THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 THE PIONEER

 
 THE PIONEER 
 
 A TALE OF TWO STATES 
 
 By 
 
 GERALDINE BONNER 
 
 Author of Tomorrow'* Tangle 
 
 WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY 
 
 HARRISON FISHER 
 
 NEW YORK 
 A. WESSELS COMPANY 
 
 1907
 
 COPYRIGHT 1905 
 THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY 
 
 March
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 BOOK I 
 
 7J 
 
 THE COUNTRY / 5 U * 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 I THE SQUATTER 3 
 
 II THE GRACEY BOYS 12 
 
 III THE NAME OF ALLEN 27 
 
 IV O, MINE ENEMY! 44 
 V THE SUMMONS 54 
 
 VI THE OLD LOVE 65 
 
 VII UNCLE JIM 85 
 
 VIII PRIZES OF ACCIDENT 99 
 
 BOOK II 
 THE TOWN 
 
 I DOWN IN THE CITY 109 
 
 II FEMININE LOGIC 126 
 
 III ONE OF EVE'S FAMILY 140 
 
 IV DANGER SIGNALS 153 
 V THE GREAT GOD PAN 166 
 
 VI READJUSTMENT 183 
 
 VII BUSINESS AND SENTIMENT 192 
 
 VIII NEW PLANETS 201 
 
 IX THE CHOICE OF MAIDS 214 
 
 X THE QUICKENING CURRENT 225 
 
 XI LUPE'S CHAINS ARE BROKEN 230 
 
 XII A MAN AND His PRICE 241 
 
 XIII THE BREAKING POINT 252 
 
 XIV BED-ROCK 265
 
 BOOK III 
 THE DESERT 
 
 CHAPTER PAGB 
 
 I NEVADA 281 
 
 II OLD FRIENDS WITH NEW FACES 286 
 
 III SMOLDERING EMBXRS 304 
 
 IV A WOMAN'S "No" 316 
 V " HER FEET Go DOWN TO DEATH " 329 
 
 VI THE EDGE OF THE PRECIPICE 341 
 
 VII THE COLONEL COMES BACK 352 
 
 VIII THE AROUSED LION 368 
 
 IX HOME 381
 
 THE PIONEER
 
 BOOK I 
 
 THE COUNTRY
 
 THE PIONEER 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 THE SQUATTER 
 
 It had been five o'clock in the clear, still freshness 
 of a May morning when the Colonel had started 
 from Sacramento. Now, drawing rein where the 
 shadow of a live-oak lay like a black pool across 
 the road, he looked at his watch almost five. The 
 sun had nearly wheeled from horizon to horizon. 
 
 During the burning noon hour he had rested at 
 Murderer's Bar. Except for that he had been in the 
 saddle all day, slackening speed where the road 
 passed over the burnt shoulder of the foot-hills, de- 
 scending into sheltered canons by cool river beds, 
 pacing along stretches of deserted highway where his 
 mounted figure was the only living thing in sight. 
 
 Stationary in the shade of the live-oak he looked 
 about him. The rich foot-hill country of California 
 stretched away beneath his gaze in lazy undulations, 
 dotted with the forms of the oaks. The grass on 
 unprotected hilltops was already drying to an ocher 
 yellow, the road was deep in dust. Far away, hang- 
 ing on the horizon like a faded mirage, was the high 
 Sierra, thin, snow-touched, a faint, aerial vision. 
 
 The sleepy sounds of midday had died down and 
 3
 
 4 THE PIONEER 
 
 the strange, dream-like silence so peculiar to Cali- 
 fornia held the scene. It was like looking at a pic- 
 ture, the Colonel thought, as he turned in his saddle 
 and surveyed the misty line of hill after hill, bare and 
 wooded, dwindling down to where a vast, sea-like 
 expanse swimming in opalescent tints stretched one 
 of the fruitful valleys of the world. 
 
 Kit Carson, the finest horse procurable in the Sac- 
 ramento livery stable the Colonel patronized, stamped 
 and flicked off a fly with his long tail. His rider 
 muttered a word of endearment and bent to pat 
 the silky neck, while his eyes continued to move 
 over the great panorama. He had traversed it many 
 times. The first time of all rose in his mind, when 
 in the flush of his splendid manhood, he had sought 
 fortune on the bars and river-beds in forty-nine. 
 Forty-nine! That was twenty-one years ago. 
 
 Something in the thought clouded his brow and 
 called a sigh to his lips. He made a gesture as 
 though shaking off a painful memory and gathered 
 up the hanging rein. 
 
 "Come, Kit," he said aloud, "we've got to be mov- 
 ing. There's fifteen miles yet between us and 
 supper." 
 
 The road before them mounted a spur at the top 
 of which it branched, one fork winding up and on 
 to the mining towns hidden in the mountain crevices. 
 The other turned to the right, and rising and fall- 
 ing over the buttresses that the foot-hills thrust into 
 the plain, wandered down "the mother lode," the 
 great mineral belt of California. 
 
 As they rose to the summit of the spur, the bril-
 
 THE SQUATTER 5 
 
 liancy of the air was tarnished by a cloud of dust, 
 and the silence disrupted by sounds. The crack of 
 whips cut into the tranquillity of the evening hour; 
 the jangling of bells and voices of men mingled in 
 strident dissonance. Both Kit and the Colonel rose 
 above the curve of the hilltop with the pricked ears 
 and alert eyes of curiosity. 
 
 The left-hand road was blocked as far as could 
 be seen with a long mule train, one of the trains 
 that a few years before had crossed the Sierra to 
 Virginia City, and still plied a trade with the Cali- 
 fornia mountain towns. The dust rose from it and 
 covered it as though to shut out from Heaven the 
 vision of the straining animals, and deaden the blas- 
 phemies of the men. Looking along its struggling 
 length, the end of which was lost round a turn of 
 the road, the Colonel could see the pointed ears, the 
 stretched necks, and the arched collars of the mules, 
 the canvas tops of the wagons and over all, darting 
 back and forth, the leaping flash of the whips. 
 
 A forward wagon was stuck, and, groaning and 
 creaking from an unsuccessful effort to start it, the 
 train subsided into panting relaxation. From the 
 dust the near-by drivers emerged, caught sight of 
 the rider, and slouched toward him. They were 
 powerful men great men in their day, the California 
 mule drivers. 
 
 They passed the time of day, told him their des- 
 tination and asked his. Going on to Foleys, was he? 
 Mining? Supposed not. Not much mining done 
 round Fpleys now. Like Virginia, pretty well pe- 
 tered,
 
 6 THE PIONEER 
 
 "Virginia!" said one of them, "you'd oughter see 
 Virginia! I've taken my sixteen-mule team over 
 the Strawberry Creek route and made my ten dollars 
 a day in Virginia, but it's as dead now as forty- 
 nine." 
 
 Then they slouched back to their work. Through 
 the churned-up dust, red with the brightness of the de- 
 clining sun, men came swinging down from the for- 
 ward end of the train, driving mules to attach to 
 the stalled wagon. About it there was a concen- 
 trating of movement and then an outburst of furious 
 energy. A storm of profanity arose, the dust as- 
 cended like a pillar of red smoke, and in it the 
 forms of men struggled, and the lashes of the whips 
 came and went like the writhing tentacles of an 
 octopus. The watcher had a glimpse of the mules 
 almost sitting in the violence of their endeavor, and 
 with a howl of triumph the wagon lurched forward. 
 The next moment the entire train was in motion, 
 seeming to advance with a single movement, like a 
 gigantic serpent, each wagon-top a section of its 
 vertebrate length, the whole undulating slowly to the 
 rhythmic jangling of the bells. 
 
 The Colonel took the turning to the right and 
 was soon traversing a road which looped in gradual 
 descent along the wall of a ravine. The air was 
 chilled by a river that tumbled over stones below. 
 Greenery of tree and chaparral ran up the walls. 
 A white root gripping a rock like knotty fingers, a 
 spattering of dogwood here and there amid the 
 .foliage, caught his eye. 
 
 Yes, VirgjjoJ Jjad unquestionably "petered." It
 
 THE SQUATTER 7 
 
 had had a short life for its promise. Even in sixty- 
 eight they still had had hopes of it. This was May, 
 the May of seventy, and their hopes had not been 
 realized. Fortunately he had invested little there. 
 California the Colonel had found a good enough 
 field for his investments. 
 
 He rode on out of the ravine, once again into the dry 
 rolling land, his mind turning over that question of 
 investments. He had not much else to think of. He 
 was a lonely man, unmarried, childless, and rich. 
 What else was there for a man, who had passed his 
 fifty-fifth year, who did not care for women or plea- 
 sure, to concern himself about? It was not satisfying; 
 it brought him no happiness, but he had had no ex- 
 pectation of that. 
 
 Twenty-one years ago the Colonel had waked to 
 the realization that he had missed happiness. She had 
 been his, in his very arms then, and he had thought 
 to keep her there for ever. Then suddenly she had 
 gone, without warning, tearing herself from his 
 grasp, and he had known that she would never return. 
 So he had tried to fill the blankness she had left, 
 with business a sorry substitute! He had spent a 
 good deal of time and thought over this matter of 
 investing, and had seen his fortune accumulating in 
 a safe, gradual way. It would have been much larger 
 than it was if he could have cured himself of a 
 tendency to give portions of it away. But the 
 Colonel was a pioneer, and there were many pio- 
 neers who had succeeded better than he in finding 
 happiness, if not so well in gaining riches. As they 
 had been successful in the one way, he had tried
 
 8 THE PIONEER 
 
 'to remedy a deficit in the other, and his fortune re- 
 mained at about the same comfortable level, despite 
 his preoccupation in investments. 
 
 This very trip was to see about a new one in 
 which there were great possibilities. He had a strip 
 of land at Foleys, back of the town, purchased fif- 
 teen years ago when people thought the little camp 
 was to be the mining center of the region. Now, 
 after he had been regularly paying his taxes, and 
 hearing that the place annually grew smaller and 
 deader, a mineral spring had been discovered on his 
 land. It was a good thing that something had been 
 discovered there. The hopes of Foleys had vanished 
 soon after he had come into possession of the tract. 
 His efforts to sell it had been unsuccessful. Some 
 years ago the last time he was up there you 
 couldn't get people to take land near Foleys, short 
 of giving it to them. But a mineral spring was a 
 very different matter. 
 
 As Kit Carson bore him swiftly onward he re- 
 viewed the idea of his new investment with increas- 
 ing enthusiasm. If the spring was all they said it 
 was, he would build a hotel near it, and transform 
 the beautiful, unknown locality into a summer resort. 
 There was an ideal situation for a hotel, where the 
 land swept upward into a sort of natural terrace 
 crested with enormous pines. Here the house would 
 be built, and from its front piazza guests rocking in 
 shaker chairs could look over miles of hills and wood- 
 ed canons, and far away on clear days could see 
 the mother-of-pearl expanse of the Sacramento Valley.
 
 THE SQUATTER 9 
 
 A few years ago the plan would have been impos- 
 sibk. But now, with the railroad climbing over the 
 Sierra, it would be quite feasible to run a line of 
 stages from Sacramento; or, possibly, Auburn would 
 be shorter. There was even a hope in the back of 
 the Colonel's mind that the railway might be induced 
 to fling forth a spur as far as Placerville. The Col- 
 onel had friendships in high places. Things that 
 ordinary mortals who were not rich, unattached pio- 
 neers, could not aspire to, were entirely possible for 
 Colonel James Parrish. 
 
 But here came in the "but" which upsets the 
 best laid plans. At this point the squatter had loomed 
 up. 
 
 The Colonel had hardly believed in the squatter 
 at first. His claims were so preposterous. He had 
 come shortly after Parrish's last visit, nearly four 
 years ago, and had taken up his residence in the 
 half -ruined cottage which had been built on the land 
 in those days when people had thought Foleys was 
 going to be a great mining center. When Cusack, 
 the drowsy lawyer who "attended to Colonel Par- 
 rish's business interests in Foleys," as he expressed 
 it, let his client know there was a squatter a mar- 
 ried man with two children on the land, the Colo- 
 nel's reply had been "let him squat." And so the 
 matter had rested. 
 
 Now, when the Colonel wanted to take posses- 
 sion of his own, build his hotel and develop his 
 mineral spring, he had received the intelligence that 
 the squatter refused to go that in fact he claimed the
 
 io THE PIONEER 
 
 land on a three and a half years' tenancy undisturbed 
 by notice to leave, and on various and sundry "im- 
 provements" he had made. 
 
 It took the Colonel's breath away. That little clause 
 in the lawyer's letter about the wife and children had 
 induced him to give his permission for the squatter 
 to occupy his cottage. Having no wife or child of 
 his own, he had a secret feeling of friendliness to all 
 men, who, even in poverty and unsuccess, had tasted 
 of this supreme happiness. And he had let the man 
 remain there, undisturbed, throughout the three and 
 a half years, had forgotten him in fact, did not even 
 know his name. 
 
 And then to be suddenly faced by the amazing in- 
 solence of the claim ! He with his flawless title, his 
 record of scrupulously paid taxes! He wrote to the 
 Foleys lawyer, as to what "the improvements" were, 
 and received the reply that they consisted in "a gar- 
 den planted out and tended by the squatter's daugh- 
 ters, and a bit of vineyard land that the girls had 
 pruned and cultivated into bearing condition. There 
 were repairs on the house, mending the roof and the 
 porch which was falling down. Allen had made these 
 himself." 
 
 Allen! It was the first time Colonel Parrish had 
 heard the squatter's name. It sent a gush of painful 
 memories out from his heart, and for a space he 
 sat silent with drooped head. Why was not the world 
 wide enough for him, and all who bore this name, to 
 pass one another without encounter! 
 
 Now, as he rode on the last stage of his journey, 
 and over the hilltops saw the smoke of the Foleys
 
 THE SQUATTER 11 
 
 chimneys, his mind had once again fallen on the squat- 
 ter's name. Strange coincidence that after twenty- 
 one years this name a common one should rise up 
 uncomfortably in his path. He smiled bitterly to 
 himself. Fate played strange tricks, and he felt, 
 with a sense of shamed meanness, that he would 
 have regarded the squatter with more leniency if 
 he had borne any other name than Allen.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 THE GRACEY BOYS 
 
 The smell of wood smoke and supper was in the 
 air as the Colonel rode down the main street of 
 Foleys. Under the projecting roof that jutted from 
 the second story windows and made a species of rude 
 arcade, men were sitting in the negligee of shirt 
 sleeves, smoking and spitting in the cool of the even- 
 ing. They hailed the new-comer with a word of 
 greeting or a hand raised in salute to the side of a 
 head where a hat brim should have been. 
 
 The Colonel returned the salutations, and as Kit 
 Carson paced through the red dust to where the 
 drooping fringe of locust trees hid the fagade of 
 the hotel, looked curiously about him, noticing a 
 slight stir of life, an appearance of reviving vital- 
 ity in the once moribund camp. Foleys was not 
 as dead as it had been four years ago. Fewer of 
 the shop doors were boarded up; there were even 
 new stores open. 
 
 He was speculating on this when he threw himself 
 off his horse in front of the hotel. The loungers 
 on the piazza, dustered and shirt-sleeved men, let 
 their tilted chairs drop to the front legs, and rose 
 co greet him to a man. Anybody was an acquisi- 
 12
 
 THE GRACEY BOYS 13 
 
 tion at Foleys, but Colonel Jim Parrish, with the 
 rumor of bringing a lawsuit into their midst, was 
 welcomed as the harbinger of a new era. 
 
 They were all around him shaking hands when For- 
 sythe, the proprietor, armed with a large feather dus- 
 ter, emerged from the front door. He cut the new 
 arrival out from their midst and drew him into the 
 hall. Here, dusting him vigorously, he shouted to 
 Mrs. Forsythe to prepare a room, and between 
 sweeps of the duster, inquired of him on the burn- 
 ing question of the squatter. 
 
 "Come to fire old man Allen, eh?" he queried. 
 "Got your work cut out for you with him." 
 
 "He'll find he's barked up the wrong tree this time," 
 said the Colonel grimly, "bringing me up from San 
 Francisco on such a fool's errand." 
 
 "It's about the galliest proposition I've ever heard. 
 But he's that kind, drunk a lot of the time, and the 
 rest of it tellin' the boys round here what a great 
 man he used to be. He was glad enough to get 
 twenty-five dollars a month holdin' down a small job 
 in the assay office." 
 
 At this moment a door to the right opened, yielding 
 a glimpse of a large bare dining-room set forth with 
 neatly laid tables and decorated with hanging strands 
 of colored paper. 
 
 "Say," said a female voice, "ain't that Colonel Jim 
 Parrish that just come down the street?" 
 
 "That's just who it is," answered the Colonel, "and 
 isn't that Mitty Bruce's voice?" 
 
