked, the absorbing thought 
 of his future took hold of him again ; in the morning 
 the reaction from the troubles of the night had made 
 him long to go back to the wholesome old times ; but 
 as the hours went on, and he realized for what he was 
 preparing, the same excitement crept again into his 
 veins. 
 
 So soon as these minor matters were made safe, he 
 would map out his future course, and pursue it stead- 
 ily to the end. 
 
 Burden's should succeed Burden's should swallow 
 up Eureka Burden's should be the creature of his 
 hand, and call him master as long as life pulsed in his 
 veins. Only wait a little while only be patient, and 
 soon all the world should see what he could do 
 and be. 
 
 He cooked his dinner and ate it, then locked the 
 chest, and the trunk, and the house, and set off down 
 the trail toward Burden's. He must see Greg, for 
 it had occurred to him that it would be better to put 
 up another room in addition to the two which Greg 
 had already ; it would be much more convenient for 
 them to have such a place, and there was lumber to 
 be bought in Eureka and plenty of men anxious for 
 the work. 
 
 Certainly it would be best, for things had changed, 
 and they could not now have all affairs in common. 
 
 To-morrow the Town Committee would meet, and
 
 314 JERRY. 
 
 the sub-committee make a report ; after that he would 
 have to report, and he must make out his papers to- 
 night, and the feeling of a pressure of work seemed to 
 lighten his heart and his step. 
 
 He had risked a great deal in giving his notes to 
 Mr. Greg for such large amounts had done wrong, 
 perhaps, but it had been Joe's fault Joe had given 
 him unlimited credit. Then again there came into 
 his mind the question of the motive that had insti- 
 gated Joe's course. On his death-bed he had said 
 that he sent him to learn to love money to learn to 
 love money. A light seemed to break in on him : Joe 
 had been afraid that Jerry, not valuing money, would 
 share it all out ! Was this his only motive ? 
 
 He remembered Joe's distress when mention was 
 made of buying Burden's Mine ; the distress that more 
 than anything else had convinced Jerry that Joe 
 worked in Burden's Mine. 
 
 Now that theory was done away with, what caused 
 that distress ? And his death, what caused that ? 
 something mysterious which he would not tell ; and 
 Greg's story of his absence surely looked as if he had 
 some resort and place of work other than the mine. 
 
 All this came back to Jerry now that his mind was 
 free from the awful anxiety that for two days had 
 possessed him the anxiety about his notes falling 
 due, and there being no money to take them up 
 what would have happened ? The whole scheme 
 would have failed, and he have been branded forever 
 as an impostor. 
 
 Now all was secure, perfectly secure ; he could take 
 up hij> notes, and invest more could himself run up 
 the Burden's stock a point or two, so that even those 
 keen, cautious men in the Board would feel secure. 
 In a day or two he would take Greg and go in the 
 mine, but he would not suggest any of the men going 
 with them ; for until they were accustomed to the 
 idea of people going in and out of this haunted place, 
 it was best not to ask them, so risking a refusal, for
 
 JERRY. 3 T 5 
 
 a refusal would set the whole town talking, and he 
 must be very cautious about this. 
 
 And besides his report, he had a proposition to 
 make to the committee ; it was to buy all the lumber 
 now lying in Eureka. It would be sold at cost, now 
 that Eureka was depressed, and it all would be needed 
 in Durden's as soon as the rush began. It would be 
 a good investment for the committee to build the 
 houses, so that the community would own them, and 
 when rented or sold, the money would come back to 
 the treasury. It was a good plan, and he would 
 suggest it. 
 
 And now he began to whistle merrily, as he walked, 
 for his heart grew light as he planned his future, and 
 felt that in the present he was safe. Yesterday the 
 world had seemed blacker than the grave to-day 
 there were no tints needed to brighten it. But it 
 would not do to be too gay suddenly, Greg nor the 
 doctor would understand it, and he sobered down 
 before he entered Greg's house, where he found him 
 writing letters. 
 
 " Letters for you too, Wilkerson," he said ; " the 
 old gentleman has followed you up quickly." 
 
 " A note of mine falls due next week," Jerry an- 
 swered, opening Mr. Greg's letter first. " And good 
 news, too," he went on, " Durden's stock on a steady 
 rise, and Fred anxious to join us." 
 
 Greg shook his head. 
 
 " I shall say no to that," he said. " Too many of 
 a family or a class coming in will look like a ring, 
 and we can not afford to lose the least bit of ground 
 in the confidence of these people." 
 
 Jerry looked up from his letters. 
 
 " Is it well for us to live together, then ? " he asked. 
 
 " I have been thinking about it," Greg answered 
 rather hastily, " and scarcely think it wise ; and for 
 Henshaw, the engineer, I have taken a room at Dave 
 Morris's. I tell you, Wilkerson," he went on more 
 gravely, " that since I have worked on that commit-
 
 316 JERRY. 
 
 tee I have not the least faith in these people ; they 
 would turn against either or both of us in a minute. 
 They can not understand anybody's working for the 
 common good, and immediately grow suspicious of 
 any one who says that he does. Constantly I hear 
 them going back to the doctor's case, and saying how 
 he deceived them. They have to be held with a strong 
 hand, or they will turn on you." 
 
 Jerry sat quite still ; these were Joe's own words, 
 " They will kill you in a minute," and they would, if 
 he did not kill them first ! 
 
 Still, he did not blame them altogether now, for his 
 own views had changed as to the rights of the masses, 
 and as to the masses themselves ; and perhaps it was 
 well that they had changed, for now, instead of try- 
 ing to work out some romantic dream some philan- 
 thropical impossibility, he would take hold of these 
 people and rule them as the ignorant needed to be 
 ruled. 
 
 " I will manage them," he answered, " and perhaps 
 we had better not live together, although it would 
 have been very pleasant." 
 
 " Very," Greg assented, drawing idly on a piece of 
 paper that lay near him on the table ; but the voice 
 was not hearty, and Jerry wondered why the wisdom 
 of not living together had come to Greg so suddenly : 
 yesterday he had insisted on it. 
 
 Did he know of anything these people were plot- 
 ting, and so had grown afraid of being connected 
 with him ? Jerry would not look up while he thought, 
 for he was afraid the suspicion would show in his eyes ; 
 and it was a mean doubt to have, but since the doctor 
 had failed him he had come to doubt everybody. " I 
 shall try to get a room at Mrs. Milton's," he said, 
 " until I can move my own house nearer the mine ; 
 it is too far from my work now"; then he went on 
 opening and reading his letters. 
 
 Three or four applications for places under him 
 from young men of good standing : two or three in-
 
 JERRY. 3*7 
 
 quiries as to the real worth of land in Burden's, and 
 of the true future of the place ; and numbers of an- 
 swers to his circulars sent out two months ago. He 
 read them all through gladly enough, for they all prom- 
 ised well ; and in a general way he told Greg their 
 contents ; but thought that as things between them 
 were turning out so differently from what he had ex- 
 pected, it would be wiser to keep his own counsel. 
 Nor did he mention his plan of buying lumber and 
 building ; he would keep this to himself also. And 
 he was glad that Greg had declared himself so early 
 in the campaign, thereby giving him time to strength- 
 en himself so as to stand alone. It had all turned out 
 very well, and it would be a good thing to read out 
 these answers to his circulars, then propose the 
 building plan to the full meeting of the Town Com- 
 mittee, and let them see that Greg was no more in 
 his confidence than they were. 
 
 And he would not, as he had thought of doing, send 
 more money to Mr. Greg to invest for him : but after 
 taking up all his notes he would employ a regular 
 broker to transact his business for him ; for of course 
 all that he told the father would be used to help the 
 son, and maybe the son would join with any party 
 that might form against him might even form one. 
 
 And in the half-hour that he sat so sociably by his 
 friend's fire, the whole plan and temper of his life had 
 changed ; and the thought came to him, as he left the 
 house, that it seemed to be ordained that he should 
 stand alone. 
 
 He had grown up with two men whose lives hid 
 mysteries, and so touched his only on the outermost 
 surface, leaving him to live within himself ; and now 
 when he thought that he had made a friend ; had 
 found one of his own age with the same views and 
 ambitions, this friend suddenly withdrew from him ; 
 because their ambitions were the same, perhaps. It 
 was disappointing, but maybe it was best ; his life 
 would be much more to the purpose, and much more
 
 318 JERRY. 
 
 intense, if he lived entirely within himself, and frittered 
 away none of his strength or energy on love and 
 sympathy ! 
 
 A little laugh broke from him as he walked, that 
 was not pleasant to listen to, and he said aloud 
 "Love and sympathy ! " and said it with great con- 
 tempt. It seemed to him that he had given so much, 
 and to what purpose to have it all thrown back on 
 him, not because of lack in him, but because of a love 
 given long ago to a woman. 
 
 And as he stood knocking at Mrs. Milton's door, 
 that weary delicate face rose up before him. A strange 
 story a sad fate that often he dreamed over : and 
 who was the one shut away in the convent and why 
 was Paul with the doctor ? 
 
 " Bless my heart, Jerry Wilkerson ! " and Mrs. Mil- 
 ton stood in the doorway looking him over from head 
 to heels. " Come in come in," she went on, after Jerry 
 had shaken hands with her and had knocked the snow 
 off his boots " it's rale wittles an' drink to see you 
 a-bowin' aroun' an' a-talkin' fur orl the worl' like the 
 doctor ; tucker cheer," and she dropped into one of 
 the rocking-chairs that had figured so many years 
 ago at 'Lije's funeral ; only now it had grown rusty 
 and bare of varnish, and the arms were tied in place 
 by pieces of string. 
 
 " An' how did you favor down East ? " she 
 asked. 
 
 " Very much," Jerry answered, " but I could not 
 live away from Burden's." 
 
 " Gosh, no ! " scornfully ; " I aint got no stomick 
 fur the pulin' way folks lives down East, thar aint no 
 grit 'bout nothin' notter specker grit ! " 
 
 Jerry laughed. 
 
 " But it is very comfortable over there, Mrs. Mil- 
 ton," he said. 
 
 " Burden's '11 do me," she answered, taking down a 
 black clay pipe, " an' it did fur Joe Gilliam, an' it did 
 fur 'Lije Milton, an' them were good men as ever wuz
 
 JERRY. 3*9 
 
 daubed outer clay; an' you orter 'gree to thet, Jerry 
 Wilkerson." 
 
 " I do," and Jerry looked into the fire sadly : cer- 
 tainly Joe had been faithful to him. 
 
 " I 'Hows thar's sumpen on youun's mine, Jerry 
 Wilkerson," the old woman went on, reseating herself 
 and looking at him keenly from out a cloud of smoke ; 
 " when a man's wittles don't sot easy, or ther's the 
 least little thing a-pesterin' him, he allers looks like 
 he's a-hankerin' alter a-buryin' what's up?" 
 
 Jerry ran his hand over his face, trying to change 
 his expression ; this old woman was so keen. 
 
 " I came to see if I could board with you, Mrs. Mil- 
 ton," he said quietly, " my house is too far from my 
 work." 
 
 " I knowed it," nodding slowly, and looking into 
 the fire, " Joe's gone, an' you is a-goin' to spen' 
 what he saved, a-boardin' mussy me, boy, you kin 
 live a heap cheaper to you seff." 
 
 The color rose in Jerry's face. 
 
 " I want to board only until I can move my house," 
 he said, " and I am going to work, Mrs. Milton, not 
 waste." 
 
 " Jest so, thet's better : but movin' thet house aint 
 a-gointer pay, them logs is plum rotten by now ; git 
 youuns a little new lumber, an' put up a shanty, it'll 
 pay a heap better." 
 
 " Maybe so," Jerry answered : this was a good idea 
 to have in people's minds ; they would think the old 
 house had rotted away ; and as no one used the 
 trail now, no one would know it had been aided in 
 its fall. 
 
 " I shall send my trunk and my bed down on Mon- 
 day ? " he suggested. 
 
 " Well, an' the price ? " 
 
 " You must settle that," rising, " you know best 
 what it will be worth." 
 
 " You makes a fine trade, Jerry Wilkerson," stand- 
 ing between him and the door, with arms akimto,
 
 320 JERRY. 
 
 " Joe'd be rayly proud to hear how peartly smart hisn 
 boy were." 
 
 " I don't think you will cheat me, Mrs. Milton ; at 
 least I did not think so," laughing. 
 
 " Thet mout be so, an' agin it moutent ; an' I'd sot 
 a heap mo' sto' by you if you'd try to maker trade, I 
 would. You tried it on me when you come alonger 
 Dan Burk to buy the mine, an' you made a rale 
 good trade, you did," putting her head on one side 
 and taking her pipe from her mouth ; " I reckon you 
 is got mo' truck sence Joe's gone, an' don't feel so 
 pertickler bad off ; ain't thet so ? " 
 
 It was in Jerry's mind, indeed on his lips, to say 
 that then he had been buying for the people, and 
 now he was making only a little arrangement for him- 
 self ; but he remembered Greg's words that these peo- 
 ple did not believe in such motives words he knew 
 to be true, so he said only : 
 
 " Yes, Mrs. Milton, I have more money now than 
 then." 
 
 "I knowed it," nodding her head, "an" nobody 
 need not to prophesy to know it ; kase orl the town 
 knowed thet Joe Gilliam were a savin' creetur, an' 
 lived lonesome," she went on more thoughtfully 
 " an' did orl fur hisseff an' fur you ; I'll be bound, 
 Joe washed youuns' cloze, now aint thet so ? " 
 
 " Yes," Jerry answered, " and mended them too." 
 
 " Great-day-in-the-mornin' ! an' a heaper gals jest 
 ready to tuck up alonger him Gosh ! " 
 
 Jerry laughed, he could not help it, the idea of 
 Joe's marrying seemed so queer, it had never occurred 
 to him before ; and the other idea of the young 
 woman being willing to take him that was still more 
 strange ; marry old Joe ! and he laughed. The old 
 woman joined in with a grim sort of chuckle over her 
 own wit, walking with him to the door. 
 
 " Go 'long, boy," she said, " an' don't fotch no 
 beds I'se got beds, I reckon, an' Milley kin rub out 
 youuns' shirts onest inner while : an' you is jest
 
 JERRY. 321 
 
 right thet Mandy Milton aint agoin* to cheat you, 
 I were jest a-foolin' : come along when you hes a 
 mine to, an' you'll fine the inside of Mandy Milton's 
 han' jest sure, you will," and she slapped him on 
 the back too heartily for comfort almost ; " I aint 
 furgot thet Joe Gilliam, an' me, an' 'Lije come from 
 the same ole State, an' thet fur awhile Joe Gilliam 
 an' 'Lije were kinder pards I aint furgot farwell," 
 and she stood in the doorway to watch him. 
 
 " Poor creetur," she muttered, " to think as he's 
 pards alonger Dan Burk, the p'isen-meanest parry- 
 toed creetur as ever were growed, drat 'im ! " then 
 she shut the door. 
 
 And Jerry went his way up the lonely trail, think- 
 ing deeply, and readjusting his mind to the new order 
 ot things that had come to him since he had left his 
 home light-hearted and sure of his future.
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 " Friend, who knows if death have life or life have death for goal ? 
 Day nor night can tell us, nor many seas declare nor skies 
 
 unroll 
 
 What has been from everlasting, or if aught shall always be. 
 Silence answering only strikes response reverberate on the soul 
 From the shore that hath no shore beyond it set in all the sea." 
 
 OETTLED at Mrs. Milton's, Jerry felt more himself 
 
 ^ than he had done since the time that seemed so 
 
 long ago, when he had waited to warn the doctor. 
 
 It was better for him to be always among his fel- 
 lows ; the lonely life up on the trail allowed him too 
 much time to brood and see visions ; this busy life 
 was more wholesome. 
 
 His report had been received with great applause 
 by the committee, and his proposition to buy the lum- 
 ber from Eureka, and to build houses, had been 
 accepted, and a committee on building appointed, of 
 which he was chairman. 
 
 Engineer Henshaw had come, and had been settled 
 in his rooms, and now the investigation of the mine 
 was to come the next day. 
 
 It was very late; Mrs. Milton and the town of Dur- 
 den's had been long sleeping the sleep of the weary, 
 but Jerry's light burned still, and he wrote busily. 
 All day he had worked for the Commune to-night he 
 worked for himself. His private affairs were in the 
 most prosperous condition; he had taken up all his 
 notes as they fell due; and had spent three days in 
 riding to and from the nearest station to send his 
 money to be deposited safely in bank. His broker 
 had telegraphed its safe arrival, and his certificate of 
 deposit and bank account had come to him that after- 
 
 322
 
 JERRY. 3 2 3 
 
 noon. He knew now how much he owned; at last he 
 had counted all the savings of old Joe's long life, and 
 of old Burden, whose money Joe had found had 
 counted every cent won by those lives of unceasing 
 toil and saving, and knew himself to be a rich man. 
 
 It had taken time for him to get the money together: 
 log by log, and board by board, he had taken down 
 the whole of Joe's house; he had gotten all that was hid- 
 den under the floor, and had searched the roof most 
 thoroughly. If ever it came to his memory that he 
 was destroying the place that had sheltered all his 
 happiest years, the thought did not stay his destroy- 
 ing hand; rather, there was a haunting fear always 
 that some of the treasure might be lost; and his most 
 constant dream was that the little bundles were rolling 
 away from him in the snow and the rain. 
 
 Relentlessly he pulled down all the little shelves 
 and conveniences that one after another Joe had ar- 
 ranged for him. The first shelf put up for his school- 
 books; the larger one put up later for books that Joe 
 had given the doctor money to buy for him; the little 
 cupboard nailed against the wall, that served to store 
 his papers in all these came down one by one ! 
 Whatever was of any use, he gave away: Joe's clothes, 
 and tools, and bed; the rest of the things he kept to 
 put in his own house that was now building. 
 
 All his money was safe now, what did these old 
 things matter? But he kept the little. bags that had 
 held the gold; somehow he could not destroy them; 
 and in one of them he had found a strip of paper, and 
 the words on it puzzled him; but he could not destroy 
 the little bags. 
 
 His face had grown very sharpen the last few weeks, 
 and his eyes burned more brightly than ever before, 
 as he sat writing under the full glare of the lamp. 
 
 He was a rich man now a rich man ! Sometimes 
 he said the words over to himself until they rang in his 
 ears and his heart, a rich man ! And the respectful 
 letters from his broker, and the paternal notes from
 
 324 JERRY. 
 
 Mr. Greg, were but the forerunning voices of what the 
 world would soon sing around him. 
 
 His broker had advised him not to take any more 
 stock in Burden's just now; he carried enough to as- 
 sure people of his confidence in the venture, and to 
 take any more would look as if he wished to prop it 
 up. So some of his money was invested in other 
 ways, and people in business circles looked on him as 
 a "solid man." But in Burden's he was still only 
 " Mr. Wilkerson," the chief man of the Commune; the 
 man who had the responsibility of the whole town and 
 its affairs on his shoulders, but who expected to make 
 his money as the Burdenites made theirs. No one 
 knew of Joe's treasure, and his strange sickness and 
 death were soon forgotten. 
 
 Mrs. Milton had said, and every one believed it, and 
 thought it most natural, that Joe Gilliam had saved a 
 little money, and young Wilkerson was living on it; 
 but no one knew of the bank account, nor of the in- 
 vestments made in his name in various prosperous 
 railways: only Ban Burk wondered in his heart where 
 Joe's money was. He knew how much he had saved, 
 and he knew that Joe must have saved twice as much; 
 yet no word had come to him no whisper of Jerry 
 having found but the little he was now spending on 
 his living; and he wondered if the old man had hid- 
 den it too securely, or purposely had put it out of 
 Jerry's reach. 
 
 Burk had been to see Joe once during his illness, 
 but Joe had not vouchsafed to notice him except to 
 say that there was " a curse on the gold, and death in 
 the mine " and this looked as if he might have buried 
 it out of sight forever. Then Ban remembered Jerry's 
 visit to the East and hearing that he had spent a great 
 deal there; maybe it had gone in this way, maybe; 
 but then this would not account for Joe's great desire 
 that Jerry should learn to love money. He could 
 come to no satisfactory conclusion, and fell to watch- 
 ing Jerry closely for any betraying word or action; he
 
 JERRY. 3 2 5 
 
 went to see him at all hours, hoping to surprise him 
 in some way, but gained nothing for his trouble. 
 Jerry lived quietly at Mrs. Miller's he was building 
 for himself a small house in no way better than the 
 houses built for the emigrants; only two small rooms 
 close under the cliff near the mine's mouth; he gave 
 no sign in his dress, nor in any of his habits, that he 
 was in possession of any great amount of money: and 
 Dan Burk was puzzled. 
 
 The others who watched Jerry were Greg, with al- 
 ways an anxious look in his eyes; and Paul Henley. 
 
 The doctor came and went silently; he attended 
 carefully to his work in Eureka, and kindly to all the 
 sick and dying; his life seemed to have lost all inter- 
 est, and he went about as one to whom duty has be- 
 come habit. His great tract of land lay under the sun 
 and rain untouched and unsought: his great stacks of 
 lumber had been sold to Burden's; his imported work- 
 men had followed their leader Greg, each buying his 
 little lot, and building his little shanty; and the land- 
 agents whom he, more than Jerry, had foiled, had been 
 bought out by the railway company, and in a body 
 had gone away in search of further prey. 
 
 All things rested in Jerry's hands now, and he had 
 begun to think he could not fail that all he touched 
 must succeed. Nothing surprised him unless it went 
 wrong; then he was provoked. He ruled the town 
 committee, never hesitating to tell them the most bit- 
 ing truths: he dictated to the building committee: he 
 asked no advice, and told none of his plans. When a 
 plan was fully matured in his own mind, he system- 
 atically worked things in that direction, then laid 
 the plan before the committee, quite sure of its 
 adoption. 
 
 He was fully armed always, and people said he was 
 not afraid of the devil. More than once Dave Mor- 
 ris had bragged of his defeat, elevating himself along 
 with the reigning hero a friend intimate enough to 
 knock him down ; and Dan Burk often had repeated
 
 326 JERRY. 
 
 old Joe's words " he would kill without thinking " 
 and, if true or not, this was believed. 
 
 And Jerry's laws were stringent. 
 
 No whisky was allowed in the town save as rations 
 to men who were working ; and it was said that Mr. 
 Wilkerson would shoot any man he caught selling 
 anything stronger than beer. Long ago he had es- 
 tablished a school and church, where services of some 
 kind were held every Sunday ; but he had no reading- 
 rooms ; no lending-libraries ; nor any news-stalls : 
 those who wished newspapers might take them pri- 
 vately, but the fewer the better ; he did not think 
 them good for the masses, they only fomented dis- 
 cord and discontent ; he had seen this, and as the 
 people were satisfied with the Durdens Banner he made 
 no move to introduce papers from the outside world. 
 
 As it was, his power was scarcely realized ; and 
 Burden's, surprised by the order and method with 
 which she was governed, followed Jerry quietly and 
 blindly. 
 
 His letters were finished now, and he pushed aside 
 the coarse curtain that shaded the window and looked 
 out. The autumn was very late, fortunately for his 
 plans, with only the slightest snowfalls at long inter- 
 vals ; allowing him to build and prepare for the new- 
 comers, and to push the work in the new " finds "; a 
 little more good weather, and the old mine would be 
 reopened, and the railway in ; and of course the 
 weather would hold. 
 
 There was a slight covering of snow on the ground 
 now, as Jerry looked out, but the stars were shining 
 overhead, and the moon so brightly, that he could 
 see the stone meant for Joe's grave, leaning against 
 the fence. 
 
 " Joe Gilliams last Find " was the inscription cut 
 on it, with the date of his death. 
 
 Jerry turned away ; his last find, where had his 
 first find been where had he worked all these years 
 wnere had he found all his gold ?
 
 JERRY. 327 
 
 Up and down Jerry walked : to-morrow for the 
 second time in his life he would enter Burden's 
 Mine. Would he find anything there to tell of that 
 long toil and saving ? might he not have mistaken 
 Joe's last words ? 
 
 He had found no mining tools among Joe's things ; 
 no lanterns, nor miner's lamps, nothing but common 
 saws, and hammers, and hatchets : no clothes that 
 looked as if he had worked underground. Would 
 he find them all in some black passage in the mine ; 
 all piled carefully in some far recess, put there by the 
 old hands that could handle them no more : or had 
 Joe said true, that he had not worked in the mine, 
 that it was all safe unless you turned to the left. 
 
 He paused in his walking : some day he would 
 examine that turn to the left. Die he could not die 
 yet he would not die ! If the devil had filled all the 
 cracks of the earth with gold, he would dig it all out 
 and give it to men so that there would be no more 
 power in it to tempt them : and he laughed a little, 
 remembering his foolish visions. 
 
 He went to the window again ; his head was hot 
 and heavy, and lifting the sash he leaned out into the 
 biting wind. 
 
 " Joe Gil Ham's last Find" 
 
 The stone leaning against the fence seemed to 
 speak to him. Something connected with his work 
 had killed the old man ; and his last find, did that 
 mean his grave, or the thing that had caused his 
 death ? 
 
 He could never find out ; and to-morrow he would 
 go into the mine that the old inhabitants looked on 
 as fatal to all who entered it. 
 
 Mrs. Milton had uttered sad forebodings. 
 
 " My 'Lije were a good, strong man, an' he were 
 gone two days," counting slowly on her fingers, " two 
 days, a Thursday an' a Friday, thet were orl orl the 
 time he were in thar ; thet were orl, but when he 
 come home a Saturday, he were done plum done ! "
 
 328 JERRY. 
 
 and she wiped her nose with the corner of her apron ; 
 "tharwarn't no mo" sperrit in him, no mo' sperrit in 
 'Lije Milton," shaking her head ; " he never said 
 anether cuss, ner tuck anether dram, ceppen what the 
 doctor give him ; an' he never tole what he sawn in 
 thar he never tole it." 
 
 Then Jerry had left her : he had heard that story 
 long ago from Joe, and later had had suspicions of 
 Joe's connection with this same story dark suspic- 
 ions that he had stilled : now they all came back to 
 him as he thought of the next day, and looked at the 
 stone leaning against the fence. 
 
 " Joe Gilliam's last Find " that narrow grave up 
 among the rocks the common pine coffin the quick 
 forgetfulness ! 
 
 He came in hastily from the cold night, and shut 
 the window ; he must get some rest, or he would not 
 be fit for the next day's work. 
 
 Carefully he put the fire together, and drew the 
 curtain, then looked at the clock ; it was time almost 
 for Mrs. Milton to get up.
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 "When wealth shall rest no more in mounded heaps, 
 But smit with freer light shall slowly melt 
 In many streams to fatten lower lands, 
 And light shall spread, and man be liker man 
 Thro' all the seasons of the golden year. " 
 
 A ND this was the original bed of the stream? " 
 
 \ Mr. Henshaw asked, standing in front of 
 
 Jerry's unfinished shanty, and looking up the 
 
 gorge, that was untouched by the sun as yet, " and 
 
 formerly it flowed into this opening and disappeared ?" 
 
 " Yes," Jerry answered, " and Mr. Burden, seeing 
 indications of gold in these rocks, turned the stream 
 aside by building a dam up yonder," pointing to where 
 a dam, running up and down the ridge, turned the 
 stream into a shallow ravine on the other side, " and 
 worked in this cave opening. It is said," looking at 
 the engineer keenly, " that the Eureka Mine, which 
 has also a cave opening, was the outlet of the stream." 
 
 " Indeed ? " seriously ; " I doubt it ; there is no 
 sign of a cave opening there." 
 
 Jerry laughed. 
 
 " The only way to settle it," he said, " would be to 
 turn the stream in again." 
 
 The engineer shook his head solemnly. He was 
 too poor a man to joke about trying experiments on 
 gold mines. " That would be ruination, you know," 
 he said. 
 
 " Of course," and Jerry brought himself back to 
 the strict business of the hour : this man was literal 
 and earnest, the very man to have on an exciting 
 search, as this might prove : and the traditions were 
 nothing ; indeed, it would be for the benefit of all if 
 
 329
 
 33 JERRY. 
 
 they could be forgotten. And the scrap of paper, 
 that now he understood, had better be burned. For 
 with the opening of the mine all the most far- 
 fetched and most weird of the legends had come to 
 the surface. 
 
 Mrs. Milton had poured into his ears all that 'Lije 
 had revealed to her, of the sounds like women and 
 children crying and calling for help of a great red 
 eye that glared at him of twinkling lights that shone 
 in impossible places ; and Dan Burk had told him the 
 old Indian's story of how the tribe had driven in all 
 its women and children to death in a bottomless hole, 
 rather than they should fall into the hands of the 
 enemy. But the Indians had not gone in through the 
 mine's mouth, of course, but through another open- 
 ing into a cave that lay on the other side of this 
 hole a cave that was " lined and floored with pure 
 gold ! " 
 
 Before day that morning Dan had come to tell 
 Jerry this story, and to warn him not to turn to the 
 left. " Joe were the only feller as knew the way," he 
 whispered, " and 'Lije Milton's death come from there, 
 and Joe Gilliam's death come from there ! " 
 
 So Jerry went to meet the engineer in the early 
 morning with his nerves all strained and tense, and 
 his mind all alive to every least sign or mark. He had 
 not told Dan Burk that Joe already had warned him 
 about the turn to the left, nor had he mentioned to 
 any one Burk's story of the abyss that Joe had crossed 
 daily ; but the whole thing was clear to his own mind 
 now. He could understand now Joe's anxiety as to 
 the mine being occupied, it was his only entrance to 
 this cave beyond where he had found his gold ; and 
 amid the chaos of new surmises that were coming to 
 him, the dreadful suspicion that Joe had aided in ter- 
 rifying 'Lije Milton away from his work of explora- 
 tion grew stronger and stronger. He had given up 
 the thought that 'Lije had been hurt in any way, for 
 from Mrs. Milton he had heard that the illness had
 
 JERRY. 33 l 
 
 lasted for months, and had been what she called " a 
 dwinin'." 
 
 " 'Lige stayed in thar as long as he said he were 
 a-goin' to stay," she said, " 'cause he never let go 
 onest he tuck er grip, but what he sawn an' hearn in 
 thar never leff him, an' he worn't never wuth nothin* 
 no mo'." 
 
 " It promises well," and Mr. Henshaw's voice 
 roused Jerry from his dreams ; " the stream fell in 
 here," he went on, " and the opening was enlarged 
 from the top ; see ? " 
 
 " Yes," looking up where the marks made by the 
 picks so many years ago were still visible ; " but here 
 come the men," and he leaned over the opening, that 
 seemed to descend much more rapidly than he re- 
 membered. 
 
 The men came up ; all of them were new men, anx- 
 ious for the work, and anxious for the success of the 
 mine in which they had shares : what were legends to 
 them ? 
 
 One after another they descended, Jerry leading the 
 way. He was a man now, and educated sufficiently 
 to be above all superstitious and ghostly fears, yet he 
 looked back longingly to the light as they went down 
 into the darkness, and for an instant held his breath 
 to hear the water that dropped for ever and what 
 would he see ? 
 
 " This is still the bed of the stream," Mr. Henshaw 
 said, as they paused for the men to light the lamps, 
 "and it turns to the left." 
 
 Jerry looked ; surely it did, and he looked about 
 him carefully for some mark or track some little, 
 beaten way that would tell that the place had been 
 frequented but there was not a sign : the worn bed 
 of the stream held no marks. 
 
 " And they tunneled here straight in front of them, 
 and up," Mr. Henshaw went on solemnly, holding ut>
 
 33 2 JERRY. 
 
 his lantern to prove his words. " They should have 
 followed the bed of the stream." 
 
 " Shall we ? " Jerry asked doubtfully. 
 
 " It will be best," was answered ; " but follow very 
 carefully, for being the natural opening they would 
 have followed it as least expensive unless stopped by 
 something impassable." 
 
 Jerry listened quietly ; he could never have rea- 
 soned in this way ; surely this was the man for such 
 an expedition. 
 
 " I will go first," Jerry said, and no one demurred. 
 The bed of the stream tended steadily to the left, 
 dipping slightly, but lay several feet above the floor of 
 the tunnel where they stood, so that a little climbing 
 was necessary to put them back on this level they had 
 left. 
 
 "They did not tunnel here," and Jerry lifted his 
 light to show the scarred roof, when once more they 
 were in the bed of the stream. 
 
 " Yes," Mr. Henshaw answered, " strange they 
 should have left it." 
 
 On they scrambled, Jerry leading the way, and 
 going most carefully ; what might he not find ? 
 
 Presently the light from his lantern struck against 
 a wall, the next moment it traveled indefinitely into 
 the gloom ! 
 
 He paused, and the men behind him stopped as if 
 moved by machinery they were not timid men, and 
 were seeking their fortunes, but they stopped as one 
 man and listened. 
 
 Was it water or wind that they heard a sigh ? a cry ? 
 
 " It is the echo of our own voices," Jerry said 
 sharply " listen ! " and he raised his voice in a high, 
 long cry : the men started even Henshaw felt his 
 nerves jerk a little as the cry went on, and on, and 
 on coming back again and again fading, and rising, 
 and dying like a sob ! Then a dead silence fell, and 
 Jerry leaned against the wall he had reached, un- 
 nerved and weak.
 
 JERRY. 333 
 
 Was it a sob or a sigh that swept past him, or the 
 last wave of sound from his own cry ! It came again, 
 and he started, lifting up his lantern higher higher ! 
 and he stepped back slowly, carefully. 
 
 " Stand still ! " he commanded quickly, for the men 
 were moving forward ; then picked up a stone and 
 cast it down in front of him. 
 
 The men all saw the movement by the flickering 
 lights, and waited in silence. Would it never reach 
 the bottom ? then far off there came a sound, then 
 another, and another fading down in the depths. 
 
 " Great God ! if we had gone on ! " and the men 
 moved back hastily ; but Jerry did not move, and Mr. 
 Henshaw came to his side. 
 
 " Drop another stone," he said ; " we can time it 
 and judge the depth." 
 
 Jerry picked up a stone, and the man of business 
 took out his watch. 
 