 This question called to the doorway a female 
 vision in brilliant pink calico. It was a buxom, high-
 
 i 4 THE PIONEER 
 
 colored country girl of some twenty-one years, coarse 
 featured but not uncomely, her face almost as pink 
 as her dress, her figure of the mature proportions 
 of the early-ripening Californian. 
 
 "Well, well, is this Mitty?" said the new-comer, 
 holding out his hand. "You have to come up to the 
 foot-hills to see a handsome girl. I'd never have known 
 you, you've grown up so and got so good looking." 
 
 Mitty sidled up giggling and placed a big, red paw 
 in his. 
 
 "Oh, get out!" she said, "ain't you just awful!" 
 
 "I won't get out and I'm not a bit awful. You've 
 got to take care of me at supper and tell me every- 
 thing that's happened in Foleys since I was here 
 last." 
 
 "Let her alone to do that," said Forsythe. "There 
 ain't anything that goes on in Eldorado and Amador 
 Counties that Mitty don't know. She's the best news- 
 paper we got round here." 
 
 Mrs. Forsythe here put her head over the stair- 
 rail and informed the Colonel that his room was 
 ready. He ran up stairs to "wash up" while the 
 other two repaired to the dining-room. 
 
 A few minutes later he reappeared and entered 
 the low-ceilinged room that smelled of fresh paint 
 and cooking. It was past the supper hour at Foleys 
 and only a few men lingered over the end of their 
 meal. By a table at the window, cleanly spread and 
 set, Mitty was standing. When she saw him she 
 pulled out a chair and, with its back resting against 
 her waist, pointed to the seat.
 
 THE GRACEY BOYS 15 
 
 "Set right down here," she said, "everything's 
 ready for you." 
 
 Then as he obeyed she pushed him in, saying over 
 his shoulder: 
 
 "It's real nice to see you again, Colonel. It seems 
 awful long since you was here last." 
 
 The Colonel looked up at her with an eye of twink- 
 ling friendliness. She was gazing at him with child- 
 ish pleasure and affection. He had known Mitty 
 since her tenth year when Forsythe and his wife had 
 adopted her, the only child of a dying woman whose 
 husband had been killed in a mine. 
 
 "Good girl, Mit," he said. "Have you got all the 
 gossip of the last four years saved up for me?" 
 
 "I guess I can tell you as much as most," she an- 
 swered, not without pride, and then flourished off 
 to the hole in the dining-room which communicated 
 with the kitchen. 
 
 When she had set his supper before him she sat 
 down opposite, her elbows on the table, comfortably 
 settled for the gossip the traveler had requested. 
 
 "Foleys seems to be livening up," he said. "I 
 noticed several new stores. What's happening?" 
 
 "Foleys!" exclaimed Mitty, with the Californian's 
 loyalty to his native burg, "Foleys is the liveliest 
 town along the mother lode. There ain't nothing 
 the matter with Foleys! It's the Gracey boys' strike 
 up at the Buckeye Belle mine that's whooping things 
 up." 
 
 "Oh, that's it, of course," said the Colonel. "They 
 say the Gracey boys have really struck it this time.
 
 16 THE PIONEER 
 
 I heard some talk of it before I came up. The report 
 down below was that it was a pretty good thing." 
 
 "You bet," said the young woman with a knowing 
 air. "Nearly a year ago one of the gentlemen con- 
 nected with it said to me, 'We've got a mine there; 
 bed-rock's pitchin' and there's two bits to the pan.' 
 So I wasn't surprised when I heard they'd struck 
 it. They're goin' to build a twenty-stamp mill next 
 thing you know." 
 
 "Good for them!" said the Colonel. "The Gracey 
 boys have been mining for years all over this coun- 
 try and in Mexico and Nevada, and this is the first 
 good thing they've got. How far is it from here?" 
 
 "About twelve miles up in that direction " she 
 gave a jerk of her hand to the right "up on the other 
 side of the South Fork. They have to come here 
 for everything. Barney Sullivan, the superintendent, 
 does most of their buying." 
 
 She looked at the Colonel with a wide-eyed, stolid 
 gaze as she gave this insignificant piece of informa- 
 tion. The look suggested to her vis-a-vis that the 
 information was not insignificant to her. 
 
 "Barney Sullivan," he said, "I remember him. 
 He's been with them for some years, was in Virginia 
 City when they were there. He's a good-looking 
 fellow with red hair." 
 
 "Good-lookin', did you say?" exclaimed Mitty, in 
 a high key of scornful disbelief. "Well, that's more'n 
 I can see. Just a red-headed Irish tarrier, with the 
 freckles on him as big as dimes. It's a good thing 
 all the world don't like the same kind of face."
 
 THE GRACEY BOYS 17 
 
 Her scorn was tinctured with the complacence of 
 one who knows herself exempt from similar charges. 
 Mitty, secure in the knowledge that her own patro- 
 nymic was Bruce, affected a high disdain of the Irish. 
 She also possessed a natural pride on the score of 
 her Christian name, which in its unique unabbre- 
 viated completeness, was Summit, in commemoration 
 of the fact that upon that lofty elevation of the Sierra 
 she had first seen the light. 
 
 "You'll be able to see all the Buckeye Belle crowd 
 to-night," she continued; "they'll be in now any time. 
 There's going to be a party here." 
 
 The Colonel looked up from his plate with the 
 thrust-out lips and raised brows of inquiring as- 
 tonishment. 
 
 "The devil you say!" he ejaculated. "I arrived 
 just at the right moment, didn't I? I suppose I'll 
 have to stand round looking at the men knifing each 
 other for a chance to dance with Miss Mitty Bruce." 
 
 Mitty wriggled with delight and grew as pink as 
 her dress. 
 
 "Well, not quite's bad as that," she said with brid- 
 ling modesty, "but I can have my pick." 
 
 Her friend had finished the first part of his sup- 
 per, and placing his knife and fork together, leaned 
 back, looking at her and smiling to himself. She 
 saw the empty plate, and rising, bent across the table 
 and swept it and the other dishes on to her tray 
 with an air of professional expertness. As she came 
 back with the dessert the last diner thumped across 
 the wooden floor in noisy exit.
 
 i8 THE PIONEER 
 
 The plate that she set before the Colonel displayed 
 a large slab of pie. A breakfast cup of coffee went 
 with it. He looked at them with an undismayed eye, 
 remarking : 
 
 "Who's coming to the party? I'll bet a new hat 
 Barney Sullivan will be here the first man on deck, 
 and the last to quit the pumps. But I don't suppose 
 the Gracey boys will show up." 
 
 "Yes, they will both of 'em." 
 
 "What, Black Dan? Black Dan Gracey doesn't 
 go to parties." 
 
 "Well, he don't generally. But he's goin' to this 
 one. His daughter, Mercedes, is here, that sort er 
 spidery Spanish girl, and he's goin' for her." 
 
 Mitty, having seen that her guest had all that in 
 Foleys made up the last course of a complete and 
 satisfactory supper, went round and took her seat 
 at the opposite side of the table. As she spoke he 
 noticed a change in her voice. Now, as he saw her 
 face, he noticed a change in it, too. There was a 
 withdrawal of joy and sparkle. She looked sullen, 
 almost mournful. 
 
 "Black Dan Gracey's daughter here?" he queried. 
 "What's she doing so far afield? The last I heard 
 of her she was in school in San Francisco." 
 
 "So she was until two days ago. Then some kind er 
 sickness broke out in the school, and her paw went 
 down to bring her up here. She was so precious 
 she couldn't come up from San Francisco alone. She 
 had to be brung all the way like she was made of 
 gold and people was tryin' to steal her. They stopped 
 here for dinner on their way up. I seen her."
 
 THE GRACEY BOYS 19 
 
 "She promises to be very pretty," said the Colonel 
 absently. "They say Gracey worships her." 
 
 "Pretty!" echoed Mitty in a very flat voice. "I 
 don't see what makes her so dreadful pretty. Little 
 black thing! And anybody 'd be pretty all togged 
 up that way. She'd diamond ear-rings on, real ones, 
 big diamonds like that." 
 
 She held out the tip of her little finger, nipped 
 between her third and thumb. 
 
 "I guess that makes a difference," she said em- 
 phatically, looking at him with a pair of eyes which 
 tried to be defiant, but were really full of forlorn 
 appeal. 
 
 "Of coiirse it makes a difference," said the Colo- 
 nel cheeringly, without knowing in the least what he 
 meant, "a great difference." 
 
 "They was all staring at her here at dinner. There 
 was four men in the kitchen trying to get a squint 
 through the door, until the Chinaman threw 'em 
 out. And she knew jest as well as any one, and 
 liked it. But you oughter have seen her pretend she 
 didn't notice it. Jest eat her dinner sort er slow and 
 careless as if they was no one round more important 
 than a yaller dog. Only now and then she'd throw back 
 her head so's her curls 'ud fall back and the diamond 
 ear-rings 'ud show. I said to paw flat-footed, 'Go 
 and wait on her yourself, since you think she's so 
 dreadful handsome. I don't do no waiting on that 
 stuck-up thing.' " 
 
 Mitty turned away to the window. Her recital of 
 the sensation created by the proud Miss Gracey 
 seemed to affect her. There was a tremulous un-
 
 20 THE PIONEER 
 
 demote in her voice; her bosom, under its tight- 
 drawn pink calico covering, heaved as if she were 
 about to weep. 
 
 The Colonel noted with surprise these signs of 
 storm, and was wondering what would be best to 
 say to divert the conversation into less disturbing 
 channels, when Mitty, looking out of the window, 
 craned her neck and evidently followed with her eyes 
 a passing figure. 
 
 "There goes June Allen," she said; "don't she look 
 shabby ?" 
 
 The name caused the Colonel to stop eating. He 
 raised his eyes to his companion. She was looking 
 at him with reviving animation in her glance. 
 
 "That's the daughter of old man Allen what's 
 squatted on your land," she explained. "You ain't 
 ever seen the girls, have you?" 
 
 The Colonel, who had finished, laid his napkin on 
 the table. 
 
 "No," he answered, "are they children?" 
 
 "Children!" echoed Mitty, "I guess not. June's 
 twenty and Rosamund's nineteen. I know 'em real 
 well. They're friends of mine." 
 
 He raised his eyebrows, surprised and relieved at 
 the information. It would be less hard to oust the 
 squatter if his children were of this age than if they 
 were helpless infants. 
 
 "What sort of girls are they?" he asked. 
 
 "Oh they're real lovely girls. And they've got a 
 wonderful education. They know lots. They're 
 learned. Their mother learned it to them "
 
 THE GRACEY BOYS 21 
 
 Mitty stopped, a sound outside striking her ear. 
 The Colonel was looking at her with quizzical inquiry. 
 The picture of the squatter's children, as educated, 
 much less "learned," filled him with amused astonish- 
 ment. He was just about to ask his informant for 
 a fuller explanation, when she rose to her feet, her 
 face suffused with color, her eyes fastened in a sud- 
 den concentration of attention on something outside 
 the window. 
 
 "Here they are," she said in a low, hurried voice. 
 "Get up and look at them." 
 
 He obeyed, not knowing whom she meant. In the 
 bright light of the after-glow he saw four figures 
 on horseback three men and a girl approaching 
 down the deserted street. Behind them a pack burro, 
 his back laden with bags and valises, plodded meekly 
 through the dust. The Colonel recognized the men 
 as the Gracey brothers and their superintendent, Bar- 
 ney Sullivan. The girl he had not seen for a year 
 or two, and she was at the age when a year or two 
 makes vast changes. He knew, however, that she 
 was Black Dan Gracey's daughter, Mercedes, who 
 was expected at the dance. 
 
 The cavalcade came to a stop outside the window. 
 From the piazza the front legs of the loungers' chairs 
 striking the floor produced a series of thuds, and the 
 thuds were followed by a series of hails such as had 
 greeted the Colonel. But the loungers made no at- 
 tempt to go forward, as they had done in his case. 
 An access of bashfulness in the presence of beauty 
 held them sheepishly spellbound. It remained for
 
 22 THE PIONEER 
 
 Forsythe to dash out with his duster and welcome the 
 new arrivals with the effusion of a mining camp 
 Boniface. 
 
 The Colonel, unseen, looked at them with perhaps 
 not as avid a curiosity as Mitty, but with undisguised 
 interest. He had long known the Gracey boys, as 
 they were called, though Dan was forty-three and 
 Rion twelve years younger. He had often heard of 
 their mining vicissitudes, not only from men similarly 
 engaged, but from themselves on their occasional vis- 
 its to San Francisco. The society of that city had not 
 yet expanded to the size when it fell apart into sepa- 
 rate sets. Its members not only had a bowing acquain- 
 tance, but were, for the most part, intimate. The 
 Gracey boys had, as the newspapers say, "the entree 
 everywhere," though they did not, it is true, profit 
 by it to the extent that San Francisco would have 
 liked. 
 
 They were not only educated men, who had come 
 from Michigan in their boyhood, but Black Dan Gra- 
 cey was a figure distinguished at any rate, to the 
 feminine imagination by an unusual flavor of ro- 
 mance. Seventeen years before the present date he 
 had met, while mining in Mexico, a young Spanish 
 girl of fourteen, had fallen madly in love with her, 
 and when her parents placed her in a convent 
 to remove her for ever from the hated Gringo, with 
 six of his men, had broken into the convent and car- 
 ried her off. 
 
 It was part of the romance that a year later his 
 child-wife, as passionately loving as he, should have 
 died, leaving him a baby. It was said that Black
 
 THE GRACEY BOYS 23 
 
 Dan Gracey had never recovered this sudden sev- 
 ering of the dearest tie of his life. He certainly was 
 proof against the wiles that many sirens in San Fran- 
 cisco and elsewhere had displayed for his subjuga- 
 tion. It was after this, anyway, that the adjective 
 Black had been prefixed to his name. Most people 
 said it had arisen because of his swarthy coloring he 
 was of an almost Indian darkness of tint but there 
 were those who declared it was a tribute to his moody 
 taciturnity, for Black Dan Gracey was a man of few 
 words and rare smiles. 
 
 Now, standing in the brilliant evening light, the 
 watcher could not but be impressed by the appear- 
 ance of the two brothers. A fine pair of men, the 
 Gracey boys, muscular, broad-shouldered, and tall ; 
 out-door men whose eyes were far-seeing and quiet, 
 who felt cramped in cities, and returned from them 
 with a freshened zest to the stream-bed and the canon. 
 Rion was obviously many years his brother's junior. 
 He was a more normal-looking person, not so darkly 
 bearded and heavily browed, more full of the joys 
 and interests of life. 
 
 As he slid from his saddle to the ground he was 
 laughing, while his elder, the lower part of his face 
 clothed in a piratical growth of black hair, lowered 
 somberly from under a gray sombrero. In their 
 rough and dust-grimed clothes, they still showed the 
 indefinable air of the well-born and educated man, 
 which curiously distinguished them from Barney Sul- 
 livan, their companion. Barney was as tall and well 
 set up as either of them, but beyond a doubt he was 
 what Mitty had called a "tarrier," in other words an
 
 24 THE PIONEER 
 
 Irish laborer. He, too, was laughing, a laugh that 
 showed strong white teeth under a short red mus- 
 tache. His hat, pushed back from his forehead, re- 
 vealed the same colored hair, thick and wiry. He 
 had a broad, turned-up nose, plenteously freckled as 
 were his hands, raised now to assist Miss Gracey 
 from her horse. 
 
 Upon the one feminine member of the party the 
 Colonel's eyes had been fixed, as were those of every 
 man in the vicinity. He calculated that she was 
 nearly sixteen. For a girl with Spanish blood that 
 would mean a young woman, full-grown and mar- 
 riageable. She still, however, retained a look of 
 childhood that was extremely charming, and in some 
 vague, indistinct way, pathetic, he thought. Perhaps 
 the pathos lay in the fact that she had never had 
 a mother, and that the best care an adoring father 
 could lavish upon her was to hire expensive nurses 
 in her childhood, and send her to still more expen- 
 sive boarding-schools when she grew older. 
 
 She was undoubtedly fulfilling the promise she had 
 always given of being pretty. She sat sidewise on 
 her saddle, looking down at Barney's raised hands. 
 Her hair, which was as black as her father's, was ar- 
 ranged in loosely flowing curls that fell over her 
 shoulders and brushed her chest. In this position, 
 her chin down, her eyelashes on her cheeks, her lips 
 curved in a slow, coquettish smile, she presented a 
 truly bewitching appearance. Under her childish de- 
 meanor, the woman, conscious of unusual charms, 
 was already awake. The Colonel felt as Mitty had, 
 that though her entire attention seemed concentra-
 
 THE GRACEY BOYS 25 
 
 ted on Barney, she was acutely aware of the staring 
 men on the piazza., and was rejoicing in their bash- 
 ful admiration. He could not help smiling, her in- 
 difference was so coolly complete. His smile died 
 when he felt Mitty give him a vicious dig in the 
 back. 
 
 "Did you see the ear-rings?" she said in a hissing 
 undertone. 
 
 "Yes, I think I did." 
 
 "Do you suppose they're real diamonds?" 
 
 "Why, of course. Black Dan wouldn't give his 
 daughter anything else." 
 
 Mitty gave forth a sound that seemed a cross 
 between a snort and a groan. 
 
 "And a pack burro!" she exclaimed with fuming 
 scorn. "Did you get on to the pack burro, all loaded 
 up with bags ? She has to have her party rig brought 
 along on a pack burro !" 
 
 "Well, what's wrong with that?" he said sooth- 
 ingly. "She couldn't go to the party in her riding 
 habit all grimed up with dust. Nobody ever saw a 
 girl at a party in a riding habit." 
 
 "Well, the Phillips girl can go all right in a pink 
 flannel skirt and miners' boots," declared his com- 
 panion with combative heat, overlooking the fact 
 that the festal array of the Phillips girl had been a 
 subject of her special derision. "I guess she don't 
 have to have a pack burro to carry her duds." 
 
 The Colonel realized that the moment for gentle 
 reasoning was over. Only the girl's burning curios- 
 ity kept down the wrathful tears evoked by a newly 
 stirred jealousy. When she saw Black Dan's daugh-
 
 26 THE PIONEER 
 
 ter slide from her saddle into Barney Sullivan's arms, 
 an ejaculation of mingled pain and rage escaped her 
 that had a note of suffering in it. 
 
 The Colonel, in his time, had known such pangs, 
 a thousand times deeper and more terrible than Mitty 
 had ever experienced. He turned to her smiling, not 
 teasingly, but almost tenderly, and saw her face 
 blighted like a rose dashed by rain, pitiful and a lit- 
 tle ludicrous. The pitiful side of it was all that 
 struck him. 
 
 "Did you see how mighty easy Barney is with 
 her?" she stammered, making a desperate feminine 
 attempt to speak lightly. 
 
 "A gentleman has to help a lady off her horse; he 
 can't let her climb down all by herself. Barney's not 
 that kind of a chump. You run along now and get 
 ready. You haven't got such a lot of time, for you've 
 got to help set the tables for supper. And don't you 
 fret. I just feel that you're going to look as nice 
 as any girl in the place. That dress of yours is going 
 to be just about right. Hurry up! Here they are." 
 
 Mitty heard the advancing footfalls in the passage 
 and the sound of approaching voices. As the tail of 
 her pink calico skirt disappeared through the kitchen 
 door, the Gracey party entered through the one that 
 led to the office. There were greetings with the Colo- 
 nel, and he sat down at their table to exchange the 
 latest San Francisco gossip with the mining news of 
 the district, and especially to hear the details of the 
 strike in the Buckeye Belle.
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 THE NAME OF ALLEN 
 
 An hour later as the Colonel was leaving his room, 
 the voices of Forsythe and a new-comer ascending the 
 stairs struck on his ear. He leaned over the baluster 
 and looked down at the tops of their approaching 
 heads. Forsythe's bald pate was followed by another, 
 evidently a younger one, by the curly brown hair that 
 covered it. A pair of shoulders in a dusty coat was 
 beneath the head, and, as they mounted, the Colonel 
 heard a voice of that cultured intonation which the 
 far West scornfully regards as an outgrowth of effete 
 civilizations. In short, the owner of the voice spoke 
 like an Easterner who has had a college education. 
 
 The Colonel, if he was doubtful about the top of 
 the head, knew the voice directly. 
 
 "Jerry Barclay, by thunder!" he exclaimed over 
 the railing. "What the devil are you doing up here?" 
 
 The new-comer started and lifted a handsome face, 
 which, in clean-cut distinction of feature, seemed to 
 match the voice. He cleared the last steps at a bound 
 and stretched out a sinewy brown hand to the older 
 man. There was something delightfully frank and 
 boyish in his manner. 
 
 "Well, old son," he said, "that comes well from 
 27
 
 28 THE PIONEER 
 
 you ! About the last person in California I expected 
 to see at Foleys. What's up?" 
 
 In the light of the kerosene lamps which illumined 
 the hallway he was shown to be some thirty years 
 of age, tall, slender, upright, with upon him and 
 about him that indescribable air of the man of clubs 
 and cities. His loose sack-coat and flannel shirt set 
 upon his frame with a suggestion of conscious mas- 
 querade. He did not belong to the present rough set- 
 ting, albeit he was so easy of manner and movement 
 that it could not be said of him he was awkwardly 
 out of place anywhere. The genial frankness of his 
 address was the western touch about him, which 
 made him acceptable in a society where his manner 
 of speeck might have been resented as a personal 
 reflection. It even outweighed the impression pro- 
 duced by the seal ring he wore. That it was not the 
 outward and visible expression of a mellow friend- 
 liness of nature did not matter. What did matter 
 was that it made life much simpler and more agree- 
 able for Jerry Barclay. 
 
 "What am I doing up here ?" he said in answer to the 
 older man's question. "Looking after my interests. 
 What else would bring a man into these trails? 
 There's an old claim of my father's out Thompson's 
 Flat way, that they've been getting up a fairy tale 
 about. Ever since the Buckeye Belle's panned out 
 so well they keep inventing yarns down below that 
 sound like forty-nine. But the Buckeye Bell has 
 made a strike, Forsythe tells me." 
 
 "The Gracey boys are here to-night. They'll tell
 
 THE NAME OF ALLEN 29 
 
 you all about it. Black Dan won't have anything 
 else to do." 
 
 The younger man pursed his lips for a whistle of 
 surprise. 
 
 "That's luck," he said. "What's Black Dan Gracey 
 doing in a center of civilization like this?" 
 
 "Bringing his daughter in for a dance. We've got 
 a party on here to-night. Go into your room and 
 primp up the best you know how. Dancing men are 
 short." 
 
 The young man laughed, a deep, jolly laugh. 
 
 "Timed it just right, didn't I? Do you suppose 
 the belles of Foleys will take me this way, travel- 
 stained and weary? I'd like to see Black Dan's 
 daughter. They say she promises to be a beauty." 
 
 "Promises}" echoed the Colonel; "she kept that 
 promise some time ago. She's sixteen years old, my 
 boy, and she can take your pelt and nail it to the 
 barn door whenever she's a mind to." 
 
 The other turned away to the open door of the 
 room Forsythe had lit up for him. 
 
 "Sixteen!" he said. "Oh, that's too young! No, 
 Colonel, I've not got to the age when sixteen at- 
 tracts. But you ought to be just about there. So 
 long! You'll see me later looking on at your gam- 
 bols with the sixteen-year-older." 
 
 His boyish laugh issued from the room, and as 
 the Colonel went down stairs he could hear it above 
 the swishing of water and the sound of smitten 
 crockery. 
 
 From below the first tentative whinings of the
 
 30 THE PIONEER 
 
 violins rose, and as he reached the lower hall he 
 heard the rattling of vehicles and the sound of voices 
 as the earlier guests began to arrive. To the right 
 of the hall he discovered Black Dan, secluded in a 
 small room reserved by Forsythe for honored pa- 
 trons, smoking tranquilly as he tilted back in a 
 wooden arm-chair. The Colonel joined him, and for 
 an hour the smoke of their cigars mingled amicably 
 as they talked over the mining prospects of the dis- 
 trict, and the Colonel's scheme for the development 
 of his mineral spring. 
 
 It was near nine and the dance had passed its initial 
 stage of bashful gaiety, when they strolled down the 
 balcony to where the windows of the dining-room 
 cast elongated squares of light into the darkness. 
 This room, built on the angle of the house, had a 
 door in the front, flanked by two windows, and down 
 the long side a line of four more windows. Before 
 each aperture there was a gathering of shadowy 
 shapes, the light gilding staring faces. 
 
 At the first window the two men stopped and 
 looked in. The dining-room, with its wooden walls, 
 low ceiling and board floor, framed like an echoing 
 shell the simple revel. Its bareness had been deco- 
 rated with long strands of colored paper, depending 
 from points in the ceiling and caught up in the 
 corners. At intervals along the walls kerosene 
 lamps, backed by large tin reflectors, diffused a raw, 
 bright light, each concave tin throwing a shadow 
 like a stream of ink down the boards below it. In 
 a corner the three musicians worked with furious
 
 THE NAME OF ALLEN 31 
 
 energy, one blowing a cornet and two scraping vio- 
 lins. A square dance was in progress, and at inter- 
 vals the man who played the larger violin, his chin 
 dug pertinaciously into the end of his instrument, 
 yelled in strident tones: 
 
 "Swing your pardners! Ladies to the right. Shas- 
 say all." 
 
 Black Dan, satisfied by the first glance that his 
 daughter was provided with a partner, retraced his 
 steps and took a seat at the deserted end of the 
 balcony, whence the red tip of his cigar came and 
 went against a screen of darkness. The Colonel, 
 much interested, remained looking in. 
 
 It was an innocently spirited scene, every partici- 
 pant seeming bent on exacting his full share of en- 
 joyment from the fleeting hour. There were girls 
 who had driven in fifteen and twenty miles from 
 the camps and ranches scattered through the district, 
 and who, flushed and excited, were bounding through 
 the measure with an energy which made the floor 
 vibrate. Their partners, also drawn from a radius 
 of twenty miles about Foleys, were of many varieties, 
 from the few mining superintendents of the neigh- 
 borhood to some of the underground workers on the 
 Buckeye Belle. 
 
 Mitty, clad in maidenly white muslin confined by 
 a blue sash, was evidently much in demand. Her 
 dancing, which was marked by a romping vigor, 
 had loosened her hair, and a half-looped brown braid 
 sent a scattering of hair-pins along the floor. Her 
 partner, the proprietor of the local livery stable, was
 
 32 THE PIONEER 
 
 conducting her through the mazes of the dance with 
 many fancy steps. An occasional haughty glance, 
 a loudly defiant quality in her laugh, and the pert 
 air with which she flounced through the figures, 
 indicated to the watcher that she was acutely con- 
 scious of Barney Sullivan, leaning against the wall 
 opposite and eying her with jealous, hang-dog 
 adoration. 
 
 In this assemblage of rustic beauty, red, over- 
 heated, and somewhat blowsy, Mercedes Gracey 
 looked smaller, finer and more delicately fin- 
 ished than she had in the afternoon glow, with 
 nature for a background. That she should be par- 
 ticipating with obvious pleasure in such an humble 
 entertainment did not surprise the Colonel, used to 
 the democratic leveling of ranks that obtained in 
 foot-hill California. It did not strike him as any 
 more remarkable than that she should be enjoying 
 the society of Joe Mosely, who kept the Sunset Saloon 
 at Thompson's Flat, and twenty years before, in the 
 days of his own and the state's uncontrolled youth, 
 had "killed his man" and narrowly escaped lynch- 
 ing in Hangtown. 
 
 The watcher's eye left her with reluctance, for a 
 man at any age, even with a heart cold to the appeal 
 of woman, will linger on the spectacle of youthful 
 beauty. Then his glance swept the wall behind her, 
 where the opened windows were filled with men's 
 heads, and along the upper end of which a bench 
 ran. On this bench sat a young woman, alone, her 
 head, in profile toward him, thrown out like a paint- 
 ing against the wooden background.
 
 THE NAME OF ALLEN 33 
 
 The Colonel's gaze stopped with a suddenness 
 which suggested the snapping of an internal spring. 
 A fixed, rigid gravity of observation swept all humor 
 from his face, leaving it staring, absorbed, marked 
 with lines. There was nothing about the girl to 
 warrant this access of motionless interest. No better 
 proof could be given of the fact that she was not 
 in any way beautiful or pretty than that, at the 
 very height of the dance, she was evidently part- 
 nerless. 
 
 Dejection marked her attitude and the youthful 
 profile which she presented to the watcher. Her 
 body had settled back against the wall in a pose of 
 apathetic acquiescence, her hands in her lap, her 
 small feet, which her short skirt revealed, limply 
 crossed. Her dress, of a soft yellowish material, 
 spotted at intervals with a crimson flower, set with 
 some degree of grace and accuracy over the lines 
 of her slightly developed, childish figure. Her feet 
 and hands, the latter showing red against the white 
 forearm that her half-sleeve left bare, were in keep- 
 ing with the air of fragile smallness which seemed 
 to add a touch of extra pathos to her neglected 
 condition. She did not look like the country girls 
 about her. The Colonel noticed that her hair was 
 cut short as a boy's. Round the ear and temple that 
 he could see, longer hairs curled slightly. 
 
 His immovable scrutiny lasted for some minutes. 
 Then he threw his cigar into the darkness, and, push- 
 ing by the loungers at the door, entered the room 
 and threaded his way through the dancers to where 
 she sat. In the noise about her she did not hear
 
 34 THE PIONEER 
 
 his approach or know that any one was near, till 
 he sat clown on the bench beside her and said, 
 
 "You don't seem to be dancing?" 
 
 She started and turned a face upon him, the sur- 
 prise of which was partly dispersed by hope of cheer. 
 It was a charming face, if not a pretty one; the 
 skin of a soft, warm pallor, the chin pointed, the 
 mouth small, the middle of the upper lip drooping 
 in a slight point on the lower. Her eyes of a clear, 
 greenish brown, showed an unusually straight line 
 of under lid. A smile born of relief and the desire 
 to be ingratiating hovered on her lips, and brought 
 into being a dimple in one cheek. 
 
 In the first moment of encounter the Colonel 
 saw all these details. The profile had struck him 
 into a trance-like fixity of observation. Now at the 
 full face, the smile with which he had accompanied 
 his words died away. He stared at her for a mo- 
 ment speechless and motionless. And then, with a 
 muttered ejaculation, he half turned from her and 
 looked at the dancers. 
 
 The girl was amazed, for she had never seen him 
 before. Her hopes of a partner were forgotten in 
 her alarmed surprise at the demeanor of the person 
 she thought had come to succor her in a dreary hour. 
 She sat looking at him, wondering what to say and 
 nervously rolling the wad of handkerchief she held 
 from hand to hand. 
 
 The next moment he had turned back to her, com- 
 manding his features into the conventional smile of 
 young acquaintance.
 
 THE NAME OF ALLEN 35 
 
 "I must beg your pardon," he said, "for speaking 
 to you without an introduction, but I thought you'd 
 let an old fellow like me come over here and have 
 a few moments' talk. I don't dance, you see, and 
 so I was having a pretty lonely time out there on 
 the piazza." 
 
 His eyes roamed over her face, their eagerness 
 of inspection curiously at variance with his careless 
 words. Her surprise vanished instantly; she turned 
 herself a little that she might more directly face 
 him. She was evidently delighted to have any com- 
 panion. Looking at him, she smiled with pleased 
 relief and said in a singularly sweet voice, 
 
 "Oh, I'm so glad you came ! I've been sitting 
 here just this way for ever so long. I haven't danced 
 for three dances. Joe Mosely asked me and then 
 nobody has since. I thought I'd go home, it was 
 so lonesome." 
 
 At the sound of her voice, marked not only by a 
 natural sweetness of tone, but by a refinement of 
 pronunciation very rare among the inhabitants of 
 the country districts, the Colonel was again thrown 
 into numbed, staring silence. He felt that he should 
 have liked to rise and walk back and forth for a mo- 
 ment and shake himself, in order to awake from the 
 strange and poignant memories this girl's face and 
 voice brought up. He was recalled to himself by 
 seeing the smile slowly freezing on her lips, and the 
 confidence of her eyes becoming clouded with alarm. 
 
 "The child will think I'm mad," he thought, and 
 said aloud : "You've startled me and I guess I've done
 
 36 THE PIONEER 
 
 the same to you. But you look very like extraor- 
 dinarily like some one, some one, I 6nce knew." 
 
 She was immediately at her ease again. 
 
 "I look like my mother," she said. "Every one 
 says that." 
 
 "Where is your mother?" he asked absently, sur- 
 veying her with a renewed, wary intentness. 
 
 "Here," she answered. 
 
 "Here?" he queried, looking round the room 
 "where?" 
 
 "Oh, not here to-night" she looked away from him 
 and gave a quick, short sigh "home, I mean. 
 Mother's quite sick. Sometimes I think she's very 
 sick." 
 
 Her face, which was one of the most flexible mo- 
 bility, lost all its brightness. Her eyes looked mourn- 
 fully at him, pleading for a contradiction. 
 
 "Perhaps," he said with the rush of pity that he 
 felt for all small feeble things, especially feminine 
 feeble things, "she's not as sick as you think. When 
 you live with a person who is sick you're apt to 
 think them worse than outsiders do." 
 