 " Now " and the stone flashed across the belt of 
 light and disappeared : down down down. What 
 would it fall on bones ? poor whitened bones that 
 would be crushed and powdered by this touch from 
 the upper world by this stone their feet had trod on 
 years ago ah, it struck them then ! 
 
 " Very deep," and Mr. Henshaw looked up in the 
 darkness to make his calculations. 
 
 " One hundred feet at least," he said ; " a very good 
 reason for not following the bed of the stream, it fell 
 here"; then he went back to where the men were 
 grouped. " That echo was a fortunate warning," he 
 said, " and we must put a railing there, it is too dan- 
 gerous." 
 
 But Jerry had not left, his position: the corner 
 where he leaned was polished as by constant rubbing 
 the spot where he stood had regular marks worn into 
 it ; he waved his lantern out into the darkness, and 
 there not four feet away was the corner of a ledge ; 
 he paused : was this Joe's path did he daily cross this 
 awful gap a hundred feet deep jump across that
 
 334 JERRY. 
 
 space trusting to that ledge ? He drew a sharp breath ; 
 he would not find anything of Joe's, they were in the 
 cave at the end of the black tunnel down which he 
 looked ; and the ledge he had seen must run along 
 the wall, and be the path to the cave. 
 
 And this awful risk for gold ! 
 
 Mr. Henshaw called him, and he went back to where 
 the men were turning over sand and rubbish that had 
 been brought in by rain and wind ; and Mr. Henshaw 
 peering at everything closely. 
 
 " Very rich," he said at last, " but worked most 
 carelessly most carelessly." 
 
 In a moment Jerry was at his side. 
 
 " They made a great mistake," Mr. Henshaw went 
 on, " they worked overhead and in front of them, 
 a great mistake, all lies under-foot all of it ; rich, 
 most rich ! " 
 
 " Good enough ! " and the men went to work more 
 busily than ever to clear the rubbish away. 
 
 " It will be well to work this tunnel that is cut 
 already, until we get the proper materials to sink a 
 shaft," Mr. Henshaw went on, "but we must go 
 down ; for this vein, the richest I have ever seen," 
 his eyes gleaming as he spoke, "widens as it de- 
 scends." 
 
 Eagerly the men listened, and Jerry, with shining 
 eyes, seemed to drink in the words. 
 
 " There are millions in this mine millions ! " 
 
 Jerry stood quite still, and his old dreams, that only 
 last night he had laughed at, seemed to sweep over 
 him, and fill his brain as a mist : all his visions of 
 piles and piles of gold piles that would satisfy the 
 nations, and stop all greed and longing ! Gold should 
 be a drug in the market : and what would the world 
 do for a medium of exchange ? In the latter days 
 there was to be *' perplexity of nations " nations that 
 could not buy nor sell to each other nations reduced 
 to barter ! All the great exchanges in ruins ; grass 
 growing in the streets of great cities, and the nations
 
 JERRY. 335 
 
 spreading out over plains and hills, seeking for places 
 to plant and reap ! 
 
 Back, further still, they were searching into the tun- 
 nel, and Jerry followed mechanically, walking as one 
 in a dream. 
 
 No wonder the devil had worked to drive men out 
 from this great treasure-house ; his power was to be 
 taken away ; his charm wherewith he charmed all men 
 to sin and death the root of all the evil and suffer- 
 ing under the sun ; this gold for which men sold their 
 souls this thing was to be cast among them until it 
 was like the dust in the road, and the chips ! yes, as 
 when one " breaketh and heweth wood " then the 
 devil's power would be done ! 
 
 And Mr. Henshaw turning over a rock in his hands 
 muttered, " Millions millions " he must borrow 
 money and invest in the venture ; and he would write 
 to Sue that soon he would be a rich man a rich man ! 
 Then to Jerry 
 
 " Your fortune is made, Mr. Wilkerson, already 
 made," he said, and Jerry started from his visions as 
 if some hand had struck him. " You have made a 
 most wonderful discovery," Mr. Henshaw went on, 
 " and your townspeople, and all who come here, should 
 be most grateful to you, for I understand that you 
 entered into this scheme with great odds against 
 you." 
 
 " I did," Jerry answered slowly, " but all is in my 
 favor now "; then looking up, " Have you shares in this 
 venture ? " 
 
 Mr. Henshaw shook his head. 
 
 " I had nothing to invest," he said sadly. 
 
 " Let me lend it to you ? " Jerry rejoined quickly, 
 " and you can repay me at your leisure." 
 
 " Sir ! " stepping back in his astonishment, " Sir, 
 are you in earnest ? " and the workmen looked from 
 one to the other questioningly then into each other's 
 eyes longingly ; they had shares, but if only they 
 could double them !
 
 33 6 JERR y. 
 
 " It is nothing," and Jerry turned away; " I have 
 money my adopted father left me, and I shall be glad 
 to lend it to you," and the men looked at him kindly : 
 he was a " fair, square man," they said afterward ; he 
 could have taken double shares himself, but instead 
 lent the money to a poorer man ; he was a fair-deal- 
 ing man, a man they could depend on. 
 
 And Mr. Henshavv felt his proper, middle-aged 
 heart beating hard and fast under the shining seams 
 of his coat : he could build a little house, and Sue 
 and the children could come out ! His mild blue 
 eyes were strangely dim behind his spectacles as he 
 looked after Jerry walking back and up to the black 
 hole. A strange " mob-leader," he thought, a strange 
 disturber of the peace, and an honest Communist ! 
 Surely he was sharing his goods. 
 
 And in his report warmer words were said of the 
 venture than ever he had said of anything in his 
 whole visionless, unenthusiastic life ; and the Board 
 felt new confidence in Burden's, for every man sent 
 out, from the keenest to the dullest from the most 
 enthusiastic to the most prosaic all seemed to become 
 imbued with perfect faith in the project, and in the 
 young leader Wilkerson. 
 
 And now the stock ran up higher, and Jerry's man 
 of business had orders to sell out all his other invest- 
 ments, and to put all the proceeds in "Burden's"; 
 and Greg told his father that he could not invest too 
 largely : and Mr. Henshaw bought and felt his life 
 begin afresh ; and Burden's rose to such a pitch of 
 enthusiasm and delight that people almost cheered 
 Jerry as he passed. 
 
 Eureka came over in a body, settling themselves 
 anywhere that a house could be built ; selling all to 
 buy shares in the mine, and privileges in the Com- 
 mune ; and the doctor rode about among the sick, 
 lending money to those who did not have it to invest 
 and watching Jerry's course with tired, kind eyes : 
 and Paul, refusing to come back from Engineer Mills'
 
 JERRY. 337 
 
 house in Eureka, worked, and thought, and spent 
 money and strength to build up Eureka to outdo 
 Jerry ! Once more the "dirty little beggar " had the 
 best of it, and had overcome him ; but life was all 
 before them yet, and where would death find 
 them ?
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 " But O blithe breeze ! and O great seas, 
 
 Though ne'er that earliest parting past 
 On your wide plain they join again, 
 Together lead them home at last. 
 
 One port, methought, alike they sought, 
 One purpose hold where'er they fare, 
 
 O bounding breeze, O rushing seas ! 
 At last, at last, unite them there." 
 
 THE weather had held good as Jerry had expected, 
 until the work in the mine was well under way ; 
 the railway also was near, for building on the 
 plain was easy work ; the town of Burden's was 
 spreading up the mountain-side, and down, and out 
 on the plain ; and Eureka seemed dead, save for one 
 grog-shop. Mr. Henshaw was spending most of his 
 time now working on the dam that kept the stream 
 from the mine ; and was impressing on the Commit- 
 tee and the Company the grave importance of keep- 
 ing the dam in perfect order. Once let that stream 
 break through into its old channel, and the mine 
 would be flooded to a ruinous extent : for now all the 
 work in the mine was on a level far below the old bed 
 of the stream, and all the new shafts and tunnels 
 would have to be filled before the stream could find 
 its old outlet down the chasm. And Jerry had made 
 a speech to the people on this subject that had caused 
 their pockets to feel empty, and their hearts to ache. 
 For himself, he dreamed night after night of an awful 
 battling with overwhelming floods of water ; waking 
 with cries and struggles that made Mrs. Milton an- 
 nounce to her gossips that " Jerry Wilkerson air the 
 mos' onres'lessis creetur as ever wuz, an' if he eats 
 
 338
 
 JERRY, 339 
 
 nothin' or no, he's allers a-walkin' aroun' an' a-hollerin' 
 in the night." 
 
 So things had gone until now the open weather 
 seemed over ; all the new houses, clean and tight, and 
 ready for occupation, were covered with a light fall of 
 snow : only a light fall, but to all weather-wise eyes 
 the low clouds promised much more in a little while. 
 The Committee added steadily to the stacks of wood 
 gathered for the common good, and all the people 
 did what they could in preparation, for it was proph- 
 esied on all hands that the winter, though late in 
 coming, would be a hard winter a very hard winter. 
 A bright December made always a black January, the 
 old people said. 
 
 It was Sunday, but Jerry had not gone to the 
 church, as usually he made a point of doing, even 
 if no better man than Dan Burk or Dave Morris was 
 there to preach to him ; but, instead, he was going to 
 ask the doctor to come to Mrs. Milton ; she was not 
 well, and Jerry had volunteered to bring the doctor. 
 
 He had not been down that road for months, not 
 since he had gone to offer his services, in case the 
 doctor needed help. That had been in the spring ; 
 and since then a life seemed to have passed ! 
 
 Now he walked slowly ; it was cold and still, and 
 all the town seemed dead : everybody was in the 
 church, or shut safe in their houses ; his own little 
 house that he used as an office, but into which Mrs. 
 Milton had begged him not to move until the spring, 
 was shut tight, and looked desolate ; indeed, lent des- 
 olation to the scene as he caught a far glimpse of it 
 before descending the hill toward the doctor's. Down 
 the long, ugly road he went, then turned sharply 
 across the gullies and rents made by the snows and 
 rains, up to the steps. Nothing had changed since 
 his first visit there, as a child : all was the same no 
 fence had been built, no whitewash nor paint had 
 been put on the house : as dark, as ugly now as then, 
 only now seeming more still.
 
 34 JERR Y. 
 
 Slowly Jerry mounted the steps slowly took his 
 way across the piazza, and knocked at the door. A 
 step came down the hall a step that made the 
 color mount to his face, and Paul opened the 
 door. One moment they eyed each other, then 
 Jerry asked 
 
 " Is the doctor at home ? " 
 
 " No." 
 
 " When will he come ? " 
 
 "I do not know"; then more curtly, if that were 
 possible " I do not live here, perhaps the servants 
 can tell you," and shutting the door he went back, 
 and Jerry heard him call the doctor's man, then 
 turn aside into the library. Presently the servant 
 came, and Jerry saw on his face an anxious look. 
 
 " Doctor's been gone since yisterday since yister- 
 day evenin' late," he said. 
 
 " On horseback ? " Jerry asked. 
 
 " No, sir, he walked off," and Jim scratched his 
 head anxiously, "he hed his dinner, an' read a letter, 
 an' walked off without sayin' a word notter word ; 
 an' Mr. Paul's been here since mornin' nigh crazy to 
 see him." 
 
 Jerry's face was as anxious now as the servant's ; 
 this was not like the doctor to go long distances on 
 foot, and he asked slowly : 
 
 " Where did this letter come from ? " 
 
 " I don't know ; I couldn't read the mark of it, but 
 it was black all roun' it : I had it a-waitin' fur him a 
 long time, an' plum disremembered it tell he was done 
 his dinner, then I give it to him, an' he took it like 
 it were a snake, an' he went to the liberry, an' after 
 that I heard him go out, an' he aint never come back." 
 
 Jerry leaned against the door-post. 
 
 " Have you told Mr. Henley this ? " he asked. 
 
 " No, I aint, because when he come he cussed me 
 black an' blue, but he never axed me nothin', but 
 he's been a-stompin' roun' in the liberry consid'- 
 abul."
 
 JERRY. 341 
 
 Jerry stood still a moment, then drawing a long 
 breath straightened himself up. 
 
 " Tell all this to Mr. Henley at once," he said, " and 
 say that I have gone to hunt for the doctor that I 
 have gone to the rock over the mine, the doctor 
 often went there." 
 
 The man looked aghast. 
 
 " But all night, Mr. Wilkerson, all night ! " he said. 
 
 Jerry turned away quickly, a nameless terror 
 coming over him. 
 
 " You tell Mr. Henley," he repeated, " and tell him 
 to come to the mine "; then he went down the steps 
 and turned toward the old trail that led past Joe's 
 house. This was the easiest way to the shelf of rock 
 he wished to find. 
 
 What news had come in that letter with the black 
 edges. What news had come to make Paul stamp 
 and curse ? only one person could touch them both. 
 He paused a moment in his rapid walk : had any- 
 thing come to that woman ? Faster and faster he 
 made his way up the slippery path, scarcely thinking 
 what it was that made him come to this place. 
 Higher and higher, while the low-drooping clouds 
 seemed to touch him with their shadowy, cold hands, 
 and in their folds he seemed to see that woman's 
 patient eyes looking out on him eyes that looked 
 as if they had shed so many tears. So often had 
 he gone over the few links of that story, that at 
 last it seemed as if it were his own romance : had 
 the one in the convent died ? and what was the 
 mystery that lay behind ? 
 
 Up, past the ruins of Joe's house, past the broken 
 tree where the doctor always tied his horse during his 
 few visits then beyond, and down the narrow path 
 that led to Jim Martin's house. He remembered so 
 well the first time he had come here to get hogs,and 
 they had stopped to look at the stream that fell so 
 far, and on the shelf of rock they had seen the doc- 
 tor. Often in the years that had passed since, Jerry
 
 342 JERRY. 
 
 had found him there, and many times since the open- 
 ing of the mine, looking up from below he had seen 
 the flutter as of a white handkerchief, and knew 
 that the doctor was there. And now his instinct 
 had brought him here first, sure that in any trouble 
 it was to this quiet place the doctor would come. 
 And the last time he saw him the last time ! He 
 shook himself what nonsense to think of a " last 
 time "! he would see him many more times could go 
 to him in his success and say, " I love you, Doctor, 
 and have loved you always, and you misunderstood 
 the stand I took "; then the doctor would clasp his 
 hand so kindly, and his voice would soften as some- 
 times in the old days it had done, and all would be 
 well between them. 
 
 It was fortunate that he had put his hand on that 
 boulder else he would have fallen down to the 
 mine's mouth ! 
 
 He stood pale and trembling what was missing ? 
 surely he had always stepped down just there surely ? 
 Something was gone, and some low bushes and vines 
 seemed to have been pulled up by the roots, and some 
 of them were still hanging still hanging ! 
 
 He passed his hands over his eyes his hands that 
 trembled so and were so cold. But the weather was 
 cold, very cold, and this freeze had caused the thin 
 slab to fall ; or perhaps the jarring of the work in the 
 mine ; something had caused this rock to fall this 
 rock that had been there yesterday : yes, up to the 
 time when the workmen left the mine, for he remem- 
 bered looking up and seeing it. It had fallen in the 
 night, for the night had been such a cold one. 
 
 His thoughts stopped, his heart seemed to stop, and 
 he leaned against the rock : something fluttered from 
 one of the uprooted bushes something that until this 
 moment he had not seen against the whiteness of the 
 snow. He pressed back against the rock he looked 
 up at the low gray clouds looked all about him over 
 the ghastly world looked at everything save the
 
 JERR Y. 343 
 
 white token which the sudden flaw of wind had lifted, 
 and he could not look at that ! He knew what it 
 was he knew whose it was. 
 
 Then he straightened himself up and walked 
 steadily toward the loosely hanging bush, and un- 
 tangled the handkerchief from the briers that held 
 it: it had been a perilous act, for the bush hung so 
 far over, but he had the handkerchief safe, and put it 
 in the breast of his shirt slowly. He sat down for a 
 moment, for his head seemed going round and round, 
 and he wondered if it would be safe for him to go on. 
 The path by Jim Martin's house was very steep, and 
 with snow on the ground would be dangerous. He 
 staggered to his feet of course he would go on 
 how could he stop to question it ! and he began care- 
 fully to find his way over the snow-covered rocks 
 down the steep path. There was smoke coming from 
 Jim Martin's house, and a face watched him from the 
 window, but not for long, it was too cold to stay near 
 an unglazed window. Down, still down ; he had not 
 travelled this path since he and Joe had come 
 together, and had imagined the vision of 'Lije Milton. 
 This day was just as that one had been, gray and 
 cold, with the ghastly snow-clouds hanging low. But 
 it was harder now than then to reach the mine's 
 mouth, for now there were huge piles of debris all 
 about, and huge timbers waiting to be put in place : 
 and all was quiet with a death-like stillness, save for 
 the wind that came in gusts up the gorge, and the 
 stream that cried as it fell ! 
 
 But the town, scattered up and down the sides of 
 the gorge, seemed supernaturally quiet. He stopped 
 to rest for a moment, for he was very tired, and the 
 dizziness was returning ; it was hard work climbing 
 up and down with that slippery snow under foot, and 
 he had come a long way round, and had come rapidly. 
 
 The last hillock of rubbish was reached, and he 
 stopped to look : the black entrance yawned before 
 him ; the timbers lay about just as he had seen them
 
 344 JERRY. 
 
 the night before, and the snow had blown a little way 
 into the mine : that was all he saw. 
 
 Nearer he crept, with ever an unanswered wonder 
 in his heart as to why he crept why was he afraid 
 why did he tremble. 
 
 One second's pause no cry no exclamation, only 
 a deadening of every faculty a stiffening of every 
 fiber! 
 
 So still he lay. 
 
 Slowly, as one walking in his sleep, Jerry climbed 
 down the rocks that slipped from under his feet 
 with a noise that struck sharply on the silence ; 
 bounding down, and down as if they were alive ; and 
 one he held his breath how far it was rolling, how 
 far on and on until, oh, God ! it struck him lying 
 there so still, with a white face turned to the sky 
 struck him dully on the breast ! 
 
 How Jerry crossed the intervening space he did not 
 know what need to know ? he was there kneeling, 
 crouching, lifting the poor cold body, drawing it up 
 into his arms brushing the snow from out the sil- 
 vered hair ! 
 
 And the rock he took from off the pulseless breast 
 he would break it, he would grind it to dust, for it 
 had struck his friend lying dead and helpless ! 
 
 Dead ? dead, and cold as the snow that lay in little 
 lines in the creases of his coat, and in his hands some 
 dry grasses, and a leafless twig he had tried to save 
 himself ? 
 
 He drew the dead man closer with a passionate, 
 remorseful strength ; how had such an awful thought 
 as suicide crept into his mind. The rock had fallen 
 with him ; he had been too strong for such a thought 
 as self-destruction. It had been dark, and he could 
 not see to save himself, and had caught only the little 
 grasses and the tiny twig. Oh, the awful horror of 
 that fall falling in the black, lonely night ! Had 
 any cry gone up for help ? gone out on the wild 
 winds, and none had heard it !
 
 JERRY. 345 
 
 Jerry's face drooped until almost it touched the 
 dead face resting on his shoulder : why had he not 
 made his peace with this man ? 
 
 " Oh, God oh, God ! " he whispered, " have 
 mercy ! " 
 
 He did not remember then that this man had let 
 him go ; he remembered only his love, that had turned 
 to bitterness in his heart, and now had become bitter- 
 ness that would never die ! 
 
 He started a little, for something dropped on his 
 leg : he raised his friend and stretched out his arm, 
 leaning over to see : a dark stain, almost black, was 
 on the sleeve of his flannel shirt, and on his trousers 
 a smaller spot that shone red on the gray of the rough 
 jeans. Blood he shivered a little ; then he saw the 
 great gash on the back of the head and the neck. He 
 laid the head again on his shoulder : why should he 
 shiver at blood that had pulsed with this good man's 
 life ; the blood of the only creature that he loved on 
 earth ! 
 
 Again the blood dropped, and Jerry's weary, racked 
 mind slipped away to the memory of the water that 
 dropped in the mine, the water they never had 
 found, that dropped with a catch in its fall like a 
 sob. 
 
 Did Nature weep far away under the rocks ; weep 
 her tears in silence where no eye could discover them ? 
 weep out all her sorrow for the beautiful dead years 
 that could not crown her with their glory any more ? 
 the beautiful dead years that had spent all their life 
 and strength for her. Did she weep for them in the 
 darkness tears like the tears that kill humanity tears 
 that never leave the heart ? 
 
 He did not remember shedding many tears ; his 
 mother had trained him not to cry for fear of his 
 father, and he could not remember many tears. All 
 his sorrows had seemed to lie still in his heart until 
 they died. 
 
 He looked down on the dead face : this sorrow
 
 34 6 JERR Y. 
 
 would never die. His head seemed to swim a little ; 
 the cold wind seemed to strike through him like a 
 knife, and it was with an effort that he kept his mind 
 from wandering. All sorts of vague dreams and 
 half-memories seemed to float about him, and the 
 visions he had lived among and loved through all the 
 lonely years up on the trail. 
 
 Some one ought to come ; if the servant had given 
 his message, Paul ought to come. Or would they 
 leave him here to watch with the dead until his own 
 blood was frozen ? Then his mind slipped off again 
 to vague wonderings as to the news that had come in 
 the letter with the black edges ; was it any trouble 
 that had come to the woman this man had loved so 
 truly any trouble for her that had hurt him, and 
 made him come out to the darkness and stillness for 
 comfort ? 
 
 His head drooped lower : he was so cold and weary, 
 and the women were all in the church, and the men in 
 Eureka, and there were good fires in most of the 
 houses, good fires. 
 
 What made him think of this ? he was losing his 
 mind, and freezing to death, sitting still with the dead 
 in his arms freezing to death ! 
 
 If only his tears could drop as the blood was drop- 
 ping, maybe his head would not feel so heavy, nor his 
 thoughts wander so wildly. 
 
 Ah, there was a step ! Surely no rock would roll 
 else : certainly it was a step, and a hurried one : would 
 the person come near enough to see him, or must he 
 call. Call with the dead in his arms ? he could not 
 do it. 
 
 He watched anxiously as a hat, and then a face, 
 appeared above the nearest hillock, and Paul stood 
 looking down on him. 
 
 For an instant that seemed hours they stared in each 
 other's -eyes then Jerry's voice, all changed and 
 hoarse, broke the stillness. 
 
 " I found him here," he said, " dead," and he
 
 JERR Y. 347 
 
 pressed the white face against his breast as a mother 
 might press her sleeping child ; saying the words made 
 it seem so much more real made his mind come back 
 from its desolate wanderings. 
 
 Then Paul climbed down slowly, and stood beside 
 him. " My aunt who was in a convent died," he said 
 in a slow, dazed way, " and the shock killed my 
 mother, and I came this morning to tell him." 
 
 The words crept slowly into Jerry's mind ; the one 
 who bound them had died and her death had killed 
 the one who longed to be free. 
 
 " They say my mother had heart disease ; and I 
 came to tell him," Paul went on in a low, unnatural 
 voice. 
 
 Jerry pushed the hair back from the dead man's 
 forehead of course, her heart was broken broken 
 long ago, her eyes told that. 
 
 " He got a letter with black edges," Jerry said, 
 " your servant told me so." 
 
 A letter with black edges : the servant had told him 
 also, but he had forgotten it ; a letter with black 
 edges ; so his guardian had known the news first. 
 
 A strange change came over Paul's face, a strange 
 change that grew in his eyes as he faced Jerry. 
 
 Always there had been a mystery about Paul's life 
 that he could not solve, that had kept him watchful 
 and suspicious always, and' that now came up before 
 him : why had he been given to this man why had 
 he never been allowed to go back to his mother for 
 one day even ? And now she was dead, and this man, 
 hearing it, was dead also ; a strange, unaccountable 
 death was there any connection ? What right had 
 this man to die because his mother had died ? 
 
 Suddenly he became conscious that Jerry had laid 
 his burden down, and stood before him with eyes that 
 burned and glared on him, and Jerry's hands clutched 
 his shoulders almost to pain! 
 
 " The rock fell with him, do you not see it ? " his 
 voice rising to a sharp cry ; " look there in his hands
 
 34 JERR Y. 
 
 where he tried to save himself look ! " and he pushed 
 Paul back and stooped by the dead man " look here 
 in his hands, the grass, and the bush he caught hold 
 of ; it was dark, and he could not see," a pleading, 
 soothing tone coming into his voice as he looked 
 down on the dead face, " he could not see to catch 
 a rock he could not see," laying the cold hand down 
 softly. 
 
 But Paul did not answer ; he stood there where 
 Jerry had pushed him, still and white, with a hard 
 look settling on his face, a hard, evil look. This man 
 he had looked on more as a jailer than a friend, had 
 no right to die now no right ! 
 
 " You seem to have had that same thought your- 
 self," he said harshly, but stepped back as he spoke, 
 for Jerry sprang up tall and straight before him, with 
 that strange light in his eyes that had gained for him 
 the reputation of a man who would kill without think- 
 ing ! 
 
 He could have killed Paul with one blow he could 
 have shot him, for instinctively his hand clasped the 
 butt of his pistol, and he longed to kill him longed 
 to give vent to the wild rage that surged within him ; 
 but the old loyalty to the doctor held him still. 
 
 The gathered jealousy and hatred of all his life 
 seemed tearing at his heart he could have struck 
 and beaten Paul like a beast he seemed to hear the 
 blows falling dull and heavy on this enemy he seemed 
 to see the beauty bruised and driven from his face ! 
 The love that he had so longed for all his life, had 
 had been given to this false creature this vile creature 
 who now cast it all back in the face of the dead : who 
 would now cast black suspicions upon a defenseless 
 grave ! Death was too good for this creature who 
 trampled on a never-failing love a love that pro- 
 tected him now, as it ever had done, from Jerry's 
 anger. 
 
 Further back still Paul retreated, never moving his 
 eyes from Jerry's face ; his own face was white, and
 
 349 
 
 his heart beat tumultuously had he roused a mad- 
 
 man ? 
 
 But Jerry did not touch him ; not any more now 
 than he would have done when the doctor was with 
 them ; it would be treachery. But he could tell him 
 all the scorn he felt for him ; he could accuse him of 
 the lies he had loved and made to separate him from 
 his only friend ; could curse him! 
 
 And the awful words fell deliberately from his dry 
 lips the awful words that seemed to throb through 
 Paul's brain, and to ring and echo through the cold, 
 dead silence would he never stop ? 
 
 To Jerry his words seemed like blows he was hurl- 
 ing at this man oh, if only they would follow him 
 forever ! " And I shall listen," stepping close to Paul 
 who now was braced against the cliff, " I shall listen 
 with every faculty I have, and if ever I hear a whisper 
 that he died in any way save by an accident, I will kill 
 you like a dog I will beat and stamp the life out of 
 you now remember that." 
 
 And Paul answered slowly : 
 
 " There is Greg behind you, and he has heard 
 you." 
 
 There was a sharp, short, gasping sigh, and Jerry 
 turned on his heel to see Greg and the doctor's ser- 
 vant standing behind him. How the scene and his 
 words might strike them never entered Jerry's mind ; 
 his only thought was to prevent any surmise on their 
 part like that he had seen in Paul's eyes ; and he ap- 
 proached them quickly. 
 
 " The rock fell with him," he said hastily, pointing 
 up to where the fresh break showed clear on the cliff, 
 " see all the pieces about him, and the grass and twigs 
 in his hands ? " 
 
 Greg looked anxiously from one to the other as the 
 eager explanation went on, then down at the dead man, 
 and at the blood on Jerry's clothes. 
 
 " And he struck his head," Jerry went on, gently 
 raising the dead man in his arms. And Greg could
 
 35 JERRY. 
 
 see, as Jerry held the body, how the blood had gotten 
 on him ; and the snow had gathered in the dead man's 
 clothes yes, the rock must have fallen with him. 
 And now he could remember that one day he had seen 
 the doctor standing up there and looking out ; and 
 he drew a long breath of relief as a dreadful suspicion 
 lifted from his mind ; a dreadful suspicion that Paul 
 had seen, but that Jerry had not dreamed of. No 
 thought of suicide had dawned on Greg's mind ; what 
 he had first seen, and the words he had heard from 
 Jerry, had filled his thoughts with but one idea 
 murder. 
 
 And Paul had seen the thought ; and Paul knew 
 he was the only living creature who could refute it ! 
 But now Paul saw that Greg's mind was clear of the 
 doubt, and on his face was only the deepest sorrow. 
 
 And Jerry, kneeling by the doctor's body, looked 
 up into Greg's eyes questioningly. Then the servant 
 told his story, making it still clearer to Greg that Jerry 
 had nothing to do with the tragedy : and Paul found 
 the black-edged letter in the doctor's pocket, a short 
 note from Paul's sister telling the sad news, and 
 asking that Paul and the doctor would come to her 
 immediately. 
 
 " He and my father were friends," Paul said slowly, 
 and Jerry stooped low over the mute, dead lips. 
 
 Then the servant was sent to bring help ; and the 
 three men sat watching with the dead.
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 " Life crowded on him, and the days that swept 
 Relentlessly all trust and love from out his heart. 
 Where could he put his faith, where clasp a hand, 
 That would not turn against him if occasion called." 
 
 u \7OU will have to be very cautious and very 
 J[ watchful," and Greg paused in his idle whit- 
 tling of the table ; " Henley is bitterly opposed 
 to you, and only has been held from molesting you 
 and your plans by the positive orders of the doctor ; 
 I found this out when I was surveying in Eureka." 
 
 " Do you think Henley will use unfair means to 
 hurt me ? " and Jerry rose and leaned against the 
 chimney. 
 
 Greg stuck his knife up in the table once or twice 
 thoughtfully, not looking up. 
 
 " I do not like Henley," he answered cautiously. 
 
 Then Jerry put on his hat, and Greg went to the 
 door with him. 
 
 " I will watch and listen for you," he said rather 
 hurrtedly, " and will warn you ; but do not trust any 
 one." 
 
 " Thanks," and Jerry stepped out into the black 
 night and biting wind : he took off his hat to the 
 cold air and drew a long breath he felt as one 
 standing in front of a desperate battle ! 
 
 For, though estranged, he found that through all 
 the doctor had protected him against Paul, who now 
 stood revealed as an enemy whose strength and bitter- 
 ness could not be measured. And the last time they 
 had spoken together, that dreadful day down at the 
 mine, he had cursed Paul with unexampled fury, and 
 had done it for the sake of a man who in his death 
 
 35i
 
 35 2 JERRY. 
 
 had struck him the crudest blow that the most careful 
 malice could have designed. 
 
 It had not been designed, he could reason that out ; 
 still his heart grew hard as he remembered, and 
 said to himself, " It was only a piece of the doctor's 
 cold, careful wisdom." 
 
 It had been a great pain to him that the doctor 
 had died estranged from him, and that the people 
 should know this, and so think it all right that Paul 
 should arrange everything for the honoring of the 
 dead ; that even strangers should be called in and he 
 shut out. It had hurt him deeply, and when after 
 the funeral Engineer Mills had asked all the company 
 to return with him to the doctor's house, as the will 
 was to be read, Jerry had turned away, until stopped 
 by a special message that he should be wanted. Then 
 he had followed the crowd, angry when he saw them 
 hustling and jostling into the empty house that to him 
 was sacred ; then crowding out again as the will was 
 to be read on the piazza, where all could hear it, he 
 among the rest. It had been hard, and had grown 
 doubly so toward the end, almost too hard. 
 
 Twenty-four hours ago it had happened, yet Jerry 
 could see still the gaping crowd looking black against 
 the snowy background ; still could hear them stamping 
 with dull thuds to keep their feet warm stamping that 
 ceased as Engineer Mills read aloud a little note from 
 the doctor, appointing that the chief man of the towns 
 should read the will aloud to the people, and see that 
 it was carried into effect honestly. And then the 
 murmur that had swept up from the crowd 
 
 " Mr. Wilkerson Mr. Wilkerson ! " Yes, he was 
 the chief man of the towns it was his glory brought 
 him pain ! It had seemed a most cruel sarcasm, but 
 the bitterness of the moment brought him strength, 
 and when Mr. Mills called to him, and the crowd 
 parted to let him mount the steps, he went forward 
 without a second's pause and joined the group on the 
 piazza.
 
 JERRY. 353 
 
 And the men on the piazza, knew what was in the 
 will, and watched him as he read he could feel them 
 watching. 
 
 It was short enough, a clear, concise statement 
 that the doctor had cast his fortune in with the people 
 of Eureka and Burden's, and sincerely wished for 
 their success and prosperity, in proof of which he 
 now left all his property to endow a free school for 
 the children of the miners of both towns, and a home 
 for the widows and orphans of the same ; that the 
 tract of land he had bought, had been bought with 
 this end in view: it was surveyed in suitable lots, that 
 were to be rented, and all rents used for the purposes 
 above mentioned. That trustees and guardians had 
 been appointed for the property, the mayor, or chief 
 man of the towns, being always chairman of the 
 same. 
 
 That -was all : not a word of the distrust the people 
 had shown him ; no mention of his difficulties and 
 disappointments ; a fair, free gift to the towns, and 
 Jerry to see it given ! 
 
 He had read it all through clearly, slowly, dis- 
 tinctly ; and in the silence that followed, a silence so 
 intense tKat he seemed to hear it, he said no word. 
 He stood there white and still, and folded the paper 
 carefully, and the crowd watching him seemed scarcely 
 to breathe. 
 
 He would not speak of the misunderstandings and 
 mistakes of the last few months, any more than the 
 dead man had spoken ; and' the silence hung about 
 them like death. Then there was a little movement, 
 and he heard Greg speaking to the crowd and ex- 
 plaining what had been done for them that widows 
 and orphans would never suffer want again, and that 
 education would be free to all. Then the crowd sepa- 
 rated and went away quietly to their homes ; and Mr. 
 Mills told Jerry that he would send him all papers 
 relating to the property and put him in communica- 
 tion with the trustees. Only twenty-four hours ago
 
 354 JERR Y. 
 
 all this had happened. He walked wearily up to his 
 room : his burden seemed too great. For some 
 noble end men might strive like this ; but he had let 
 go his aspirations, and his highest motive had come 
 to be the excelling of an enemy : could he sink any 
 lower ? There was one lower depth he could sell 
 secretly and leave in the lurch all who had trusted 
 him. 
 