 "Well, perhaps so," she acquiesced, immediately 
 showing symptoms of brightening. "It probably 
 seems queer to you that I should be here to-night 
 when mother's sick. But she and father and Rosa- 
 mund insisted on my coming. They wanted me to 
 go to a party for once anyway, and have a good time. 
 But I haven't had a good time at all. Just before 
 you came I thought I'd go home, I felt so miserable 
 sitting here alone. Only two people have asked me 
 to dance."
 
 THE NAME OF ALLEN 37 
 
 "You've not been in Foleys very long?" the 
 Colonel suggested, in order to account for this strange 
 lack of gallantry on the part of the country swains. 
 
 "Three years ; nearly four now," she said, look- 
 ing at him with raised eyebrows, "Of course, I 
 don't know as many people as Mitty Bruce does. 
 And then there are some of the men round here 
 mother never liked us to know. They " 
 
 She paused, evidently considering that she had 
 better not reveal the reasons why she had been cau- 
 tioned against certain of the local beaux. But her 
 spirit was weak, and her companion not making any 
 comment, she moved a little nearer to him on the 
 bench and said in a lowered key, 
 
 "Some of them occasionally get drunk!" 
 
 "Occasionally," agreed the Colonel, nodding darkly. 
 
 "So I don't know so very many. But I thought 
 I'd know enough to have partners. But you never 
 can tell. And then my hair makes me look such a 
 fright. I might have had more partners if it had 
 been longer." 
 
 She passed a small hand, which he noticed was 
 rough and red, over her cropped crown, ruffling the 
 short locks on her forehead. 
 
 "How how did it come to be so?" he asked, look- 
 ing at it with admiration tinged with curiosity. 
 
 "I've been sick. I was very sick last winter with 
 a fever, and so in April when I was getting better 
 they cut it all off. We had a bad winter up here, 
 it was so terribly wet. I never saw anything worse ; 
 our house leaked all over." 
 
 "It was a wet winter," he assented. "And I heard
 
 38 THE PIONEER 
 
 it was a good deal worse up here than it was down 
 below." 
 
 "It was dreadful. The rains were so heavy even 
 in March that a big piece of land near where we 
 live slid down. Where it used to be just a slope it's 
 now like a precipice. And with mother sick and all 
 the trouble to keep things warm and dry, I got the 
 fever. That's why they made me come to-night 
 just to have a little amusement, mother said, because 
 I'd had such a hard winter. And we made this 
 dress " she touched the skirt with a hand that be- 
 trayed a conscious feminine satisfaction in her ap- 
 parel "it's some stuff mother had, very good stuff. 
 We couldn't have afforded to buy anything like it, 
 and I don't think you could here at Foleys. But we 
 did spend something. These flowers " she indicated 
 two bunches of artificial red roses at her neck and 
 belt "we bought them. They were a dollar; fifty 
 cents each bunch." 
 
 She touched the bunch at her waist with a light, 
 arranging hand, saw something which made her 
 brows contract and her fingers seize on the flowers 
 and drag them hurriedly away from their resting 
 place. Where they had been a red stain dye from 
 the cheap leaves disfigured her dress. 
 
 She stared at it for a moment, and then looked 
 up at the Colonel in blank, heart-stricken dismay. 
 
 "Why, look what they've done," she faltered. 
 
 The Colonel for a moment was nonplussed. He 
 had no consolation for such a catastrophe. The 
 girl seized her handkerchief and rubbed the mark
 
 THE NAME OF ALLEN 39 
 
 with dainty energy. The red dye was imparted to 
 the handkerchief but the stain was only enlarged. 
 
 "Mother's dress!" she moaned, rubbing distract- 
 edly. "Why, she kept it for years in the trunk, wait- 
 ing for some such time as this to come. And now 
 look at it!" 
 
 She raised tragic eyes to the Colonel's face. He 
 would have delighted in offering her another dress 
 anything she had chosen to buy. But she was a lady 
 and this he could not do. So he sat looking sympa- 
 thetically at her, inwardly swearing at the social 
 conventions which made it impossible for him to 
 repair the damage. He felt a man's pity for the 
 meanness of the disaster that had such a power to 
 darken and blight one poor little girl's horizon. 
 
 "Don't rub any more," was all he could say, "I'm 
 afraid it's only making it worse. Maybe your mother 
 will know of some way of cleaning it." 
 
 The girl made no reply for the moment. He could 
 see that the mishap had completely dashed her spirits. 
 She unpinned the other bunch, which had left an 
 even uglier mark at her throat, and laid them down 
 beside her on the bench. 
 
 "What an unlucky evening!" she exclaimed, look- 
 ing down at them with an air of utter dejection. 
 "Only two people ask me to dance, and the flowers 
 we paid a dollar for spoil my dress, my first party 
 dress. And they all wanted me to come because I 
 was going to have such a good time!" 
 
 She looked from her flowers to her stained dress, 
 shaking her head slowly as though words were in-
 
 40 THE PIONEER 
 
 adequate to express the direness of the catastrophe. 
 The Colonel was afraid she was going to cry, but 
 she showed no symptom of tears. She seemed a 
 strayed member of the class which is taught to con- 
 trol its lachrymal glands in public and keep its violent 
 emotions out of sight. But her face showed a dis- 
 tress that was to him extremely pitiful. 
 
 "Cheer up," he said. "As far as the dancing goes 
 the evening's only half over. And partners you 
 don't want to dance with these country bumpkins." 
 
 He lowered his voice at the words, which were 
 indeed rank heresy in the democratic purlieus of 
 Foleys, and made a surreptitious gesture which swept 
 the room. 
 
 ''Who else is there?" said the girl, who did not 
 show any tendency to combat his low opinion of 
 Foleys' jeunesse doree. "And when you come to a 
 party you expect to dance." 
 
 "I'll get something better for you than that," said 
 the Colonel, rising. "Wait here for a minute or two. 
 I won't be gone long and I'll bring you back some- 
 body worth having for a partner." 
 
 She smiled faintly at him, and he turned, passed 
 through the circling whirl of dancers, and stepped 
 out on the balcony again. 
 
 By an adjacent window he saw two masculine 
 figures and smelt the pungent odor of the superior 
 tobacco with which they were beguiling the passing 
 hour. Rion Gracey's face, gilded by the light of the 
 window, was toward him. The well-shaped back 
 which the other presented to his gaze he recognized 
 as that of Jerry Barclay. He bore down upon them,
 
 THE NAME OF ALLEN 41 
 
 clapping one hand upon Barclay's shoulder, with the 
 words, 
 
 "Look here, you fellows, I want partners for a 
 girl in there." 
 
 Gracey frowned and said demurringly, 
 
 "Now, Jim, what's the use of coming down on me? 
 Don't you know I'm no dancing man?" 
 
 The other answered, 
 
 "Let's see the girl first. Where is she?" looking 
 in through the window "the one over there in pink? 
 Oh, we don't deserve that. What's the matter with 
 your being the Good Samaritan and dancing with 
 her yourself?" 
 
 "It's not the one in pink, and you've got to come. 
 The poor little thing hasn't had but two partners this 
 evening and it's most broken her heart. Here, come 
 along ! I'm going to see that she has some fun before 
 this metropolitan orgy ends." 
 
 Gracey threw away his cigar with a suppressed 
 groan of acquiescence. The other man, shaking his 
 coat into shape, said, 
 
 "Lead on. Beauty in distress always appeals to 
 me. Having rounded us up you may as well lose 
 no time in taking us to the sacrifice." 
 
 The Colonel with his prizes at his heels reentered 
 the room. The two men looked very different in the 
 light of the kerosene lamps. Gracey having resolved 
 to do what he had been asked, hid his unwillingness 
 under a demeanor of stiff gravity. Barclay was evi- 
 dently amused and not averse to following out the 
 adventure. His look of a different world was more 
 marked than ever by contrast with the clumsy coun-
 
 42 THE PIONEER 
 
 try-raen about him, but his capacity to adjust himself 
 to all environments made him cross the room with 
 an easy grace, when his companion was obviously 
 out of his element. 
 
 The Colonel, flanked by his reinforcements, came 
 to a stand before the young girl. She looked up, 
 smiling, her eye lighting on one man and then on 
 the other. She was surprised, delighted, a trifle em- 
 barrassed, as the men could see by a sudden access 
 of color in her cheeks. 
 
 "Here," said the Colonel, "are two gentlemen who 
 have been outside watching us and dying to come 
 in and have a dance. Will you take pity on them, 
 Miss Miss " he paused, suddenly realizing that he 
 did not know her name. 
 
 "Miss," he stammered for the third time, and then 
 bent down toward her and said in a lowered voice, 
 
 "My dear young lady, forgive me, but you know I 
 don't know what your name is." 
 
 "My name?" she said, smiling. "Why, how funny! 
 My rame is Allen, June Allen. My father is Beau- 
 regard Allen and we live on the Parrish tract." 
 
 The Colonel straightened himself suddenly, almost 
 flinching. The two men were looking at the girl 
 and the girl at them, so that none of the trio noticed 
 his expression. He cleared his throat before he 
 spoke. 
 
 "Allen," he said, "Miss Allen, let me introduce 
 Mr. Rion Gracey and Mr. Barclay." 
 
 The introductions were acknowledged and as the 
 men sat down on either side of the no longer lonely
 
 THE NAME OF ALLEN 43 
 
 young woman the Colonel, with a short "Good night," 
 turned and left them. 
 
 He passed quickly through the dancing-room on 
 to the balcony, his body erect, his eyes staring 
 straight before him. The name of Allen was loud 
 in his ears. It had struck like a dagger thrust 
 through the trained indifference of years and torn 
 open an old wound.
 
 V CHAPTER IV 
 o, MINE ENEMY! 
 
 In his room he lit the lamp and flung the window 
 wide. It opened on the upper balcony, and through 
 the foliage of the locusts he could see the lights of 
 the town, and farther up, between the interstices of 
 the branches, pieces of the night sky sown with 
 stars. The scent of the drooping blossoms was heavy 
 on the air. From below the music came softened, 
 and the house vibrated with the rhythmic swing of 
 the dance. He stood for a moment staring upward 
 and absently listening, then went back into his room, 
 and sat down by the table, his head propped on his 
 hand. 
 
 The old wound, so suddenly torn open, was bleed- 
 ing. The lonely man seemed to feel the slow drops 
 falling from it. Passion and despair, dulled by time, 
 were suddenly endowed with the force they had had 
 twenty-one years ago. They had the vitality of a 
 deathless tragedy. 
 
 The time of his courtship and engagement to Alice 
 Joyce had been that period when he had held happi- 
 ness in his arms and thought that she would stay 
 for ever. Alice had been a school-teacher in Sac- 
 ramento, an orphan girl sent out from Boston in 
 44
 
 O, MINE ENEMY! 45 
 
 forty-nine to join relatives already settled in Cal- 
 ifornia. Her parents had been people of means and 
 she had been highly educated. But her father had lost 
 his money and then died, and Alice had been forced 
 to earn her living. She was young, gentle-mannered 
 and very pretty. Her daughter that girl down stairs 
 was surprisingly, appallingly like her, only Alice had 
 been prettier. Her face in its soft youth rose before 
 him. It was the face of the girl down stairs touched 
 with a clearer bloom, the lips redder, the cheeks more 
 delicately rounded. But the eyes with the straight 
 lower lid and the greenish-brown iris were the same, 
 and so was the pointed chin and the one dimple. 
 
 He had been a miner, doing his work with the 
 others in the great days on the American River, 
 when he met her on a trip to Sacramento. He was 
 thirty-four and had cared little for women till then, 
 but he loved her from the first without hesitation 
 or uncertainty. She was his mate, the other half 
 of him who would round out and perfect his life. 
 That he had nothing was of no matter. There was 
 always a living for the man who worked in those 
 uncrowded days, and Jim Parrish was a worker, a 
 mighty man with the pick, who could stand knee 
 deep in the water all day, and at night sleep the sleep 
 of the just on the dry grass under the stars. 
 
 Those had been Jim Parrish's great days, "the 
 butt and sea-mark of his sail." Life had unrolled 
 before him like a map, all pleasant rivers and smiling 
 plains. At intervals he went to Sacramento to see 
 Alice. She had other suitors, but she was his from 
 the first, and nestled inside the protection of this
 
 46 THE PIONEER 
 
 strong man's love with the tender trust of her soft 
 and dependent nature. 
 
 Parrish had one friend and confidant, John Beau- 
 regard Allen. They had crossed the Isthmus to- 
 gether in forty-eight, had roomed together in the 
 sprawling town scattered about the curve of San 
 Francisco Bay, had rushed to the foot-hills when the 
 mile race at Sutter's Creek startled the world with its 
 sediment of yellow dust. Once in a gambling-house 
 in Sonora, Parrish had struck up the revolver which 
 threatened his friend's life, the bullet ripping its way 
 across his own shoulder in a red furrow he would 
 carry to his death. 
 
 Allen was a Southerner, a South Carolinian of 
 birth- and education, a man of daring and adven- 
 turous character, possessed of unusual good looks 
 and personal charm. To Parrish, a simpler nature, 
 born and reared in poverty in a small town in western 
 New York, the brilliant Southerner was all that was 
 generous, brave and chivalrous. The friendship be- 
 tween the two men was of a strength that neither 
 thought could ever be broken. The one subject of 
 friction between them was slavery, already beginning 
 to burn in the thoughts and speech of men. Allen's 
 father was a wealthy slave-owner, and the son was 
 in California to satisfy his spirit of adventure and 
 to conquer fortune on his own account. He was one 
 of that large colony of Southerners, in some cases 
 blatant and pretentious, in others brilliant and large- 
 hearted, which in later years gave tone to the city, 
 formed its manners, established its code of morals, 
 and tried to direct its political life.
 
 O, MINE ENEMY! 47 
 
 The rude environment of the mines was distaste- 
 ful to him, and he returned to San Francisco where, 
 backed by his father, he started in business. Letters 
 passed between the friends, and as Parrish's court- 
 ship progressed he poured out his heart to Allen in 
 pages that, in after years, he remembered with im- 
 potent fury. All the hopes and aspirations of his 
 new life, when a woman should be beside him and 
 a woman's hand should be clasped in his, were told 
 to his absent friend. At length, after an engage- 
 ment of some weeks, the date for the marriage was 
 set. Before this took place Alice wished to visit her 
 relatives, who lived in San Francisco, and there buy 
 the trousseau for which she had been saving her 
 salary. Parrish reluctantly consented to her depart- 
 ure. While she was gone he would build for his 
 bride a cottage in Hangtown where his mining opera- 
 tions were then conducted. Before she left he wrote 
 a letter to Beauregard Allen giving him her address 
 and asking him to call on her. 
 
 Alice's visit of a month lengthened to two. Her 
 letters, which at first had been full of Allen's name, 
 toward the middle of the second month contained 
 little or no mention of him. Her excuse for the 
 postponing of her return was that the work of dress- 
 makers had been slower than she had expected. Also 
 her relatives had urged upon her to prolong her 
 stay, as they did not know when they might see her 
 again. 
 
 A less blind lover might have seen matter for 
 uneasiness in the more reserved tone, the growing 
 brevity of these letters. A suspicious lover might
 
 48 THE PIONEER 
 
 have wondered why Allen had not only ceased to 
 praise the charm and beauty of his friend's betrothed, 
 but had almost entirely stopped writing. Jim Par- 
 rish was disturbed by neither uneasiness nor suspicion. 
 That sweetheart and friend could combine to deal 
 him the deadly blow in store for him was beyond his 
 power of imagination. 
 
 Finally a date was set for Alice's return. Her 
 clothes were all bought, packed and paid for. Her 
 last letter, the tone of which for the first time struck 
 him as constrained and cold, told him the steamer on 
 which she would arrive and the hour it was due. 
 Before this Parrish had written to Allen, urging his 
 attendance at his wedding and suggesting that he 
 act as Alice's escort on the trip to Sacramento. To 
 this his friend had replied that he would do so if 
 possible, but the demands of his business were en- 
 grossing. The cottage at Hangtown was finished 
 and furnished as well as the bridegroom's scanty 
 means would permit. In a dream of joy he left it, 
 went down to Sacramento, bought the few clothes 
 that went to the making of his wedding outfit, and 
 then waited for the steamer with the high, exalted 
 happiness of the man who is about to be united to 
 the woman he honestly loves. 
 
 When the steamer arrived neither Allen nor Alice 
 was on board. He was stunned at first, not having 
 had the least anticipation of such a catastrophe. 
 Then a fear that she might be sick seized upon him 
 and he sought the captain for any information he 
 might have. Contrary to his expectation, the captain 
 was full of information. The lady and gentleman
 
 O, MINE ENEMY! 49 
 
 had boarded the steamer at San Francisco, holding 
 through tickets for Sacramento. After they had 
 passed Contra Costa, however, the gentleman had 
 come to him, telling him of a sudden change in 
 their plans and urging him to put them ashore at 
 the first stopping place. This he had done at Benecia. 
 He had heard one of them say something about going 
 to San Jose. The lady, however, would explain it 
 more satisfactorily in the letter she had left, and he 
 handed Parrish a letter addressed in Alice's writing. 
 
 The listener had been dazed during the first part 
 of the captain's recital. He could not understand 
 what had happened, only an icy premonition of evil 
 clutched his heart. Alice's letter cleared up all un- 
 certainty. 
 
 In a few blotted, incoherent lines she told him of 
 her intention to leave the steamer with Allen, cross 
 to San Jose, and there marry him. Her love for her 
 fiance had been shriveled to ashes before the flame 
 of the Southerner's fiery wooing. But she averred 
 that she had in the beginning repulsed his attentions, 
 fully intending to return to Sacramento and fulfill 
 her engagement with Parrish. She had not known 
 Allen intended accompanying her on the trip to Sac- 
 ramento. Had she known, she never would have 
 permitted it. It was on the steamer that he had finally 
 prevailed over her conscience and beaten down her 
 scruples, till she had agreed to elope with him. 
 
 Jim Parrish never knew how he reached his hotel 
 room that evening. He sat there a long time a day 
 and a night he thought staring at his wedding 
 clothes spread on the bed. What roused him from
 
 50 THE PIONEER 
 
 his benumbed condition was a newspaper from San 
 Jose bearing a marked announcement of the mar- 
 riage. A letter from Allen followed this. It was short 
 but characteristically grandiloquent. In it he stated 
 that he had broken the sacred obligations of friend- 
 ship, but that his passion for the woman had over- 
 borne every other sentiment. He was from hence- 
 forward an outcast from honest men, a fitting pun- 
 ishment for one who had held his honor as his dear- 
 est possession, and who had brought a blot upon a 
 heretofore stainless name. 
 
 The letter roused Parrish like a hand on his neck. 
 It was so like the writer, with its theatrical pose and 
 its high talk of his honor and his name. A flood of 
 fury rose in the betrayed man, and he walked the 
 streets of the city with murder in his heart. Had 
 he met his one-time friend he would have rushed up- 
 on him and stamped and beaten his life out. Feel- 
 ings of hatred he had never known he could harbor 
 burned in him. At night he walked for miles, his 
 hands clenched as he struggled with these unfamiliar 
 demons that seemed tearing the ligaments of his 
 life apart. 
 
 For Alice his love neither changed nor ceased. 
 He believed her to have been overborne by Allen, 
 carried off her feet by the reckless impetuosity he 
 himself had once thought so dazzling. If Allen had 
 left her alone, if when he felt love rise in him, he 
 had withdrawn from her, Parrish knew that the girl 
 would have remained true to him and now would 
 be his wife, nestled in his arms, asking no better 
 resting place. At times, in the lonely watches of the
 
 O, MINE ENEMY! 51 
 
 night, he thought that, but for the false friend, she 
 would have been beside him, her head against his 
 shoulder, her light breath touching his cheek as she 
 slept. It goaded him up and out into the darkness 
 torn by the rage that drives men to murder. 
 
 Then, his first fury spent, he tried to rearrange 
 his life to begin again. He gave the cottage at 
 Hangtown to his partner and moved his mining oper- 
 ations to Sonora. Soon after he began to meet with 
 his first small successes. Now that he had no need 
 for money it came to him. By the time the Civil 
 War broke out he was a man of means and mark. 
 
 Once or twice in these years he heard of John 
 Beauregard Allen and his wife. They had pros- 
 pered for a time, then bad luck had fallen upon them. 
 Allen's father, reputed a rich man, died insolvent, 
 leaving nothing but debts. Allen's own business in 
 San Francisco had failed and they had left there in 
 the fifties. Once, just before the war, stopping for 
 a day or two at Downieville, Parrish had accidentally 
 heard that they had been living there and that Mrs. 
 Allen had lost a little boy, her only son. He had 
 left by the first stage, his heart gripped by the thought 
 of Alice, a mother, mourning for her dead child. 
 
 In sixty he had returned to the East to fight for the 
 Union. Five years later he came back as Colonel 
 Parrish, a title earned by distinguished services to his 
 country. It was said by his friends that Jim Parrish 
 would have been a millionaire if he had stayed by his 
 mines and his investments as other men had. But 
 Parrish had cared more for the Union than for 
 money. And, after all, what good was money to him !
 
 52 THE PIONEER 
 
 Often in the four years of battle and bloodshed he 
 had wondered if he ever would meet Beauregard 
 Allen face to face in the smoke, and whether, if he 
 did, the thought of a woman and children would 
 hold his hand. But he never did. He learned after- 
 ward that Allen had remained in California. 
 
 After his return from the war he heard of them 
 only once. This was in a club in San Francisco, 
 where a mining superintendent, recently back from 
 Virginia City, casually mentioned the fact that Beau- 
 regard Allen, a prominent figure in early San Fran- 
 cisco, was holding a small position in the assay office 
 there. In the succeeding four or five years they 
 dropped completely out of sight. It seemed to 
 him that what had long been an open wound was 
 now a scar. Peace, the gray peace of a heart that 
 neither hopes nor desires, was his. 
 
 And suddenly without warning or expectation, his 
 old enemy was standing in his path. Allen the 
 squatter, the man who was claiming his land, the 
 man whose children had been improving it, was John 
 Beauregard Allen ! It was Alice's daughter who 
 had been sitting on the bench in her poor dress with 
 her coarsened hands. It was Alice who was the 
 "mother" that was sick. 
 
 He rose from hi^ seat with a groan, and going to 
 the window pushed aside the curtain and looked out. 
 The lamp behind him sputtered and, sending a rank 
 smell into the air, went out. The day was dawning. 
 A pale gray light mounted the sky behind the locust 
 trees quivering each moment into a warmer bright- 
 ness.
 
 O, MINE ENEMY! 53 
 
 By its searching clearness the Colonel's face looked 
 old and worn. It was a face of a leathern brownness 
 of skin, against which the white hair and gray mus- 
 tache stood out in curious contrast. The brows were 
 bushy, the eyes they shadowed clear gray, deep-set 
 and steady, with an under-look of melancholy always 
 showing through their twinkle of humor. There 
 was no humor in them now. They were old and 
 sad, the lines round them deep as were those that 
 marked the forehead under its rough white hair. 
 
 Through the branches of the trees he could see 
 the slopes of his own land, the thick dark growth of 
 chaparral muffling the hillside, and on its crest the 
 glow of the east barred by the trunks of pines. As 
 he remembered, the cottage was somewhere below 
 them, on the edge of the cleared stretch which ran 
 along the road. They were there Alice and her 
 children, beggars on the land Beauregard Allen was 
 trying to steal from him.
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 THE SUMMONS 
 
 Later on in the morning the Colonel waked from 
 a few hours of uneasy slumber. Us had thrown 
 himself dressed on his bed and dropped into a sleep 
 from which he had been roused by the morning 
 sounds of Foleys. The lethargy and depression of 
 the night of memories clung heavily to him, and as 
 he dressed he decided that he would leave the camp 
 that morning, sending word to Cusack the lawyer 
 that he would let the matter of the squatter rest for 
 a few days. 
 
 As he left the dining-room after breakfast, he was 
 accosted by a stable-man, who informed him that 
 Kit Carson was inclined to "go tender" on one of 
 his front feet. The man did not know when the 
 Colonel intended leaving, but if it was that day he 
 would advise him to "wait over a spell" and let 
 Kit "rest up." Nearly a hundred and forty miles in 
 thirty-six hours especially with the sun so hot at 
 midday, was a pretty serious proposition even for 
 Kit Carson. 
 
 The Colonel stood silent for a moment looking at 
 the man from under frowning brows. It would be 
 possible for him to take one of Forsythe's horses. 
 54
 
 THE SUMMONS 55 
 
 ride to Milton, and there get the Stockton stage. For- 
 svthe's boy could ride Kit back to Sacramento when 
 his front foot ceased to be tender. But after all, 
 what was the use of running from the situation? 
 There it was, to be thought out and dealt with. It 
 was Fate that had lamed the never tired or disabled 
 Kit just at this juncture. 
 
 With a word to the man that he would stay over 
 till the horse was in proper condition, he passed 
 through the hall and along the balcony to the side 
 which flanked the dining-room. Its boarded length 
 was deserted, with, before each window, a social 
 gathering of chairs as they had been arranged by 
 on-lookers during last night's revel. A long line of 
 locust trees, their foliage motionless in the warm 
 air, grew between the hotel fence and the road, throw- 
 ing the balcony in a scented shade. 
 
 Between their trunks the Colonel could survey the 
 main street of Foleys, already wrapped in its morn- 
 ing state of somnolence, its unstirred dust beaten 
 upon by a relentless blaze of sun. Under the cov- 
 ered sidewalk a shirt-sleeved figure now and then 
 passed with loitering step, or a sun-bonneted woman 
 picked her way through the dust. The male popu- 
 lation of the camp was, for the most part, gathered 
 in detached groups which marked the doorways of 
 saloons. Each member of a group occupied a wooden 
 arm-chair, had his heels raised high on a hitching 
 bar, his hat well down on his nose, while a spiral 
 of smoke issued from beneath the brim. Now and 
 then some one spoke and the Colonel could see the
 
 56 THE PIONEER 
 
 heads under the tilted hats slowly turning to sur- 
 vey the speaker. At intervals, however, a word was 
 passed of sudden, energizing import. It roused the 
 group which rose as a man and filed into the saloon. 
 When they emerged, they seated themselves, the 
 silence resettled, and all appeared to drowse. The 
 one being who defied the soporific effect of the hour 
 was an unseen player on the French horn who be- 
 guiled the morning stillness with variations of the 
 melody, When this Cruel War is Over. 
 
 The Colonel, smoking his morning cigar, surveyed 
 the outlook with the unseeing eyes of extreme pre- 
 occupation. He did not even notice the presence of 
 the saddled horse which a stable-man had led up to 
 the gate just below where he sat. Some louder 
 admonition of the man's to the fretting animal finally 
 caught his ear and his fixed eyes fell on it. 
 
 It was a stately creature, satin-flanked and slender- 
 legged, stamping and shaking its long mane in its 
 impatience. The neat pack of the traveler was tied 
 behind the saddle. 
 
 "Whose horse is that, Tom?" said the Colonel, 
 knowing its type strange to Foleys. "Didn't the 
 Gracey boys go back last night?" 
 
 "Yes. The whole Buckeye Belle outfit rode back 
 at three. This is Jerry Barclay's horse. He's goin' 
 on this morning to Thompson's Flat. Barclay rid 
 him up from Stockton won't take no livery horse. 
 Has this one sent up on the boat." 
 
 As the man spoke the Colonel heard a quick step 
 on the balcony behind him, and the owner of the
 
 THE SUMMONS 57 
 
 horse came around the corner, smiling, handsome, 
 debonair in his loose-fitting clothes, long riding boots 
 and wide-brimmed hat. 
 
 "Morning, Colonel," he said ; "I see the tropical 
 calm of Foleys is affecting you. Take example by 
 me off for twenty miles across country to Thomp- 
 son's Flat." 
 
 He ran down the steps and out into the road. 
 There, standing in the dust putting on his gloves, he 
 let a quick, investigating eye run over his horse. 
 
 "I intended starting at sun-up," he said, "and 
 then they went and forgot to wake me. Now I have 
 to ride twenty miles over roads a foot deep in dust 
 and under a sun as hot as a smelting furnace." 
 
 "Shouldn't have been so dissipated last night," 
 said the Colonel. "What time did you get to bed?" 
 
 The young man, who was adjusting his stirrup, 
 turned round. 
 
 "Oh, that was the dearest little girl last night. 
 Where'd you find her? And how did a girl like that 
 ever grow up in a God-forsaken spot like Foleys?" 
 
 He vaulted into the saddle not waiting for an 
 answer. Then as his horse, curvetting and backing 
 in a last ecstasy of impatience, churned up a cloud 
 of dust, he called, 
 
 "I'm quite fascinated. Going to stop over on my 
 way back. Give May or April or June or whatever 
 her name is, my love. Hasta manana, old man!" 
 
 The horse, at length liberated, plunged forward 
 and dashed up the road, the soft diminishing thud of 
 its hoofs for a momen*- filling the silence. The
 
 5 8 THE PIONEER 
 
 stable-man slouched lazily off, and the Colonel was 
 once more left to his cigar and his meditations. 
 
 These were soon as deeply engrossing as ever. 
 With his eyes looking down the sun-steeped street 
 he was not aware of a blue-clothed feminine figure 
 which came into view along the highway upon which 
 the balcony fronted. At first she walked quickly 
 in a blaze of sun, then crossed the road, charily hold- 
 ing up her skirt, and approached in the shadow of 
 the locusts. She wore a blue-and-white cotton dress, 
 a sun-burnt straw hat, trimmed with a blue ribbon, 
 and as she drew near was revealed to be a young 
 girl in the end of her teens, large, finely-shaped, and 
 erect. 
 
 Walking on the outside of the fence she eyed the 
 Colonel for a scrutinizing moment, then stopping 
 at the gate, opened it with a slight click, and stood 
 hesitating. He heard the sound, looked up, and met 
 her eyes blue and inquiring fixed gravely on him. 
 She had a firmly-modeled, handsome face, full of 
 rich, youthful tints and mellow curves. Her straw 
 hat sent a clean wash of shade to just below her nose. 
 Under this, in the blinding steadiness of the sunlight, 
 her mouth and chin, the former large and with 
 strongly curved lips, looked as smooth and fresh as 
 portions of a ripe fruit. There was hesitation but 
 no embarrassment in her attitude. Even at this first 
 glance one might guess that this was a young woman 
 devoid of self-consciousness and not readily em- 
 barrassed. 
 
 "Are you Colonel Parrish?" she said in a rather 
 loud, clear voice.
 
 THE SUMMONS 59 
 
 He rose, throwing away his cigar, and replied with 
 an affirmative that he tried not to make astonished. 
 
 She ascended the steps, again hesitated, and then 
 held out a sun-burnt hand. 
 
 "I'm glad I found you," she said, as he released 
 it. "I thought perhaps you might have gone on to 
 the Buckeye Belle. Everybody goes there now. My 
 name is Allen, Rosamund Allen. You met my sister 
 June last night." 
 
 "Oh," murmured the Colonel, and then he gave a 
 weak, "Of course. Sit down." 
 
 He was glad of the moment's respite that getting 
 her a chair and placing it gave him. She was the 
 second daughter. In that first glance of startled in- 
 vestigation he had seen no particular likeness to either 
 parent. This girl would not tear his heart by look- 
 ing at him with her mother's eyes. 
 
 "I I enjoyed meeting your sister last night," he 
 said as they found themselves seated facing each 
 other. "She she " He did not know what to say. 
 He wondered why the girl had come. Had some 
 one sent her? 
 
 She looked at him with her clear, calm eyes, cool 
 and interested. She was unquestionably handsomer 
 than her sister. A year or two younger he guessed, 
 though much larger, a typical Calif ornian in her 
 downy bloom of skin and fullness of contour. Her 
 simple dress had been designed with taste and set 
 with a grace that was imparted more by the beauti- 
 ful lines of the body it covered than any particular 
 skill in its fashioning. There was the same neatness 
 and care of detail in her humble adornments that
 
 60 THE PIONEER 
 
 he had noticed in her sister's the ineradicable dainti- 
 ness of the woman whose forebears have lived deli- 
 cately. 
 
 "June had such a good time last night," she said 
 with an air of volubility. "At first she said it was 
 dreadful. Hardly any one asked her to dance, and 
 she didn't see how she could wait for father, who was 
 going to call for her at twelve. And then you came 
 and introduced those gentlemen to her. After that 
 she had the loveliest time. She didn't want to go 
 at all when father came. She made him wait till 
 two !" 
 
 "I'm glad she enjoyed it. It was pretty dull for 
 her at first. She didn't want to dance with the kind 
 of men that were there. I was glad to introduce 
 Rion Gracey to her. He's more or less of a neigh- 
 bor of yours, according to foot-hill distances." 
 
 The Colonel was fencing, watching the girl and 
 wondering why she had come. She had the air of 
 settling down to a leisurely, enjoyable gossip. 
 
 "Yes. We never met him before. It's funny, be- 
 cause they've been here over a year; up at the 
 Buckeye Belle, of course. But then, they ride in here 
 all the time. I've often seen both the Graceys riding 
 past our place. The road in from there goes by our 
 land. You know where that is? the long strip back 
 there " waving her. hand in the direction of the 
 Colonel's disputed acres "where the tall pines are, 
 and " 
 
 She stopped, crimsoning to her hair. She had evi- 
 dently suddenly realized to whom she was so glibly 
 talking. There was no question but that she was
 
 THE SUMMONS 61 
 
 embarrassed now. She bent her burning face down 
 and began to make little pleats in her dress with her 
 sun-burnt fingers. 
 