 He threw himself face down across his bed ; he 
 despised himself, and realized a dreadful self-abase- 
 ment that galled him every moment he lived. 
 
 And yet, the highest he had known had let him go 
 astray. His heart hardened within him : what use to 
 love or trust ? Old Joe, whom he had not loved, loved 
 him ; had been faithful to him. And this love he had 
 won he had not cared for and the love he had longed 
 for, he had not won. 
 
 The only eyes he need please now were the eyes of 
 the world ; and in the eyes of the world money was 
 the highest good : the world grown greedy and sordid 
 in its old age. Money bought love, and honor, and 
 power, and friendship, and souls, and bodies ; and 
 the free and enlightened Nineteenth Century saw 
 more slavery and subjection than any other age of 
 the world. And he, he could not serve, he must rule 
 he must have money ! 
 
 And to-day a new fear had come to him, and he 
 realized that the money he had so longed for, the 
 money that when he found it had seemed salvation to 
 him, this money had become a terror ! 
 
 Paul Henley had that day gone East, and intended 
 spending the rest of the winter there. Nobody could 
 know what possibilities to Jerry lay hidden in this 
 simple announcement that Greg had made to him. A 
 few weeks or a month would not have been such a 
 risk, for Paul would have been too busy settling his 
 own affairs to trouble himself with the transactions of 
 other people ; but the whole winter would leave him 
 much unoccupied time.
 
 JERRY. 355 
 
 And yet what had Jerry done that he need fear 
 being found out ? He had only invested money that 
 had been left to him, this was all he had done. But 
 he had no proof of this ; he had not told any one at 
 the time ; he had not shown any one all the curious 
 places in which this treasure had been hidden ; for 
 then a vague fear had possessed him that once let 
 Joe's fortune be known, and claims would be put in 
 against it as having been taken from another man's 
 property ; and this fear had proved true. 
 
 He had known that Dan Burk had at all times been 
 aware of Joe's place of work ; and after Joe's death 
 he felt that Dan Burk watched him ; what he did not 
 know was that at one time Dan Burk had shared Joe's 
 spoils, so giving him a hold otfer Burk. At the open- 
 ing of the mine Burk had revealed to him Joe's secret, 
 which revelation had confirmed his worst fears. And 
 now once let Burk know that Joe had left a fortune, 
 and he would either claim hush-money, so holding 
 Jerry always in subjection ; or he would tell the secret 
 and ruin him. Jerry had not known all this at first, 
 but he had known enough to make him very cautious, 
 and he had had what was a still stronger motive for 
 secrecy a great longing for the money ! And this 
 longing was what had made a coward of him, and was 
 the net that had closed about him. 
 
 A year ago he would have told the doctor what he 
 had found, and have dealt justly by all ; if Joe had 
 done wrong, he would have righted it ; a year ago 
 when no evil passions had been roused in him ; when 
 he was strong in his carelessness of men's opinions, 
 and the world's honors. 
 
 Now and his heart seemed to grow cold within him 
 as he realized his-own position ; now, Paul Henley, his 
 declared enemy, had gone to the East ; what would 
 prevent his hearing of Jerry's riches ; what would 
 prevent his searching and finding out all that Jerry 
 owned, and raising ugly stories as to the sources of 
 his wealth ? A man who handled public money lay
 
 35 6 JERRY. 
 
 open always to suspicion and attack, and for a man in 
 such a position to be discovered suddenly to have a 
 large fortune, was a black enough story. 
 
 And Paul would sow distrust in the East by declar- 
 ing Jerry a poor man ; and distrust in Burden's by 
 telling of Jerry's possessions. Paul would not now 
 hesitate. 
 
 Jerry got up hurriedly and went to the window ; 
 he must have fresh air ; he must shake off these dread- 
 ful forebodings, or lose his mind ! 
 
 All his accounts with the town had been read to the 
 committee, and put on record ; would not that prove 
 his innocence ? 
 
 Dan Burk knew that Joe had been saving all his 
 life ; would not that be proof as to the source of his 
 wealth ? Aye, too sure a proof ; a proof that would 
 let in claims for all his fortune ! The Burden's heirs 
 who he knew were still living somewhere, and who 
 had sold the mine to 'Lije Milton, they could present 
 claims and Mrs. Milton would own all that was left. 
 
 But now, when he needed all his strength and de- 
 termination ; now, when the struggle was growing 
 harder, and the plot more intricate, he must not flinch. 
 He could not go back ; there was no retreat that 
 would not end in ruin of character or fortune : there 
 was no explanation that would not weaken his position 
 most terribly. He must be careful hereafter to have 
 a witness for every transaction to which he was party ; 
 to this extent he could and would guard himself ; and, 
 for the rest, must wait until the attack came. 
 
 This was all he could do ; there was no avoiding 
 the daily anxiety ; there was no way of pushing aside 
 this new fear ; no way of lessening the strain on mind 
 or body ; and there was only one comfort he had, it 
 was the knowledge that failure would kill him ! 
 
 The terrible tension of always watching always 
 fearing always suspecting ; the hard work by day 
 and by night ; the absence of any creature in whom 
 he could confide, this would wear him out even if
 
 JERRY. 357 
 
 at the end he were successful : if he failed, then 
 he knew the string must snap. 
 
 He shut the window slowly, as one who had faced 
 and weighed all the dangers about him, and had made 
 his own course clear to himself ; had realized all to 
 the end. There was no need of hurry even in the 
 shutting of a window : his work and his path were 
 plain before him, and behind him an immutable Fate 
 born of his own deeds ! 
 
 He stirred the fire to a brighter blaze, turned the 
 lamp up, and sat down to his table, where lay a pile of 
 papers relating to the doctor's property, which Mr. 
 Mills had sent that afternoon. His heart throbbed 
 a little faster when he first looked at the familiar 
 writing. But he put aside the memories ; they were 
 not his any more, and it was with anger that he re- 
 membered the remorse he had felt when Ire found his 
 friend dead, and peace not made between them. He 
 had been only a duty to the doctor, not a love ; the 
 end proved this. 
 
 His mind was clear and quiet now, and he went 
 over document after document, making notes and 
 memoranda, then gathering his materials together 
 composed a letter to his co-workers in this bequest. 
 
 He told them that having been educated by the 
 doctor, he thought he could give them a clear idea of 
 the system on which he would like the school carried 
 out ; that having taught in Eureka himself, he knew 
 that this system would answer. He then went on to 
 state his views as to the present and future values of 
 the doctor's property in Eureka, including the shares 
 held in the Eureka Mine ; giving them the present 
 condition of the towns, and their prospects ; and the 
 present and probable future cost of building. 
 
 A clear, succinct letter that caused a meeting of the 
 three trustees, and many inquiries as to this Jeremiah 
 P. Wilkerson. Inquiries that widened out until they 
 penetrated the inner circle of moneyed men-, and Jerry 
 was reported as a man of solid means.
 
 35 8 JERRY. 
 
 After this, Paul was asked to meet these gentle- 
 men : after failing them many times he came at last, 
 but with his temper unimproved by the examination of 
 his mother's affairs and property. His sister Edith, 
 whom he found not to be his sister, but his first 
 cousin, the daughter of the aunt who had died in the 
 convent, and who had been adopted by his father and 
 given the name of Henley ; she had a large prop- 
 erty but he had little or nothing : further he found, 
 to his exceeding disappointment and surprise, that he 
 had inherited nothing from his guardian. He had 
 not realized this before he left Burden's, for the only 
 will found there was the one giving the Burden's and 
 Eureka property to the towns ; and a memorandum 
 referring them to his lawyer in the East for further 
 information as to his affairs. So Paul came East with 
 high hopes. Of course there was city property, and 
 high rents all to be his, and visions of himself as 
 a rich man floated fair before his eyes. 
 
 But the visions had come to nothing. 
 
 He felt an unreasoning anger against the poor of 
 Burden's and Eureka, who seemed to have defrauded 
 him ; for he found that the doctor had sold every- 
 thing to buy the great tract of land which had 
 caused such a stir, and had changed so many lives. 
 
 A wild, mad scheme, Paul called it, that had left 
 him scarcely enough to live on : he thought that at 
 least the doctor might have left him the management 
 of the property, and the small salary which would ac- 
 crue therefrom ; but even this went to Jerry, Jerry 
 whom he hated, Jerry who had been so successful. 
 
 And meeting the trustees in this frame of mind, he 
 had to listen to Jerry's letter, so clear and strong, and 
 to praises of the writer expressed in slow, precise lan- 
 guage by these mighty men, who seemed willing to leave 
 the whole property in the hands of their " competent 
 fellow-trustee." 
 
 " Whose wealth and business qualities," they said, 
 " as well as the high esteem in which he is held in
 
 JERRY. 359 
 
 business circles, make us feel sure that he will manage 
 this great property with honesty and skill." 
 
 Paul sat still ; did he hear aright ? Were these 
 men talking of the Wilkerson whom he knew ? 
 
 And he asked what seemed to them a silly 
 question : " Do you mean the Wilkerson from 
 Durden's ? " 
 
 The three old men looked at him from over their 
 glasses, and the eldest answered : 
 
 " Of course, Mr. Henley ; the same Mr. Wilkerson 
 whom your guardian educated ; you must have 
 known him all your life : the same Mr. Wilkerson of 
 whom Mr. Charles T. Greg, one of the most solid men 
 in the city, speaks in the highest terms ; of course 
 you know him, this man who has risen from the 
 people to the highest respect and esteem, and whose 
 success, material, moneyed success, is well known 
 on Wall Street." 
 
 Jerry Wilkerson in Wall Street Jerry Wilkerson a 
 moneyed success Jerry Wilkerson indorsed by a man 
 like Charles Greg ! His guardian had told him noth- 
 ing of this Jerry had not whispered it. And Paul 
 felt himself in the heart of a mystery, and walked 
 home slowly, and questioned Edith Henley closely as to 
 all she knew or heard of Jerry. Then to Mr. Greg 
 then to Wall Street day after day following closely 
 in the track of his successful rival. And as he went 
 the mystery deepened : it took him a long time, for 
 he had to seem to know it all, and so had to grasp a 
 few facts before he could pretend with any success. 
 He was several minutes in placing the " Mr. Gilliam " 
 spoken of with such respect ; the " Mr. Gilliam " who 
 had requested Mr. Greg to give his adopted son Wil- 
 kerson unlimited credit, and who had paid all notes 
 and bills with remarkable promptness ; and Mr. Greg 
 had been very sorry to hear of his sudden death. 
 
 Old Joe Gilliam ! the surprise was too great, and 
 Paul had to remember suddenly an engagement, and 
 was obliged to leave Mr. Greg.
 
 3^0 JERR Y. 
 
 "Yes, Gilliam's death had been sudden; but he 
 would call again if Mr. Greg would allow him." 
 
 Old Joe Gilliam giving Jerry unlimited credit and 
 Paul walked three blocks in a driving snow-storm be- 
 fore he took in fully this piece of information, or 
 remembered that there were such things as cabs. 
 
 And from all he could hear, Jerry had not spared 
 money. Edith spoke of him always as a rich man, 
 and represented the doctor as looking on Jerry in the 
 same light. 
 
 " The doctor said Mr. Wilkerson was already rich, 
 and would be in time among the richest men in the 
 country," Edith said one day, but she did not look up 
 from her embroidery, so did not see Paul's face ; but 
 a valuably-hideous cup fell from a stand with a little 
 crash as she finished, and she wondered that Paul 
 seemed so angry about it, and swore so openly as he 
 picked up the pieces. Paul had lost some of his 
 polish in the West, and it grieved her. 
 
 Paul's life, meanwhile, was becoming almost unbear- 
 able ; he realized his inability to cope with Jerry, and 
 had not only to listen to commendations of him when- 
 ever his name was mentioned, but was allowed to see 
 that some of the attention he received was due to 
 his supposed brotherly connection with Jerry, whom 
 people imagined he must love, as they had been edu- 
 cated by the same man. And he had to bear in 
 silence, day after day, all the slow suffering born of 
 his hatred for this man ; suffering that can not be 
 measured, can not be equaled: the suffering born of 
 hatred is the only suffering for which there is no 
 balm ! 
 
 It was working through all his nature, this hatred ; 
 a dreadful corroding rust that was destroying his 
 heart and soul ; that turned his blood to gall. And 
 his anger grew deeper when he heard Isabel Greg's 
 name coupled with Jerry's, and the invariable com- 
 ment " Of course the Gregs will forward the match, 
 as Mr. Wilkerson is so rich."
 
 JERRY. 361 
 
 So rich ! and nobody in Eureka or in Burden's had 
 heard a rumor of it ! 
 
 And he would sit for long hours pondering on this 
 strange revelation. If it had been a moderate sum 
 that was named, Paul could have understood how old 
 Gilliam might have saved it ; but when he heard of 
 " unlimited credit," and heard Fred Greg tell with 
 much admiration of the "plucky way in which Wilker- 
 son had run up the Burden's stock," and of the " large 
 amount he carried," the question became one that 
 Paul could not solve. 
 
 Where had this money come from ? Jerry had 
 been decently dressed always, and never had seemed 
 to have anything to do but to study and read in the 
 doctor's library ; and Paul had come to know, some- 
 how, that old Gilliam supported a poor woman in the 
 village, instead of paying the doctor for Jerry's educa- 
 tion. And until now these things had never seemed 
 strange to him, now when from a distance he looked 
 back and saw the great difference there had been in 
 Joe's action toward this boy he had picked up, and the 
 actions of his class toward even their own children : 
 of course Joe must have had money to be able to do 
 all this, yet this had never occurred to Paul before. 
 
 But this fact, having been established in Paul's 
 mind, did not advance him in the least in the solving 
 of the problem as to where Joe got his money. 
 
 He could not remember that he had ever heard 
 Joe spoken of either as a miner, or a special worker of 
 any kind ; indeed, as he looked back he found that 
 he had never heard anything of Joe Gilliam except 
 that he had found Jerry lying on the trail half dead, 
 and had adopted him. He had accepted old Gilliam 
 as one of the facts of the place ; something that had 
 been there always had been there even before the 
 doctor moved there, which seemed to Paul like some 
 event back in the middle ages. 
 
 Then his thoughts would slip away to the strange 
 features in his own life. He had found no papers to tell
 
 362 JERRY. 
 
 him anything, and if any ever had existed they had 
 been destroyed most carefully. In the doctor's pos- 
 session he had found two pictures, one that he recog- 
 nized as his mother, only younger and fairer than 
 ever he had known her; and the other not so regularly 
 beautiful, but a brighter and more girlish face, and on 
 the back the name " Edith Henley " this was his 
 aunt then, Edith's mother who had died in a convent. 
 
 He had put the pictures aside, unable to understand 
 how they had come into the possession of his guar- 
 dian ; photographs might have been explained, but 
 carefully executed miniatures told a different story ; 
 his own banishment to the care of this same man had 
 puzzled him always, especially when he remembered 
 his mother's tears, and his father's stern, harsh orders; 
 stern and harsh even though he was dying. 
 
 He hated mysteries, and would sigh most impa- 
 tiently ; then return on the old track " Where had 
 Jerry gotten his money ? " 
 
 He became quite friendly with the Gregs, almost 
 intimate ; he won the entire confidence of the three 
 trustees of his guardian's property ; then by a free use 
 of the doctor's and Jerry's names, and by means of 
 Mr. Greg's patronage, he won his way gradually 
 among the directors of the " Eureka, Burden's, and 
 the Great Western Railway," and at last fixed his 
 certain hold on the " banker and broker " who had 
 Jerry's interests in hand. It was a great discovery, 
 and Paul drew a long breath when accidentally he 
 made it ; and instantly determined to lengthen his 
 stay in order to follow it up. 
 
 A keen, cautious business man, no cleverer man in 
 the city ; and Paul put his own affairs into his hands 
 immediately. Daily meetings and conversations en- 
 sued over proper investments. Jerry was not men- 
 tioned, but Burden's stock was, and after many dis- 
 cussions, during which Paul let fall many dubious hints 
 and candid fears, he allowed his new friend to invest 
 for him in Burden's.
 
 JERRY. 3 6 3 
 
 " But hold it lightly," was Paul's parting injunction, 
 " I must watch and be more certain before I carry 
 Burden's as steady weight.'.' Then he went away, 
 and the disinterested broker turned over all his own 
 Burden's stock to Jerry, writing to say that he had 
 obeyed his orders to take any Burden's that might be 
 on the market, especially as it had still an upward 
 tendency. 
 
 And Jerry, under the steady pressure of his daily 
 work, that seemed to gather force and velocity as the 
 days went on, listened and watched with strained at- 
 tention for every sign that might tell of Paul : listen- 
 ing with painful eagerness to any word that concerned 
 him or his work ; and felt that a fortunate chance had 
 put him at Mrs. Milton's, where he could hear every 
 rumor or surmise about every creature or affair in 
 both towns ; could, as it were, feel the pulse of the 
 community without ever seeming to do so, or to wish 
 to do so. And when the letter came from New York 
 telling of the increased amount of stock that had been 
 taken for him, with the further information that Bur- 
 den's was on the rise, he drew a long breath of relief, 
 for it seemed that he had not been injured as yet : 
 and he went about his increasing work with a better 
 hope.
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 " But at the last 
 
 A great contempt and hatred of them took me, 
 The base, vile churls ! Why should I stain my soul 
 For such as those dogs that would fawn and lick 
 The hand that fed them, hut, if food should fail, 
 Would turn and rend me ? " 
 
 AND this hope was a godsend to Jerry. 
 The autumn had been late, allowing everything 
 to work prosperously, and encouraging Jerry to 
 believe that he was destined to succeed ; but follow- 
 ing the favorable December had come weather that 
 was unprecedented in its severity. The snow-falls 
 had been so heavy and so continuous, that all availa- 
 ble labor had to be put to the work of keeping the 
 gorge clear ; else, who could estimate the danger to 
 the lives and property of the whole town. Only once 
 since Burden's had been settled had there been such 
 a winter, and then many lives had been lost of people 
 who lived in the bottom of the gulch ; so that after 
 that the people had built in sheltered places only, 
 where great bodies of snow could not slide clown on 
 them from higher points. But during all the safe 
 years that had followed, this precaution had been for- 
 gotten, and now the -houses were everywhere, and the 
 danger was great. 
 
 " It were the awfulest time I ever seen," and Mrs. 
 Milton finished her relation of woes with an ominous 
 shake of the head, " an' many a pore creetur worn't 
 never dug out tell way in the spring ; an' the Lord 
 hev mussy fur the water thet come down when the 
 snow melted ! " 
 
 And Jerry listened with a heavy heart, and urged 
 
 364
 
 JERKY. 3 6 5 
 
 Mr. Henshaw and the men on to every exertion pos- 
 sible, to make the place safe. 
 
 And still the snow fell. 
 
 The work on the railway had been stopped, and the 
 workmen had gone back over the mountains ; the men 
 had been taken from the mine, so that the work there 
 was at a standstill, and no dividend could be declared ; 
 money was scarce in the treasury ; wood was getting 
 low : there was no doctor in either town to attend the 
 sick, and no priest or minister of any kind to bury the 
 dead. Colder and darker the winter settled down ; 
 each hour drawing things nearer to desperation each 
 day coming as a freshly armed enemy ! 
 
 So quietly the danger had crept upon him that Jerry 
 did not realize it was a danger. So many things cul- 
 minated so silently ; the continued snow that stopped 
 all communication with the outside world ; the stop- 
 ping of work in the mine that caused the dividend to 
 be postponed ; the emptiness of the treasury that the 
 dividend would have filled ; the stacks of wood that 
 were not sufficient to meet the extraordinary run on 
 them ; the public store of meat and meal that could 
 not be replenished because the roads were blocked. 
 Who could have foreseen all this who would have 
 realized it until it was too late. 
 
 Jerry was appalled, but he gave no sign ; instead, 
 he made as if he did not hear the murmurs that at 
 first were disjointed, but that now were growing more 
 and more continuous : he made superhuman efforts 
 to rectify things and to satisfy all wants ; but he 
 would hear no murmurs. 
 
 He grew thin and white with the dreadful strain, 
 and his eyes shone with an unnatural luster. 
 
 Suppose the people should revolt should throw all 
 their shares on the market ! 
 
 He ground his teeth : a sudden fierce anger, that 
 was like madness when it seized him, swept over him 
 when he remembered that these ignorant creatures 
 had it in their power to ruin him ! And as he heard
 
 366 
 
 the sullen grumbling grow louder, and knew that inso- 
 lent words were said for him to hear, he longed to 
 beat and stamp upon them, and to drive them from 
 the town : and his anger grew almost more than he 
 could bear ! 
 
 At last there came a break in the clouds, and for 
 one week no snow fell ; this gave some hope, and the 
 discontented murmurs were lessened somewhat. 
 
 A party went out to hunt, that the people might 
 have fresh meat ; another party went after wood, and 
 those who stayed at home spoke cheerfully of spring. 
 
 Two weeks without snow : and Jerry asked Mrs. 
 Milton, in a half-frightened way, if she thought the 
 winter had broken ; and hardly dared ask the question, 
 lest the snow should begin again. 
 
 At the end of the two weeks Mr. Henshaw advised 
 that the men be put to work on the dam before any 
 snow melted, as when this happened it would be too 
 late to help matters. Jerry agreed with him, and put 
 the matter before the Committee, and for the first 
 time since he had been their leader, he met a repulse. 
 He had expected it, for he knew that the men 
 thought the wprk in the mine would now be resumed, 
 and a dividend declared : nevertheless, just at first it 
 gave him a shock, then his accumulated anger flared up! 
 
 How dared they oppose him these ignorant fools ! 
 and he rose to his feet with a light in his eyes that 
 made the bravest man there wish himself out of the 
 difficulty. 
 
 With his hands in his pockets, he stood for a 
 moment looking coolly and scornfully over the crowd. 
 Men grown gaunt and white during the long, hard 
 winter for lack of proper food and warmth : men of 
 desperate characters and fortunes who had come to 
 Burden's expecting immediate wealth : disappointed 
 men who had grown sullen and hungry and were not 
 to be tampered with lightly. 
 
 But Jerry was more desperate than they ; he had 
 more at stake : to them it was a chance speculation
 
 JERRY. 367 
 
 only, that had not answered their expectations : to 
 him it was success or disgrace it was fame, fortune, 
 life, or death ! 
 
 Slowly, and in a voice that showed the restraint 
 under which he was holding himself, he began his 
 speech. He reminded them of how this venture had 
 come to life and been carried on ; how he had built 
 up the town of Burden's and had had the railway 
 extended : how they had been cared for and helped 
 through the hardest winter ever known in that country: 
 how the Eastern shareholders of the mine had con- 
 sented that the work might be stopped if the miners 
 were needed to work for the protection of the town. 
 
 " And now, when the winter is breaking," he went 
 on, raising his voice, " when the time has come to 
 make the thing pay, to save the thing from destruc- 
 tion, you stand back like fools and refuse to work ! 
 
 " Protect the mine by a week's work, then work it 
 so that a dividend can be declared. You know, as 
 well as I do, that to-day this town is in better order, 
 and the people more free, and more justly dealt by, 
 than in any other mining town in America. You 
 know that as long as the present government of this 
 town continues, things will go on as prosperously as 
 now ; but change it, and what will be the result ? 
 With the entrance of the railway the place will be 
 flooded by a mob of ' placer miners '; the Eastern 
 shareholders will look only to their own interests, and 
 you will lose all the work, and much of the money 
 you have invested in Burden's. I say that if you 
 change the present organization you are fools ; I say 
 that if you do not make the mine safe, you are fools. 
 You can shoot for these words, but so can I : it will 
 not pay, however, and you will not do it. 
 
 " Now, I want you to think of two things : first, 
 without a strong government the railway will ruin us ; 
 second, that unless twenty-five men are at work on 
 that dam to-morrow morning, I wash my hands of 
 this whole business, I will resign every position and
 
 368 JERR Y. 
 
 leave Burden's to-morrow ! " and he took up his hat 
 and walked down through the crowded room, where a 
 way was made for him, and out of the house. 
 
 He had made a desperate move, and how would it 
 be taken ? Every nerve was quivering, and he strode 
 through the snow to Mrs. Milton's house, scarcely 
 heeding that he did not follow the beaten track, made 
 safe but hideous by ashes being sprinkled on it. 
 Even down to so small a matter as this, he carried his 
 rule : one woman had slipped on the ice and broken 
 her arm, which Jerry could set but very indifferently ; 
 and after that each householder had to save ashes, 
 and sprinkle the pathway for a certain distance. 
 
 Young Greg had watched with wonder the way in 
 which Jerry controlled these people, who were many 
 of them no better, nor more educated, than beasts. 
 What was the source of his power, and how had he 
 won their confidence so entirely ? At the time of the 
 doctor's death Greg had watched for some outbreak ; 
 would they distinguish between Jerry's words against 
 abstract land-sharpers, and the doctor ? Would they 
 remember that the doctor had indorsed Jerry and his 
 plans, or would they remember only that he had left 
 his money to benefit them, not once mentioning past 
 ingratitude ? 
 
 He had expected some revulsion of feeling in the 
 people that would carry them violently in an opposite 
 direction, and dethrone Jerry ; but he watched in 
 vain. The money had been left to them ; a good 
 man had. vindicated his name and proved his interest 
 in their welfare : this had been done, but the money 
 had not come to them in a way that would arouse any 
 enthusiasm. The good they were to reap from it was 
 not personal enough for the men to feel any special 
 gratitude for it ; and the women had no word in the 
 matter. They looked on the will only as another 
 " curus doin' " of the doctor's, who had been a mystery 
 to them always. Indeed, on speaking to one or two 
 of the men about it, Greg found that they thought
 
 JERRY. 369 
 
 that Mr. Wilkerson had done much more for them, 
 and in the future would make the fortune of the town 
 and all the people in it. 
 
 As the winter went on, however, and the cold grew 
 more and more intense, and the prospect of work and 
 money more and more precarious, Greg once more 
 began to watch and listen anxiously. 
 
 It had become a great wish with him that Jerry 
 should succeed, a great wish outside of his own 
 interests in the town. Jerry had worked so bravely, 
 and his success had been so unprecedented, that it had 
 come to be like the watching of some exciting game 
 of chance. He knew for what high stakes Jerry was 
 playing : he saw that it would be life or death to him, 
 and that the instinct of self-preservation inspired some 
 of the moves Jerry made. 
 
 But beyond this, he had played so boldly and so 
 skillfully, that sometimes when a difficulty was over- 
 come Greg would draw a long breath, and wonder 
 how long this man's highly strung temperament would 
 stand the strain ! 
 
 And as he sat in the council-room lately put up 
 over Burk's shop, where the public meeting was held 
 to call for men to work on the dam as he, going 
 early, sat and watched the gathering of the crowd, he 
 realized that a dangerous crisis had come, and won- 
 dered what the upshot would be. 
 
 Greg watched anxiously as Dan Burk explained 
 that the meeting had been called to hear a plan of 
 Mr. Wilkerson's ; that now the working season had 
 come again, Mr. Wilkerson had something to say to 
 them. 
 
 This was received in silence ; then Jerry told them 
 that he wanted them to work on the dam and so make 
 it safe before beginning work in the mine : and when 
 he ceased there was the same ominous silence a 
 silence that made Greg lean forward and listen and 
 watch intently. 
 
 There was a little shuffling of feet then a man rose
 
 37 JERRY. 
 
 and said that work in the mine they were willing to 
 do, for that meant a dividend to them and to the 
 town, and money was needed badly enough ; but 
 that "work on the dam," pausing in his slow drawling 
 speech to give full effect, " wuzn't wuther damn, an' 
 all were free men"; then he sat down amid great 
 applause ! 
 
 It was then that Jerry rose and attacked them so 
 unhesitatingly, and threatened to throw over the 
 whole scheme. And when he was gone Greg looked 
 about in grave anxiety : how would they stand this ? 
 But nothing was said, and after a little while he saw 
 the new men, who had come after the town was well 
 under way, rise one after another and leave the room ; 
 and from the window he could see that they had con- 
 gregated outside, and inside the old inhabitants sat 
 in sullen silence, looking at him rather suspiciously. 
 But he did not move, and these also left the room one 
 by one, making another group in the road, and Dan 
 Burk, left alone with him, stroked his sleek, straight 
 hair slowly. 
 
 " It'll .bust all to pieces if Mr. Wilkerson gives it 
 up," he said. 
 
 And Greg asked impatiently : 
 
 " Why do not you tell the men so ? " 
 
 But Burk shook his head. 
 
 " They knows it just as well as me," he said, " an* 
 they aint agoin' to let nobody talk no sass to them 
 except Mr. Wilkerson : an' you kin rest damn sure, 
 Mr. Greg, that if they want to go to the devil, talkin' 
 won't stop 'em ; just be sure of that," then he rose, 
 and Greg followed him down the ladder to the shop 
 below. 
 
 Evidently there was no way for him to find out the 
 probable course of events, and having a letter he 
 wanted to show Jerry, Greg turned his face in the 
 direction of Mrs. Milton's. 
 
 It was a letter from his sister that surprised him a 
 little. She said that they had seen a great deal of Mr.
 
 JERRY. 371 
 
 Henley, and liked him better than at first ; that he 
 told them a great deal of the life at Burden's, and 
 " spoke most pleasantly and affectionately of Mr. 
 Wilkerson, whom," he said, " he had known most 
 intimately ; but laughed when we called him wealthy." 
 And Greg was much puzzled. 
 
 Of the extent of Jerry's fortune Greg knew only 
 what his father and brother knew, and this knowledge 
 did not include Jerry's transactions with his broker ; 
 and to Greg, as to Paul, it had seemed a strange 
 thing for a common man like Gilliam to have so much 
 money, but it had never entered into his mind to ask 
 the how of the fact. Indeed, life in Durden's was to 
 Greg so new and unique, that he seldom wondered or 
 was suryrised at anything : each individual enjoyed 
 perfect freedom of action and thought, while com- 
 ment and questions were careful and few. 
 
 Jerry was the only man that Greg could find, who 
 was in the least hampered, and that only because he 
 had made the people depend on him ; and he, if he 
 would sell the town to the railway and the mining 
 company, could free himself and go East a rich man. 
 But Greg could not imagine Jerry as doing this ; his 
 ambition was higher than the mere making of a for- 
 tune : he wanted to create a community he wanted to 
 control great interests to be known as a " Money 
 King " he wanted to raise the people ; and this last 
 made Greg sigh. Still, he thought Jerry bid fair to 
 win even with this weak philanthropical joint in his 
 harness. Things looked dark just now, and Paul 
 Henley was a dangerous enemy because an unscrupu- 
 lous one, and Greg felt anxious ; but he had great 
 faith in Jerry's keenness, and power over the people. 
 His speech that day had been dangerous, but it had 
 dealt a telling blow in that it had divided the party 
 that was against him. The old and the new had 
 separated completely : the new were favorable to the 
 present government, with much contempt for the old 
 Durden's, of which they had heard much : the old
 
 3?2 JERRY. 
 
 settlers looked back angrily to the old times because 
 they were learning to be ashamed of the old ways, while 
 yet they had a weak longing for their license. But- all 
 parties were fully aware that there was no man in either 
 town who could guide affairs as Jerry had done. 
 
 For himself, Greg felt that he' had been cool to 
 Jerry, and by his father's advice had abstained from 
 being intimate with him for the present ; but he could 
 not help feeling a sort of pitying admiration for this 
 man fighting so hard a battle, and standing so entirely 
 alone ! Yet sometimes, as he watched Jerry, his 
 mind would fill with doubt, and his father's warning 
 would seem wise. 
 
 Jerry's door stood a little open, and Greg walked 
 in to find him seated at the table with his arms crossed 
 on it and his head bent down on them. Greg stood 
 quite still ; the whole man and position looked so 
 despairing, and he feared, as he had never done before, 
 for the fate of the mining venture. 
 
 Jerry rose, not hurriedly as if he wished to hide his 
 feelings and the anxiety that possessed him, but slowly 
 as one who was thoroughly worn out. He had made 
 a rash speech had pronounced a rash ultimatum ; 
 what if he had been taken at his word ? Where would 
 he stand with all his fortune invested in the mine ? 
 
 It would look like base desertion for him to sell 
 out ; indeed, he did not believe that he could sell the 
 stock if the facts of the case should become known. 
 His only alternative would be to sell secretly ; in this 
 way he could save his money. 
 
 And if the men did not come to their work in the 
 morning, would he do this ? 
 
 But now Greg interrupted him, and he rose wearily 
 " I have brought you this letter," Greg began, ignoring 
 all the morning's troubles, " because I can not make any 
 thing of it, and I thought that you might read some- 
 thing between the lines ; it is from my sister," and he 
 handed Jerry the letter, opened at the page that men- 
 tioned Henlev.
 
 JERRY. 373 
 
 The paper was rich, and a little perfume seemed to 
 float up from the folds of it ; a faint, sweet smell that 
 took Jerry back to the luxury, and beauty, and pleasure 
 that he remembered as a dream ! 
 
 He did not see the words just at first, but stood 
 wondering at the past and at himself as he had been 
 then. He passed his hand wearily over his brow, a 
 gesture he often made now, and with an effort brought 
 his mind back to Greg and the letter. He read it 
 slowly once, then more carefully the second time, 
 standing quite still in front of the fire, while Greg 
 watched him anxiously. 
 
 " He is winning their confidence, the women first, 
 Fred and your father later, in order to injure me," 
 he said, then walked over to the window. 
 
 " How will they help him ? " Greg asked a little 
 hotly. 
 
 " He speaks of me in this way to them, so that 
 when the time comes to attack me, they will be per- 
 suaded to his side, not looking for any personal mo- 
 tives behind his actions." 
 
 Greg sat down thoughtfully : this ridiculously simple 
 solution was not all that Jerry read between the lines ; 
 of course Jerry saw more than this he had not men- 
 tioned the allusion to his wealth. 
 
 Jerry handed the letter back slowly he liked to 
 hold it, it was so dainty and refined ; and he watched 
 it while Greg folded it and put it away, and caught 
 himself wondering how it was he had such a longing 
 for things so entirely out of his sphere. 
 
 " I am much obliged to you, Greg," he said, " for 
 taking the trouble to bring the letter here, and for 
 your kind interest in my small difficulties," then sitting 
 down near the fire, " Has your father written you any- 
 thing of Burden's stock lately?" 
 
 " Firm, with an upward tendency," Greg answered ; 
 " the report of Henshaw has made a great sensation ; 
 then the doctor's will has brought us into notice." 
 
 " I knew it would," and Jerry took a letter from the
 
 374 JERRY. 
 
 table ; " The trustees leave the whole matter in my 
 hands," he went on, " asking for a yearly report of the 
 property ; they have empowered me to employ a secre- 
 tary ; do you know of any one who can fill the posi- 
 tion ? " 
 
 Greg shook his head. 
 
 " There is no one out here, but I dare say they can 
 send you one." 
 
 " I prefer that they should," Jerry answered, " and 
 send me a man clearly instructed to watch the des- 
 tination of every cent," his voice growing harder as 
 he went on, " I prefer to be watched in my transac- 
 tions." 
 
 Greg moved a little ; this did not have a pleasant 
 sound ; did Jerry think he could be attacked from 
 that side by Paul ? 
 
 " You have been watched in all your town transac- 
 tions," he said, " you do not know how closely : Burk 
 never allows anything to escape him ; you need have 
 no uneasiness about that." 
 
 " I do not know that I am uneasy," Jerry answered, 
 " but I prefer to be watched, for then I can have wit- 
 nesses always." 
 
 " Unless those who watch you are unscrupulous, 
 and enemies," and Greg rose to go. He felt repulsed, 
 and yet could not blame Jerry, for in the first instance 
 he had turned from Jerry : but the man seemed so 
 lonely that unconsciously Greg had cultivated a feel- 
 ing that at any time that he held out a hand, Jerry 
 would take it ; but now he found that even though 
 very lonely even though entirely without friends, 
 Jerry would not let him return to his old position. 
 
 It hurt him just a little at first, this stiffness, but 
 when he thought over it quietly, he was not sorry. 
 It was interesting to stand and watch this game as it 
 was played ; it was exciting even, but he did not want 
 it to be any more so than at present ; if he cast in his 
 fate with Jerry it would grow too exciting, and he 
 would have to stand or fall with this man. As it was,
 
 JERRY. 375 
 
 he was secure outside of Jerry's venture ; on his own 
 land he had found gold, and besides his investments 
 in the town and in the mine, he had this private vein 
 that already paid him. He was doing well, and was 
 glad that Jerry had withdrawn from him ; for now he 
 was not only financially safe, but his conscience was 
 clear, for he had made an advance to Jerry, and had 
 been repulsed. 
 
 On the whole he was glad, and his father had been 
 wise.
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 " Who bettering not with time, 
 Corrupts the strength of heaven-descended will, 
 And ever weaker grows through acted crime, 
 Or seeming-genial venial fault 
 Recurring and suggesting still ! 
 
 I^HE daylight seemed to come reluctantly the next 
 morning ; at least so it seemed to Jerry, who was 
 watching for it with a weary excitement. Sleep 
 had been impossible to him : all night long he had 
 lain with wide-open eyes trying to rest, trying to 
 push out of his mind all memory of the disasters that 
 might meet him when the day dawned. And he 
 watched the firelight that played on the wall, and the 
 wan gray day that marked so gradually the square 
 of the window. 
 
 The sky was leaden-hued, but no snow was falling : 
 he sighed a little, for the snow would have solved this 
 difficulty. But the snow was waiting for some time 
 when he would not want it ; and the issue stood be- 
 fore him unsettled. 
 
 He dressed slowly ; he would give the men the 
 benefit of every moment of time ; and he ate his 
 breakfast slowly very slowly, by the light of a smok- 
 ing lamp for Mrs. Milton had it ready for him always 
 before the work-horn blew ; then slowly made his pre- 
 parations for going out to the dam. 
 
 " Hev a leetle patience, Jerry Wilkerson," Mrs. Mil- 
 ton said, as she followed him to the door, " Orl the 
 boys is been right smartly honggry sence the cole sot 
 in, an' they aint got much onderstandin' no how ; so 
 hev a leetle patience." 
 
 Jerry felt that his pistols were safe ; then lifted his 
 
 376
 
 JERRY. 377 
 
 hat ; but he said no word in answer to Mrs. Milton's 
 exhortation, and left her watching him anxiously as 
 he walked away. 
 
 " Techin' hisn hat fur orl the worl' like the doctor," 
 she muttered, " an' a-killin' hisseff fur this pore trash 
 jest like the doctor," and she turned away with a sigh. 
 
 Jerry found it a hard climb over the snow that was 
 mashed into ice, a slow climb that gave him full 
 time to think, and now that the issue was on him, he 
 could no longer drive away his anxiety : every step 
 brought him nearer to this decision ; every step 
 brought him nearer to an awful temptation ! 
 
 He looked down anxiously for the tracks that would 
 show that the men had passed on their way to the dam, 
 but the frozen snow held no marks. Beyond the end 
 of the street he would be able to see tracks, but he 
 would have to go to his office for something, and this 
 would take him off the main road which the men would 
 have followed ; so that until he reached the top of the 
 dam he could not know how the issue had been deci- 
 ded. He might have gone and looked for tracks, but 
 this would have been too great an acknowledgment 
 even to himself. 
 
 His office was dark, and cold, and dusty, and in one 
 corner the things he had brought away from the old 
 house. Dead memorials that had gained a human as- 
 pect from long association with living souls ; things 
 that looked as if they had regular habits, and were 
 distressed by their homeless, useless condition ; by 
 being huddled into a corner with dust and spiders' 
 webs about them. Did they suspect that they might 
 pass into strange hands before this day faded ? 
 
 He turned away hastily : if the men were going to 
 obey his orders, they would be at work by this time ; if 
 not he would need all the day for the arrangement of 
 his own affairs : and locking the door, he took his 
 way up the gorge. 
 
 Up where the wind cut him more keenly, and the 
 dry snow blown from off the higher peaks came about
 
 37 8 JERRY. 
 
 him in sudden swirls and eddies ; up from the white 
 valley that yet was checkered and smirched with the 
 black marks of civilization ; up to where he could see 
 so clearly the unsullied because unhumanized moun- 
 tain tops shining white against the leaden sky. 
 
 Half-way up the gorge he paused, and listened 
 intently ; he heard no sound of pick or spade, he 
 heard no sound of voices. More intently still, 
 with his hand to his ear, and his head turned away 
 from the wind : his heart sank within him had they 
 turned against him as Joe warned him that they 
 would ? 
 
 Up higher, and still no sounds nor voices greeted 
 him ; not even his own footsteps could be heard as he 
 worked his way through the soft, dry snow : on the 
 highest ridge that he would touch he paused again to 
 listen ; it was strange he could hear nothing, the 
 strokes of the pick would reach him at this distance 
 surely ! 
 
 The day grew brighter ; the work-horn was sound- 
 ing from the village, and he waited to hear it it was 
 his horn now ! Clear and distinct, ringing up and 
 down the white, dead stillness ; and a little thrill of 
 scorn for himself went through him as he listened. 
 It was a small thing he had done in establishing that 
 horn to mark the work-hours a small thing that he 
 had done to mark himself as victor and master : and 
 he had worked, secretly, of course, to get the same 
 horn, the very same horn he had heard that evening 
 when he had been shown his place : the evening 
 when hisold life died died with such painful throes ! 
 Yes, it was small. 
 
 Then the last echo faded, and once more he plod- 
 ded on ; if the men were coming they would be at the 
 dam by this time and he would not stop again. 
 Steadily forward ; and on the top of the dam he 
 stopped : below him the small ravine into which the 
 stream had been turned, a pile of wood lay ready for 
 lighting, and kneeling in front of it there was a man
 
 JERRY. 379 
 
 striking a match, and all about it a mass of silent 
 workmen showing black against the snow ! He 
 stopped still to recover himself, for they had not 
 seen him as yet, and his heart was beating strangely, 
 as with a halt in its throb ; and his head seemed full 
 of blood ; he had had the feeling once before when 
 he found Joe's money ! 
 
 Then Mr. Henshaw caught sight of him, and hailed 
 him, and Jerry climbed down among them. The fire 
 was lighted now, and the men stood about it quietly. 
 " We get to work none too soon," and Mr. Henshaw 
 pointed to the sky, " this freeze will not last much 
 longer ; all- indications point to a warmer change." 
 
 " And so we must work the harder," Jerry answered, 
 selecting a pick from a pile near at hand, " what shall 
 we do first ? " 
 
 The revulsion of feeling had been great, and he felt 
 weak from it, but he had nodded to the men as if 
 nothing had happened, and now followed down to 
 where the engineer thought the bed of the stream 
 should be widened to lessen the weight against the 
 dam. Besides, the stream would be so full from the 
 unusual amount df snow, that it might flow over the 
 artificial bank if room were not made for it. The 
 dam could not be made higher in a freeze like this, 
 and in any event this would not be so advisable as 
 the other. So the work was laid out, and the men 
 told off in gangs to work at different points : fifty 
 men, Jerry counted, with a strong feeling of exulta- 
 tion ; fifty men who yesterday had defied him 
 almost ! 
 
 He struck good blows with his pick ; strong blows 
 that rang clear and sharp : he led his gang in work, 
 but said no word to them. 
 
 And when Greg came, he stood still and watched 
 how Jerry took the lead even in this work ; and when 
 the short day was done, how easily he resumed his 
 place as chief, giving his orders for the next day clearly 
 and peremptorily, and directing the men who had
 
 380 JERRY. 
 
 worked to come and draw extra rations : then he gave 
 his pick to be put in with the rest, and walked home 
 with Mr. Henshaw and Greg. 
 
 Greg watched it all with the question ever in his 
 mind " How does he do it ? " What was the source of 
 this man's power over these men of his own class and 
 standing ? 
 
 And with his head bent, and his hands in his 
 pockets, he walked in silence, not even hearing the 
 talk between Jerry and Mr. Henshaw, but wondering 
 if his father's fears about Jerry would be realized 
 ever. 
 
 This crisis was past, and Jerry lay on his bed ex- 
 hausted. All day long he had worked as hard as a 
 common laborer : after a long strain of responsibility 
 suddenly increased into a dreadful anxiety and tempta- 
 tion, a tense state that had been relieved as the sudden 
 snapping of a cord too tightly drawn ; he had worked 
 as if his life, like the men about him, had in it only 
 the questions of food and raiment ; and now the 
 reaction was too great. 
 
 Through all the day's work the exultation had found 
 vent in the quick regularity of his blows, and the short 
 clipping of his words when he gave his orders : an 
 exultation and relief that were over now, leaving him 
 exhausted and bitterly humiliated by a realization that 
 had been pursuing him all day, ever since he had 
 mounted the dam and had seen the men gathered be- 
 low him : a realization of himself that was new to him, 
 and being new was still dreadful : a realization that 
 had come close to him, and had wrapped him in its 
 hateful folds. He abhorred himself, for he knew that 
 if the men had refused to work, he would have sold 
 out by telegraph, and at this moment would have 
 stood free, and rich, and a legalized thief. He would 
 have withdrawn from the venture secretly would 
 have escaped free with Ihe spoils would have failed 
 to every trust in order to save his own money ! 
 
 And as he dragged himself from the bed wearily,
 
 JERRY. 381 
 
 the question came to him, would the greatest success, 
 even, repay him for this? What would the greatest 
 success mean the success for which he found he 
 would sell his soul what would this greatest success 
 mean ? 
 
 He leaned against the chimney and looked down 
 into the fire : the greatest possible success could mean 
 only the gathering of a colossal fortune for himself 
 and then ? 
 
 He turned quickly to the door ; then he would 
 have to hunt for somebody to love him for somebody 
 to put faith in for a new level of self-respect for a 
 new ideal of a man ! 
 
 And he went downstairs slowly. 
 
 Already in his pursuit of money he had lost his 
 trust in every human creature with whom he had come 
 in contact : and with a fortune in his hands how black 
 human nature would seem ! And yet, there was noth- 
 ing left for him to believe now, but that money would 
 compass most of the things he desired would make 
 him happy ! And he would gather and gather gold 
 until it would mean nothing to him, and die. Aye, 
 but he would leave his gold so that the country would 
 ring with his name ! 
 
 He ate his supper hurriedly, and walked rapidly to 
 Dan Burk's shop where the public stores were kept; he 
 had to issue rations, and to order out more men to work, 
 for the wind had a new and sudden warmth in it that 
 meant a thaw. Swiftly down the rough road, and in 
 at Burk's shop, glad to reach the piles of meat and 
 bins of meal to reach and measure out the crude, 
 ill-smelling liquor from the great barrels that stood in 
 the inner room glad to do anything, or go anywhere 
 that would deliver him from this " self " he was learn- 
 ing to fear, this " self " he was not brave enough to 
 contemplate. 
 
 How he had fallen from his high ideals ! how reck- 
 lessly he had striven and fought for this money that 
 had seemed to satisfy! and he had gained it.
 
 3^2 JERRY. 
 
 Gained it ? he spilled the whisky a little as he 
 measured it out by the light of a flickering torch the 
 men held ; and he knew that he had not gained the 
 gold, but the gold him ! It held him fast and strong, 
 and drove him in ways he abhorred held him down 
 until his old self became a haunting spirit that made 
 him loathe this new creature born of covetousness. 
 
 The men had gone now, and twenty new hands 
 were coming to the work in the morning : his task 
 was done, and he locked the doors and walked up the 
 street with Greg, who had come to help him. 
 
 " The men have worked well to-day," Greg said, 
 wondering if Jerry would allude to the crisis in any 
 way. 
 
 'Yes," Jerry answered, " it is not often they are 
 blind to their own interests," but that was all, and at 
 Mrs. Milton's door he said good-night without the 
 least suggestion that Greg should come in. 
 
 And Greg turned away provoked, yet he felt un- 
 easy ; he must make peace with this man to-morrow 
 did he care for him really ? strange what power he 
 had.
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 " The weariness, the fever, and the fret 
 
 Here, where men sit and hear each other groan ; 
 When palsy shakes a few, last, sad gray hairs. 
 When youth grows pale, and specter-thin, and dies ; 
 When but to think is to be full of sorrow 
 And leaden-eyed despairs." 
 
 AND-so the winter passed with its sufferings and 
 crises ; with its strained watching and excitement, 
 and at last the weather had broken, and a chilling 
 thaw set in. Worse than the dry, iron freeze of the 
 mid-winter, this thaw seemed with its death-like damp- 
 ness to search in among the bones, and to creep up 
 and down the shrunken blood-vessels. 
 
 The roads were half-frozen slush, and the stream 
 already boiled white and angry down the mountain- 
 side, while as yet the upper snow had not begun to melt. 
 There was a fascination in watching its eddies and 
 foaming waves, and Jerry would stand on the dam 
 and wonder how much higher it would rise when the 
 real spring-weather came ; and would the dam hold it ? 
 
 Wretched weather that brought to the people all 
 the ills with which cold and dampness could afflict. 
 Many of the little children died, and the old people, 
 and the murmur of regret for the doctor swelled and 
 grew into rooted discontent. Mr. Wilkerson ought to 
 send for a physician ; and Jerry, who had appealed to 
 his friends in the East already, made another state- 
 ment of his needs, and asked that a clergyman should 
 be sent also ; for he felt a strange reluctance to read 
 the services over the dead, which thing he had to do be- 
 cause the doctor had done it always, a superstitious 
 feeling about it that made him afraid almost, and a 
 
 383
 
 384 JERRY. 
 
 knowledge that he was not fit to do it. Yet, many, 
 many times he had to stand in the rain-washed grave- 
 yard, and commit to their last resting-places the chil- 
 dren, and the men, and the^ women he had known ; 
 had brought out there in some cases ; had watched 
 sicken and die with no creature near with knowledge 
 enough to help them ! 
 
 He could not do everything. 
 
 But the work on the railway was going on briskly 
 now, and soon the advanced corps of workmen would 
 be in the town, and the physician of the company be 
 near enough to help them. 
 
 As yet, Jerry had heard nothing from the East that 
 could in any way advise him of Paul's movements, 
 save the letter from Isabel Greg which her brother 
 had shown him. But he had not much time to brood 
 over this now, for the mine occupied all his attention. 
 Mr. Henshaw's work was thorough, but he worked 
 with a deliberation that to Jerry was maddening 
 almost. Mr. Henshaw could not realize the import- 
 ance of making one quick dividend that would keep 
 the people patient and fill the treasury ; he had per- 
 fect confidence in the mine himself, and wrote it up 
 most diligently ; and the capitalists in the East were 
 perfectly satisfied, but the people in Durden's, who 
 were doing the work, began to murmur. 
 
 They were not in want, for the town supplied them 
 with all the necessities of life, but they had no money : 
 the chance laborers who were paid from the treasury 
 had more money than the governing members of the 
 Commune. 
 
 Jerry spent much weary thought on the subject, 
 but could find no solution for the problem ; if he ad- 
 vised these men to sell, it would affect seriously the 
 mining stock; if he broke up the Commune system, 
 and paid back to these men all they had invested, he 
 would have to sell much of his own Durden's stock, 
 which would look more like a loss of confidence than 
 any other move he could make. Henshaw could
 
 JERRY. 385 
 
 relieve him from his difficulty entirely, if he would 
 make a little haste, but this he did not seem to under- 
 stand, and Jerry knew that if he tried to hurry him by 
 telling him all the motives and necessities of the situ- 
 ation, he would not comprehend the position, and 
 might kill the whole scheme with his slow, blundering, 
 literal explanations to .every soul whom, he thought, 
 contributed one cent to the very handsome salary that 
 made him and his " Sue " so comfortable. There 
 would be no dishonesty in the quick dividend which 
 Jerry wanted, but Henshaw's elaborate explanations 
 would be sure to make it seem so. 
 
 Jerry thought of every possible, and impossible, 
 plan to satisfy these ignorant people who^were ham- 
 pering him so cruelly. If his money had b'een an ac- 
 cepted fact among them, he would have bought out 
 the half of every discontented man's share, and so 
 have satisfied them ; as it was he could not do this 
 without explanations which would seem like fairy 
 tales to these people, and more surely than anything 
 else would ruin him. One last plan occurred to him : 
 it was to double the working force in the mine, and 
 compel Henshaw to be more active. 
 
 And he could get the men easily, for now that the 
 terminus of the railway was so near, numbers of new 
 men were coming in every day to ask for work ; but 
 how pay them ? It came home to him with harsh 
 force how foolish he had been to invest everything in 
 Burden's ; if any part of it were now free, or was in- 
 vested in anything it was less ruinous to touch, he 
 gladly would have withdrawn it all in order to pay 
 these men and quicken the declaration of a dividend. 
 
 His only alternative was to borrow ; again and 
 again he had turned away from this thought, only to 
 come back to it whenever a louder and more angry 
 murmur came from the people. Borrow money to 
 carry him over this crisis, and all would be well : bor- 
 row money in his own name, and buy out the shares 
 of these discontented people in the name of his
 
 JERR Y. 
 
 broker why not ? This would be easy, very easy ; 
 and he wrote to the broker the amount he wanted to 
 borrow. 
 
 It took nights of thought, coming after long days 
 of labor, to decide this, and he felt very weary when 
 at last he wrote to his broker ; and was in despair al- 
 most when he saw the rate of interest charged him. 
 Still, to have the money was a relief, and the broker's 
 name to shield him. 
 
 Louder the murmurs swelled ; but Jerry waited ; 
 every day that passed without actual disaster in the 
 shape of a strike was so much gained. Louder and 
 louder, then quietly he stepped in and bought in the 
 name of Mr. Glendale the half of every stockholder's 
 interest in the mine : then made a biting speech about 
 their cowardice and short-sighted policy ; a speech 
 that made every man regret his action, and on the 
 first suggestion agree to advance all that had been 
 paid them, that the body of workmen in the mine 
 might be doubled. 
 
 And Mr. Henshaw was delighted, and promised to 
 make his work still more sure and honest ; with a 
 doubled corps of workmen why need he hurry and so 
 leave careless work to mar his reputation ? This mine 
 was bound to succeed, and with its success his name 
 as an engineer would stand or fall. 
 
 So the spring days came and went, each one a little 
 warmer and giving no sign of the late snows prophe- 
 sied, but melting the frozen masses that had gathered 
 during the winter : and the streams were many and 
 unusually full. 
 
 The people in the two towns were quiet now save 
 for the coming of the railway, and the rumor of a 
 great excursion. For now the time was approaching 
 when the Board of Directors of the " Eureka, Bur- 
 den's and Great Western Railway " were to come out 
 in special trains, and drive " last spikes," and make 
 speeches, and spend money to make the venture bet- 
 ter known. It was a grand affair, this railway, and
 
 JERRY. 387 
 
 must be advertised that in the future it might give 
 grand results : and these great Directors must be en- 
 tertained, and the treasury was low. 
 
 If only Jerry had kept in hand old Joe's patiently 
 gathered treasure or if he could have been his own 
 engineer and have declared a dividend. 
 
 But new hope came to Jerry in the news that more 
 " Durden's " had been bought for him, as it was still 
 rising, for this assured him at least that Paul had not 
 injured his scheme as yet. So he borrowed more 
 money and set about making the greatest arrange- 
 ments possible to Durden's, for the reception of the 
 coming magnates ; and galvanized his dead enthusi- 
 asm to rouse the people to a more proper sense of the 
 coming event, and to awaken in them the high hopes 
 that he was now too weary to entertain. For now he 
 felt that he was driven on and held up to his purpose 
 more through fear of failure than through the real- 
 ized value of what he was striving for. But also he 
 knew that now for him there was no choice, for as he 
 looked back, every barrier that had hindered his on- 
 ward march seemed to have doubled in strength once 
 he had passed it : what had been hard to pass, 
 now became impossible to repass ; and he saw with 
 growing despair that there was no retracing his steps : 
 his mistakes held him in worse than Egyptian bond- 
 age. There was no middle way for him now, the end 
 must be either an absolute success, or an overwhelm- 
 ing failure ; and even the thought of failure had be- 
 come torture too exquisite to be borne ; no toil that 
 might avert this could be too hard, no risk could be 
 too dangerous that might gain success for him ! 
 
 And two bands of silver came in the dark hair on 
 his temples, and the light in his eyes had become an 
 unhealthy glitter.
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 " ' Waiting to strive a happy strife, 
 To war with falsehood to the knife, 
 And not to lose the good of life 
 
 ' As far as might be to carve out 
 Free space for every human doubt, 
 That the whole mind might orb about.' 
 
 ' Yea,' saith the voice, ' thy dream was good 
 While thou abodest in the bud, 
 It was the stirring of the blood.' " 
 
 JERRY made a speech in which the people did not 
 see the effort, and a small sum was gathered to 
 provide for the reception of the excursion party. 
 "What weuns eats ever day is good enough fur them, 
 I reckon," and Mrs. Milton gave a dollar, " an' I'll 
 tuck in three 'thout chargin' no bo'de," and Jerry 
 telegraphed that the sleeping-cars must be brought 
 the whole way. 
 
 He thought much on the subject, and knew that he 
 would be doing well if he could rouse the people to 
 the necessity of seeing that the strangers had enough 
 to eat ; more than this was impossible, and he would 
 not suggest even any further effort. So he made a 
 list of the strangers coming, and put them about with 
 the people according to the number they each agreed 
 to provide food for ; then wrote a letter explaining as 
 best he might the customs and resources of the place, 
 and the type of accommodations that could be fur- 
 nished. 
 
 And the Directors laughed, and prepared as for a 
 great picnic. What did they care for the feelings of 
 
 388
 
 JERRY. 389 
 
 these wild borderers feelings Jerry had used all his 
 power to rouse successfully into a state of hospitality; 
 what did they think of the eager expectation of mak- 
 ing a show, that possessed the hearts of the Burden's 
 people ; what did they realize of the willingness to 
 help Mr. Wilkerson, and the latent pride the people 
 had in this man who was one of themselves, yet power- 
 ful enough to have influence with these " money- 
 princes "; and further, how could they appreciate the 
 precarious position of this young man, who not so 
 long ago had moved among them as one of them- 
 selves, but who had to be now one of the mob ? 
 
 They stocked their train with every delicacy ; they 
 carried a full corps of servants ; they spent great 
 sums in transporting, without jarring, much priceless 
 wine ; and put on an extra car for a few wives and 
 daughters who were " ecstatic and wild to see the ro- 
 mantic western life ; the dear miners, and the heroic 
 women who were brave enough to share their frontier 
 life," which was not frontier life, but hopelessly 
 within the border for the excitement of Indians, or of 
 anything more romantic than wild creatures and 
 tramps. An old mining town that had been de- 
 serted and kept in the shade for twenty odd years 
 that had been given over as a failure until one year 
 ago. Of course the frontier was across the plains by 
 this time, and all the Indian agencies and reservations 
 seemed as far from Burden's, almost, as the great 
 eastern cities. 
 
 But these people from the centers of American civ- 
 ilization and luxury did not realize this: to them the 
 South and West were unknown parts of the earth 
 the South meant oranges, and flowers, and " Ku- 
 Klux "; and the West meant Indians and gold mines. 
 And Indians were all the " Last of the Mohicans," 
 and gold mines were beautiful grottos where stalwart 
 men, clothed in red and blue shirts and spotless 
 white trowsers, carelessly gathered shining lumps of 
 gold.
 
 39 JERRY. 
 
 And Jerry worked hard to make the town look 
 clean after the hard winter, so that the excursionists 
 would not be too much disappointed. 
 
 " My mother and sister will come," Greg said, 
 ' but against my advice." 
 
 " You may have my house prepared for them," 
 Jerry answered quickly. 
 
 Greg shook his head. 
 
 " They must remain in the sleeper," he said ; " it 
 will be for two days only. I can not make them as 
 comfortable anywhere as they will be there ; but I 
 thank you very much. By the way," pausing doubt- 
 fully, " Henley is come, arrived this morning." 
 
 " Did he ? " and Jerry's pen moved none the less 
 steadily because the beating of his heart had doubled. 
 
 " I have not seen him," Greg went on, " but he 
 sent me the news of my mother's coming ; I believe 
 he expects to entertain many people." 
 
 " Your people ? " and for the first time Jerry looked 
 up. 
 
 " Not with my consent," Greg answered, coming 
 nearer this man who puzzled him so often, " you know 
 that I do not trust Henley." 
 
 Jerry returned to his work. 
 
 " I think we had better make your house or my 
 house ready for them," he said. 
 
 But Greg would not agree ; he was sure that the 
 car would be the best place for them. Then he left 
 Jerry to his work, and going down the road met Paul 
 Henley Paul Henley who grasped both his hands ; 
 who was dressed as would be Greg's civilized friends, 
 giving him a home look ; who rattled off the eastern 
 news; who was grateful to Greg's mother and sister for 
 bringing his adopted sister out with them, and who 
 was dreadfully anxious that everything in the doc- 
 tor's house should be in proper order to receive 
 them. 
 
 " I suppose you know that your mother and sister 
 will stay with me ? " he finished.
 
 JERRY. 391 
 
 " No," Greg answered bluntly, " no, I did not know 
 it." 
 
 " Well, they will," and Paul watched Greg keenly. 
 
 " You are very kind," Greg answered, his brown 
 face showing more color than he would have liked if 
 he had seen himself, " but I think they had better 
 stay in the sleeper." 
 
 Paul laughed. 
 
 " Your mother's only objection to coming was her 
 dislike to the sleeper," he said. 
 
 Greg walked on a little space in silence : he did 
 not trust Paul Henley ; he was angry with himself 
 that he had not warned his family against this man ; 
 he was provoked that they should have agreed to 
 stop at Paul's house, and he determined to make an 
 effort to change all these plans. His house could be 
 prepared for them, or Jerry's house he would go and 
 see Jerry about it. 
 
 " You have never met my adopted sister ? " Paul 
 went on. 
 
 " No," and Greg looked interested ; he could not 
 but look interested when a man talked to him of his 
 sister. 
 
 " She has no notion of taking care of herself," Paul 
 went on, " and could not have come unless with your 
 mother, and she and your sister are friends." 
 
 " Are they ? " and Greg felt that his plans were 
 becoming impossible. 
 
 " And you had better come to my house also," 
 Paul went on, "and stay while your mother and sister 
 are with me, you can then see so much more of them." 
 
 " You are very kind," Greg answered, " but I have 
 made other arrangements for them." 
 
 " The ' sleeper ' ? " laughing amiably ; " that is im- 
 possible, for I promised your mother that so soon as 
 they reached Eureka I should have them transported 
 to the most civilized house in the place, and that you 
 should come and stay with them ; so do not trouble 
 yourself needlessly, and deprive me of this pleasure."
 
 39 2 JERRY. 
 
 " You are very kind," Greg said again, then turned 
 off toward the mine. 
 
 What would Wilkerson say ? was his first thought ; 
 then angrily he asked himself, what right had Jerry to 
 say anything ? No right in the world ; and in his 
 secret heart Greg knew that Jerry would not say one 
 word ; probably he would not look at him, but go on 
 quietly with whatever he might be doing. 
 
 This was the sore spot, that Jerry could and prob- 
 ably would listen to his words of explanation silently, 
 then quietly put him and his mother and sister aside 
 with Paul Henley, and go on his own way. 
 
 And if Jerry did, what matter to him ? he had not 
 espoused Jerry's side to any extent ; he had not be- 
 come an intimate of Jerry's : his father had advised 
 against this, and he had acquiesced. Still, and Greg 
 quickened his pace, and drove his hands deeper into 
 his pockets : he despised Paul Henley, and he was 
 learning to value strangely Jerry's approbation and 
 good will ; was growing anxious to break through 
 the reserve and silence in which Jerry wrapped him- 
 self. And that this should be thus was the heart of 
 the problem for Greg : why should this man be of any 
 special importance to him ? Jerry had no higher 
 aims now than many men Greg knew, no higher 
 motives, why should Greg wish for his friendship ? 
 Jerry had grown selfish, intensely selfish. At first 
 there had been at the root of his work the desire for 
 the good of the many ; this had been the enthusiasm 
 that had set the work in motion, as well as the force 
 that had been at first the motive power ; but Greg knew 
 that this enthusiasm was dead : how he knew this, or 
 when this force had died, he could not tell, but the 
 fact of its death dwelt with him, and strange to say, 
 had raised Jerry in his estimation as a practical man ! 
 The loss of the higher motive that had seemed chimer- 
 ical, gave the venture a solidity that enhanced Greg's 
 faith in it, and increased his respect for Jerry. 
 
 It had seemed weak to him at first, this plan to im-
 
 JERRY. 393 
 
 prove a town for the good of the town's people, and 
 not as a speculation ; to build up a community that 
 possibly would help all, but positively would make 
 the fortune of no one person : it had seemed wild 
 and unstable, and a mere waste of energy : it was 
 against the spirit of the age that was for monopoly, 
 even though it might go hand in hand with the theory 
 of the age which was for humanity. This theory was 
 wrong ; it would weaken any man to help all about 
 him, and to be helped in return. Every man must 
 fight through his own life, and shape his own for- 
 tunes ; every man must run his own race and win his 
 own prize ; this it was that made men of Americans ! 
 The national creed that every man was free to run ; 
 every man had equal chances ; every man could have 
 all he could get and hold against the odds brought to 
 force his gains from him : this made men strong and 
 hard for the battle, and this was what had at last 
 made him look up to, and respect Jerry ; this very 
 power to take all he wanted, to guide all to suit his 
 will, and yet to build all on the fair foundation of the 
 public good ! 
 
 Greg was forced into admiration Paul was forced 
 into envy and malice. 
 
 And Greg went home angry with himself that he 
 had not guided his steps better than to wander from 
 under the shadow of this man's power. This man 
 whose power was bound to increase because daily he 
 was learning the motto of the Age " Every man for 
 himself." If every man stop to help his brother ; to 
 ' pour in oil and wine ' and bring him to a safe rest- 
 ing-place, who could first reach the goal ? who could 
 do more than win food and raiment, if this were the 
 code ? The creed of individualism can permit no 
 such weakness as this ; the narrower the aim, and the 
 harder the heart, the surer the success ! 
 
 The creed of Individualism and the Creed of the 
 Christ touch but at one point : " Thou canst not serve 
 God and Mammon."
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 " For every worm beneath the moon 
 Draws different threads, and late and soon, 
 Spins, toiling out his own cocoon." 
 
 BURDEN'S was in a stir, and pulsed and throbbed 
 under its ugly covering of slush and grimy snow : 
 Burden's had never seen such times and in its 
 wildest dreams had never pictured such excitement. 
 
 A shanty had been put up in Eureka and called 
 the " Depot," and one small locomotive had made 
 the run over the road that was barely laid, and en- 
 tirely unsafe. Still, the directors could not come at 
 any other time, and they had made it quite plain that 
 the salvation of the two towns, the mines and the 
 railway, depended on their coming to see and to ad- 
 vertise things. So the track was laid, not built, to 
 Eureka and on to Durden's, that the imaginary last 
 spike might be driven by some portly director or his 
 wife, or his daughter ; that the reporters might be 
 there to telegraph this wonderful town-growth to all 
 the important daily papers ; that the artists in the 
 great cities might make the pictures of the event so that 
 the people in the provinces might see it all in their 
 illustrated journals before it had really occurred ! All 
 this was necessary to the success of the towns, and 
 to the welfare of the railway : things must be ad- 
 vertised else they should die. Everyone having been 
 convinced of these facts, a great excursion at half 
 rates was advertised, and a suitable number of the 
 moneyed elect invited to go out and patronize this 
 new town of Durden's, that was different from any 
 other town in that it was founded and organized on 
 the newest theories, and worked on the plan of pure 
 
 394
 
 JERRY. 395 
 
 equality, that had been the problem of philanthropists 
 and philosophers through all the ages ! So the news- 
 papers said. 
 
 Alas ! a town that had become a dreadful burden 
 and puzzle to its author ! 
 
 And Burden's, reading all this in Dan Burk's paper, 
 felt very proud and important ; and was fully pre- 
 pared to patronize these " city folks " who were com- 
 ing out to see this remarkable town. And Jerry was 
 glad, for the people were much more willing to help 
 in his preparations and plans. 
 