 "I know, I know," said the Colonel, exceedingly 
 embarrassed himself, "right back there. Yes, of 
 course. On the road that goes to Thompson's Flat. 
 By the way, I hope your sister's dress wasn't seriously 
 damaged last night. The dye coming off the flowers, 
 I mean." 
 
 The girl heaved a breath of relief and tilted her 
 head to one side regarding the pleats she had made 
 from a different view point. For her age and en- 
 vironment her aplomb was remarkable. 
 
 "Yes, I'm afraid it's very badly marked. They were 
 such cheap flowers. Mother thinks we can arrange 
 something with rosettes." 
 
 She ceased her pleating, raised her head fully, and 
 looked at him. 
 
 "Mother was so pleased and so astonished when 
 she heard from June about meeting you. She used 
 to know you well, she said a long time ago, before 
 she was married." 
 
 Her eyes looked innocently and gravely into his. 
 There was no concealment in them. She was speak- 
 ing frankly and honestly. Now the Colonel knew she 
 had been sent. He braced himself for her coming 
 words. 
 
 "Yes, I knew your mother," he said, hearing his 
 voice sound husky. "But, as you say, it was a long 
 time ago." 
 
 "Mother got quite excited when she heard it was 
 you. You know she's not well and the least thing
 
 62 THE PIONEER 
 
 upsets her. She couldn't believe it at first. Then 
 she wondered if you wouldn't come up and see her 
 and sent me down-^o ask you." 
 
 Alice had sent her. After twenty-one years Alice 
 had sent this message for him! And it was all so 
 natural and simple a moment that sometimes, in 
 hours of melancholy brooding, he had thought of, 
 and always seen fraught with tragic passion. He 
 bent to pick up a locust blossom that a wandering 
 zephyr had wafted along the balcony floor. For a 
 moment he made no answer. He could not trust his 
 voice. The girl continued, not noticing his silence. 
 
 "She doesn't see many people. She's sick, you 
 know; June said she told you. And then there's not 
 many people round here for her to see. I suppose 
 you'll find her changed if you haven't seen her since 
 she was married. She's changed a good deal lately, 
 poor mother!" 
 
 She gave a sigh and looked away from him. The 
 Colonel answered quickly: 
 
 "Oh, yes, I'll come, I'll come." 
 
 His visitor did not seem to notice anything unusual 
 in his manner of accepting the invitation of an old 
 friend. The trouble of her mother's changed con- 
 dition was uppermost in her mind. 
 
 "I dare say you won't know it's the same person. 
 But don't let her see that. We want her to be bright 
 and cheerful, and if people look surprised when they 
 see her it makes her think she's worse " She 
 looked anxiously at him, but his face was averted. 
 There was a slight pause and then she said in a low 
 voice :
 
 THE SUMMONS 63 
 
 "Mother has consumption, Colonel Parrish." 
 
 This time he turned and stared straight at her. 
 Her eves, full of sad meaning, were fixed on him. 
 The other daughter's remarks had led him to suppose 
 that Alice was suffering from some temporary ill- 
 ness. Now he knew that she was dying. 
 
 "It was Virginia City that did it," the girl con- 
 tinued. "She wasn't strong for years. A long time 
 ago in Downieville our brother, younger than we 
 were, died, and father always thought she never got 
 over that. But in Virginia there were such hard 
 winters and those awful winds blew so! We were 
 there for two years before we came here; and she 
 had pneumonia and after that she didn't get well. 
 But we stayed on there, for father had some work 
 in the assay office, and though everything cost a ter- 
 rible price, it was better than what he got in the mines 
 over here." 
 
 The Colonel was half turned from her in his chair. 
 She could see his profile with the shaggy brows 
 drawn over his eyes. 
 
 "She doctored there for a long time, and every- 
 thing cost so much money ! Then one day, one of 
 the doctors told father she'd never get well if she 
 stayed in that climate. 'Take her to California, to the 
 foot-hills where the air's hot and dry,' he said, 'that's 
 the only chance you've got.' So we sold everything and 
 left Virginia and came over here. We tried several 
 places, but some of them didn't seem to suit her, and 
 in others they asked too high rents. We had hardly 
 anything left. And then we just came here and set- 
 tled on that on our on your " She came to a
 
 64 THE PIONEER 
 
 stammering stop and then ended desperately "in that 
 empty cottage over there." 
 
 The Colonel rose and walked to the balcony rail. 
 He stood for a moment with his back toward her, 
 then slowly wheeled and approached her. She had 
 risen and was looking at him with a perplexed ex- 
 pression. 
 
 "That's all right," he said, taking her hand. "I'll 
 be up this afternoon. Will between four and five do ?" 
 
 She considered as a town lady might whose day 
 was full of engagements. She was, in fact, specu- 
 lating as to whether she and her sister would be 
 free from the domestic tasks which filled their waking 
 hours. 
 
 "Yes," she said, nodding, "that'll be a very good 
 time. Mother rests and we we are busy in the early 
 part of the afternoon." 
 
 She held out her hand to him, and as he walked 
 down the steps beside her to the gate, again expressed 
 her pleasure at having found him. 
 
 "June told me what you looked like," she said over 
 the gate, eying him thoughtfully as if she intended 
 giving June her opinion of the stranger's appearance. 
 "So I knew if you were anywhere round I'd find 
 you." 
 
 She smiled a last good-by and turned away to the 
 walk under the locusts. The Colonel went back to 
 his seat on the balcony. He lit a fresh cigar and sat 
 there smoking till Mitty came to summon him to the 
 midday dinner.
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 THE OLD LOVE 
 
 At half-past four he was walking through the dust 
 toward the cottage. The main feeling in his heart 
 was dread. But he could not disregard Alice's sum- 
 mons Alice's dying summons, he felt them to be. 
 He tried to prepare himself by thinking that nearly 
 a quarter of a century had passed, and what havoc 
 it must have wrought. But he saw only the face of 
 the girl he had loved, fresh and sweet, as it had been 
 when he had bidden her good-by on the steamer on 
 a morning full of sun and hope, twenty-one years 
 ago. 
 
 He had left the town's main street behind and was 
 now walking on a narrow footpath beside the road 
 which, on one side, skirted his own land. A still, 
 scorching warmth had possession of the hour. The 
 landscape, glazed with heat, seemed to faint under 
 the unwinking glare of sun. From the parched grass- 
 land and the thickets of chaparral, pungent scents 
 arose the ardent odors that the woods of foot-hill 
 California exhale in the hot, breathless quiescence 
 of summer afternoons. 
 
 His unseeing eye passed over the rise and fall of 
 the rich tract he had held so negligently. The broken 
 65
 
 66 THE PIONEER 
 
 fence beside him divided an ocher-colored expanse 
 of uncultivated land from the road. The air came over 
 it in glassy waves, carrying its dry, aromatic perfume 
 to his nostrils. On its burnt expanse a few huge 
 live-oaks rose dark and dome-like, their shadows, 
 black and irregular, staining the ground beneath 
 them. Beyond the chaparral swept up the Hillside, 
 a close growing wall of variegated green where the 
 manzanita glittered amid duller foliage. A splintered 
 edge of rock broke slantingly through the thicket, rose 
 and passed like a bristling crest over the top of the 
 hill, where the pines lifted their plumy heads. It was 
 the "outcrop" of the ledge that inconsistent and ill- 
 regulated ledge, the promises of which had made 
 a town of Foleys and then, being unfulfilled, had left 
 the town to ruin. 
 
 But the Colonel saw none of these things. His 
 eyes were fixed on the turn of the road just beyond. 
 As he remembered, you could see the cottage from 
 there. And as he gained and passed it, the low 
 bulk of the little house broke upon his sight. It was 
 shrouded in vines, carefully trained over the project- 
 ing roof of its balcony so that they hung from its 
 edge in a fringe of waving tendrils. Around and 
 beyond it, the juicy, violent green of a vineyard ran 
 into the dryness of the untilled land, and the even 
 emerald rows and dark, loamy stripes of a garden 
 lay like a piece of carpeting between the vine- 
 yard and the house. Its look of thrifty habitation 
 came like a shock upon his memory of its ruinous
 
 THE OLD LOVE 67 
 
 neglect when he had last seen it. Even the gate, that 
 he remembered hung dejected from one hinge, had 
 been mended; the rose bushes that had thrown long 
 festoons across the path had been clipped and tied 
 to restraining poles. These were "the improvements" 
 upon which the squatter based part of his claim. 
 
 The Colonel's hand, trembling, raised the gate latch 
 with a click. As he did so he heard a sound from 
 the balcony, and the younger girl, who had intro- 
 duced herself to him as Rosamund Allen, ran down 
 the steps that led from it and advanced along the 
 path to meet him. Her hat was off and he saw that 
 she had thick, fair hair, its ashen blondness streaked 
 with strands of a coarse, bright gold. 
 
 "Here you are," she cried with her easy, friendly 
 manner. "We had just begun to expect you. Isn't 
 it hot?" 
 
 She fell into step beside him and they walked 
 slowly up the little path. The cottage at first pre- 
 sented to his gaze only one end cut into by a single 
 window. As they drew nearer he saw the length 
 of its balcony, and that the vine he had noticed 
 was a grape, its thick-twisted stalk running up to 
 the roof like a pillar, its leafage engarlanding the bal- 
 ustrade. A few steps led to the balcony from the 
 walk. He saw the black square of an open door-way 
 and near this, sitting close to the leaf-trimmed balus- 
 trade, a shawled female figure in a lounging chair. 
 
 His eye fell on it and he involuntarily stopped. 
 The girl beside him suddenly jerked his sleeve.
 
 68 THE PIONEER 
 
 "That's mother," she said in a hurried whisper. 
 "Take care. She can see us. Now don't look sur- 
 prised " then raising her voice a little she said: 
 
 "Mother dear, here's Colonel Parrish." 
 
 The Colonel, as he mounted the stairs, took off his 
 hat and held it. The woman in the chair was facing 
 him. From the descending folds of the many loose 
 wrappings that hung about her emaciated figure, 
 her head rose, the face looking at him with still, 
 eager interest. She gave a little smile and a waxen 
 hand of skeleton thinness emerged from the folds 
 of her shawls. 
 
 "Jim Parrish !" she said in a sweet, husky voice, 
 then looking into his face with eyes of mild, uncon- 
 scious friendliness, she said softly, "Jim." 
 
 He would never have known her till he heard the 
 voice and saw the smile. They were the same. The 
 old dimple had disappeared and a wrinkle had taken 
 its place. The eyes, the clear, greenish-brown eyes, 
 were sunken into dark caverns, the satiny skin grown 
 loose and sallow. Yet it was Alice, Alice old before 
 her time, Alice sick, Alice dying. 
 
 He turned round and found a chair, for the moment 
 not daring to speak. He was conscious of the figure 
 of Rosamund walking toward the garden dragging 
 a serpent-like length of hose behind her. Then he 
 placed the chair close to the sick woman and sat 
 down. To him it was a moment that he had thought 
 of in dark reveries, and even in thought found too 
 painful. Now he was conscious that there was a tran- 
 quillity about it, an absence of tension, which was due 
 to Alice. Her manner suggested nothing but a peace-
 
 THE OLD LOVE 69 
 
 ful recollection of old friendship. Was it that the 
 near approach of death was wiping out all the dis- 
 turbing and cruel emotions, all the biting memories, 
 that belonged to life? 
 
 She looked at him with her little affectionate smile 
 as a sick sister might. 
 
 "It's so queer it being you," she said. "When June 
 told me I couldn't believe it. After after how 
 long is it, Jim?" 
 
 "Twenty-one years," he said. 
 
 "Yes, twenty-one years," she repeated. "How time 
 flies! And what a lot has happened in those twenty- 
 one years. You're rich, they say. And your hair's 
 quite white, but I'd have known you anywhere. You're 
 not much changed." 
 
 She continued to look at him with the same gentle, 
 softly exploring air. He had had an idea that even 
 in death he would see shame and remorse in her eyes, 
 but they were as devoid of either as though he had 
 never been other than a girlhood friend. 
 
 "It was so odd your just happening on June that 
 way. She says you were so kind to her, she felt 
 immediately you were her friend. Poor little June! 
 It was such an amusement for her that evening. She's 
 not had much pleasure of that kind. And she's twenty 
 now, just the age when a girl longs for a little of 
 the good times of life." 
 
 "She's very like you," he answered, "it it " he 
 was going to say "shocked me," but he had a feeling 
 she would not understand him. "It surprised me," 
 he said instead. 
 
 "Oh, she's very like me. Every one sees it. Her
 
 70 THE PIONEER 
 
 father says she is just a replica of what I was when 
 he first knew me. And she's such a sweet, loving 
 little thing. You don't know how they work here 
 and with me to take care of. God has blessed me in 
 my children, Jim." 
 
 She turned her large, sunken eyes on him, their 
 somberness lit by the fire of her maternal passion. 
 
 "They are the best girls in the world," she said. 
 
 "Then you've been happy, Alice?" he suddenly 
 asked. 
 
 "Happy!" she echoed. "Oh, yes, always happy ex- 
 cept when our boy died. That was our sorrow. I 
 don't know whether you ever heard of it. He was 
 just a baby, but he was our only son. A beautiful 
 boy. He was John Beauregard Allen, too." 
 
 The Colonel made no comment, but she did not 
 notice it, engrossed in her own recital. 
 
 "Of course we've not been very successful, especial- 
 ly of late years. But poverty's not so bad when 
 you've got those you love around you. And we've 
 been like a little company, close together, always 
 marching shoulder to shoulder 'a close corporation,' 
 Beau calls it. We've had bad luck of all kinds, but 
 you can bear bad luck when you're all together." 
 
 The past, the bitter, terrible past was dead to her. 
 She had probably never understood what it had been 
 to him. Now twenty years, of love and struggle had 
 almost obliterated it from her memory, and the com- 
 ing of death had wiped away its last faint traces. 
 
 "You have been blessed, Alice," he said in a low 
 -voice. "Life has fulfilled all your expectations." 
 
 "Not all," sjhe jgtaswered. "What doesn't matter
 
 THE OLD LOVE 71 
 
 for yourself matters for your children. It's hard 
 for me to see them living here, and this way " she 
 made a gesture which swept the garden and the 
 vineyard. "That's hard for a mother, a' mother who 
 was bred differently and bred them for something 
 different. I educated them myself, Jim. They're 
 not like the country girls around us. They're " 
 she paused a moment and then said with an air of 
 sad solemnity "the children of a lady and a gentle- 
 man." 
 
 "Any one can see that," he murmured, "and they're 
 happy too." 
 
 He did not know what else to say. He could not 
 condole with her. In her poverty and sickness she 
 had fulfilled the purposes of her life, lived it with a 
 passionate completeness as he had never done. The 
 fullness of it, compared to the barren emptiness of 
 his, augmented the sense of bleak loneliness that lay 
 heavy at his heart. 
 
 "They're young," she continued, "they've not 
 known much better. Our bad times began when they 
 were still little. But I well, before I was sick it 
 was different. I helped them and I was a companion, 
 not a care. Virginia City, too, was a place where, 
 as they grew older there would have been more 
 amusement for them. They'd have had a better 
 chance." 
 
 She paused, her lids drooping, an air of musing 
 melancholy on her face. Then she raised her eyes 
 and looked at him. 
 
 "Who is there for them to marry here?" she asked. 
 
 "Marry!" the Colonel had not thought of that.
 
 72 THE PIONEER 
 
 "They're very young for that yet, aren't they?" he 
 stammered. 
 
 "Young? Yes, perhaps. But June is twenty now." 
 
 She let her head drop back on the cushions be- 
 hind it, and turned it slightly away from him so 
 that he could see her in profile. Her hair was dress- 
 ed in the fashion of her youth, parted and drawn 
 down sleekly over the tips of her ears. Seen thus, 
 the emaciation of her cheeks partly concealed, her 
 face caught him with its sudden look of familiarity. 
 For a moment the veil of years was jerked back and 
 he saw his old sweetheart. He gave a murmured 
 exclamation and leaned nearer to her, a word of 
 tenderness trembling on his lips. Simultaneously she 
 turned toward him, absorbed in her own thoughts. 
 
 "I was twenty-four when I married," she said. 
 "People then thought that was quite old." 
 
 He turned away his head, unable to reply, and she 
 went on in her unconscious egotism. 
 
 "I want them to marry. It's the only life for a 
 woman. And I have been so happy in my married 
 life, always, from the first till now." 
 
 A slight smile touched her lips as her eyes, softened, 
 with memories, looked back over a life that love had 1 
 ennobled. 
 
 Suddenly she turned to him. For the first time in 
 the conversation she seemed to transfer her interest 
 from her own affairs to his. 
 
 "You never married?" she said. "That was a pity. 
 Life's only half lived without those ties." 
 