 The paths that answered for sidewalks were put in 
 order, the houses were thoroughly cleaned, a new 
 path was made to the mine, and on the few sunshiny 
 clays everything in Burden's seemed to be washed and 
 hung out to dry. 
 
 All was moving smoo'thly, when suddenly the tem- 
 per of the people seemed to change, and Jerry heard 
 murmurs about spending so much money and about 
 the dividend that had not been declared. 
 
 " Paul is at work," he said to himself ; and the 
 clew was put into his hands by Mrs. Milton. 
 
 " An' you hed better know, Jerry Wilkerson," she 
 said, while putting his supper on the table with more 
 than usual emphasis, " thet if these city folks is rich, 
 an' is youuns* frien's, they aint agoin' to stomp on 
 noner us, ner change nothin' in this town, they aint, 
 if Mr. Henley as knows 'em do say it ; an' you 
 hed better tell 'em so, Jerry Wilkerson, or Burden's 
 
 will." 
 
 It was after a hard day's work that this revelation, 
 for it was a revelation, came to Jerry ; and he did not 
 answer the old woman he did not wish to until he 
 had collected his thoughts somewhat, so went on with 
 his supper diligently, as if this were his reason for 
 not talking. 
 
 " Paul Henley, thet were borned rich," Mrs. Milton 
 began again, " he don't take on like he were too good, 
 he dont ; he jes goes roun' alonger orl the boys,
 
 396 JERR Y. 
 
 jest fur orl the worl' like he were a pore boy too, he 
 does." 
 
 And now Jerry did not answer, because he saw that 
 it would do no good. Paul Henley had produced his 
 impression, and these people were not capable of re- 
 ceiving more than one impression at a time ; and this 
 silence was so often his way with Mrs. Milton that she 
 scarcely noticed it. 
 
 It was her method to give her opinions and advice 
 while Jerry was busy with his dinner or his supper, 
 because, as she would explain 
 
 " It's a good time to say youuns' say, 'cause thar 
 aint the man livin' as'll stop eatin' to jaw back ; jest 
 you bet on that," and Jerry often verified her 
 theory, and was glad to do it on this occasion ; and 
 without reply went away to the issuing of rations, 
 and the doing of numberless odd jobs that were crowd- 
 ing on him more and more as the time drew near for 
 the great excursion. 
 
 He could not stop to think now, it was impossible 
 to pause long enough to gather together his 
 thoughts ; his thoughts that, notwithstanding his 
 preparation and expectation of Paul's attack, were 
 scattered wildly by the strangeness of the quarter 
 from whence it came. He held the clew, however, to 
 Paul's course of action, and to that extent was more 
 safe ; and while he worked even though with both 
 mind and body, directing, measuring, counting, 
 weighing, his scattered forces gathered themselves 
 about this new center, and worked out counter-plans. 
 Mrs. Milton's words had revealed much ; had con- 
 nected much for him ; had given him the key to 
 Paul's intentions. Paul was trying to undermine him 
 in the eyes of the people by telling them that the 
 laws of the town would bind them, but not Mr. Wil- 
 kerson's rich friends. Not a very clever plan, Jerry 
 thought, and one easily foiled. Next day at the 
 meeting of the town committee he would move that 
 all the laws of the Commune should be strictly en-
 
 JERRY. 397 
 
 forced during the stay of the strangers. This would 
 open the people's eyes : and the ease of his coun- 
 ter-move made him suspect that this was a ruse to 
 throw him off his guard ; Paul's plans must be 
 deeper than this. 
 
 On the morning of this same day Greg had told 
 him that his mother and sister would stay with Hen- 
 ley, that the arrangement had been made before 
 Henley left New York : and Jerry had answered that 
 they would be more comfortable there ; but that he 
 would not be able to see anything of them ; then had 
 gone on with his work in so undisturbed a way that 
 Greg though to some extent he had expected just 
 this action felt a little angry. 
 
 His people had been very kind to Jerry, he remem- 
 bered, and Jerry ought to be more troubled about not 
 seeing them : still, if he were not, it was not Greg's 
 place to remonstrate. 
 
 Then Jerry had heard of Paul and Engineer Mills 
 putting in order many of the empty houses in Eureka, 
 and arranging them as lodgings for the excursionists. 
 Paul was unusually energetic and interested ; and 
 Jerry listened and watched closely. 
 
 His move in the committee, that the laws be strictly 
 enforced during the stay of the strangers, was warmly 
 seconded and carried ; no drink was to be allowed 
 except beer, and men who got drunk over in Eureka 
 must stay there until they recovered. No drunken- 
 ness nor rioting was to be tolerated in Burden's. 
 
 And Jerry walked home wondering what he would 
 hear next. And he had not long to wait : the next 
 day the news came to him that Paul had repaired and 
 improved Dave Morris's old shop in Eureka, and had 
 stocked and opened it as a " Bar-room and Eating 
 Saloon." Dan Burk told him of it, and had added 
 that his wife was to attend the eating-room, and a 
 new man from the East was to keep the bar. 
 
 " It's to be fine," Dan added, " and good vittles for 
 mighty little."
 
 39 8 JERR Y. 
 
 "That is economical at least," Jerry had answered, 
 while his mind began to follow Paul's plans. 
 
 A very sure game for a man whom Greg had de- 
 scribed as unscrupulous. And to put Mrs. Burk in 
 the front of his venture was a clever move : as the 
 standard of Durden's went, Mrs. Burk was a society 
 leader ; she could read and write, and took much to 
 herself from the fact of her superior education, and 
 the people regarded her as a person of some impor- 
 tance. 
 
 In the course Paul was pursuing, a woman was the 
 best tool. Mrs. Burk's tongue was endless, which 
 was one good way of advertising the " saloon," besides 
 being most admirable for the spreading of any reports 
 Paul might wish to have scattered abroad : added to 
 this, she would make the place attractive for women, 
 and the men would soon follow. 
 
 Jerry pushed the fire a little uneasily as he sat 
 thinking : he had been such a fool ; such a fool to 
 banish so great a power as drink ; such a wonderful 
 factor as it was in keeping the people satisfied 
 and unquestioning : such a wretched fool ! Joe had 
 warned him of this wise old Joe had said that these 
 people wanted nothing so much as corn bread, and 
 dirt, and whisky, and that they would have it. And 
 in the silence words came back to him, words he had 
 heard that day, but that he had not heeded properly 
 until ncrw. A man had said " Mr. Henley aint 
 above ownin' a shop, nor sellin' whisky," and Jerry 
 had passed on, not seeming to hear. 
 
 And he understood it all, and could see the poison 
 working in the minds of the people. 
 
 If only this wretched excursion were over, and he 
 left free to counter-mine, he could play the same 
 game : he would work things round until the people 
 would not be able to understand anything but that 
 things had changed ; he would do anything, he would 
 put half he owned into the town in order to win the 
 game against Paul.
 
 JERRY. 399 
 
 He paused suddenly in his thinking, and pushed 
 the fire until it blazed and roared up the chimney : 
 there was one easy way out of it all ; and he leaned 
 back in his chair with his hands clasped behind his 
 head. 
 
 Run the Burden's stock up as high as possible, 
 then sellout quietly from the whole affair. He could 
 retain power long enough to accomplish this ; and do 
 it while Paul was involving himself in new ventures and 
 expenses in order to undermine him : sell out quickly 
 and leave Paul neck- deep in a troublesome specu- 
 lation. 
 
 He laughed a little, and turned the thought over in 
 his mind : it did not seem so black now as it had 
 done. The people no longer cared for him ; already 
 they were becoming adherents of Paul Henley's ; and 
 they were not worth that he should sacrifice anything 
 for them. For years and years the doctor had been 
 their friend, and in a week they had all turned away 
 from him : why should he think of them? True, they 
 had invested in the town and in the mine because he 
 had told them to do it ; but in return he had kept 
 them sober for months, had given them more comfort- 
 able homes and more decent habits than they had 
 ever known : and besides, there was no reason why 
 either the town or the mine should fail because he 
 withdrew. 
 
 Give up the mine and Burden's give up his 
 millions that lay hidden down there under the earth 
 where Joe's patient feet had trod day after day to 
 amass the gold that now, strangely enough, had gone 
 back into the mine had all gone back to try to bring 
 out more ! 
 
 Strange, very strange ! if he had thought of this he 
 would not have invested all in the mine Joe had 
 warned him. 
 
 He got up and walked up and down the room once 
 or twice : his pulse was beating faster, and he felt 
 the blood burning in his face.
 
 4o JERR Y. 
 
 Give up Burden's and not make his millions give 
 up Burden's and his power and position : go away 
 from the only place and people he had ever known ; 
 give up his individual glory and his little kingdom ; 
 admit himself foiled, and his scheme a failure, leave 
 Paul victorious even though the victory should be 
 death ! 
 
 He shook his clenched fist. 
 
 Never ! 
 
 He would rather be buried under the ruins of the 
 fabric he had created, than lay down his arms ! 
 
 How foolish this was ! Who would care if he failed 
 and died ; who would count him a hero for standing 
 by this venture ; who would mourn his loss ? 
 
 To die now would be like dropping a stone into the 
 water one little swirl of the tide, then gone ! And 
 why should he hate Paul Paul who had been the 
 spur and power of his life. If he had never known 
 Paul as a rival, as an enemy ; as a creature who took 
 and held the love and place he had longed for, he 
 would have been an idle dreamer still, planning im- 
 possible schemes for the regeneration of his class. He 
 would never have gone East never have compelled 
 the doctor to go there : and so to wrench the hope 
 out of two lives ? 
 
 Never have left Joe to go on that wild adventure, 
 whatever it might have been : that post him his life ? 
 
 Never have found the money : nor invested it so 
 wildly ? 
 
 Not have lost his only friend and protector : nor 
 involved himself in this net that was closing about 
 him binding him until he writhed and bled. Never 
 have lost the peace and quiet of his days : never have 
 fallen so low as he was now now when he was willing 
 to stoop to anything to sacrifice anything to make 
 and save money ! 
 
 But for Paul he would have still retained his self- 
 respect. 
 
 He laughed.
 
 JERRY. 401 
 
 Now he was a fool. He was not obliged to make a 
 decision at this moment : he could run up Burden's 
 stock, and the manipulation would help him in any 
 case ; and he would write to his broker immediately. 
 
 It was a relief to have something to do, and he sat 
 down and wrote rapidly. A peremptory letter it was, 
 directing that every known mode should be pursued 
 that could force the stock up : that his name and his 
 credit should be used in any way and to any extent 
 to further this end, and after this Mr. Glendale was 
 to stand ready to sell at a moment's notice he would 
 telegraph his orders. 
 
 And the broker read the letter with a satisfied feel- 
 ing when he remembered that he had sold his Dur- 
 den's stock to his client; and being uninterested, calmly 
 began to make preparations to execute these very 
 doubtfully wise orders.
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 " We talked on fast, while every common word 
 Seemed tangled with the thunder at one end, 
 And ready to pull down upon our heads 
 A terror out of sight." 
 
 DURDEN'S stood on tiptoe ! 
 Preparations had been made that seemed grand 
 and luxurious in the eyes of the town : the Town 
 Committee had met and elected a " Committee of Ar- 
 rangements," while the whole population turned out 
 as a committee of reception. 
 
 As there was not even a shanty in Burden's which 
 could be used as a station, Burden's had built a shed ; 
 a shed that meant money, as labor and lumber were 
 expensive : a shed that, Burden's magnanimously 
 announced, would not cost the railway company any- 
 thing ! A shed that Burden's was proud of in a reck- 
 less, careless, bountiful sort of way : when they did 
 things in Burden's, they did them " rale han'some ! " 
 
 Many had gone to Eureka to see the entrance of 
 the grand train the grand train that was obliged to 
 come in very slowly on account of the insecurity of 
 the track : these people intended to board the train, 
 if possible, and come back as an escort of honor, and 
 receive the guests in grand style under the Burden's 
 shed, where the great body of the town's-people waited 
 in hungry excitement for this greatest event of their 
 lives. 
 
 Two nights before, a light snow had fallen, which 
 melting within twelve hours had reduced the partially 
 dried roads to the consistency of soft-soap, and had 
 caused every small stream and rivulet to double its 
 size instantly. Jerry and Mr. Henshaw were anxious, 
 
 402
 
 JERR Y. 403 
 
 miserably anxious, though Jerry gave no sign ; but 
 his heart was quaking and his pockets felt empty, for 
 the main stream was as full as could be esteemed safe, 
 and too full to let the shareholders think of the mine as 
 an entirely trustworthy investment. 
 
 " They will not know that this has been an unusual 
 winter," Mr. Henshaw said despondingly ; " they will 
 judge of things only as they see them," and he looked 
 at Jerry mournfully over his spectacles. 
 
 " Very true," Jerry answered quietly, " and we can 
 only hope that the stream will subside a little before 
 to-morrow ; they will not have time to go to the dam 
 to-day." 
 
 " So! " and Mr. Henshaw looked admiringly at Jerry, 
 who seemed always to find the right way out of a dif- 
 ficulty, " I had not thought of that ; of course they 
 can not go up to-day of course not," and he took his 
 way down to the reception shed in a calm and peace- 
 ful frame of mind. 
 
 All the town was there ; everybody in their best ; 
 everybody eager to see and to hear ; everybody full 
 of importance as to the guests consigned to them. 
 
 Jerry had told them that, with the exception of a few 
 ladies who would go to Mr. Henley's, the people would 
 live in the train probably, and only would have to be 
 provided with food : he had made a point of telling 
 them this, fearing dissatisfaction or misunderstanding. 
 Also, he had spent much thought on his dress ; 
 should he wear his usual Burden's suit, with his rough 
 trowsers tucked inside his boots, and his pistols in his 
 belt ; or should he put on the clothes he had brought 
 from the East ? 
 
 He felt foolish because he could not decide in- 
 stantly, and angry with humanity that such a trivial 
 thing should be of importance ; but it was of impor- 
 tance, and he knew it. Would the people prefer that 
 their representative should dress as they dressed ; or 
 that he should look on an equality with the people who 
 were coming ?
 
 404 JERR Y. 
 
 He spent much thought on it, at last deciding in 
 favor of his usual costume : there was a fitness in it 
 to the environment that would be missing entirely in 
 his tailor-made clothes. He dressed most carefully, 
 with an unacknowledged feeling that he would like to 
 look well in Isabel Greg's eyes, and wondered if she 
 would recognize him in this Western guise. Pshaw ! 
 if she did or did not, what matter ? she would stay 
 at Paul Henley's house, so that he could see nothing 
 of her what matter how he looked ? Besides, she 
 would have eyes for her brother only, whom she had 
 not seen in a great length of time. So he hurried 
 down to the station, being a little late, to find the town 
 waiting and fuming over the delay in Eureka. The 
 train had been heard and seen to stop in Eureka, at 
 least twenty minutes before Jerry joined the waiting 
 town. 
 
 Dan Burk and Dave Morris had gone over there, 
 the people said, to see that things were properly man- 
 aged, and the train properly welcomed. Twenty min- 
 utes ago the train had stopped, and since then there 
 had been no sign of its moving on ; and yet there 
 was nothing to keep them in Eureka. 
 
 Jerry listened, but made no comment, even though 
 he was surprised : he had expected them to pause in 
 Eureka simply because it was Eureka, but only for 
 five or ten minutes ! 
 
 Gradually the grumbling grew louder and more im- 
 patient, as through strained eyes the people watched 
 the train, announcing at short intervals that the smoke 
 from the engine was rapidly lessening. Had any ac- 
 cident happened ? 
 
 Thirty minutes passed, and many more in their 
 wake, when a voice in the rear of the crowd said in a 
 smothered tone 
 
 "Hullo!" 
 
 The murmurs had been loud and continuous, and 
 this exclamation was scarcely above a whisper, yet
 
 JERRY. 405 
 
 every man, woman, and child turned, for there was 
 something in the tone that defied indifference. 
 
 Jerry drew a sharp breath between his teeth : driv- 
 ing by as rapidly as the road would permit, was Paul 
 Henley with a large wagon full of ladies going to the 
 doctor's house, and behind him another wagon full 
 of gentlemen, and driven by Greg ! 
 
 Jerry's heart seemed to stop its beating : Paul had 
 outwitted him ! 
 
 It was a stupidly simple plot ; so stupidly simple 
 that Jerry had not suspected it ; and now, though he 
 understood it all in a moment, he dared not act on his 
 intuitions. These people could not understand any- 
 thing but a plainly demonstrated fact ; and if he 
 showed that he understood with so little explanation 
 as two wagons full of people, the town would accuse 
 him of being in the plot to give Mr. Henley all the 
 great guests. He must wait always as they did, and 
 understand as they did when ill was about to befall 
 them ; but good fortune he could predict as far 
 ahead as he pleased, and be esteemed a prophet ! 
 
 The people watched until the wagons stopped and 
 the travelers were lost to sight in the house, then 
 once more they turned their attention to the train, over 
 which only the thinnest cloud of smoke was visible : 
 what did it mean ? 
 
 Jerry knew, and as the murmurs grew loud about 
 him, he cursed himself bitterly under his breath ; 
 cursed himself as the blindest of fools, and Paul as the 
 most wily of villains. 
 
 He could read it as plainly as a book spread open 
 before him : two days ago Greg had gone to meet his 
 mother and sister across the divide ; and Paul had 
 gone with him to meet his guests ! And now the 
 train had stopped in Eureka, and Paul had driven 
 over a wagon full of ladies, and Greg a wagon full of 
 gentlemen to Paul Henley's house : had the rest of 
 the excursionists taken up their abode in Eureka ? 
 
 The surmise struck him like a blow, and with it
 
 46 JERR y. 
 
 came the memory that the railway company had most 
 of its interests centered in Eureka. They owned all 
 the land and houses in Eureka, of course it was to 
 their interest that Eureka should advance. Had all 
 stopped there ? 
 
 Louder and more discontented grew the words 
 about him ; the people were becoming more and more 
 angry ; it was cold and uncomfortable even under the 
 wonderful shed, and the waiting crowd were hungry. 
 But not even one of the advance guard who had gone 
 to meet the train had come back ; nothing had hap- 
 pened since the thrill that went through the populace 
 when the whistle of the engine was first heard, and 
 now they were weary. 
 
 Curses were growing plentiful, and sarcastic re- 
 marks as to great public festivities, when a cloud of 
 smoke was seen to issue from the engine, and a sound 
 like a faint shout was borne on the air ! 
 
 " She's a-comin' ! " went from lip to lip, and a 
 breathless, strained silence ensued : surely the train 
 was in motion, very slow on account of the insecure 
 track, but still it was moving ! Once more the excite- 
 ment rose to fever heat, and the people ceased their 
 cursing and grumbling, and every eye watched 
 eagerly. 
 
 Every eye save Jerry's. 
 
 He knew that the day and its triumph had been 
 stolen from him ; he knew that the end he worked for 
 would never be accomplished through any good he 
 would reap from this excursion : Paul Henley had 
 undermined him. He was certain of this fact, but to 
 what extent Paul had cheated him he could not know 
 until the train arrived. 
 
 How many had gone with Paul did not matter so 
 much, as the standing of the men ; the people in 
 Burden's knew the names of all these magnates who 
 were coming, and from the new settlers, many of them 
 sent out by these great Directors, they had gathered 
 some knowledge of the moneyed worth and standing
 
 JERR Y. 407 
 
 of these men, and had contested as to the entertain- 
 ing of them ; a man's millions making him great or 
 small. 
 
 More than once Jerry had turned away from the 
 boasting of the Durdenites over the man " who was 
 agoin' to eat with them !" And now he knew that all 
 these triumphs were gone hopelessly : he knew that 
 all the great men had gone to Paul Henley's ; and 
 what would be the upshot ? 
 
 Slowly the train came on, crawling like a great 
 worm, the more slowly when it felt the upward grade 
 as it neared Durden's, and the excitement had time to 
 grow intense : Jerry caught it, and his fears added to 
 it made him angry, what would the result be ? 
 
 Nearer and nearer ; the buzz of excitement grow- 
 ing into a cheer as the engine gave a last scream and 
 stopped. 
 
 Instinctively Jerry turned and looked toward the 
 doctor's house what made him he could not tell, but 
 he turned back quickly with a smothered oath, for on 
 the distant piazza, he could distinguish Paul and his 
 guests watching the arrival ! 
 
 "I'm blessed if it aint plum empty!" and Jerry, 
 hurried on by the crowd that hustled and pressed the 
 more eagerly after this exclamation, found himself 
 pushed into the first car, that but for one or two men, 
 well-known inhabitants of Durden's, was empty ! 
 
 For a moment the crowd paused, too surprised to 
 ask any questions ; then pushed on toward the next 
 car, only to find it locked and a guard at the door. 
 
 " The provision car, sir," he said, touching his hat 
 respectfully to Mr. Henshaw, who, like Jerry, had 
 been hurried along by the eagerness of the crowd, " to 
 go back to the other town, sir," the guard went on, 
 " Mr. Henley has a lunch-room there, sir, for the 
 gentlemen." 
 
 Mr. Henshaw looked at Jerry in mute wonder, and 
 the people crowded nearer to hear. 
 
 " It must be a mistake," Jerry said quickly ; " Mr.
 
 48 JERR Y. 
 
 Henley does not know that preparations have been 
 made in this town to entertain all the guests." 
 
 " I have it in writing, sir," now addressing Jerry, 
 and handing him a card, " as soon as the back cars 
 are emptied the train is to push back to Eureka, and 
 unload the provision car there, sir," again touching his 
 hat ; " this is Mr. Henley's card, sir, and Mr. Redwood 
 wrote the orders on it." 
 
 Burden's stood open-mouthed, and Jerry felt as if 
 he were in a dream ! 
 
 " This provision car belongs to Mr. Henley's guests, 
 then ? " he asked as calmly as possible. 
 
 " No, sir, to the directors, all the directors, sir ; 
 they are to have rooms in Eureka, and their meals to 
 be provided for them at an eating-room of Mr. Hen- 
 ley's, sir." 
 
 " And these other people whom you have brought 
 here," Jerry went on, striving to steady his voice that 
 was shaken sorely with anger, " who are they ? " 
 
 The guard shrugged his shoulders. 
 
 " Paying passengers," he answered, almost con- 
 temptuously, " people who wanted a cheap trip." 
 
 Jerry turned away ; he had been foolish to push 
 this explanation that was now almost irretrievable, 
 and he could only hope that the people had not under- 
 stood it. 
 
 He could not afford to stop and think now, and he 
 pushed his way hastily through the questioning crowd to 
 the last cars, that were disgorging rapidly a motley, 
 tawdry crowd of men, women, and children ; flashy, 
 loud-talking creatures that even to Jerry's untutored 
 eyes seemed far below the inhabitants of Burden's. 
 Involuntarily he recoiled for a moment, and asked 
 sharply for Ban Burk and Bave Morris ; they should 
 be there to help him ; but they could not be found, 
 and one of the men who had gone to meet the train 
 explained that Mr. Henley had asked them to stay 
 and see after the strangers who had stopped in Eu- 
 reka.
 
 JERR Y. 409 
 
 There was a vow of vengeance uttered under Jerry's 
 breath, then he turned manfully to his task. He had 
 expected people like these to stop in Eureka, and be 
 fed from the lunch-room ; and only that morning had 
 been anxious lest this class should prove more attract- 
 ive to the Durden's people, and so entice them away 
 to the aiding and abetting of this new scheme of Paul's. 
 Now things were completely reversed, and all his plans 
 with them. 
 
 Hurriedly these thoughts streamed through his 
 heated brain, as calling up man after man of those 
 who had promised to provide for the visitors, he par- 
 celled off to each his guests. Rapidly the crowd 
 dwindled, and the spirits of the Durdenites seemed 
 to rise as they led away the strangers to be fed and 
 warmed ; and Jerry, watching and listening, had a 
 faint hope that Durden's would be satisfied, and not 
 fully realize the slight put upon her. 
 
 Very weary he was when he reached Mrs. Milton's 
 with the three men she had agreed to receive ; very 
 weary, and possessed by an undying hatred and anger. 
 An honorable death by shooting was far too good for 
 Paul : he would ruin him first ; would cause him to 
 waste his substance then he would stand and watch 
 his life fade into a colorless failure ! 
 
 If only he could compass this. 
 
 It was one o'clock, late for dinner in Durden's, and 
 Mrs. Milton was more brusque in her ways than usual, 
 in order to show that she was perfectly at her ease 
 with these " pulin' town folks." 
 
 " An* har's some writin' as come fur youuns, Jerry 
 Wilkerson," she said, putting down by his plate a 
 carelessly folded note, " Jim Short he brung it from 
 Paul Henley's house "; then with a chuckle that was 
 more angry than amused, " Jim he 'Hows thet Paul 
 Henley's done crawled youuns log to-day," she said. 
 
 Jerry's eyes flashed, and the color surged up into 
 his face; but it would not do to contest Mrs. Milton's 
 words, especially before these strangers ; and an
 
 410 JERRY. 
 
 effort at explanation would be ruination. Paul had 
 over-reached him, and the more clear he made it to 
 the people, the higher would be their respect for 
 Paul, and the more faith they would have in him. 
 He knew full well that the first claim he had on their 
 regard was the fact that he had outwitted both the 
 doctor and Paul, and now his safety lay in not acknowl- 
 edging himself as worsted ; so he answered with a 
 laugh : 
 
 " My log is a slippery log, Mrs. Milton." 
 
 " Thet's so ! " came heartily from the old woman, 
 " an' I tole Jim Short thet Paul Henley'd better 
 scratch mighty easy roun' you, 'cause thar worn't 
 no sicher thing as raisin' dust ernough to make you 
 shoot crooked : but keep the wittles a-stirrin', boys," 
 she went on, more hospitably than she had done before, 
 " I guess you all is rale honggry." 
 
 Then Jerry opened his note : a little scrap of paper 
 from Mr. Redwood, who stood in Mr. Greg's place as 
 chief officer of the expedition, telling Jerry that there 
 would be a supper that night at the lunch-room in 
 Eureka, to which he was most cordially invited; and 
 that the next day the " Directors " would take great 
 pleasure in going over the mines and the towns. 
 
 They had reversed the order of things, and intended 
 entertaining him ! 
 
 And he realized to the fullest extent that he stood 
 in a most difficult and dangerous position. 
 
 " Did Jim say there was any answer to this, Mrs. 
 Milton? " he asked. 
 
 " Nary," emphatically. " Jim's a plum fool any 
 how." 
 
 So Jerry returned to his dinner, and to the enter- 
 taining of these three nondescript guests who had 
 fallen to Mrs. Milton's share, while his mind followed 
 an undercurrent of reasoning. 
 
 If he went to this supper from which the people 
 were shut out, what would the people say ? if he re- 
 fused to go, what could not Paul say ? Either way he
 
 JERRY. 411 
 
 was sure to be misjudged, for Paul would be ready to 
 give either side reasons and motives unfavorable to 
 him. He thought diligently while he talked to the 
 men and to Mrs. Milton, who in her various journeys 
 from the fireplace to the table made many telling 
 remarks on the place and people ; but she was stanch 
 to Burden's, and told the most entrancing stories of 
 the fortunes that had been made, and that could be 
 made still. 
 
 " Sakes-alive, when 'Lije Milton come har, I'll be 
 drat if he hed a livin' thing ceppen the cloze on his 
 hisn's back ; an' when 'Lije Milton were buried he 
 owned the whole thing, he did," putting down some 
 biscuits that were golden-green with soda. 
 
 The men looked at each other, and then at Jerry 
 incredulously, so that Jerry added : 
 
 " Yes, and the town bought the mine from Mrs. 
 Milton," and the men rose from the table much .im- 
 pressed, and Mrs. Milton swore a secret oath that she 
 would stand by Jerry as long as she could " worry out 
 one breath." 
 
 One strong adherent, and Jerry would need many. 
 Still undecided as to the supper, he took the men out 
 after dinner to where he had agreed to meet several 
 householders, who would assist him in showing the 
 guests the wonders of the mine, and the advantages 
 of the town. They met many groups on the road 
 who joined them, until quite a crowd took their way 
 to the meeting-place. But there he found neither 
 Dan Burk nor Dave Morris, nor was Mr. Henshaw 
 anywhere to be seen. Added to this it was cold, and 
 had clouded up as if for another snow-fall ; and 
 Jerry's own spirit being at a low ebb, there was not 
 much enthusiasm to spare. 
 
 But Jerry did not falter ; he could not falter ; he had 
 been obliged to change the base of his operations 
 entirely, and from intending to push and advance the 
 interests of Durclen's, he had to retreat to the position 
 of saving himself and his venture.
 
 4I 2 JERRY. 
 
 So quietly, so cleverly the thing had been done, that 
 he had scarcely had time to realize it ; and the only 
 hope left him was to impress everybody with his past 
 successes, and the future of the place. 
 
 Instead of taking the grandees about, and strength- 
 ening his position in the eyes of the people by the 
 way in which these great men listened to him ; and 
 instead of securing himself in the estimation of the 
 stockholders by the sight of his power in the town, he 
 was reduced to the necessity of keeping this motley 
 mob in order, and also in a good humor, that the 
 Burden's people might be deceived into esteeming 
 these creatures as guests who were worth pleasing, 
 and to think of themselves as gaining importance by 
 entertaining them. 
 
 This was necessary for to-day, and to-morrow he 
 would take the real guests about, and have all Dur- 
 den^ out to escort them ; if only he could tide over 
 this one bewildering day he hoped that the occasion 
 might yet be retrieved. 
 
 And after ? 
 
 He put his hand back on his pistol for comfort, as 
 he led the way over the carefully prepared pathway 
 that he had intended should be trod first by the great 
 directors ! Alas ! the rabble tramped over it care- 
 lessly and unappreciatingly, and Jerry thought with 
 much impatience how impossible it would be for him 
 to repair it before the next day ! The whole thing 
 seemed like a nightmare that he could not shake off ; 
 why could not he rise and denounce the whole trans- 
 action ; why could not he explain the whole affair, 
 and demonstrate the great mistake that had been 
 made ; explain to whom ? Only to himself could the 
 explanation be made, and the mistake be demonstrated. 
 Mr. Henshaw had acquiesced in the whole arrange- 
 ment, though somewhat surprised, and had been seen 
 to go from the car-shed to Paul Henley's, where 
 doubtlessly he took his lunch. Dan Burk and Dave 
 Morris had never returned from Eureka ; Greg's
 
 JERRY. 413 
 
 mother and sister were Paul Henley's guests : so who 
 was there to listen to his explanation, or to agree that 
 he had been badly treated, when he was the only dis- 
 satisfied person ? All he could do was to cover as 
 well as possible his defeat, and bide his time. 
 
 At last his task was finished : the mine had been 
 explained and explored, the town talked about glow- 
 ingly ; then, a light snow beginning to fall, the people 
 hurried off in groups, and Mrs. Milton's three guests 
 having gone to Eureka to look at that mine, Jerry felt 
 at last that he was free to examine his position arid 
 arrange his plans. 
 
 Stock-still in front of his fire, with his hands in his 
 pockets, and his eyes fixed on the dancing flames : 
 feeling too much to rest or to think connectedly ; only 
 realizing a hatred for Paul, and a desire for revenge 
 that seemed almost to consume him : while a cold 
 resentment against all humanity took possession of 
 him. 
 
 Over this foundation of feeling a confused cloud of 
 ideas floated : how had Greg explained his absence 
 to Mrs. Greg and Isabel ? in what light had Paul 
 represented him to these people ? how would he be 
 received that night, and should he go ? 
 
 Over and over again these thoughts drifted through 
 his mind ; over and over again he decided in one 
 way, only to change to the opposite extreme. 
 
 Try as he would, he could not realize his position ; 
 he could not control the feeling that the whole fabric 
 was melting before his eyes as suddenly as it had 
 sprung up : there was magic in the whole thing, 
 magic that would destroy him ! He was doomed he 
 had taken the wrong turn that lies in every path the 
 one wrong turn which there is no recovering, and 
 now he seemed to be traveling fast away from all 
 success. 
 
 Whichever course he took now could be miscon- 
 strued, and would be misconstrued : but he must 
 decide on something, and take a firm hold somewhere ;
 
 4 r 4 JERRY. 
 
 to drift would be inevitable ruin. He might make a 
 mistake in his action, still it would be action ; and he 
 must act if action meant financial suicide. He must 
 play Paul's game, and stop at nothing ; let no tool 
 nor thing be too low for use ; and if he found that he 
 could not hurt Paul in any more lasting way, he would 
 kill him. And he laughed bitterly at the thought that 
 death would not last as a punishment for Paul Henley ! 
 If there were any judgment or punishment hereafter, 
 death should take Paul Henley to both : the doctor's 
 love should shield him no longer. 
 
 Then the door opened and Greg came in. 
 
 " Not ready yet ? " he began with a gayety that had 
 something of nervousness in it ; " the supper will be 
 early so that we can sit long," he went on, rubbing 
 his hands and holding them to the fire, "and of course 
 you are coming." 
 
 " Yes," Jerry answered quietly, rising and standing 
 in front of the fire, with his hands behind him, " but 
 I will not change my clothes. How is your mother ? " 
 
 " Quite well, thank you, and wishes to see you very 
 much ; so does Isabel, and Miss Henley asked after 
 you most especially." 
 
 " They are very kind ; I hope I shall see them to- 
 morrow. Are you ready to go to Eureka now ? " 
 
 The color flashed hotly into Greg's face. 
 
 " Not immediately," he answered hesitatingly : " I 
 told my mother I should stop there a moment on my 
 way over." 
 
 "And will go over in Henley's wagon," Jerry added 
 in a matter-of-course way ; then looking at his pistols 
 carefully before putting them in his belt, he asked, 
 " How are your visitors impressed with Burden's ? " 
 
 " They seem to be immensely surprised," Greg 
 answered, " especially at the government of the town ; 
 it seems that they did not believe what the papers 
 said about us." 
 
 " I suppose it seems rather foolish to them," Jerry 
 said ; "rather whimsical."
 
 JERRY. 415 
 
 " Well, yes," doubtfully, " rather impracticable for 
 a speculation, they say ; but I think they scarcely 
 understand it yet." 
 
 " And would not, probably, after a week's talk," 
 laughing. " To a capitalist and a speculator the scheme 
 does not look so captivating as it doesJio the class I 
 have been entertaining to-day : people looking down, 
 and people looking up can not of course get the same 
 view of a thing ; and when I began, I was one of 
 those who looked up." 
 
 " But now you look down, so can agree with the 
 capitalists," Greg suggested. 
 
 " Do they propose to try any changes ? " and in- 
 voluntarily Jerry's voice sharpened. 
 
 " No, no ; they can not, you know ; but I believe 
 they have some suggestions to offer." 
 
 " To-night ? " tersely. 
 
 " No, to-morrow ; they intend to enjoy themselves 
 to-night, and talk and explore to-morrow ; there is to 
 be a public meeting in Eureka, and speeches." 
 
 " In Eureka?" Jerry asked quietly, although for a 
 moment the ground seemed to slip from under his 
 feet. 
 
 "Yes, the railway men, you know ; they bought all 
 the land at the doctor's suggestion, you remember ; 
 and now they are very anxious that the land values 
 should rise, and think this is a good opportunity to 
 capture settlers." 
 
 "And it is," Jerry answered, looking down into the 
 fire, while there seemed a singing in his ears. 
 
 " And to-morrow Henshaw goes with Mills to in- 
 spect the Eureka Mine: of course the growth of one 
 town will react on the other," he went on as if to com- 
 fort Jerry, " a sort of double-barreled affair that will 
 help all." 
 
 "And I suppose I shall have to speak," Jerry said. 
 
 " Of course," quickly, " I shall call on you myself." 
 
 Jerry laughed. 
 
 " Scarcely," he said ; " I do not think that would
 
 4i 6 JERRY. 
 
 quite do," then drawing a heavy pea-jacket over his 
 flannel shirt, and taking up his hat, he turned to the 
 door; " of course I shall be called on to render an ac- 
 count, and I shall do it: but now we must go," and he 
 led the way from the room. 
 
 At the foot o_f the steep, blind descent of the stair- 
 way, Mrs. Milton opened a door and let a stream of 
 light out on them. 
 
 " I wants to set eyes on you, Jerry Wilkerson," she 
 said, " 'cause you looks rale jimpsey in sto' cloze, you 
 do ; come in, come in." 
 
 Jerry laughed. 
 
 " I did not put on my store clothes, Mrs. Milton," he 
 said ; " I prefer to look like a Burden's man," stepping 
 into the light. 
 
 " Great-day-in-the-mornin' ! " Then Mrs. Milton 
 stood in silent disappointment. 
 
 " You are the best friend I have in the world, Mrs. 
 Milton," and Jerry's eyes seemed to glow as he laid 
 his hand on the old woman's shoulder, " and what is 
 good enough for you, is good enough for any one." 
 
 " An' nothin' but youuns' ole blue shirt an' jeans 
 breeches Golly ! " 
 
 "A brand-new shirt," Jerry answered, "and of the 
 very best flannel, and my pistols are cleaned and my 
 boots freshly greased to keep the wet out; what more 
 should a man want ? " 
 
 Mrs. Milton turned away. 
 
 " You is a good figger of a man, Jerry Wilkerson, 
 whatever youuns' cloze is," she said slowly, "an'allers 
 looks rale nice ; but them thar sto' cloze does look 
 pisen fine, you bet : an' Mr. Greg," scanning him over 
 the top of her glasses, " looks a rale buster, he do," 
 and without more words she ushered them out of the 
 door, closing it after them. 
 
 " She is an extraordinary character," Greg said 
 laughing. 
 
 " The most extraordinary I ever met," Jerry as- 
 sented, " she is perfectly true and honest."
 
 JERRY. 417 
 
 " Whew-w-w ! " Greg whistled. " You are hard on 
 humanity." 
 
 " Only another case of people looking from differ- 
 ent standpoints," Jerry answered. 
 
 Then they plodded on in silence for a time. 
 
 " It will be deucedly cold by morning," Greg said, 
 at length, almost repenting the friendliness that had 
 caused him to come and warn Jerry of the plans on 
 foot, so that he would be somewhat prepared. Jerry 
 had not seemed surprised, nor in the least thankful to 
 him for the trouble he had taken, nor did he seem 
 much upset by the day's doings; indeed, Greg felt de- 
 frauded of the sympathy that he had been spending 
 on Jerry all day. 
 
 " And the snow is increasing every moment," Jerry 
 answered ; " if the worst comes, we shall have to illu- 
 minate one of the mines and have the meeting there; 
 it will be warm, and have plenty of echo, so that their 
 words can come back again and again, and so impress 
 themselves on our minds"; then suddenly, "Why did 
 not your father come ? " 
 
 " My father ? " Greg repeated in some surprise; "he 
 could not leave his business." 
 
 "And Mr. Glendale ?" mentioning the name of his 
 own broker, who was also a director of the railway, 
 "he could not leave his business either?" 
 
 " I suppose not, though I have not asked ; " then 
 Greg turned down the road to Paul Henley's, and 
 Jerry went on to Eureka. 
 
 It had not occurred to Jerry before that the ab- 
 sence of these two men might mean something more 
 than accident; but now, although he did not know that 
 Glendale was Henley's adviser also, the fact of both 
 staying away seemed ominous. They were the only 
 directors who were in any way bound to him, and 
 knowing that there were possible disagreements ahead, 
 they felt that in Burden's they would have to take 
 sides, while in New York they could remain neutral. 
 It was a hard conclusion to come to, and it was harder
 
 41 8 JERRY. 
 
 still to bear, but fortunately for Jerry it brought its 
 own strength in the shape of anger; a strength that 
 upheld him as no rest nor sympathy could have done. 
 
 So they were to have a public meeting in Eureka; 
 and the thing he had looked on as his greatest tri- 
 umph, the compelling the company to buy the lots in 
 Eureka in order to save what they had invested there 
 already, this act that had been more than anything 
 else the badge of his success, this had turned out to 
 be the salvation of the rival town. 
 
 At the time of the transaction he had realized that 
 this would be the case, but not so soon as this. It 
 was a cruel misfortune that it should come now, and 
 through the machinations of Paul Henley. And yet, 
 was it any more than he had done to Eureka ? He 
 walked a little faster. 
 
 He had been working for the public good when he 
 did that; his motive had been the raising and better- 
 ing of a whole class ! 
 
 He laughed a little as he thought this, a scornful, 
 ill-sounding laugh: what a complete fool he had been ! 
 The only difference between him and Paul Henley 
 was that Paul had had sense enough to have but one 
 end in view the destruction of an enemy; while he, 
 though thirsting for this same thing, had covered it 
 over with a philanthropic cloak. He had not realized 
 his hypocrisy at the time, perhaps, but this proved 
 him only the greater fool. And now Paul was reap- 
 ing the benefit of his unscrupulous honesty in working 
 openly and unblushingly for a low end. The people 
 could understand him and his scheme, and were forced 
 into belief in him by the unveiled selfishness of his 
 motives. All along he had known that Paul laughed 
 at his venture, and the laws of the town that held these 
 men to a decent way of living, and took care of them 
 and their money by force. 
 
 And well might Paul laugh: laugh at a man who, 
 with the experience of generations before him to show 
 and prove the folly of forcing people into a right and
 
 JERRY. 419 
 
 just way of doing things, still made the experiment. 
 Old Joe, even, had seen his folly. The Almighty 
 Himself had left humanity free for good or ill ! 
 
 The world would grumble at its condition always 
 always it would cry frantically for honesty and reform; 
 but it had only laughter for the honest man and woe 
 for the reformer. All that the world wanted was 
 money, and only the poor found the times evil : it 
 was only the poor who could not hold their place in 
 the battle of life ; and no man could help them ; 
 weakness must fall. 
 
 And yet Almighty Strength gave itself to death for 
 the weak. He looked up to the sullen sky if only 
 he had been strong enough for that kind of success. 
 
 And the doctor ? Jerry paused a moment in his 
 going ; had the doctor believed in that grand atone- 
 ment of love, the doctor whose whole life had been 
 spent in trying to strike a balance of good works 
 against his sins ? 
 
 If only this man had given him a little love, how 
 his life had been glorified ! 
 
 Even now it was not too late for him to make a 
 grand sacrifice ? 
 
 He walked on slowly: suddenly he turned into the 
 one muddy street of Eureka, and stopped to take in 
 the novelty of its appearance. 
 
 In front of every house up and down the road were 
 hung lanterns, making quite an illumination, and in 
 front of Dave Morris's old shop there was a long row 
 of them ; and boards laid down before the door ; 
 and an awning stretched overhead ! 
 
 Jerry walked down to the shop, and found that 
 inside things were as different as possible from the 
 time when, in his youthful scorn and folly, he had 
 knocked down Dave Morris. It had not been a year 
 yet, since he struck that first blow of his career. 
 
 Dan Burk and Dave Morris were both in the shop, 
 and Mrs. Burk, in all the finery she could buy or bor- 
 row in both towns, was sailing importantly, but con-
 
 420 JERRY. 
 
 descendingly, about a table spread at the far end of 
 the room. There were one or two women, faint copies 
 of Mrs. Burk, who followed her obediently: and, in 
 blase and amused silence, the cook brought from New 
 York was carving at a side-table ; while a group of 
 well-dressed imported waiters stood laughing near the 
 stove. 
 
 And Jerry, in his rough dress, walked in unheeded 
 by them. Dave Morris and Dan Burk were charged 
 with the admitting of people, and now they hurried 
 forward. 
 
 " Good-evenin', Mr. Wilkerson," looking anxiously 
 in his cold face, for as yet they had not won their way 
 with the new party sufficiently to be regardless of the 
 censure of the old; "a paper, Mr. Wilkerson, and a 
 chair ? " and Jerry, accepting both things, sat down 
 near a lamp. 
 
 The imported servants looked at him curiously ; 
 but he had given Dan Burk his coat and his hat with 
 the air of a master, and wisely surmising that he was 
 not made by his clothes, their mirth subsided into 
 respectful silence. 
 
 Jerry opened the paper that already was rather 
 soiled, and behind its protecting pages watched, and 
 listened, and drew his conclusions. 
 
 Paul had worked well; for as the conversation of 
 the waiters and the women drifted to him, and as he 
 listened to the talk of a group of natives eating at the 
 lunch counter near the door, and caught the remarks 
 from Burk and Morris, he could hear " Mr. Henley " 
 referred to as an authority for everything: a stranger 
 would have thought Paul the great man of the towns; 
 and the anger and revenge that out in the darkness 
 he had subdued a little, seemed to take fresh hold on 
 him, and to grow more quiet and more determined 
 within him: it seemed now to reveal itself as the sub- 
 stratum of his whole being, over which ail lighter 
 emotions passed like the shadows of the clouds over 
 the plain !
 
 JERRY. 421 
 
 It would never leave him, this hatred, it should lie 
 still for a while yet, but it should grow and strengthen 
 by day and by night until the right time should come. 
 His thoughts and emotions as he walked over had 
 been only another phase of his lunacy. 
 
 There was a sound of wheels and of laughter out- 
 side, then an influx of men in every shape and size of 
 overcoat and wrap that could be thought of, and out 
 of the crowd Greg approached Jerry. 
 
 " Here you are," he said heartily, "safe out of this 
 beastly weather;" then to the party, who were most of 
 them out of their wrappings by this time "Here is 
 Mr. Wilkerson, Mr. Redwood; of course you know 
 him, Granger, and you, Van Dusen," and Jerry's hand 
 was shaken by one man after another, and he was 
 looked at from head to foot in a well-bred way. This 
 the Wilkerson, the exceedingly gentlemanly young 
 man they remembered in New York ? What possessed 
 him to clothe himself in this way ? 
 
 Then Paul came forward, and a bow and a few 
 words of greeting passed between them: Jerry's hatred 
 must keep: and Paul's role was to make these people 
 believe Jerry to be a rash, hot-headed philanthropist ; 
 and he the much-enduring friend whose advice and 
 warnings had been scoffed at and disregarded: so 
 their greeting was strictly unremarkable. 
 
 It seemed like a dream, to Jerry; a bad dream from 
 which he could not waken: all the talk seemed to be 
 against him, yet in a covert fashion that he could not 
 take hold of: he talked busily enough himself, and 
 was the recipient of many toasts and many fine 
 speeches, so that the people and the waiters standing 
 about looked on him with very different eyes from 
 what they had done when the semi-royal feast eaten 
 in public began. Yet under all he detected with 
 unerring instinct an effort to keep him in a good 
 humor: he was an amiable visionary who had no harm 
 in him, and who had succeeded after a manner, but 
 whose success could not last.
 
 422 JERRY. 
 
 But Jerry made no sign : he would " bide his 
 time " wait until the moment came when his blow 
 would crush some thing or person then he would 
 strike strike if the same blow destroyed himself. 
 
 He had ruined Eureka once, why not again ? He 
 had brought these men to terms once, why not again ? 
 No reason that he could see, save one, that sickened 
 him with dread of failure ; in his first struggle he had 
 had a noble foe to deal with ; now, and his blood tin- 
 gled as he remembered who opposed him now ! 
 
 And while he talked and listened he found himself 
 revolving in an idle fashion the question whether it 
 would be wiser to fight Paul with Paul's own weapons 
 " fight the devil with fire "; but surely this would give 
 the devil the advantage to fight him with his own 
 weapons ; and yet to fight a lie .with truth seemed a 
 losing thing. If he had but stood to the first princi- 
 ples he had laid down for his life, how idle this pres- 
 ent strife would have seemed to him ! How pityingly 
 he would have looked down on the fray, and the poor 
 squabblers wasting lives and souls on the idle dross of 
 gain ! What difference if one or the other won ? a 
 little while and their graves would lie rain-washed 
 and forgotten out there on the hill-side. 
 
 " Eureka is bound to succeed ! " and Paul put his 
 glass down with a clash. 
 
 "Of course," Mr. Redwood answered, tucking his 
 napkin more carefully under his chin, " too many cap- 
 italists own land here for it to fail ; we have only been 
 waiting on the railway, knowing there was no need 
 for any haste." 
 
 Jerry rallied his thoughts as Greg answered 
 quickly 
 
 " And Burden's is a success." 
 
 " Except that damned stream," Van Dusen an- 
 swered, " it makes everything so confoundedly un- 
 safe." 
 
 " What do you say, Mr. Henshaw ? " and Paul held 
 his glass up to the light.
 
 JERRY. 423 
 
 Mr. Henshaw cleared his throat, and glanced at 
 Jerry. " The dam is safe now," he said. 
 
 " And has been for more than twenty-five years," 
 Jerry added. 
 
 " But the twenty-sixth might smash it," and Gran- 
 ger shook his head gravely. 
 
 " I am willing to risk it," Greg struck in sharply, 
 seeing some of the natives drawing near and listen- 
 ing intently. 
 
 Paul laughed lightly. 
 
 " So you may be, Greg," he said, " for you have no 
 one dependent on you ; neither has Wilkerson ; be- 
 sides," looking Jerry straight in the face, then beyond 
 him to the natives who were listening, " besides Wil- 
 kerson has enough to carry him over any failure." 
 
 " Of course," Van Dusen answered, innocent of the 
 part he was playing, " every man on Wall Street knows 
 that Wilkerson can afford to play with dangerous in- 
 vestments, but I have no fortune, and I have a wife 
 and four children." 
 
 " I am sorry for you," Jerry said drily, filling his 
 glass, while a laugh ran round the table ; " I have only 
 been imprudent enough to invest all that Mr. Gilliam 
 left me in the interest of his town, Burden's," return- 
 ing Paul's look, " and with Burden's I stand or 
 fall." 
 
 There was a little sound from the shop as of ap- 
 plause, while Greg clapped his hands openly, and the 
 color rushed into Paul's face. 
 
 " By the way," and Paul put down his knife and 
 fork, " we are old friends enough for a home ques- 
 tion, how much did old Gilliam leave you anyhow ? " 
 
 " Enough," Jerry answered, while he skillfully jointed 
 the shapelessly fat ducks put down before him, " to 
 run Burden's stock up above par in the market, and 
 to keep it there," and his eyes flashed dangerously. 
 
 " And where did he get it ? " Paul went on, feeling 
 safe in the crowd, and too angry to restrain his venom. 
 
 t Jerry's face grew very white in the moment's silence 
 
 ' *
 
 4 2 4 JERRY, 
 
 that followed Paul's words, but his voice was steady 
 enough as he answered slowly : 
 
 " He did not tell me, nor any living man : the secret 
 of Joe Gilliam's find died with him," and Jerry paused 
 in his carving to lay his pistols on the table. 
 
 " He refused to tell it even on his death-bed," Greg 
 said, looking angrily in Paul's face, " for I was there 
 and heard him." 
 
 Then a silence fell on the company that was not 
 comfortable, until Van Dusen said with an uneasiness 
 born as much of the look of Jerry's pistols as of Jer- 
 ry as he silently and ruthlessly dissected the tender 
 round ducks, as of the subject he was reintroducing : 
 
 " But that dam ? " 
 
 " Perfectly safe," Greg answered firmly ; then went 
 on to tell the story of old Burden who had first turned 
 the stream from its course ; a story well known to all 
 present, as it had been most carefully published in the 
 pamphlet advertising the place, but which now was 
 listened to with undivided interest, while the com- 
 pany, each in the silence of his own heart, tried to 
 decide whether Jerry had pulled out his pistols as a 
 warning to Paul, or because they made his belt too 
 tight as the feast progressed. They had heard many 
 well-authenticated stories of the Western mode of 
 dealing with the slightest impertinence, and they were 
 uneasy lest they should be treated to a specimen. 
 Henley had been confoundedly prying, and Wilker- 
 son was not a person who looked entirely safe ; and 
 he was not drinking much. 
 
 Meanwhile they listened to Greg's old story, mak- 
 ing vague comments, and looking steadfastly away 
 from the daintily mounted pistols that seemed to grow 
 larger as they lay on the table-cloth. And when Greg 
 finished, Mr. Henshaw, who was accustomed to see- 
 ing every man in the town armed always, and who did 
 not take in the situation, went into a long disquisition 
 on the present safety of the dam, and the work that 
 had been put on it to make it perfectly secure. Then
 
 JERRY. 425 
 
 some one followed with a story of some recent flood, 
 and the talk floated away from all dangerous topics : 
 and the wine flowed freely, and the stories grew more 
 witty and less decent, and songs from the younger 
 men waked up the nearest inhabitants ; and in the 
 midst of it Jerry left, taking his ghastly pistols, judg- 
 ing rightly that no one could harm him now. 
 
 And through the crowd gathered about the door 
 he found a respectful path opened, and the next 
 day everybody knew that " Mr. Wilkerson had 
 struck up to Burden's, and hadn't drunk but mighty 
 little." 
 
 Steadily on through the dreary night ; tramping 
 heedlessly through mud and slush, breaking with 
 sharp cracking the ice formed since nightfall on the 
 roadway pools ; unconscious of the driving snow, and 
 the wind that cut like a knife ; regardless of every- 
 thing save the one great hatred ; grasping with his 
 fevered hands the pistols in his jacket pockets until 
 the cold metal grew warm, and seemed almost to 
 answer to his grasp. The one mad longing to crush 
 and strangle the life and beauty out of the false face 
 that had mocked him that night: he had read a book 
 once, where a man after long waiting strangles his 
 enemy. A slow, great agony of death, that he could 
 watch growing in his victim's eyes; no sudden, merci- 
 ful blow nor shot, but an awful creeping horror that 
 would grant time for the realization of illimitable suf- 
 fering for the anguish of regret and 'failure to work 
 its most dreadful pain. This man might undermine 
 him ; might in his crafty, snake-like fashion, compass 
 his ruin ; might stand and smile triumphantly over 
 his fall ; he would bear it, he would wait and watch, 
 and when the hour of greatest success stood ready to 
 this man's hand he would murder him. 
 
 He drew a long, sharp breath ; he longed to cry 
 aloud, that the awful excitement might find vent. 
 
 The wind came tearing down the mountains and 
 out across the plain, driving the snow in great clouds
 
 426 JERRY. 
 
 before it, crying and shrieking as it went, and far off 
 he heard the roar of falling water ! 
 
 He stood still in the darkness and in the lull of 
 the storm he listened : often in the night he heard 
 this roar. How easily an enemy might ruin him : 
 one loosened stone one little blast of powder unheard 
 in the stormy night, and the wild water would rush 
 like a mad creature back to its old haunts ; dash in 
 wild ecstasy down the black abyss where old Burden's 
 bones lay crumbling ; lash with its fierce caresses 
 the stones that in the long ago it had worn down to 
 patient smoothness ! would it know that it had got 
 home again, this water that fell so far, and cried so 
 piteously as it fled away to the thirsty plain ; would 
 it know that it had conquered one man who stood 
 without one friend-to love in all his life ? 
 
 He started on hurriedly. 
 
 No friend, no friend ; but, ah, one enemy ! one mer- 
 ciless enemy whose dead body should be cast down 
 the abyss with the wild white water as its only wind- 
 ing-sheet, and find no rest down among the black, 
 bruising rocks ! That would be better than fortune 
 or fame better than any success ! 
 
 A sudden memory came to him like a voice speak- 
 ing in his ear : he must burn that little scrap of paper ; 
 no man must know that the same water would ruin 
 both ! It would be a sweet revenge to let Paul ruin 
 himself. For the paper said " What goes in at Bur- 
 den's, comes out at Eureka." 
 
 And he laughed aloud in the darkness. 
 
 Paul would laugh as the water roared in at Bur- 
 den's Mine he would laugh as the stream flashed 
 into the sunlight again from the mouth of the Eureka 
 mine ! 
 
 Joe had been wise, and faithful, and silent.
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 " Let go thy hold when a great wheel runs down a hill, lest it 
 break thy neck with following it ; but the great one that goes up 
 the hill, let him draw thee after." 
 
 WHEN Burden's opened its doors and windows 
 the next morning, the world was white, and 
 the snow was falling with dangerous swiftness. 
 The excursionists were dismayed, and fears were soon 
 floating about that they would be snowed up in these 
 wilds ; if they couid get so far as the first station from 
 which the road was properly built, they would feel 
 safe ; but with much more snow the loosely built 
 track would be impassable. 
 
 The belated directors were roused by the conduc- 
 tor of their train at an unbearably early hour, consid- 
 ering it was the morning after a supper, and were 
 advised to make an immediate start. 
 
 Soon the towns were in confusion, and the ladies, 
 all of them at Paul Henley's, were in a great flutter of 
 excitement. The people who had not been to the 
 supper realized the position immediately, but it was a 
 hard matter to move the exhausted revelers. 
 
 " A wagon ! " Mrs. Greg cried plaintively, " and 
 Charles, where is he ! " 
 
 The servants were at a loss ; where was Mr. Greg ? 
 where in the two towns was he to be found when his 
 own house was empty? 
 
 " Ask Mr. \Vilkerson," some one suggested, and Jim 
 Short ran as fast as he could to Mrs. Milton's. 
 
 " Mr. Wilkerson ? " he asked breathlessly of the old 
 woman, who was smoking busily, with her knees in the 
 fire almost. 
 
 427
 
 428 JERR Y. 
 
 " Jerry Wilkerson is done eat an' gone, Jim Short, 
 an' you mighter knowed it if yer hedn't stuffed yer- 
 seff plum foolish las' night," and Mrs. Milton re- 
 placed her pipe in her mouth, and turned a stolid 
 gaze on the fire. 
 
 Jim paused a moment in the open door ; he must 
 venture another question, and he asked desperately 
 
 " Whar ? " 
 
 " Whar? " scornfully, " go an* fin' out ; an' if you 
 don't shet that dore mighty quick, I'll jest git up an' 
 knock thet same stuffin' outer you," turning to 
 look over her shoulder : but Jerry stood there be- 
 tween her and the despised Jim, asking what was 
 wanted. 
 
 " Drat if I knows," the old woman answered sul- 
 lenly, -and Jim taking courage gave his message that 
 the ladies wanted Mr. Greg and a wagon, and he had 
 come to Mr. Wilkerson to find both. 
 
 " And where is Mr. Henley ? " 
 
 " Mr. Paul's deep in the bed, sir." 
 
 "Very well," and Jerry stepping outside closed the 
 door after him, while Mrs. Milton walked to the win- 
 dow to watch him down the street. 
 
 " If he'd a-tole me hisn-seff," she muttered, " I'd 
 a-made the folks stan' roun' ; but to hev thet Henley 
 an' Dan Burk a-talkin' 'bout it, an' a-tellin' it like it 
 were stole it jest hurted me to death, it did," draw- 
 ing a deep sigh, and returning to her place by the fire, 
 " an' I sets aheaper sto' by Jerry Wilkerson ; an' I 
 "Mowed I'd gie him all I hed when I gits ready to be 
 planted : an' I will" wiping her nose with her apron, 
 " Jerry Wilkerson is my man ! " and she smoked 
 vehemently. 
 
 The celebration had been a failure ; a failure that 
 was unexpected, but thoroughly realized by all parties. 
 
 " An' Paul Henley spiled it," Mrs. Milton said 
 openly, " all alonger hisn sneakin', onderhanded 
 ways ! ." 
 
 But good, or bad, it was over now, and the people
 
 JERRY. 429 
 
 were going away helter-skelter, in dreadful fear of 
 being snowed up, and expressing very unflattering 
 opinions of the climate. 
 
 It was a melancholy end to all the high hopes of 
 both the inhabitants' and the guests, and no one felt 
 the failure so keenly as Jerry. He worked with all 
 his mind and strength to get the train off, for under 
 the present circumstances the longer the people 
 stayed the more harm it would work for him. 
 
 The owner of the horses and wagon was sleeping 
 off the drink of the night before, and though the har- 
 ness was primitive enough, Jerry had to hunt for some 
 one to show him how the thing was managed. At 
 last, however, it was ready, and he drove down to Paul 
 Henley's, where the ladies, many of them in tears, 
 were waiting for him anxiously. 
 
 Out they trooped, bag and baggage, with Paul 
 bringing up the rear, and looking decidedly the worse 
 for wear. 
 
 " Dear Mr. Wilkerson ! " and Mrs. Greg clasped 
 both his hands effusively, "you come like a guardian 
 angel ; do you think we can get away ? and where is 
 Charles ? " 
 
 " You can get away if you go immediately," Jerry 
 answered literally, " but if you delay you may have to 
 stay with us for a month." 
 
 There was a general outcry at this, and the whole 
 party began to scramble into the wagon, with or with- 
 out help. 
 
 " There can be no such need for haste," Paul re- 
 monstrated impatiently, " and Greg has not come yet." 
 
 " He must meet them at the other station," Jerry 
 answered decisively, gathering up the reins, and taking 
 his place next to Edith Henley, who was seated in 
 front. " Will you come? " he added, without looking 
 at Paul. 
 
 " Of course ! " Isabel Greg cried, and Paul climbed 
 in beside her. 
 
 The drive to the station was short, but it was heavy,
 
 43 
 
 and the wind that had them at its mercy was cruelly 
 cutting. 
 
 " I shall never again yearn for the West," Edith 
 Henley said plaintively, " and I do not see how you 
 and Paul have managed to live here so long, Mr. 
 Wilkerson." 
 
 " I have never had any other home," Jerry an- 
 swered, " and I like it." 
 
 " Paul does not," she went on, creeping a little 
 nearer to Jerry so as to be more sheltered from the 
 wind, " and says he will leave very soon." 
 
 " Finally? " came involuntarily from Jerry. 
 
 "Yes, just as soon as he has made arrangements 
 out here that will give him plenty of money"; then 
 there was silence between them until the shed was 
 reached where the half-frozen, thoroughly demoralized 
 excursionists were huddled together. The train was 
 only waiting for these ladies, as the directors were to 
 be picked up at Eureka, so the farewells were short. 
 
 " Good-by, Mr. Wilkerson, you have been so kind," 
 and Mrs. Greg held both his hands, while her soft, 
 brown eyes filled with tears ; " you must come to us 
 this summer at Newport ; be sure you come ! " Then 
 Isabel and Edith shook hands with him ; and the 
 other ladies said things he could not hear, and Paul, 
 and Jim Short, and the maids, all loaded down with 
 innumerable packages, went in, and the door was 
 shut. 
 
 Then the train backed slowly down the grade. It 
 was a precarious experiment with snow on the track, 
 and Jerry watched anxiously, afraid of some accident, 
 and warned the Burden's people not to be surprised 
 if the whole party were back on their hands before 
 night. 
 
 But his watching could not help matters, and he 
 took his way up to the dam : he wanted to be alone, 
 and there was a fascination for him in the swirling 
 water drawing down into black eddies, and dashing 
 into angry foam over the rocks. Up and up he climbed
 
 JERRY. 431 
 
 until he reached the dam where the water spread into 
 a lake almost. But above and below this lake, how 
 the water tore along, flinging the spray far to right 
 and left ; a mighty power, and in the summer it was 
 only a silver thread that wasted to spray as it fell ! 
 
 Jerry stood and watched it, heedless of the bitter 
 wind heedless of the snow that was banking silently 
 on the path thinking idly and aimlessly. 
 
 How much had Paul injured him ? and what a lovely 
 thing Edith Henley was ; if he made a fortune he 
 could win such a creature as that, and if he failed ? 
 
 His thoughts seemed to pass out of his keeping, and 
 the bitterness of the night swept over him. If he 
 failed he would commit an awful crime, and all the 
 world would turn from him. An awful crime to kill 
 the man who had ruined him ? It might be a crime 
 over in the civilized states, but out in the wilds men 
 were killed for much less sometimes for nothing. 
 Kill him ? Ay, if he were hanged for it ! 
 
 The snow deepened marvelously while he stood on 
 the dam, and his way to Mrs. Milton's was one long 
 fight, so that the evening was falling fast when he 
 reached the door. He was cold and tired, and stopped 
 to rest by the fire in Mrs. Milton's room. 
 
 The fire was low, and the room in shadow, and the 
 door into the kitchen was shut ; but he could see a 
 light in there, and hear voices quite distinctly through 
 the thin walls. 
 
 He did not heed them just at first, any more than 
 he heeded the rattle of pans that told him supper was 
 being prepared ; but presently Mrs. Milton raised her 
 voice angrily, and her words caught his attention. 
 
 " I tell you, Dan Burk, thet Jerry Wilkerson come 
 by thet money hones' ; I knowed all along as Joe 
 Gilliam were a-savin' money, an' you knowed it too ; 
 an' if Joe Gilliam's money wuzn't hones', an' b'longed 
 to 'Lije Milton, it's pisen sure thet youuns' money 
 aint hones' an' b'longed to 'Lije Milton too ! " and 
 she slapped her hands together vigorously.
 
 43 2 JERRY. 
 
 " Lord, Mis' Milton, don't git so mad," and Burk 
 laughed uneasily, " I aint said nothin' against Mr. 
 Wilkerson ; but it do look reelly curious for him to 
 have sicher lot ; durned if these men didn't say thet 
 he owns the most of Burden's Mine ! buyin' it for 
 the people ! " scornfully. 
 
 " An' Jerry Wilkerson did buy it for the people, 
 Dan Burk," and Mrs. Milton's voice rang higher than 
 before, " an' youuns is jest a-strainin' yerself to lie ; 
 'cause Joe Gilliam warn't no deader ner you when 
 Jerry buyed it, an* Jerry never hed no money then 
 consarn yer bleary old eyes ! " 
 
 Then there came a movement, a scraping of chairs 
 as if Burk meditated a retreat. 
 
 " Goin', is yer ? " Mrs. Milton went on ; " well, I'm 
 glad, an' jest you 'members thet I'm agoin' to tell 
 Jerry Wilkerson if I hearn 'bout this agin ; an' you 
 kin jest be skeary, sure, 'cause he'll shoot the gizzards 
 plum outer the las' one thet lies 'bout him ; an' don't 
 you furgit it," and she slammed the door violently 
 behind her vanquished visitor. 
 
 Jerry sat still for a moment while there came a clang 
 of pans as if Mrs. Milton were venting her wrath on 
 them ; then he put off his hat and coat, so as to look 
 at ease and unhurried, and walked slowly into the 
 kitchen. 
 
 " Whom must I shoot, Mrs. Milton ? " he asked, 
 standing before her with his hands in his pockets. 
 
 Mrs. Milton started guiltily, dropping a pan. 
 
 " Lord ! Jerry Wilkerson, you took me or! to pieces," 
 she exclaimed, while Jerry picked up the pan and put 
 it on the table ; " did you hearn Dan Burk a-lyin' 
 hisseff inside out ? " she went on. 
 
 " He does not know how to do anything else, Mrs. 
 Milton," Jerry answered quietly. 
 
 " An' you choosed him fur youuns' pard ? " she 
 asked, losing her usual stolidity in blank surprise. 
 
 " I chose him only because he seemed to be the 
 friend of everybody, while I knew no one."
 
 JERRY. 433 
 
 " Jest so," angrily, " f riens alonger orl the folks," 
 shaking her head slowly; " I've knowed him nigh onter 
 thirty yeer, I hev, an' Dan Burk allers sweeps his 
 leaves the way the wind's a-blowin', he do ; drat 
 *im! " 
 
 " And the wind is blowing away from me ? " Jerry 
 asked, with a smile on his lips a smile that did not 
 reach his tired eyes. 
 
 "You kin jest bet on thet, Jerry Wilkerson," she 
 answered vehemently, stopping her work and gesticu- 
 lating with a fork, " an' if you hed jester come to 
 me, Jerry Wilkerson, an' a-said, ' Mis' Milton, Joe's 
 done left me a heap of money, an' I'm a-goin' to sen' 
 it down east,' I'd a-said, ' Orl right, Jerry Wilkerson, 
 Mandy Milton aint agointer blab,' an' it would a-been 
 as soft' as mud when the folks commenst a-sayin' thet 
 youuns hed a letter money hidin' down east, Lord ! " 
 going back to the bacon she was frying, " I could 
 a-curled 'em up liker pig's tail ; drat 'em ! " 
 
 Jerry sat down, clasping his hands over his head, 
 and tilting his chair back. 
 
 " It would have been better," he said slowly, " but 
 I did not know you then, Mrs. Milton." 
 