 "Oh, Alice!" he answered with a groan, and rising 
 he moved to the top of the steps.
 
 THE OLD LOVE 73 
 
 "I was mean to you that time, long ago," she said 
 behind him. "But that was all in the past. That's 
 all forgotten now forgotten and forgiven, isn't it?" 
 
 For the moment he made no reply and she repeated 
 in what seemed an absent tone, 
 
 "Forgotten and forgiven. It's all so far away now ; 
 such years ago. So much has happened in between. 
 It's like another life, looking back on it." 
 
 "Yes, all forgiven," he said, "there's no anger with 
 real "love." 
 
 "Of course not," she agreed, "and time smooths 
 away everything. Isn't it pretty now, with the shad- 
 ows lengthening out that way?" 
 
 They looked over the expanse where the low sun's 
 rays were painting the already brilliant-hued land- 
 scape with a wild flare of color. The darkness of the 
 oaks was overlaid with a golden gilding, the dry grass 
 looked orange. 
 
 "Have you seen the girls' garden?" she asked. 
 "They did it all themselves and they raise enough 
 vegetables for us and some to sell. They sell the 
 grapes, too. Last summer they made fifty dollars 
 with their grapes." 
 
 So "the improvements" were of some practical 
 good. The Colonel saw the word dancing in the air 
 before him. 
 
 "But it's hard to see them working so. In summer 
 they're up and out at six. It doesn't seem right to 
 me their father's daughters. Their grandmother 
 Beau's mother had six house-slaves for her own 
 private use, and I, before my father's death, had a 
 French governess."
 
 74 THE PIONEER 
 
 A step on the path prevented him from replying. 
 Rosamund came around the corner of the house, her 
 face flushed, a hoe in her hand, which he now saw 
 to be earthy. She had an anxious air. 
 
 "Mother, are you tired, dear?" she said, mounting 
 the steps. Then turning to the visitor : 
 
 "Mother goes in before the sun sets. It gets cool 
 so suddenly. Just the moment the edge of the sun 
 gets down behind the hill, the night comes up, and 
 it's bad for her to breathe that air." 
 
 The Colonel assured her he was just about 
 to take his leave. The invalid made no demand for 
 him to stay. Sitting huddled among her shawls she 
 looked wan and shrunken. He felt that the calm 
 interest of her attitude toward him had now, from 
 fatigue, turned suddenly into indifference. He fal- 
 tered some words of farewell to her, his hand out. 
 Hers, feeling in his warm, strong grasp like a bundle 
 of twigs, was extended and then limply withdrawn. 
 
 "Good-by," she said, turning to follow her daugh- 
 ter's movements with a waiting, dependent eye, 
 "won't you come again before you go?" 
 
 He murmured an assent from the top steps, but 
 he would leave in a day or two at the longest. 
 
 "The girls like seeing you so much ;" now she 
 looked at him with some animation. "And they have 
 so little pleasure." 
 
 "Why, mother," said Rosamund in half-laughing 
 protest, "that sounds as if Colonel Parrish was a sort 
 of circus, just here to amuse us." 
 
 The Colonel was nearly at the bottom of the steps. 
 With some last conventional sentences of farewell, he
 
 THE OLD LOVE 75 
 
 raised his hat and turned toward mother and daugh- 
 ter for a final glance. They were smiling at Rosa- 
 mund's words, both looking at him to return his bow 
 with perfunctory politeness. When he turned from 
 them he could hear their voices, low and full of a 
 close and different form of interest, speaking of the 
 adjustment of the invalid's shawls, the window by 
 which her chair should be placed. 
 
 He was half-way down the path to the gate when 
 a sound of suppressed singing caught his ear. Turn- 
 ing in its direction he saw coming down through a 
 narrow path in the chaparral a fine red and white 
 cow, and following it, June Allen. She was singing 
 in a crooning, absent-minded way, at intervals flick- 
 ing the flanks of the cow with a long alder branch 
 she carried, stripped of all its leaves save two at the 
 top. As she approached him she stopped ' singing, 
 struck the cow with the branch, and began in a 
 thoughtful way to talk to herself. 
 
 The attraction she had exercised over him fell on 
 him again the moment he saw her. The very way 
 she appeared to be conversing to herself seemed to 
 him to be imbued with a quaint, unconscious charm, 
 such as a child possesses. With his mind full of 
 the gloom and pain of his interview with Alice, he 
 yet paused, eying the approaching figure. As he 
 stood watching her, she looked up and saw him. 
 
 She gave a loud exclamation and her face became 
 illumined with pleasure. Administering to the cow 
 a smart stroke with her switch, she crowded by it and 
 ran forward over the dry grass into which the ver- 
 dure of the garden intruded.
 
 76 THE PIONEER 
 
 "Oh, how lovely for me to meet you !" she cried 
 as she came up to him with an extended hand. "I 
 never thought I'd have such luck." 
 
 Her hand nestled into his ; her face smiling at him 
 was charged with an almost fond delight. 
 
 "I'm afraid you're a flatterer, young woman," he 
 said, again noting the astonishing likeness that had 
 so shaken him the evening before. "I don't think 
 you're really glad to see me, or why should you, 
 when you knew I was coming, go off with the cow?" 
 
 "That was a bargain," she said, "I wanted to stay 
 and see you just as much as Rosamund did. But as 
 I had the party last night we agreed that it was only 
 fair I should go after Bloss this evening, and Rosa- 
 mund should stay and take care of mother and see 
 you." 
 
 If any commentary was needed on the deadly mo- 
 notony of their existence, the Colonel felt that it was 
 now given. That two young and attractive girls 
 should regard him as a matter of such deep interest 
 was proof to him of the unrelieved dreariness of their 
 lives. 
 
 "So you went for Bloss," he said, looking at the 
 cow which had now passed them and was moving 
 forward with a lurching swing toward a shed in the 
 background. 
 
 "Yes, we go for her alternate nights. She wanders 
 all over the tract by day and in the evening we've 
 sometimes a hunt before we can get her." 
 
 They were both looking at Bloss, who suddenly
 
 THE OLD LOVE 77 
 
 stopped, stepped heavily on the garden border, and 
 began to bite a hole in a row of neat, green leaves. 
 
 "Bloss!" his companion almost shrieked, "you im- 
 pudent, desperate cow! Did you ever see such an 
 impertinent thing?" 
 
 And she ran toward Bloss, who, feeling the switch 
 suddenly on her flanks gave up the happy dream of 
 an evening feast of young lettuce and directed her 
 course once more toward the shed. June followed 
 her, calling imploringly over her shoulder, 
 
 "Please don't go yet, oh, please don't! I do want 
 to see you for a moment, but I've got to^put this mis- 
 erable animal in her stable, or she'll spoil the garden. 
 Please wait." 
 
 To which he called back: 
 
 "All right. Don't hurry. I'll stroll down to the 
 gate." 
 
 And he moved slowly down the path between the 
 pinioned rose-bushes, looking through the barring of 
 the old gate at the dusty road. 
 
 He had not to wait long. He was standing there 
 gazing down the road when he heard her light step 
 and hurried breathing as she ran toward him. 
 
 "It was too bad," she said as she came to a pant- 
 ing stand beside him, her alder switch still in her 
 hand, "but I couldn't let her eat those lettuces. 
 We've had a lot of trouble with them and when 
 they're good we can sell them as far as Sonora." 
 
 She said this with an air of pride, as one who 
 vaunts an admired accomplishment.
 
 78 THE PIONEER 
 
 "Do you like gardening?" he asked, and then 
 stopped. From the house came a sudden sound of 
 coughing, a heavy, racking paroxysm. The girl's 
 eyes slanted sidewise as she stood motionless, listen- 
 ing. She remained thus, in a trance-like quietude of 
 attention till the sound grew fitful and then ceased. 
 
 "How did mother strike you?" she asked in a low 
 voice. 
 
 "I she " he blundered, and then said desper- 
 ately: "Well, she's changed, of course, but after a 
 long period of illness " 
 
 He stopped. Unfinished sentences save more oc- 
 casions than the world wots of. 
 
 "Yes, of course," she said eagerly, seizing on even 
 such feeble encouragement. "And she's been sick for 
 such a dreadfully long time, ever since Virginia, 
 more than four years now. She's thin, though, isn't 
 she?" 
 
 She looked anxiously at him. 
 
 "Long illnesses are apt to make people thin," he 
 said, turning away his head. 
 
 "Yes, I suppose so, especially " She too left her 
 sentence unfinished. For a moment she stood look- 
 ing down, flicking at an adjacent rose-tree with her 
 switch. 
 
 "Tell me about the gardening," he said, seizing on 
 the subject as the one uppermost in his mind. "How 
 do you get your things as far afield as Sonora?" 
 
 "I'll tell you about that later ;" she suddenly seemed 
 to shake off her anxieties as a child might. Her 
 clouded face turned on him sparkling with new ani-
 
 THE OLD LOVE 79 
 
 mation, "I'll tell you all about that another time. 
 Now " 
 
 He interrupted her: 
 
 "But there may not be another time. You know 
 I'll be leaving soon." 
 
 She looked amazed, quite aghast. 
 
 "Leaving?" she exclaimed "leaving Foleys?" 
 
 "Yes, I must be back in San Francisco in a few 
 days. And it takes a day to ride from here to Sac- 
 ramento." 
 
 "But " she stopped, looking thoroughly dashed. 
 The Colonel wondered what was in her mind. 
 
 "But not to-morrow?" she asked, drawing near to 
 him and speaking urgently, "you'll be here to-mor- 
 row ?" 
 
 "Yes, I'll be here to-morrow. My horse won't be 
 able to take the ride till the day after. He's gone 
 tender on his forefoot." 
 
 She was silent, looking down on the path and ab- 
 sently trailing the leaf-decked tip of her switch in 
 the dust. He regarded her with tender amusement. 
 
 "You haven't seen the spring yet," she said abruptly 
 without raising her eyes. 
 
 The remark was startling. It was the discovery 
 of this spring which had led to the unpleasantness 
 with the squatter. The Colonel would probably have 
 gone on paying the taxes and letting the squatter 
 live on his premises till the end of things, if the 
 spring had not waked him to the possibilities of 
 ownership. He colored a little. For the first time 
 it seemed to him the young girl had shown bad taste.
 
 80 THE PIONEER 
 
 "No," he answered, "I haven't seen it. I didn't 
 see that it was necessary. I've had the water ana- 
 lyzed. That was enough." 
 
 "But you ought to see it," she continued, still look- 
 ing at the end of the switch. "It's a wonderful 
 spring. Everybody says so. I discovered it." 
 
 Her face, as she began speaking, flushed faintly 
 and then deeper. When she had finished the color 
 was spread over it in a clear transparent blush. 
 
 "I doubt whether I'll be able to get there," he re- 
 plied with just a trace of stiffness in his manner. 
 "It's quite a walk, I understand, and it's so hot " 
 
 She suddenly raised her eyes and moved toward 
 him, her look one of flushed embarrassment, but her 
 manner urgent and determined. 
 
 "I'll take you there," she said hurriedly. "I know 
 a way that's quite shady, a path hardly anybody 
 knows of. I found it, the spring and the path both, 
 and I would s.o like to show it to you." 
 
 Her voice fell to the key of coaxing, which was be- 
 lied by her countenance, full of a keen, waiting anx- 
 iousness. She seemed to the man to be tremulously 
 hanging on his word of consent. 
 
 "I guess I'll have to go," he said, looking down 
 at her with eyes from which all disapproval had 
 gone. "I'll come up here for you let's see! The 
 late afternoon's the best time because it's cooler. Say 
 five. How's that?" 
 
 "Here?" she said, looking away uneasily. "No, 
 don't come here. You know " she drew closer to 
 him, and resting her finger-tips on the lapel of his 
 coat pressed them gently against his chest, half
 
 THE OLD LOVE 81 
 
 whispering "this is to be a secret expedition. No 
 one must know about it but us two." 
 
 The Colonel backed away, eying her with tragical 
 gravity from under his down-drawn brows. 
 
 "Look here, young woman," he said, "what are 
 you up to? Are you trying to kidnap the Colonel?" 
 
 Her dimple came, but no further indication of 
 amusement disturbed the fluttered uneasiness of her 
 countenance. 
 
 "No, no," she said quickly; then tilting her head 
 to one side and looking at him cajolingly, "but how 
 I would like to!" 
 
 "I don't think it's safe for me to go," he answered. 
 "I've a suspicion you're some kind of wood nymph 
 or fairy who steals good-looking young men like me 
 and keeps them in the woods for playmates. Can 
 you give me any guaranty that I'll reappear?" 
 
 "I'll lead you back myself. And you will go? 
 That's settled. Well, listen: down the road before 
 you come to the turn there's a break in the fence. 
 It's near the large oak that throws a limb over the 
 road. I'll be there waiting for you at half-past four. 
 Five's too late. And the path I spoke of goes up 
 right behind the oak and is ever so much shorter than 
 the one everybody takes. That's this way, back of 
 the cow-shed and the garden." 
 
 She indicated it, and both turned to follow the di- 
 rection of her pointing finger. As they stood with 
 their backs to the road they heard a heavy, regular 
 footfall padding through the dust. The girl turned 
 first, and her quick, half-frightened ejaculation, "It's 
 father!" made the Colonel swerve round like a
 
 82 THE PIONEER 
 
 weathercock. It was too late for him to escape. 
 Beauregard Allen was close to the gate and was 
 looking at him with a somber, unmoving gaze. 
 
 He would have known his old enemy in a minute. 
 But yet there was a change, subtile and demolishing 
 as that which had made Alice a stranger to him. 
 The debonair arrogance that he had once taken for 
 a proud self-respect was gone. A destruction of the 
 upholding sense of position and responsibility had 
 bowed the upright shoulders and made the haughty 
 hawk-eye heavy and evasive. John Beauregard Allen 
 had failed in life, gone down step by step ; not in one 
 cataclysmic rush, but gradually, with a woman and 
 children striving desperately to hold him back. 
 
 His drinking had been a habit of recent years, a 
 weakness grown of ill-luck and despondency. It 
 showed in a coarsened heaviness of feature, a red- 
 dened weight of eyelid. He wore a pair of loose, 
 dusty trousers, thick, unbrushed boots, the blue-and- 
 white cotton shirt of the country-man, and an unbut- 
 toned sack-coat that sagged from his bent shoulders. 
 A grizzled brown beard straggled over his breast, 
 and the hat pushed back from his forehead showed 
 hair of the same color. Yet there still lingered about 
 him the suggestion of the man of breeding and edu- 
 cation, and once again upright with the hope of life 
 restored to him, he would have been a fine looking 
 man. 
 
 He knew' who the Colonel was before he turned, 
 but he too realized there was no possibility of escape. 
 In that one moment before his eye challenged that 
 of his old adversary, he had recognized the situation
 
 THE OLD LOVE 83 
 
 and decided on his course. He thrust his hands into 
 the pockets of his coat and tried to square his shoul- 
 ders into their old proud poise. As his glance met 
 the Colonel's he withdrew one of his hands from his 
 pocket and raised his hat. 
 
 "How d'ye do," he said in a deep, easy voice ; "how 
 d'ye do, Parrish? I heard you were here." 
 
 The savoir faire of his address was remarkable. 
 His eyes, however, conscious and ashamed, showed 
 his discomfort in the meeting. The Colonel returned 
 the salute and the two men stood facing each other, 
 the gate between them. 
 
 "Colonel Parrish," said June in an embarrassed 
 voice, "came to see mother. She had such a nice 
 talk with him. He says he doesn't think she's so 
 much changed." 
 
 "I have to thank you," said the father with a faint 
 reminiscence of his old grand manner, "for your 
 kindness to my little girl last evening. June tells me 
 you introduced Rion Gracey and young Barclay to 
 her. That's the son of Simeon Barclay, I suppose?" 
 
 The Colonel said that it was. He was extremely un- 
 comfortable, and after the manner of his sex, wanted 
 to escape from this unpleasant position with the ut- 
 most speed. He opened the gate and stepped into 
 the road. The squatter slowly passed through the 
 aperture into the disputed domain. 
 
 "It was very kind of you, Parrish," he said. "We 
 appreciated it. June would have had a pretty dull 
 time if it hadn't been for you." 
 