 " Thet's true," she acknowledged ; " Joe never let 
 you go anighst nobody ceppen the doctor, an' thet 
 blasted Henley ; an' now it's him thet is a-doin' orl the 
 mischief an' the meanness." 
 
 " I know it," Jerry answered, " he talked last night 
 until I put my pistols down on the table." 
 
 " I'll bet on you," and the old woman chuckled 
 grimly, " an' I'll bet thet them city men looked sorter 
 onressless ; like thar were a brier sommers on the 
 bench." 
 
 Jerry laughed a little. 
 
 " They did," he said, " but Greg spoke well." 
 
 " Greg's a right tastey little chap," Mrs. Milton al- 
 lowed, " but I reckon hisn's mammy made him go 
 roun' in frocks too long ; Greg ailers wants sumpen 
 to lean aginst ; an' as fur thet Henley," stabbing the
 
 434 JERRY. 
 
 bacon fiercely as she took it from the pan, " he's done 
 busted his'n gall-bag young ; drat 'im ! " 
 
 " How will they hurt me, Mrs. Milton ? " and Jerry 
 watched to find out what she knew. 
 
 " They aint said yit," shaking her head, " but 
 you'll know jest as soon as I knows." 
 
 " Thank you, Mrs. Milton," and Jerry drew his chair 
 to the table where the supper had been put. 
 
 "It aint no thanks I wants from youuns, Jerry Wil- 
 kerson," and she poured out a great bowl of coffee 
 and put it by his plate, " I jest wants you to stay 
 har, jest so old Mandy Milton kin grip a han' as 
 b'longs to her, an' hev a hones' creetur to tuck what 
 she hes to leave. I've been a savin' woman, Jerry 
 Wilkerson," pausing with her arms akimbo, and look- 
 ing down into Jerry's astonished eyes, " an' I've done 
 saved a right smart of money ; an' jest you live har 
 so thet I kin know thar's sumpen as is Mandy Milton's, 
 an' when I'm gone, you kin hev it orl ; sure 
 enough," wiping her eyes with the corner of her 
 apron as Jerry stood beside her with his hand on her 
 shoulder. 
 
 Here was a true friendship given to him without 
 any seeking on his part ; without any motive behind 
 it save that the old heart that offered it was lonely. 
 After all, he would not have to buy trust and truth ; 
 it was here, offered to him freely, simply, by this ugly 
 old woman, whose little eyes deep-bedded in wrinkles 
 were shining with something like tears : and they were 
 truer than Mrs. Greg's soft brown eyes, he could see 
 that now ; and the hand held out to him was hard, 
 and distorted by work, but it was held out to him 
 when he stood on the verge of failure ! 
 
 There was a strange feeling in his throat, and he 
 could scarcely say the simple " I will, Mrs. Milton," 
 that sealed their compact : then he sat down again, 
 and Mrs. Milton put all the dishes about his plate, 
 talking rapidly the while. 
 
 " My boys would a-been jest like youuns, if the
 
 JERRY. 435 
 
 measles hedn't tuck 'em off ; and when you goes 
 a-trompin' roun', I jest 'Hows diet it's my Sammy done 
 growed up, I do," again resorting to the corner of her 
 apron, " an' jest you let these pore creeturs roun' 
 this yer town come a-howlin' about you," fiercely, 
 "an' Mandy Milton'll make 'em pisen sure thet they's 
 a-stannin' on the wrong end ; jest you bet on thet ! " 
 sitting down vigorously and filling her plate with 
 supper. 
 
 " I would not worry about it," Jerry said quietly ; 
 " people always think you are afraid when you ex- 
 plain things, and make excuses ; I do not intend to 
 say a word." 
 
 Mrs. Milton put down her knife and fork, and 
 pushed up her glasses. 
 
 "Jest so!" she began sarcastically, nodding her 
 head slowly, " thet's the way the doctor done ; jest the 
 way, an' the folks don't know this minute if he wuz a 
 raskil, er a angil, they don't," again attacking her sup- 
 per. " Jest you keep yer mouth shet, an' when the 
 folks is done a-cussin' an' a-lyin' 'bout you, then 
 jest fall off a rock an' gie 'em orl youuns' money ; an' 
 they wont keer a durn : thet's the way, jest you 
 grip onter thet, an' they'll tuck orl youuns is got, an' 
 furgit you ter-morrer. Golly ! " taking a long 
 draught of coffee, " I know what you don't, Jerry 
 Wilkerson, thet cussin' is the best thing fur mos' folks; 
 cuss 'em tell they're skeered thet you'll shoot 'em, 
 an' they'll clean yer boots alonger their tongues, you 
 bet ! " 
 
 " Well," and Jerry rose wearily from his place, 
 " they have not ruined me yet, and maybe they will 
 not." 
 
 " Mebbe," slowly, " an' mebbe the snow'll not melt, 
 mebbe ; but it won't be fur lacker tryin'. Just you 
 shoot a few, an' knock down the res', an* they'll 
 think thet Jerry Wilkerson's the biggest man in 
 'Meriky thar aint nothin' you've done thet's made 
 you look so big as knockin' down Dave Morris."
 
 43 6 JERR y. 
 
 Jerry laughed again ; the weary laugh that comes 
 of despair, that laughs because that is as good as 
 tears or expostulations. 
 
 " Good-night," he said, pausing with his hand on 
 the door, " and believe that I am truly thankful to 
 you, Mrs. Milton, for your trust and friendship given 
 me now when the world is turning away from me." 
 
 Mrs. Milton scraped the plates violently before 
 casting them into the pan of hot water that stood 
 near. 
 
 " Youuns is welcome, Jerry Wilkerson," she an- 
 swered tersely, " but don't say nothin' mo' 'bout it it 
 makes me feel rale puny when I hears sich largin" 
 words, 'cause I aint got none to jaw back : jest you 
 go 'long an' ress, an' git up a little sperret 'ginst the 
 mornin' ; don't say nothin' mo'," and Jerry, obeying 
 her, shut the door and went upstairs slowly. 
 
 He was weary unto death : no aim nor end that 
 could be claimed by man seemed to him worth the 
 exertion that would be necessary to win it. The re- 
 action from a great effort and a great passion was 
 upon him : he had worked to the utmost of his 
 strength, physical and mental, only to find himself 
 thwarted at every point ; only to find himself under- 
 mined, and on the brink of ruin. 
 
 He turned restlessly on the bed where he had 
 thrown himself. 
 
 It was impossible that he should fail : if Eureka 
 did grow equally with Burden's, it would help him, 
 not hurt him. And if the people had found out that 
 he had money, that would not harm him, they could 
 not take it away ; he was sure of this now, for he had 
 heard Mrs. Milton say that Dan Burk's money had 
 come from the same place as Joe's. Dan Burk would 
 keep quiet, and Mrs. Milton was his friend ; beyond 
 this, how could the people have any feeling against 
 him, or harm him because of the money ? he had said 
 publicly how he got it. He was sure it was all safe 
 except the stream, and this last fall of snow would
 
 JERRY. 437 
 
 make it rise ; he could see it now swirling and foam- 
 ing on its way. And sleep overtook him as he lay 
 there ; the dreamless sleep of exhaustion ; and the 
 faint daylight creeping in the window showed him 
 white and haggard, with the bands of silver hair on 
 his temples grown broader, and the lines on his face 
 deepened and drawn. 
 
 A worn, weary face that even in sleep had an 
 anxious, eager look on it ; and all the youth and hope 
 gone from it.
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 "Something is rotten in the state of Denmark." 
 
 A GREAT stillness had fallen over the town : a 
 stillness of disappointment and reaction, and out 
 of the stillness there arose a sound like the whis- 
 pering of the wind as it creeps by in the summer 
 nights ; inarticulate, intangible, and yet a sound 
 caused ; a fact that would have an effect. 
 
 There was nothing to take hold of ; nothing that 
 could be answered ; no points that could be fought 
 for and won ; no place where a stand could be made. 
 
 Day and night Jerry listened and .watched : Mrs. 
 Milton fumed and fretted because she could hear 
 nothing : going about among her neighbors more than 
 ever before in her life ; condescending even to a con- 
 versation with Jim Short, if so be she might gain a 
 little information. 
 
 And Greg was uneasy : Paul had been inclined to 
 make a friend of him at first, but after the decided 
 stand Greg had taken at the supper, he had been -less 
 effusive. He was pleasant and cordial still ; regretted 
 the failure of the excursion and the hasty departure 
 of the ladies ; invited Greg to dinner to meet Mr. 
 Henshaw and Mr. Mills, and after dinner read aloud 
 criticisms from the papers on Burden's and Eureka, 
 and on their relative merit as investments ; in all of 
 which the danger from the stream was enlarged on to 
 the detriment of Burden's. 
 
 " You should write a piece," he said to Mr. Hen- 
 shaw, " giving your views on the subject." 
 
 Mr. Henshaw rubbed his head in a troubled way. 
 
 " There is danger in it," he said in his slow, literal 
 
 438
 
 JERRY. 439 
 
 way, " danger I am realizing more and more every 
 day danger I did not dream of when I wrote my first 
 letter ; and perhaps it is my duty to explain the true 
 state of things." 
 
 Paul laughed lightly. 
 
 " Scarcely your duty to direct the investments of 
 people," he said, " but you should rather build up 
 the credit of Durden's ; you must stand up for it." 
 
 " And you need not be so anxious about it," Greg 
 added. 
 
 Mr. Mills shook his head. 
 
 " I should be," he said gravely. 
 
 " Well," said Greg, " I am not, and my father is in 
 very heavily." 
 
 Paul's face sobered a little. Would the failure of 
 Durden's influence Isabel Greg's fortune materially ? 
 he wondered. 
 
 " I should advise him to draw out a little," he sug- 
 gested, " at least until the danger from the spring 
 snow is over." 
 
 44 1 do not admit the danger," Greg answered 
 stiffly ; and the next day advised Jerry not to let 
 Henshaw write any more public letters about Dur- 
 den's. 
 
 All was very easy and smooth in the way things 
 were going : the lunch-room in Eureka was gaining 
 favor every day ; the Durden's Banner had constant 
 notices of people who were negotiating for homes in 
 Eureka, and Jerry was in receipt of many letters as to 
 the leasing of the lots left by the doctor. 
 
 From his broker Jerry heard that more Durden's 
 stock had been bought in for him, and that there was 
 no fluctuation about it ; the excursion had clone good, 
 Mr. Glendale thought, except for a dangerous stream 
 which had of late been brought before the public in 
 connection with the mine ; this was a little unfortu- 
 nate, but when the summer came it would be all right 
 again ; and he held all stock according to Mr. Wilker- 
 son's order:;, ready to sell at a moment's notice; but if he
 
 44 JERR Y. 
 
 contemplated selling, now was the time to do it ; only 
 telegraph the word " sell," and he would under- 
 stand. 
 
 Only one word, and he would be safe out of all 
 this turmoil and worry, and much benefited by the 
 speculation. And why should not he ? Everybody 
 knew the danger now as well as he ; why should not 
 he withdraw, and so thwart all Paul's schemes by leav- 
 ing him no one to scheme against ? 
 
 The thought of the people had no weight with him 
 now, for day by day he could feel them drawing fur- 
 ther and further away from him. There was nothing 
 said or done, but there were no hats lifted now as he 
 passed, and there was always a cessation of talk, and 
 a separating of any group he happened to approach : 
 and he felt that he was free from any responsibility 
 for them. There was no reason why he should not 
 withdraw if he wished ; while, on the other hand, one 
 dividend declared and his fortune was made a great 
 fortune such as he had dreamed of, the gold that was 
 to lie about him like chips. And Edith Henley, could 
 not he win her ? He remembered how she had 
 crouched behind him that day when he drove her 
 to the station and the revenge would be so ex- 
 quisite. 
 
 Fail ! He could not fail he would not fail ! 
 
 And he would make feverish efforts to push the 
 work on, to have this one saving dividend declared ; 
 but Mr. Henshaw would not be hurried. And now 
 another conscientious scruple had entered as a factor 
 to retard things : was it honest to go on spending 
 money in putting works into a mine that was not 
 safe ? Would it not be right to wait until the threat- 
 ened danger was over ? 
 
 And to this Jerry uttered a po'int-blank no ; but 
 somehow the idea crept out among the people, and 
 along with it another idea that a dividend would 
 double Jerry's already suspicious fortune, and that 
 then he could and would sell out, leaving the rest
 
 JERRY. 441 
 
 of the shareholders to scramble out as best they 
 could. 
 
 And the men who worked in the mine because they 
 were shareholders were sullen, and worked unwil- 
 lingly ; and there was no money to increase the force 
 of day-laborers ; and Mr. Henshaw urged nobody, 
 for he thought the work ought to stop a stolid, pas- 
 sive resistance that made Jerry's blood boil ! 
 
 And at the end of the forlorn street, standing where 
 Jerry could see it every evening as he came from his 
 work, was the little building known as the telegraph 
 office ; every evening when he was weary and harassed 
 the thought would come to him that one word sent 
 from there would free him from all this anxiety. 
 Anxiety ? He had worked too hard, he had borne 
 too much, he had fought too long, he had weathered 
 too many storms, to give up now when success was in 
 such close grasp of his hand to give up and acknowl- 
 edge himself beaten ! 
 
 But the murmur swelled as the work in the mine 
 was retarded, and as the snow melted, and each day 
 the miners were more unwilling. 
 
 Jerry said no word of remonstrance, urged no 
 haste ; he was so eager to win that he saw too many 
 sides of the problem before him. If he urged them 
 on, they would say it was for his own benefit, and so 
 resist ; if he did not urge them, they would say he 
 had money enough to carry him over the delay ; if he 
 urged Mr. Henshaw, he would stop to argue on the 
 honesty of the proceeding, and so publish their weak- 
 ness ; if he urged the Company, they would instantly 
 lose confidence in the venture. The tension was 
 dreadful ; to stand and watch the work diminish day 
 by day in quantity ; to watch the people growing 
 more and more restive ; to watch the water, that from 
 the dam spread out into a small lake, creep up higher 
 and higher ; to watch the days that might each one 
 mean a fortune, slipping by unheeded : how long 
 could he bear it ?
 
 442 JERRY. 
 
 If only they would have the sense to realize their 
 own good, and drive forward now, before the snow 
 melted, the declaration of a dividend. 
 
 But he could not 'tell them this : putting it into 
 words made him realize how it went against all the 
 teachings of his life, all the instincts of his nature. To 
 say " work hard while the stream is yet safe, force the 
 declaration of a dividend ; then if the danger increases 
 to peril, sell, and so double your investment." He 
 could not say this ; he might do it, but he could not 
 look his fellow-man in the face and say it : if it were to 
 be done, it must be accomplished by a side pressure 
 of some kind, and he said to Dan Burk: 
 
 " Mr. Glendale who bought out the half of every 
 Burden's man's share in the mine, when they were 
 pushed in the winter, is willing to buy the other half 
 if they will sell now before a dividend is declared." 
 
 " He wants all the profits," and Dan laughed. 
 
 " Of course," quietly, " and they will be great." 
 
 Dan shook his head. 
 
 " Mebbe, an* mebbe not ; " slowly, " but I aint got 
 no capital to hold over no longer, an' he kin have all 
 of mine"; then with a smile, ' I hear thet you're agoin' 
 to sell, yourself." 
 
 The color crept up into Jerry's face, and he longed 
 to teach the man a lesson with his fists ; but it would 
 not be expedient just now, and he answered 
 quietly : 
 
 " That is a lie, Burk, and you know it." 
 
 " Just so," and Burk smoothed his sleek hair as if 
 in deep thought "well, it's a lie then ; an' Mr. Hen- 
 ley's just done sellin' all of his stock, an' the same Mr. 
 Glendale that wants it so bad," still smoothing his 
 hair, "bought it for you, Mr. Wilkerson," looking up 
 suddenly as if to surprise some tell-tale expression on 
 Jerry's face. Jerry met the look quietly, as he an- 
 swered : 
 
 "Your new master teaches you well, Burk, but not 
 well enough ; you will outwit yourselves very soon.
 
 JERRY. 443 
 
 Tell Mr. Henley that there is an old saying ' that a dog 
 that will fetch, will carry'." 
 
 " I'll tell him," Burk answered, while his forehead 
 seemed to flatten back with rage, " an' mebbe I don't 
 understand it, an' won't remember it, mebbe. All the 
 same, tell Mr. Glendale he kin have all my shares." 
 
 Jerry laughed. 
 
 " Very well, when I have occasion to write again I 
 will tell him." 
 
 "An* mebbe when a dividend is declared, I'll be 
 sorry," Dan said as Jerry turned away, " mebbe." 
 
 Reaching his office, Jerry sat down trembling from 
 head to foot : anger was no name for his frame of 
 mind. He had not gained anything by his effort to 
 excite Dan's covetousness in the mention of a divi- 
 dend, Paul had undermined him too carefully, but he 
 had found out more clearly his own danger, and that 
 it was greater than he thought. And he had found 
 out that Paul had held Durden's stock ; of course he 
 had bought it only that he might injure the scheme by 
 selling at a critical moment ; and he had sold now ! 
 
 " I should have killed him long ago," Jerry whis- 
 pered to himself. 
 
 The days crept on ; and a sullen, fitful sleet took 
 the place of the snow that had been falling intermit- 
 tently ever since the excursion. Looking back, and 
 straining his memory, Jerry could not recall any spring 
 like this one ; and the only gleam of hope was that it 
 was growing colder. 
 
 Mr. Henshaw still hesitated ; watching the stream 
 conscientiously, going day after day to stand on the 
 dam anxious, miserable, ruinously honest ! 
 
 Longer and longer the days seemed to stretch, un- 
 til to Jerry they spread into desert-wastes of time. 
 The level sweep of water at the dam was so high that 
 the little film of ice which was gathering along the 
 edges was barely an inch below the top : but this film 
 of ice was a hope ! 
 
 The silver bands of hair on Jerry's temples grew
 
 444 JERR Y. 
 
 wider ; the lines in his face grew deeper ; the light in 
 his eyes grew into a painful brightness that glittered 
 and flickered restlessly. 
 
 More of the stock had been bought in in his name ; 
 loan after loan had been negotiated for him that he 
 might buy the shares that now seemed daily on the 
 market ; he could not understand it, nor why the peo- 
 ple seemed to be returning to their allegiance to him. 
 Hats were lifted now when he passed, and the greet- 
 ings offered him were more hearty. But Greg grew 
 more and more grave ; Mr. Henshaw, more and more 
 uncertain, and Mrs. Milton lifted a warning voice : 
 
 " Thar's somethin' wrong sommers," she said, " if 
 only you'd kill a few, Jerry Wilkerson." 
 
 The number of shareholders who worked in the mine 
 steadily decreased : every day as Greg called the roll, 
 the answer would come for two or three " stopped 
 work"; often Jerry stopped them to put them at 
 other work often they paid money instead of work 
 but at last when he realized that many had never re- 
 turned to the mine, it struck him that they must be 
 selling out. None of the directors had sold any stock 
 as far as he could find out from his father and brother, 
 yet it was creeping out in New York that Burden's 
 was selling secretly because unsafe. Something was 
 wrong, and Greg went to see Jerry for the first time 
 in weeks. 
 
 "The Burden's people must be selling," he said ab- 
 ruptly, as he took off his hat and coat. 
 
 Jerry looked up quickly. 
 
 " That solves the problem," he said ; " Glendale 
 could not trace the stock." 
 
 " I am sure of it," and Greg walked up and down 
 the room impatiently. 
 
 " I was afraid the directors were giving in," Jerry 
 went on. 
 
 Greg shook his head. 
 
 " Father and Van Busen have bought more ; and I 
 came to-day to tell you," and Greg stopped in his
 
 JERRY. 445 
 
 walk, " that father urges the declaration of a dividend 
 even if a point is strained to do it." 
 
 " Then they must send me another engineer," Jerry 
 answered, " Henshaw will not be hurried." 
 
 Greg took another turn up and down the room. 
 
 " I have not been able to say this," Jerry went on, 
 " because I have too much at stake : my urging a divi- 
 dend would only have convinced the shareholders that 
 the investment was not safe, and it would have been 
 a race to see who could sell out first, and the scheme 
 would have collapsed : urging Henshaw and the peo- 
 ple, would have caused the same distrust : my only 
 plan was to wait." 
 
 " It is all true," Greg said slowly, " but I had not 
 realized it ; " then suddenly, " I will say it," and he 
 turned to put on his coat and hat " I will telegraph 
 this minute," and he left the little office hurriedly. 
 
 Jerry listened to his footsteps as they rang on the 
 frozen ground ; listened until the sound faded from 
 his hearing, then put his face down in his hands. 
 Was help coming at last ? would any response be 
 made to this appeal ? were the shareholders anxious 
 enough about the investment to take any steps ? 
 
 His imagination sprang forward like an unleashed 
 hound : Henshaw would be roused from his lethargy : 
 a dividend would be declared : then ? A shudder 
 as of the parting of soul and body shook him ! Then 
 gold would fall into his hands as the stream fell down 
 the mountain side brimming up flowing over slip- 
 ping through his careless fingers ! 
 
 And it was growing colder surely his luck had 
 turned ! Ice was lord of water ice would save him. 
 Colder and colder it grew as the night fell ; colder 
 and colder through the long dragging hours that each 
 one found him waiting and watching ; colder and 
 colder ; bitter, merciless, intense. The pines up on 
 the mountain-side bent down their sturdy heads under 
 their glittering loads of sleet the beams of the houses 
 creaked, and groaned, and jerked ; great masses of
 
 44^ JERR Y. 
 
 rock cracked and fell in the silent night, clanging out 
 sharply as with a protest against their fall. The 
 morning dawned, and no sign of life, save smoke 
 from the chimneys, showed the presence of man in 
 the town ; and the old people and the children cried 
 because the cold was killing them. 
 
 Twenty-four hours passed, then Greg came with a 
 telegram : 
 
 " The board has met : unanimous vote on your 
 proposition : much stock in the market. No one sell- 
 ing here. CHAS. T. GREG." 
 
 Jerry read it, then looked up quickly. 
 
 " You were right," he said. 
 
 " Yes," Greg answered, " the Burden's people are 
 selling ; every day as I call the roll one or more share- 
 holders answer ' Stopped work." I thought you had 
 them at work elsewhere or that you knew it ; Hen- 
 shaw knew it." 
 
 Jerry walked up and down the room restlessly : the 
 race was becoming breathless : the prize was so near ! 
 
 " This freeze is a godsend," Greg went on, " it 
 makes all safe as long as it lasts, and the order from 
 the board may be for Henshaw to declare a dividend 
 before a thaw comes : I hope they will make it deucedly 
 strong." 
 
 Jerry did not answer he could not, the issue was 
 too vital to him for any discussion ; for him life or 
 death was held fast in this freeze. 
 
 A dividend while the freeze lasted would put a hun- 
 dred men to work to save the mine before a thaw 
 came : if Henshaw hesitated, if a warm wind came, 
 his ruin was inevitable ; so he could not discuss it. 
 
 " And we must not say a word until Henshaw comes 
 to us," Greg went on ; " it must seem as if all the anx- 
 iety was with the eastern shareholders. If Henshaw 
 should find out that the fears originated here, he 
 would be as cautious and as stolid as ever, confound 
 him ! Mills would have saved us long ago." 
 
 " I was too anxious to be honest when I described
 
 JERRY. 447 
 
 the engineer I wanted," and Jerry laughed. " Honesty 
 only pays when, as in the copy-books, it is policy." 
 
 Greg shook his head. 
 
 " I would not say that," he said in a troubled way, 
 " it does not sound well." 
 
 " No," Jerry answered, " it does not sound well." 
 
 Another night had fallen black and cold as death : 
 would not the houses, as well as the rocks, fall in this 
 awful coldness ? People were found frozen on the 
 roads : wild creatures came down and sought shelter 
 near humanity ; wolves had been found in the mines, 
 and in the nights they were heard wandering up and 
 down the streets and crying, seeking shelter against 
 the outsides of warm chimneys. 
 
 Cold such as never had been known in Burden's ; 
 and the old people and the little children lay down 
 and died. 
 
 It was too late in the year for such a freeze to last 
 forever, Mrs. Milton had said ; and much of it had 
 gone when Mr. Henshaw came up to Jerry's office, 
 where Greg and Jerry watched for him with sickening 
 anxiety. He looked drawn and blue with cold, his 
 long, thin nose looked pinched, and behind his spec- 
 tacles his mild blue eyes were distressed and watery. 
 
 " What shall I do ? " he asked, before he had taken 
 off his hat or his clumsy woolen gloves that his " Sue " 
 had knit for him ; " A telegram from the directors that 
 a dividend must be declared ; too much stock on the 
 market." 
 
 Jerry's eyes gleamed, but for a moment he could 
 not speak, and Greg took the coarse paper from Mr. 
 Henshaw's hands,. while he divested himself of his 
 out-door wrappings. 
 
 " I had not an idea that it would have such an effect 
 as this," Mr. Henshaw went on, putting his large 
 overshoes carefully aside ; " I thought it was right to 
 let the poor who had invested know the danger, 
 and Mr. Henley thought so too ; you knew all the 
 danger, Mr. Wilkerson," turning to Jerry, who was
 
 44 JERR Y. 
 
 looking into the fire steadily, " and you, Mr. Greg ; 
 and besides, Mr. Henley said that both of you were 
 well enough off to tide over even a failure," looking 
 anxiously from one to the other, " so he negotiated 
 the sales of the poor people's shares while it was yet 
 time ; and he showed me a letter from a broker which 
 said it would not hurt the venture, as Mr. Wilkerson 
 was anxious to buy all the stock he could get, and was 
 rich enough to do it with safety ; but," his voice 
 steadying from distress to dignity, " I have not sold 
 my own shares, I have been anxious only about the 
 very poor," then a silence fell. 
 
 To Jerry many things were explained as Mr. Hen- 
 shaw went on ; Paul's hand was in all his trouble, and 
 Paul might succeed yet. The room seemed to spin 
 round him ; it was an agonizing moment ; he felt he 
 must realize something in order to steady his mind, 
 and he fastened his eyes on Mr. Henshaw's great 
 overshoes that were ribbed up and down the instep, 
 and turned up a little at the toes that looked as if they 
 might often touch each other ; and the heels would fit 
 an African ! 
 
 Jerry smiled a little, the huge black things looked 
 so ugly, and so narrow-minded, and so honest. 
 
 Then Greg said sharply, as he took a turn up and 
 down the room : 
 
 " I cannot see why you went to Henley for advice." 
 
 "You are mistaken, Mr. Greg," and Mr. Henshaw 
 drew himself up more stiffly in his chair, " Mr. Hen- 
 ley came to me with the advice, and came on behalf 
 of the poor as represented by Daniel Burk. Burk was 
 the first to sell his shares, and said Mr. Wilkerson 
 knew that he was selling." 
 
 Jerry shook his head. 
 
 " I told Burk only that I was not afraid of the 
 stock," he said; u that selling even then, when I spoke 
 to him, the stock would bring twice as much as he 
 gave for it." 
 
 Greg paused in his walk.
 
 JERRY. 449 
 
 "That was unwise," he said; "of course hearing 
 that they would all want to sell." 
 
 " It was that, or a strike which would have ruined 
 us," Jerry answered. " As it is, the crisis has come 
 gradually, and we will soon be safe." 
 
 Mr. Henshaw shook his head, as he looked mourn- 
 fully into the fire. 
 
 " If we declare a dividend before a thaw comes," 
 he said, " we will save ourselves, but defraud others. 
 I know how many people will be induced to invest in 
 this mine because of this dividend, and how their 
 money will be sunk in the restoration of the mine 
 after the stream has flooded it. I know how all who 
 hold shares now will quadruple the amount they in- 
 vested, and that many of them will save themselves 
 entirely by selling out the moment the dividend is 
 declared : I know all this, and I know it is not 
 honest it is not honest ! " 
 
 u Damnation ! " and Greg drove a log into the fire 
 viciously with the heavy heel of his boot. 
 
 " It is true, Mr. Greg," Mr. Henshaw went on, 
 " and every hour I live I repent having invested in 
 the mine ; if I had not done that, I could have worked 
 with a clear conscience, simply obeying orders ; as it 
 is, I am so much interested myself, that I am afraid 
 always of forgetting the cause of the poor, and acting 
 for my own good only : and even if we succeed now 
 before the freeze breaks, I can not bear to think of the 
 poor who may invest, expecting immediate returns ; 
 and Mr. Henley says he understands how I feel about 
 it, especially now that I am ordered to send a tele- 
 gram that will authorize a dividend." 
 
 " Have you told Henley that? " Greg asked quickly. 
 
 " Yes," mildly ; " he was with me when it came, 
 and is such a friend of your family." 
 
 Greg stood by the window silent ; silence was their 
 only safety now ; and into Jerry's mind there came 
 the memory of some words of thanks this simple, 
 honest gentleman had said to him when he had lent
 
 45 JERRY. 
 
 him money to invest in the mine : " I thank you, in 
 the name of my wife, and of all my little children," he 
 had said ; " you free us from anxiety for the future." 
 He was a simple, honest gentleman, this engineer ; 
 and Jerry's face burned as he thought " Too honest 
 for us." 
 
 Then Jerry looked up slowly. 
 
 " How much did you invest, Mr. Henshaw ? " he 
 asked, his voice falling quietly on the silence. 
 
 Mr. Henshaw's face grew more mournful still. 
 
 " Two thousand dollars," he answered, as if the 
 world must tremble at the amount ; it was so much to 
 him indeed, it was all to him ! 
 
 Jerry looked into the fire. 
 
 " Will you take six thousand for it ? " he asked, 
 " and be free to obey orders ? " 
 
 " Six thousand ! " and Mr. Henshaw took off his 
 spectacles to wipe them, and Greg turned from the 
 window quickly. 
 
 " Will you take it ? " he said. 
 
 Mr. Henshaw looked helpless. 
 
 " You must remember," Jerry went on, " that you 
 may be worth three times as much as I offer you, if 
 you hold your shares ; but if you would rather be out 
 of it, and free of responsibility, I offer you six for two." 
 
 " No, no ! " Mr. Henshaw faltered, " it is not that; 
 six is too much ; but I can not bear to let you risk so 
 much." 
 
 Jerry laughed. 
 
 " Five or ten thousand more can make very little 
 difference to me," he said, " for if I fail, I am ruined." 
 
 The words were said so quietly that Mr. Henshaw 
 scarcely took them in, or believed them : Paul had 
 impressed him so thoroughly with the idea of Jerry's 
 wealth, that ruin in connection with him seemed 
 absurd. 
 
 " We will say six," Jerry went on, " and you can 
 make the transfer immediately, and telegraph the 
 same to your man of business," putting a chair near
 
 JERRY. 45 I 
 
 the table, and arranging all necessary materials for 
 Mr. Henshaw, " and I will telegraph Glendale to pay 
 cash." 
 
 " Yes," and Mr. Henshaw took the seat prepared 
 for him. 
 
 " But write your telegram to the Board first, Mr. 
 Henshaw," Greg interrupted, " so that I can send it ; 
 they are anxious." 
 
 " Yes, yes," and Mr. Henshaw began to write, and 
 Jerry also. 
 
 Greg walked up and down the room ; he could not 
 be still ; the game he had watched so long, and from 
 which he had held aloof, had drawn him into its vortex 
 at last, and had become painful in its excitement. He 
 looked at Jerry in wonder; with all at stake his 
 money, his reputation, his whole future he quietly 
 paused to help a poorer man out of the venture ; and 
 betrayed by neither word nor sign any feeling against 
 the enemy who was systematically planning his ruin ! 
 This crisis was an awful test of a man's strength and 
 firmness, and yet Jerry did not falter : he must suc- 
 ceed failure would be too cruel ! 
 
 " You take this down at once, Greg," Jerry said, 
 reading over the despatch Mr. Henshaw had written 
 to the board, " and telegraph your father to send the 
 news back instantly to the Banner" and Greg saw 
 a little shiver run over Jerry as he held out the paper. 
 
 " I will," he answered, and went away quickly : his 
 pity, his impatience, and his admiration were too 
 great, he could not bear to watch Jerry now, and 
 hated himself because that once he had turned away 
 from this man. 
 
 "And now for the transfer of your shares, Mr. 
 Henshaw," and Jerry turned to the table again. 
 
 Presently it was all done, and Mr. Henshaw stood 
 looking into the fire. 
 
 " You have put me under great obligations, Mr. 
 Wilkerson," he said at last, " and I can not do any- 
 thing that will show you ever how deeply I feel your
 
 45 2 JERRY. 
 
 action in this matter, and how much I appreciate 
 your generosity ; " then more slowly, " and I can not 
 see what I have done to deserve this kindness." 
 
 " Do not speak of it," Jerry answered quickly ; " it 
 is no risk for me, and as I persuaded you into the 
 speculation, I could not do less than help you out 
 when it became obnoxious to you." 
 
 " It was not in order to persuade me to send the 
 telegram demanded, for I should have had to do that 
 in any case," Mr. Henshaw went on in a preoccupied 
 way, as if hunting for Jerry's motive, " I can see no 
 motive except to relieve my conscientious scruples : I 
 shall never forget it, sir," and Mr. Henshaw wiped 
 his spectacles again " never forget it : will you shake 
 hands, Mr. Wilkerson ? " and he wrung Jerry's hand ; 
 then putting on his careful wrappings, he went his 
 way, wondering why Jerry's hands were so cold cold 
 and clammy as death !
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 " And wicked eyes gleamed bright with hate and crowds 
 Surged back and forth and wild hands wavtd 
 And curses fled from lip to lip, and up 
 
 On the mad wind to where God waited silent ! " 
 
 pORTY-EIGHT hours had come and gone, and 
 J7^ Burden's was in a state of silent astonishment. 
 For the first time in its life, the Banner was 
 cried up and down the one street of the town : the 
 people came to their doors and windows as the shrill 
 boy voice broke the dead, frozen stillness the news 
 was told ! 
 
 " Dividend declared great fortunes made All the 
 world buying Burden's stock All who had sold, were 
 sold!" 
 
 The son of the editor of the Banner who had 
 not sold, cried the news with vicious delight ; abso- 
 lutely jeering at Ban Burk as he handed him the 
 paper 
 
 " Mr. Wilkerson the richest man in America ! " and 
 the small tormentor danced on the frozen ground to 
 keep his feet warm. 
 
 Greg heard it as he dressed, and shouted like a boy 
 at Christmas : Mr. Henshaw heard it as he waked 
 heard it with a struggle between his longing to have 
 quadrupled his investment, and his consciousness that 
 there was somewhat in this almost bogus dividend 
 that would not be authorized by one's duty to one's 
 neighbor : Jerry heard it as he sat at breakfast, and 
 could not speak nor move ; his heart seemed to stop 
 its beating, and Mrs. Milton's voice, as she greeted the 
 newsboy and paid him for his news, seemed far away. 
 Everything grew red and confused before his eyes, 
 
 453
 
 454 JERRY. 
 
 and strange rushing sounds came in his ears as if all 
 the blood in his body had gone to his head. He did 
 not know if he reeled or not, just for a moment, but 
 he knew when Mrs. Milton put the paper into his hand 
 saying : 
 
 " Youuns is the riches' man in Ameriky, Jerry 
 Wilkerson ; " then more slowly, "an' orl outer 'Lije 
 Milton's mine thet killed him." 
 
 " It is all pure luck, Mrs. Milton," Jerry answered 
 huskily, and the sound of his voice seemed to restore 
 his equilibrium. Mrs. Milton shook her head solemnly. 
 
 " Thar aint no luck ner no chence in thet mine," 
 she said ; " too many sperrets walks roun' in thar fur 
 luck or chence to live thar : it's God or the devil 
 a-helpin' youuns." 
 
 Jerry rose from the table, he could sit still no longer. 
 
 "Wherever the help comes from," he said, "I am 
 very thankful ; but I do not think it is the devil, Mrs. 
 Milton, for Paul Henley is his own child." 
 
 " Now you're shoutin'," the old woman cried ; then 
 Jerry walked away. 
 
 Was he safe ? he could have cried aloud in his joy ; 
 he felt a foolish desire to mount some high place and 
 shout and shout until he was breathless ! All the 
 sickening anxiety was over his fortune was made 
 his enemy vanquished. Rapidly he strode up the 
 frozen road toward his office ; dismal and cold it 
 looked, but he did not mind that he had the fire to 
 make, even if he were in Mrs. Milton's eyes the richest 
 man in America ! He laughed over the idea a rich, 
 ringing laugh that seemed to bubble over with joy : 
 and he took Joe's old ax from the corner and went 
 out to where the wood was piled. 
 
 Poor old Joe ; surely this fortune was his, surely. 
 He had dug it out of the earth through long years ; 
 had stored it away day by day for a poor waif he had 
 picked up on the roadside : and there was no luck in 
 it, the old woman had said, no luck ; God or the 
 devil had helped him !
 
 JERRY. 455 
 
 Hard and vigorous his blows rang, and the chips 
 flew right and left ; so he had struck at life and 
 fortune, and so the gold would lie about him : and 
 when he had enough, would be as worthless as these 
 chips. He remembered when he had said that at the 
 Gregs' table that Fred had laughed ; would Fred 
 laugh now ? and Isabel, did she know of his fortune ? 
 and lovely Edith Henley? 
 
 He gathered up his wood and went in : he must 
 have the fire burning and his office in order before 
 any one came : he must not look upset in the turn 
 affairs had taken, nor surprised, not even to Greg.* 
 And he must make arrangements to put men to work 
 on the stream below the dam : the mine must be made 
 safe, now that he had time to be.honest. 
 
 Quickly the fire blazed up : then he opened the 
 windows, and swept and put things in order as old 
 Joe had taught him to do ; old Joe asleep up there 
 on the mountain-side, while his fortune had grown 
 colossal ! 
 
 " Well ! " and Greg came in brisk and beaming, 
 though a little hesitating still, " I have come to con- 
 gratulate you ! " 
 
 " Thank you," and Jerry shook his hand heartily, 
 " it has been a very near thing." 
 
 " Very near, thanks to that blundering Henshaw," 
 Greg answered, drawing a chair near the fire ; " I 
 think Henshaw must have been evoluted from a black 
 beetle," laughing, " and if my dear old Dad had not 
 been so prompt, he might have ruined us : but it is 
 safe enough now." 
 
 " Or at least we have gained time enough to make it 
 safe," and with the allowing of a doubt that he uttered 
 more to steady his exuberant joy, than because he 
 held it, Jerry felt a nameless fear creep over him. 
 
 " Why, man, it is certain ! " and Greg slapped his 
 leg emphatically ; " your fortune is made, even if you 
 have to spend half on this dividend ; and who can 
 hurt us now ? "
 
 45 6 JERRY. 
 
 i 
 
 Jerry laughed. 
 
 "I do not know," he said, the joy that he controlled 
 in word and action ringing out in his voice, " but I 
 am afraid to realize it all at once, so try to cool my- 
 self off with dismal possibilities." 
 
 The door opened and a boy came in. 
 
 " For you, Mr. Wilkerson," and he handed Jerry a 
 telegram. 
 
 Things seemed to waver before Jerry's eyes as he 
 tore open the envelope : was this a dismal possi- 
 bility ? 
 
 " To J. P. WILKERSON Burden's : 
 from 
 
 J. C. Glendale, New York. 
 
 Burden's up, aw'ait orders three days the limit." 
 Jerry handed the message to Greg, then turned to 
 the table and wrote : 
 
 " To J. C. GLENDALE, No. Wall Street, New York : 
 
 from 
 J. P. Wilkerson, Burden's. 
 
 Wait." 
 
 And this was handed to Greg also. Greg read it 
 over. 
 
 " Wise," he said, " try the temper of the people on 
 the work first ; but why do you sign your name before 
 you send your message ? " 
 
 Jerry laughed. 
 
 " It is one of Glendale's fads," he answered. " He 
 said that as soon as he sees the name of his corre- 
 spondent, his mind throws itself in position for the 
 message ; it does seem more simple. 
 
 " Like Glendale, the explanation is thin," and Greg 
 laughed. 
 
 Then the paper was put into the boy's hand, the 
 door was shut, and the footsteps of the messenger 
 died away. 
 
 " Father will telegraph me some time to-day," Greg 
 went on, " I will bring it up."
 
 JERRY. 457 
 
 " Thank you," then Jerry paused in the extraordi- 
 nary pen-and-ink sketches he was making on his 
 blotting-paper ; " I should like to feel Henley's pulse," 
 he said. 
 
 The color flashed into Greg's face. 
 
 " I should like to punch his head ! " he exclaimed, 
 " the miserable sneak ! a ' dear friend of my family,' 
 and all the while trying to kill this scheme when he 
 knows my father is in it " 
 
 " Hush ! " and Jerry went to the door. 
 
 " Hardy, Mr. Wilkerson ! " and a body of miners 
 came in; " we've come to shake han's, Mr. Wilkerson, 
 an' to hooray for Burden's, you bet ! " and they 
 crowded about him enthusiastically. 
 
 " Come in, come in ! " and Jerry's voice trembled 
 audibly ; " I am glad to welcome those who stood by 
 me, very glad ! " 
 
 " We brought up a little beer," one man went on 
 modestly, " to warm up our money thet's a-comin' ! " 
 
 Greg laughed. 
 
 " And the money will need warming," he said, " for 
 a freeze brought it to us," taking two tin cups down 
 from a shelf. 
 
 " They say that Mr. Henley's sick this mornin'," 
 and the men looked at each other knowingly as the 
 big cup passed from one to the other. 
 
 " Are you men the only ones who have held your 
 shares ? " and Jerry's voice seemed to settle the com- 
 pany. 
 
 " All," was answered. 
 
 " Ten men ! " and Jerry seemed to be counting 
 them over again to assure himself, 
 
 " Ten outside of Titcomb "the editor of the 
 paper, " Titcomb aint sold out." 
 
 " Eleven men, ten working men," Jerry said. 
 " Well, you must come and have supper with me to- 
 night ; we must consult about making the stream 
 safe," and he spread a sheet of paper on the table ; 
 " I want you to give Mr. Greg your names."
 
 45 8 JERRY. 
 
 " All right," and one after another the men gave in 
 their names. 
 
 " Come to Mrs. Milton's this evening at seven," 
 Jerry went on, " and we will drink a health to our 
 fortunes." 
 
 " We'll sure come, Mr. Wilkerson, plum sure : and 
 to the work too ; " then the beer was finished, and the 
 men went away. 
 
 " Only eleven men," Jerry said, when the little office 
 was empty once more, " only eleven men to stand by 
 us, Greg." 
 
 " Enough to share money with," Greg answered. 
 
 " Quite, but an awful minority when you remember 
 all who went in with us." 
 
 " Poor fools! " and Greg threw some more wood on 
 the fire, " they are sold enough now." 
 
 "If only they will continue 'sold'," Jerry answered 
 slowly. 
 
 " What do you mean ? " 
 
 " I do not trust Henley," Jerry said, " he may hurt 
 us yet : I am sure he will try." 
 
 Greg laughed. 
 
 " You are worn out, Wilkerson," he said in a more 
 familiar tone than he had used in a long time, " Hen- 
 ley must see that we have won, and will have sense 
 enough to give up the fight." 
 
 Jerry shook his head doubtfully 
 
 " I hope so," he said. 
 
 Slowly but surely the crowd gathered in the lunch 
 room in Eureka a glum, silent crowd. There was 
 no laughter ; no greeting of each other ; no jokes ; a 
 sullen, morose crowd, but a crowd. And the seats 
 seemed to have been prepared for them, and also the 
 drink that was distributed free of charge. 
 
 All through the cold, slow-falling afternoon men, 
 women, and children were drinking ; drinking as if 
 they wanted something to do as if they wanted the 
 excitement drinking themselves mad.
 
 JERRY. 459 
 
 As the night fell a dim illumination became visible: 
 "Free Supper"; a dim illumination, but an old 
 woman, hovering on the outskirts of the crowd, read 
 it and drew nearer. 
 
 It meant something, this gathering, something 
 against Burden's ; for all the people she could recog- 
 nize were people who had sold their shares long ago. 
 Then on the frozen ground was heard the sound of 
 wheels, and through the darkness a wagon rolled down 
 the road : nearer and nearer, then a stop in front of 
 the illuminated sign, and Paul Henley, followed by 
 Dan Burk and Dave Morris, entered the lighted shop. 
 There arose a little murmur from the crowd, a sound 
 that deepened as Paul raised his glass to drink their 
 health, a sound like the turning of the tide. 
 
 Then slowly in and out of the crowd Dan Burk and 
 Dave Morris passed, talking first to one and then to 
 another : and the woman out in the darkness drew 
 nearer. 
 
 The talk and hum of voices grew louder and louder, 
 until a voice from the back of the building called 
 
 " Three cheers for Mr. Henley, the poor man's 
 friend ! " and a disorganized shout followed that 
 dragged along unevenly until Burk cried out 
 
 " Three cheers for Durden's Mine ! " 
 
 There was a moment's silence, then a howl arose 
 that swept over the assembly like the cry of wild 
 beasts ; and a hubbub of voices followed where noth- 
 ing was distinguishable save the anger that sounded 
 dangerous : a hubbub of voices that was not stilled 
 until Burk sprang on the counter calling out 
 
 " Listen to me ! " and the crowd turned in his 
 direction " I am as mad as you ! " he cried, " I've 
 been plum fooled 'cause I b'lieved Jerry Wilkerson 
 was an honest man ! " then he paused for the applause 
 that came madly from the half-intoxicated mob 
 " He's lived in Durden's man an' boy ; all his money 
 come outer Durden's Mine ; I knows it an' none bet- 
 ter," pausing again and looking over the crowd that
 
 460 JERK Y. 
 
 was now intensely still "Joe Gilliarn was my pard- 
 ner ; an* nobody knows how Joe Gilliam died ; an' 
 nobody knows how Jerry Wilkerson got so much 
 money down East ; an' nobody knew thet Jerry Wilk- 
 erson hed bought most all Burden's Mine ; an' 
 nobody knew thet a dividend was a-comin' when 
 Jerry Wilkerson says says 'ee," pausing for greater 
 effect, " ' Dan Burk,' says 'ee, 'you kin git back double 
 your money if you'll sell now,' says 'ee ; an' Dan 
 Burk trusted him, an' Dan Burk was the fust to sell 
 out ! " 
 
 " Thet's so that's so! " came eagerly from the 
 crowd. 
 
 " An' Mr. Henley sold ; an' Mr. Henshaw sold ; 
 an* every one to Mr. Glendale in New York, for 
 Jerry Wilkerson ! " pausing while a groan went up 
 from his listeners. " An* when our children an' ole 
 folks were a-dyin' from cold, Jerry Wilkerson cussed 
 us into fixin' thet dam ! " 
 
 There was a dead silence, an unexpected silence 
 that caused Dan to pause for a moment and look at 
 Paul with some doubt. 
 
 "You are weary," Paul said kindly, handing him a 
 glass of whisky " it is hard work talking of the 
 money you have lost." 
 
 Burk swallowed the dram eagerly, then again turned 
 to his task. 
 
 " Fifty men stood in the water a-freezin', and a-savin' 
 thet damned mine, an' now ! " scornfully " 'Leven 
 men gits all the money ! Dan Burk fooled you all 
 inter sellin', but Jerry Wilkerson fooled Dan Burk ; 
 an' when the freeze come thet would hold the water, 
 an' when all the people have sold out, Jerry Wilk- 
 erson orders a dividend ; makes the engineer order a 
 dividend, orders it to run up the stock ; an' in two 
 days he'll sell out an' stand free an' rich ! yes, an' 
 he'll laugh at us pore folks that has been fooled, an* 
 are as pore as ever ! An' the water'll come over the 
 dam all the same, an' all thet buys Jerry Wilkerson's
 
 JERRY. 461 
 
 stock'll be fooled, an' be ruined like we have been ; 
 an' all because we fixed the dam ! " He ceased, and 
 came down from the counter amid a storm of applause 
 and angry oaths that were silenced by Dave Morris, 
 who stood up and asked that the crowd would drink 
 to Mr. Henley. There was an eager rush to- the bar 
 where Paul Henley stood thanking the people for their 
 good wishes. 
 
 And Mrs. Burk handed out the liquor ; strong, 
 crude whisky that burned like fire that crazed and 
 maddened the people into brute beasts. 
 
 " To the health of the dam ! " Burk cried out at 
 last. 
 
 " Damn it ! " was answered by a dozen voices. 
 
 " I'd pull it down," Mrs. Burk suggested to one 
 bloated creature whose cup she was filling ; and 
 voices all about her took up the words 
 
 " Pull it down pull it down ! " 
 
 "One more drink, boys," Dave Morris called, "an* 
 we'll be fit to pull down hell ! " 
 
 Then through the darkness a woman sped away 
 an old woman with white hair that, escaping from its 
 fastenings, streamed out on the wind ; and her little 
 eyes, set deep in beds of yellow wrinkles, glowed like 
 fire as she ran ; and her breath came short and fast, 
 and curses with each breath ! On and on, and yet 
 she seemed to go so slowly ! on and on over the hard, 
 slippery ground : how often she fell ! how often she 
 seemed to slip back ! how far Durden's was from 
 Eureka ! On and on, worn and almost breathless ; 
 panting, while in her ears the wind sounded like the 
 howling of the mob ! 
 
 Were they coming ? Would not she be in time to 
 warn them ? 
 
 On and on ; at last lights gleamed in front of her ; 
 they seemed near, but now every step was up-hill ! 
 Would she live to reach those lights? 
 
 At last ! 
 
 Almost she fell against the door ; the weary old
 
 462 JERR Y. 
 
 woman : panting and breathless, worn and without 
 strength she stood before the thirteen men who were 
 laughing and talking over their quiet supper, secure 
 and at peace. 
 
 " Git yer guns ! " she cried hoarsely, " an' go to the 
 dam ! " 
 
 Every man rose to his feet and Jerry sprang to her 
 side. " Mrs. Milton, who told you this ? " he cried. 
 
 " I hearn 'em a-sayin' it," she panted laboriously, 
 "over in Henley's eatin' house," drinking eagerly 
 some brandy and water which Greg handed her " I 
 knowed thar were mischief a-cookin' in Henley's free 
 supper, an' the whole crowd is wild alonger whisky, 
 an' is agoin' now to pull down the dam afore any of 
 youuns kin sell out ; git yer guns an' go ! " then she 
 sank back exhausted. " I runned orl the way," she 
 whispered, seized with an awful shuddering that made 
 Jerry give quick, sharp orders to the servant-girl : then 
 to the men 
 
 " Get what arms and ammunition you can," he said, 
 " and meet me at the dam as quickly as possible ; " 
 then he added " We are few, but we are sober," and 
 almost instantly the room was emptied. 
 
 Terribly dark and the men collected slowly ; bit- 
 terly cold, and no fire could be made as it would 
 betray them. Thirteen men crouching on the broad 
 top of the dam, which elevation gave them a murder- 
 ous descending fire that must destroy whoever 
 approached : and far below them down the strag- 
 gling village street, a few lights shone where the 
 women waited and listened. 
 
 All was silent save the muffled cry of the stream as 
 it writhed under its fetters of ice a level sheet of ice 
 from the dam out to where the broadened stream 
 stopped against the cliffs. Still as death, with fingers 
 stiffening about their guns, with the breath freezing 
 on their lips and beards The time passed slowly 
 had the old woman made a mistake ? 
 
 Jerry stood a little apart, thrilling with a terrible
 
 JERR Y. 463 
 
 exultation ; this night he would meet his enemy face 
 to face an open, free fight for fortune if his enemy 
 conquered if his enemy ruined him : he gripped 
 his gun tighter what an exquisite joy of revenge 
 the stream that ruined him would ruin Paul ! And 
 ruin what did ruin mean ? freedom aye, freedom 
 from the tension and the misery of his present life 
 his life that almost had crazed him ! Almost ? he 
 drew himself together was not he crazy now ? 
 
 A murmur arose among the men ; and the boys 
 who had come with extra arms and ammunition, were 
 sent home on account of the awful coldness. 
 
 The lights were fewer in the street, and the sullen 
 roar of the stream seemed to grow louder. 
 
 At last, far off, there came a hum like the hum of 
 swarming bees, and from the Eureka side a few waver- 
 ing lights were seen. On they came, and the waiting 
 men drew closer together ; no sound, only far off the 
 flickering lights like stars : suddenly they paused, 
 then vanished. 
 
 " There are some sober men in the party," Jerry 
 said, " and we must be most careful ; "repulse them 
 once, and they can not reassemble." Calm enough his 
 voice sounded, but his heart seemed to beat in his 
 ears, and the blood surged and tingled in his veins. 
 
 Suddenly Greg stood beside him breathless, and 
 caught his arm in a hard grasp. 
 
 " Whichever of us is first freed from this crowd," 
 he whispered, " must send the message for both, and 
 the message must be 'sell.'" 
 
 The practical words seemed to calm Jerry, and a 
 wild regret came into his mind that he had not sent 
 the message he uttered a low oath. 
 
 " I have been waiting at the office," Greg went on, 
 " trying to send the message, but the man was absent, 
 and I had to come." 
 
 " If any disaster threatens, qne of us must get there 
 to send it," and Jerry cocked and uncocked his. rifle 
 viciously.
 
 464 JERR Y. 
 
 " One of us will," Greg answered, then a silence 
 fell between them. 
 
 Suppose he should send a message now to Paul 
 about the stream Paul would not believe it : it could 
 not be proved except by experiment ? And of course 
 they could repulse a drunken mob ! 
 
 " They're jest a-crawlin' by the town," a man whis- 
 pered to Jerry. 
 
 " And perfectly silent," Greg said, looking keenly 
 at the black mass that now could be seen by the wan, 
 dead light of the moon that had risen behind the gray 
 clouds " the leaders are not drunk." 
 
 " Mr. Henley never gits drunk," the man answered, 
 " nor Dan Burk." 
 
 " That is true," Jerry commented, and again he 
 cocked and uncocked his rifle ; the sound brought 
 him solace : it was better so to win success or death ! 
 
 Sixteen good cartridges he had, sixteen chances 
 against failure : would Paul fight would he fasten 
 his longing hands on him this night ? 
 
 Nearer and nearer the black mass came ; they could 
 hear their footsteps ringing on the ice now, and crack- 
 ing through the frozen crust of the snow. 
 
 " Every man pick out his man," Jerry whispered, 
 "take careful aim, and when I give the word, fire as 
 one man," and the order was whispered along the 
 line. 
 
 Of course one volley would demoralize the mob 
 completely. . 
 
 Nearer, and nearer ; and the thirteen watchers 
 trembled with excitement in the tense, strained silence 
 that seemed to throb and roar in their ears ! 
 
 Nearer and nearer : so that the lowered voices 
 could be heard, and a little smothered chuckling ; 
 then Dan Burk's voice a little raised : 
 
 " Whar's the picks ?" There was a pause and a little 
 clatter as of tools being passed from hand to hand, 
 theij a voice said 
 
 " Steady now, and move on quickly ! "
 
 JERRY. 465 
 
 A shiver ran over Jerry, an irresistible shudder like 
 a death struggle the voice was Paul's ! 
 
 Nearer, and nearer they came; making a little more 
 noise now, feeling safe; nearer, and nearer close 
 under the dam. 
 
 " Fire ! " one low word, and a belt of light sprang 
 along the dam a deafening report, and wild cries 
 and confusion ! 
 
 Then a voice rang clear and high 
 
 " Make for the dam there are only thirteen men 
 there ! " 
 
 And the answer came 
 
 * Fire ! " 
 
 But only four shots answered there were only four 
 repeating rifles in the party ! 
 
 Fourteen good bullets left still ; and Jerry stood 
 up to his task. 
 
 "Fire as fast you can load ! " he cried, taking delib- 
 erate aim as a white face gleamed more prominently 
 from the black mass: every shot must tell. 
 
 More than a hundred men were attacking them: a 
 dense, black mass of maddened, reckless brutes that 
 the unexpected fire had not demoralized: and with 
 every thing in his favor he could kill only sixteen ! 
 His pistols ! Aye, twelve more shots there ; and 
 every shot must kill a fellow-creature; every shot 
 must send an unprepared soul to judgment and all 
 to save his fortune ! 
 
 The thought made his hand waver for one shot ; 
 did it miss ? 
 
 The other side were firing now; and Titcomb, kneel- 
 ing beside Jerry, fell back on the ice, crashing through 
 with a wild cry ! 
 
 Again Jerry fired, steadily, calmly. He could have 
 cut every throat in that howling mob, wild and mad 
 with drink. 
 
 Greg stood close beside him now. 
 
 " Four men have been knocked over," he said. 
 
 " Make every shot tell," was Jerry's answer in a
 
 4^6 JERR Y. 
 
 voice that was supernaturally calm, " And if you can 
 escape, send a telegram." 
 
 " Yes," and they fired simultaneously. 
 
 Wilder the confusion grew; cries, mad curses, groans 
 and shrieks from friends and foes; dying sighs going 
 up through the wan dead light. 
 
 They were rushing up on the dam now, and only 
 five men left to hold it ! 
 
 Calmly Jerry waited, his pistols in his hands: twelve 
 more men must die before his fortune should be 
 wrenched from him twelve men, or he must die. 
 
 Steadily his shots told, and Greg, separated from 
 him now, fought desperately. 
 
 " Only three men left ! " he heard Paul cry out 
 above the din, " and there stands Wilkerson ! " 
 
 A howl went up from the mob, and Jerry fell on 
 one knee. He was shot ! 
 
 One moment his senses seemed to leave him; one 
 wild, whirling moment, then he steadied himself: he 
 could crawl away and send a telegram he could save 
 himself yet ! 
 
 If Greg were dead, he did not know; if he were 
 fighting yet and depending on him, he did not know; 
 there was but one thought in his mind the telegram 
 that would save him ! 
 
 He was out in the darkness now where the flash of 
 the firing could not reveal him: out in the darkness 
 below the dam, crawling over dead and wounded; if 
 he hurt them, if they groaned or pleaded for help, he 
 could not stop ; it was a long way and his leg was 
 dragging. 
 
 Cold oh, God, how cold it was! and these wounded 
 creatures, some of them crawling away too, clutched 
 him as he passed clutched his weary arms and 
 broken leg ! He cried aloud in agony: was that his 
 voice ? and was it his knife that he stuck deep in the 
 man's warm flesh; aye, and now he had let him go. 
 
 How far how slow how cold ! An hour ago he 
 could have run could have saved every dollar.
 
 JERRY. 467 
 
 A high, wild cry rent the air, and sharp, ringing 
 blows as of iron on rock. 
 
 They were breaking away the dam. 
 
 A shudder ran over him, and for a second he 
 stopped: he was in the old bed of the stream and 
 would be swept away. What frantic haste he made ; 
 the rocks and the jagged ice tore his hands, and his 
 own blood leaked out now, warm and trickling slowly; 
 and the other man's blood had frozen on him. 
 
 How hard they were working, and all the town 
 seemed alive, with lights flashing here and there, and 
 women's voices shrieking and crying aloud ! 
 
 They were running by him now, and he turned 
 away from the main road. And did they not know 
 that soon the stream would be loosed, and sweep them 
 away ? But he would not tell them, they might stop 
 him ; they might hold him from his task and he had 
 killed their husbands and sons, let them be swept 
 away. 
 
 Ah, ha ! There in front of him he could see the 
 light; the man was in the office ! 
 
 Another shout. 
 
 Was the dam giving way would he be too late ? 
 He listened: there was no rush of water yet, only the 
 foolish cries of the women, who had nothing to lose 
 now. 
 
 Another shout; a long, wild shout, then a roar as if 
 the floods of heaven were let loose ! 
 
 For one instant he lay on his face, powerless. 
 
 Nearer, and nearer the rushing came, and wild, fly- 
 ing feet: the women were running. He started up; 
 maybe Paul would remember to send a telegram before 
 he could reach the office ! 
 
 How long the way was; only now his leg seemed 
 dead perhaps it was dead. On he crawled, every 
 moment nearer to his goal ; if only the mad crowd 
 flying from the stream would not run over him. 
 
 ' How the water rushed : was it in the mine yet was 
 it pouring down that black abyss, kissing the rocks it
 
 468 JERR Y. 
 
 had known so long ago, sweeping away the crumbled 
 white bones of the man who had turned its course ? 
 How it would laugh, and sing, and clap its hands 
 down there in its old haunts ! Ah, ha ! and flow out 
 in Eureka ha, ha ! No one knew that secret but he ! 
 
 Nearer, and nearer ; only the road between him 
 and the open door of the office from which the yellow 
 lamp-light shone, and the operator silhouetted black 
 in the square door-way. 
 
 Only the street to cross. 
 
 Was that noise the people coming back that wild 
 shouting and firing : the mad, drunken mob, and the 
 people afraid of them ? And up and down the street 
 the quick closing of windows and doors. Would the 
 operator close the door on him. 
 
 Great God, he was moving back ! 
 
 One last supreme effort his hand was on the sill ; 
 the door must crush his fingers if it closed ! 
 
 His face blanched to a ghastly white ; his eyes, 
 strained and burning, fixed the man with astonish- 
 ment ; a stranger in Burden's, he yet knew this 
 specter to be Jerry Wilkerson ! 
 
 "A thousand dollars if you send a message ! " and 
 the wounded man dragged himself half in the door- 
 way " A thousand dollars ! " 
 
 " All right," and the operator stepped to the instru- 
 ment. 
 
 " And no other message to-night." 
 
 " All right." 
 
 " To J. C. Glendale " panting heavily. 
 
 " J. C. Glendale," the man repeated, while the in- 
 strument clicked busily. 
 
 " Number ." 
 
 " Number ." 
 
 " Wall street." 
 
 " Wall street " steadily, although the shouts and 
 shots of the crazy mob were very near. 
 
 " New York." 
 
 " New York" the man repeated it after a second's
 
 JERR Y. 469 
 
 pause, for the shouts rang all about them, and the 
 wild shots were hitting the house ! 
 
 Jerry's words seemed to come so slowly, his breath 
 seemed thick. 
 
 " From J. P. Wilkerson, Burden's " he gasped. 
 
 " J. P. Wilkerson, Burden's " the man said. 
 
 " Sell ! " Jerry shrieked 
 
 The instrument stopped there was one shrill cry, 
 and the operator fell dead across the wounded man.
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 " The string o'erstretched breaks, and the music flies." 
 
 T T E aint no better, an' kent never get no better," 
 
 I Mrs. Milton said in a voice that was harsh and 
 
 bitter with anger and grief, and she looked 
 
 suspiciously at Greg, who, with his arm in a sling and 
 
 his head bandaged, looked almost as worn and thin 
 
 as Jerry lying on the bed between them. 
 
 Jerry lying still and helpless, with drawn white face 
 and vacant eyes vacant eyes that made Greg remem- 
 ber his father's warning. 
 
 " He's allersa-countin' them chips," Mrs. Milton went 
 on, pointing to a pile of dry chips that lay under the 
 sick man's hand, "or he's a-talkin' to this little passel," 
 drawing from under Jerry's pillow a small package 
 wrapped in old newspaper. 
 
 The sick man held out his hands, so white and 
 tremulous, while a wistful look came into his eyes. 
 
 " It's Mammy's," he said, " Mammy's." 
 
 Greg looked up in surprise ; Mrs. Milton shook her 
 head, catching a sob in her throat. 
 
 " He's been atalkin' thet away ever sence he were 
 brunged har," she said ; " he's done gone backer orl 
 his'n larnin', an' orl his'n trouble, to his'n mammy," 
 and she gave Jerry the little bundle. 
 
 " It aint wuth nothin'," he said, looking up at Greg 
 wistfully, " it's nothin' as'll do youuns no good it's 
 Mammy's Mammy's," his voice falling fainter. 
 
 Greg turned away was it only that he was weakened 
 by wounds and the awful loss and ruin that he had en- 
 dured, that he leaned against the mantel-piece sobbing 
 so pitifully ? 
 
 470
 
 JERR Y. 47 1 
 
 " The new doctor says thet he kent las' out the 
 night," Mrs. Milton went on, " an' thar aint nary soul 
 to pray alonger him ceppen you, Mr. Greg." 
 
 Greg shook his head. 
 
 " I can not," he whispered huskily, " I do not know 
 how." 
 
 A tired sigh came from the sick man, causing both 
 watchers to turn. 
 
 " I can not count them," he said wearily, in the 
 voice and language that Greg was accustomed to hear 
 from his lips, " but what is the use," he went on, " of 
 counting gold that is as common as chips ; as chips 
 that I can throw into the water. Ah, the water ! how 
 it boils and surges how it laughs and sings as it 
 goes back to its old home and it will flash into the 
 sunlight again at Eureka Eureka ! " 
 
 Mrs. Milton went hastily to the bedside. 
 
 " He'll git wild in a minute," she said, " an thet'll 
 kill 'im," and again she drew the poor little bundle 
 from under the pillow where he had hidden it. " This 
 aller makes him quiet." 
 
 " It's Mammy's," and again the weak hand clasped 
 the bundle, " an' mebbe Dad'll forgit them rails, 
 mebbe he'll furgit," the voice sinking gradually, then 
 the tired eyes closed and he seemed asleep. 
 
 Greg came back to the bedside now, and the young 
 physician from the railway camp joined him there: 
 he seemed excited. 
 
 " They have caught Henley," he whispered, " but 
 the people must not know it, they would kill him." 
 
 Greg's eyes flashed, and he drew a sharp breath 
 between his clenched teeth. Then aloud the physi- 
 cian said : 
 
 " Wilkerson can not possibly live," and his hand 
 was on the fluttering pulse, "and it is most fortunate; 
 for his fortune is gone, and his debts are enormous, 
 and he could never recover his mind ; it is most for- 
 tunate." 
 
 (< Git away ! " and Mrs. Milton pushed the aston-
 
 47 2 JERRY. 
 
 ished stranger aside roughly " if Jerry Wilkerson 
 wuz as big a fool as youuns," she said, " Mandy Mil- 
 ton'd be proud to tuck keer of him fur ever jest you 
 'member thet ; an' pay orl he owes, an' glad to do it 
 too an' Mr. Greg knows it." 
 
 " I beg pardon," and the young man stepped back, 
 "I meant no harm." 
 
 " Mebbe not," sharply, raising Jerry's head on her 
 shoulder that the labored breathing might be a little 
 easier "an' if you kent do nothin' fur him ceppen 
 to be thankful he'sa-dyin', jest go 'long ; me an' Mr. 
 Greg kin 'ten' to him." 
 
 The doctor took up his hat, when suddenly a hand 
 clutched his shoulder, and the old woman drew him 
 to her, looking in his face with burning eyes. 
 
 " Kin youuns pray ? " she whispered hoarsely. 
 
 He shook his head, and the hold on his shoulder 
 relaxed. 
 
 " Notter soul to pray fur him," she muttered, 
 smoothing back from the sick man's brow the hair 
 that had grown so white " notter soul but God'll 
 know ! " 
 
 The sick man's eyes opened. 
 
 " Mammy's gone to God," he whispered, " the 
 doctor tole me thet." 
 
 " Yes, honey," the old woman answered, soothing 
 him as gently as a mother would her little child ; then 
 all was still save the fire that whispered and sighed. 
 
 The doctor lingered near the door ; Greg leaned 
 against the mantel-piece with his hand over his eyes ; 
 the old woman stood as if cut in stone, holding in her 
 arms the dying man : the clock told off relentlessly 
 the flying moments, and the solemn hours gathered full 
 and fell. 
 
 Slower and slower the breath came ; the heart 
 struggled in its beating ; the poor hands held close 
 with pitiful faithfulness the little bundle wrapped up 
 so long ago. 
 
 He could not last much longer.
 
 JERRY. 473 
 
 The doctor held the failing pulse ; Greg drew a lit- 
 tle nearer ; Mrs. Milton bent a little under the grow- 
 ing weight in her arms. 
 
 Slower and slower the pulse-beats came ; the eye- 
 lids quivered there was a little sigh, and the tired 
 eyes looked up wistful, pleading, pitiful ! 
 
 " I never knowed, Mammy, 1 never knowed," he 
 said, and the journey begun so long ago among the 
 Southern hills was ended. 
 
 THE END.
 
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