 The Colonel deprecated all thanks. He was now 
 in the road, his hat raised in farewell. He had no-
 
 84 THE PIONEER 
 
 ticed that Allen made no allusion to his wife and 
 thanked Heaven that the man who had shown him- 
 self so dead to other decencies had enough left in 
 him for that. A backward glance of final adieu 
 showed him the father and daughter side by side by 
 the gateway. The girl was smiling at him. The 
 man stood with his ragged hat ceremoniously lifted 
 over his heavy, hang-dog face.
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 UNCLE JIM 
 
 An hour before the time set by June Allen to go 
 to the spring the Colonel was sitting in- his room 
 before a table littered with papers. They were the 
 title deeds and the tax certificates of the Parrish 
 tract. They represented an unmarred record 
 of purchase and possession from the date of ac- 
 quisition to the present time. As he looked them 
 over he wondered again at the astounding boldness 
 of Allen. Had he relied upon the rightful owner's 
 leniency when he should discover that the claimant's 
 wife had once been Alice Joyce? The thought called 
 forth an angry sentence of pain and disgust. Per- 
 haps so. It was of a piece with Allen's behavior. 
 But 
 
 The Colonel rose to his feet. He had made up 
 his mind what he intended to do. Allen's baseness 
 had no bearing on the matter. Alice and her chil- 
 dren were all that concerned him. He threw the 
 papers into the table drawer, looked at his watch, 
 and picking up his hat, left the room. 
 
 There were many breaks in the fence lengths of 
 it were entirely down but the one June had selected 
 as the place of rendezvous was easy of discovery be- 
 85
 
 86 THE PIONEER 
 
 cause of the live-oak that grew near it. The great 
 tree cast a heavy, twisted limb across the road, mak- 
 ing an arch of foliage almost as impervious to sun- 
 beams as a roof. A narrow path made a pale, me- 
 andering line through the grass beyond it, and then 
 came and went, red as a scar, through the shrubbery 
 of the hillside. As the Colonel drew near he saw 
 June sitting on the ground under the tree. Her fig- 
 ure, clothed in a dress of dull blue, made a harmo- 
 nious note of color in the gold, bronze, and olive of 
 the landscape. 
 
 She caught a glimpse of his head over the fence 
 and jumped up with a gesture of welcome. Then 
 as he stepped through the gap she met him with ex- 
 tended hand. 
 
 Viewed at close range, her appearance was an il- 
 luminating commentary on a poverty which could 
 never be degraded or ignoble. Nothing could have 
 been cheaper or poorer than her scanty cotton gown 
 or her straw hat. But she had taken pains that the 
 ribbon on her hat should match the tint of her dress, 
 and the old-fashioned turn-over collar of lace which 
 encircled her throat was arranged with a dainty pre- 
 ciseness. She had even put on her one and only 
 pair of corsets a treasured article of dress reserved 
 for parties and the Sabbath so unusual was the oc- 
 casion. The Colonel did not notice these delicacies 
 of detail. He only saw, as any other man would 
 have seen, that a rare distinguishing fineness marked 
 her despite her poor apparel and coarsened hands. 
 It would have taken a woman's deeper insight to 
 see that this was a girl in whom a taste for all that
 
 UNCLE JIM 87 
 
 was luxurious, costly and elegant was innate arid 
 ready to wake at the first call. 
 
 They followed the path across the open land and 
 then began ascending through the chaparral, the girl 
 leading. The shrubs, which were low-growing, of- 
 fered no shade, and the sun, though slanting to the 
 west, followed them with scorching beams. It was 
 by no means a gentle climb and they spoke little. At 
 intervals a lizard flicked across the path, and an oc- 
 casional stirring of the underbrush told of the steal- 
 thy passage of a snake. From the whole hillside 
 aromatic odors, that seemed to be ascending in swim- 
 ming undulations, rose into the heat, not sweet and 
 delicate as is the breath of gardens, but coarse, pun- 
 gent, almost rank, in their triumphant, wild vitality. 
 
 In an opening under the pines they paused for a 
 rest. The Colonel noticed that his companion was 
 not as talkative as she had been on the two former 
 occasions. There was an air of troubled abstraction 
 about her. She indicated notable points in the land- 
 scape like a dutiful cicerone, but the intensity of in- 
 terest she had displayed in arranging the trip seemed 
 gone. He wondered if she had revealed to some 
 member of her family her design of showing him the 
 spring and had been reproved for it. 
 
 The last portion of the walk was again through 
 thickets, up a hill where the poison oak grew close 
 and high, and then among larger growths of bay and 
 alder, with the Digger pines raising their dim bluish 
 shapes among the more juicy greens. Here they be- 
 gan to follow a faint rill, a tiny thread that broke in- 
 to a shower of drops over roots and splinters of
 
 88 THE PIONEER 
 
 stone. Finally, pushing aside intruding boughs, she 
 led him into an opening ringed by tall pine trunks, 
 and cried triumphantly: 
 
 "Here it is! Do you wonder no one ever found 
 it?" 
 
 There was a hollowing out of the bank under the 
 eaves of a large pine root, and here the spring had been 
 bubbling unnoticed for centuries. A delicate fring- 
 ing of fern hung from the moist earth motionless over 
 its reflection in the small, quivering mirror. Near 
 by there was an outcropping of rock, and broken bits 
 had been used to pave the edge where the crystal lip 
 of water trembled, and to make a little channel for 
 it to slip down. A rusty tin cup hung on a dead 
 bough, and the girl rinsed it, and dipping it in the 
 clear depths, handed it to him. 
 
 "Try it," she said. "It tastes quite different here 
 among the pine roots with the smell of the woods 
 all round." 
 
 He drank it, marveling at the sharp, acrid tang. 
 She hung the cup back on the twig, and taking off 
 her hat, sat down on a bent root that the pine above 
 it seemed to have thrown out in a kindly desire to be 
 hospitable. The Colonel subsided on to a flat shoul- 
 der of rock, rusted with lichen. 
 
 "Hasn't it hidden itself in a pretty spot?" she said. 
 "And didn't it hide itself well? Coming on it from 
 the other side you never would have suspected a 
 spring was here among the roots of the trees." 
 
 "And you discovered it?" 
 
 She nodded, looking down into the tiny basin.
 
 \ 
 
 -
 
 UNCLE JIM 89 
 
 "I traced it up from the little stream that runs away 
 from it. I found it in March, one day when I was 
 prowling." 
 
 "Prowling! What's prowling?" 
 
 "Prowling?" she smiled, but pensively, her eyes 
 on the water. "It's just wandering about, generally 
 alone, and not going to any particular place. I've 
 prowled all over here. I can lead you straight to 
 the two old shafts and show you the dumps and the 
 remains of the old windlass. They're almost en- 
 tirely hidden by wild grapes and things. People who 
 don't know could easily fall in the shafts; one of 
 them's quite deep." 
 
 It was now her companion's turn to look pensive. 
 He had sunk the two shafts, and in them, as in the 
 property, how many thousands of dollars he did not 
 like to think. 
 
 "Those shafts were made," he said, "fifteen years 
 ago when we all thought you had only to turn over 
 a few shovelfuls of earth and find your fortune." 
 He struck the rock with his hand and said laughingly : 
 "What an old fraud you've been!" 
 
 She looked at him without returning his smile. 
 
 "Colonel Parrish," she said anxiously, "did you 
 sink those two shafts?" 
 
 He nodded, once more surprised at her indirect 
 reference to his ownership of the land. She made 
 no reply, but, plucking a fern growing out of the 
 earth near her, began slowly to shred its leaves from 
 its stalk and sprinkle them on the surface of the 
 water.
 
 90 THE PIONEER 
 
 "And," she said suddenly, "you intend now, quite 
 soon, to build a hotel back here, under the pines, at 
 the top of the hill, don't you?" 
 
 That she should disappoint him with these per- 
 sistent and almost indecent inquiries, considering the 
 situation, hurt and irritated him. It was so out of 
 keeping with her general suggestion of something 
 sensitive and girlishly naive. 
 
 "I had intended building a hotel; came here with 
 trlat intention. But " He rose to his feet and said 
 coldly, "Don't you think we'd better be going back 
 again? It's quite a long walk." 
 
 "But?" she echoed, unheeding his last sentences 
 "but what?" 
 
 She made no movement save to clasp her hands 
 on the broken fern. Her face, raised to him, sud- 
 denly was pale and set in a curious tenseness of inquiry. 
 It moved the Colonel strangely. 
 
 "But what?" she repeated insistently. "You were 
 going to say something else." 
 
 "My dear little girl," he answered, "don't trouble 
 your head about these things. It's it's a man's dis- 
 pute and for men to settle. But rest assured of one 
 thing, you'll not suffer by it." 
 
 "I!" she exclaimed; "it's not I that matters. But, 
 Colonel Parrish, our mother." 
 
 She stopped, her voice quivering like a taut string. 
 
 "Your mother?" said the Colonel, with a rising in- 
 flection. 
 
 "You see how it is with her. Let us stay. Let 
 us stay a little while longer."
 
 UNCLE JIM 91 
 
 "Did you bring me up here to ask me this?" he 
 said, looking steadily at her. 
 
 "Yes. I wanted to see you somewhere away from 
 the house, and I thought the spring would be a good 
 excuse. Talking of these things makes me" the 
 tears rose to her eyes and stood thick in them 
 "makes me do like this." 
 
 They ran over and she brushed them away with 
 her hand. 
 
 "You can see; you understand about mother," she 
 went on, struggling to speak clearly. "It's only a 
 question of time. It's nearly the end of everything. 
 And I brought you up here to-day to ask you to let 
 us stay right or wrong let us stay till then." 
 
 Her voice broke and she held her head down, try- 
 ing to suppress her sobs. The Colonel turned away, 
 walked to where the tin cup hung, took it off its 
 twig, and looked into it. 
 
 "Don't do that," he said, his voice rough; "for 
 Heaven's sake, stop. I'd be angry with you for ask- 
 ing me such a thing if you weren't so so I don't 
 know what. Of course you're going to stay." 
 
 "What?" he was not looking at her, but was con- 
 scious that she had stiffened both in mental and physi- 
 cal fiber at the word "you're going to let us stay?" 
 
 "Of course. As long as you want, always. Don't 
 talk any more about it." 
 
 A quick sound came from her, and he heard the 
 rustle of her dress as she rose, her footsteps on the 
 stone near him, and then felt her beside him. She 
 seized the hand hanging at his side, pressed it against
 
 92 THE PIONEER 
 
 the softness of her bosom and against her cheek, then 
 dropped it with a murmur of broken words. 
 
 He turned on her bruskly. Her face was shin- 
 ing with tears, but she was smiling. She tried to 
 speak to him, but he laid a finger on her lips and 
 looked at her, shaking his head. 
 
 "Don't say any more about it," he said after a 
 moment's pause. "I can't stand this sort of thing. 
 I'm not used to it." 
 
 She gently laid her hand on his and drawing it 
 away unsealed her lips. She was smiling radiantly, 
 her dimple deep. And for a moment she enveloped 
 him in a beaming look of affection and gratitude. 
 
 "There's lots I want to say, but I suppose I must 
 be obedient," she murmured. 
 
 "Of course you must. Come, we ought to be going. 
 Put your hat on or you'll get all freckled." 
 
 She went back to the spring and picked up her hat. 
 As she pulled the elastic down over her cropped locks 
 she said gaily : 
 
 "I feel so different from what I did when I came up 
 at least twenty years younger and fifty pounds 
 lighter." 
 
 "You'd better not forget how to accomplish that 
 miracle," said her companion. "Thirty years from 
 now you'll probably find it a great deal more to the 
 point than you do to-day." 
 
 They started down the path, laughing. The red 
 eye of the sun, a flaming ball, stared at them between 
 the trunks of the pines, and shot long pencils of 
 flushed light into the rustling depths of the thickets.
 
 UNCLE JIM 93 
 
 June led the way as before, but she was a different 
 guide. She seemed as light-hearted going down as 
 she had been oppressed coming up. The Colonel was 
 to realize later how ready her optimism was to re- 
 spond to the first glimmer of cheer, how quick and 
 far was the swing of the pendulum. 
 
 Coming to a grassed plateau under the pines they 
 paused for a moment's rest. From the high crest of 
 ground they could see the cottage with the cultivation 
 of its garden cutting into the untilled land, like an 
 island of green floating in a yellow sea. It looked 
 meaner and more insignificant than ever in the midst 
 of the lazily outflung landscape now swimming in a 
 bath of colored light. 
 
 The Colonel saw in imagination a house he owned 
 in San Francisco on Folsom Street. He had bought 
 it as a favor from a pioneer friend whose fortunes 
 were declining. It was the stateliest house of what 
 was then a street of stately houses, with wide win- 
 dows, vine-draped balconies, and scrolled iron gates 
 shutting out the turmoil of the street. The thought 
 had been in his mind when it came into his possession 
 that it was the sort of house he would have given 
 Alice, and the still more sacred thought had followed, 
 that his children's laughter might have echoed 
 through its halls. Now he looked down on a hovel, 
 also his property, where Alice had been glad to find 
 a shelter, and in which her daughter had prayed that 
 she might be left to die ! Life and its mysteries ! 
 How inscrutable, how awful, it all was ! 
 
 The voice of June at his side roused him.
 
 94 THE PIONEER 
 
 "Mother's gone in," she said, evidently making 
 these small domestic comments more to herself than 
 to him, "and Rosamund's getting supper." 
 
 "How do you know that?" he asked, glad to be 
 shaken from his thoughts. "Have you got second 
 sight? You're such a little witch I shouldn't be a bit 
 surprised if you had." 
 
 "You don't have to be a witch to see the smoke 
 coming out of the chimney." 
 
 A faint reek of smoke curled up from the cottage 
 roof into the evening air. The Colonel looked at her 
 with a sheepish side glance. She returned it, smiling 
 in mischievous triumph. 
 
 "I'm afraid we're not both witches," she said sau- 
 cily. 
 
 The rest over, they continued their descent by a 
 wider path in parts of which they walked side by 
 side, talking together sometimes, or June talking, 
 for she was very loquacious now, while her com- 
 panion listened. At the end of a description of their 
 life in Virginia City he said, 
 
 "How long is it since you've been in San Fran- 
 cisco? Years, isn't it?" 
 
 "Oh, years and years. I was born there, but we 
 left when I was a child." 
 
 "It must have been a prodigious length of time 
 ago in the glacial period, you might say. Sometime 
 you and Rosamund must come down there and visit 
 me. I'll find a place for you to stay, and take good 
 care of you. Would you like it?" 
 
 "Oh, Colonel Parrish!" Words failed her. The
 
 UNCLE JIM 95 
 
 path was wide and she was walking beside him. He 
 saw her eyes shine. 
 
 "I'd see to it that you'd have a good time. Lots of 
 parties and first-rate partners. You'd never sit along 
 the wall there. The fellows would be just breaking 
 their necks to dance with you. And theaters you 
 like theaters, don't you?" 
 
 "Theaters!" she fairly gasped. "I saw Maseppa 
 in Virginia, and it was oh, I haven't got the words ! 
 It was something wonderful." 
 
 "Well, we'll see 'em all. Better forty times than 
 you saw in Virginia, and every night if you want. 
 It'll be just as good a time as San Francisco and the 
 Colonel can give two girls like you and Rosamund." 
 
 He looked down at her, smiling. She returned 
 the look and said : 
 
 "Why are you so good to us? I don't understand 
 it!" 
 
 "Don't try to. Never exert your brain in need- 
 less ways. That's a fundamental law for the preser- 
 vation of health. In this particular case I'd be good 
 to myself. You don't know what it would be for me 
 to have two nice girls to take around. I'm a lonely 
 old devil, you know." 
 
 "Are you?" she said with a note of somewhat pen- 
 sive incredulity. "You've never been married, have 
 you ?" 
 
 "Nup," said the Colonel. 
 
 "You'll have to look upon us as your daughters," 
 she continued, "or perhaps your nieces." The path 
 was narrow and she looked into his face with the
 
 96 THE PIONEER 
 
 glance of demure coquetry he was beginning to know 
 and watch for. "Which would you prefer?" 
 
 "Daughters," he said gruffly, looking into the 
 bushes. 
 
 "But we're already provided with a father," she re- 
 plied. "And it would be such a pity to waste you. 
 Wouldn't you care to take the position of uncle? 
 That's vacant." 
 
 "All right, uncle Uncle Jim." 
 
 "Uncle Jim," she repeated thoughtfully. "It seems 
 funny to come into possession of your first uncle 
 when you're twenty years old." 
 
 There was a bend in the path and the bushes grew 
 almost across it. She suddenly quickened her speed, 
 passed him, and ran on before. 
 
 "Come on," she called over her shoulder. "I'm just 
 hitting the trail again." 
 
 He followed her, turned the bend, and pushing the 
 branches aside, saw her a few feet ahead of him, 
 standing on a flat stone about a foot high, which 
 directly intercepted the path. 
 
 "What are you mounted on that for?" he said, 
 laughing. "You look as if you were going to make a 
 speech." 
 
 "That's what I'd like to do," she answered, "but 
 I was told not to, and I'm very obedient. Come 
 nearer quite close." 
 
 He approached, a little puzzled, for he saw that 
 she was suddenly grave. The stone raised her a few 
 inches above him, and as he drew near she leaned 
 down, took him by the lapels of his coat, and draw- 
 ing him close, bent and kissed him softly on the fore-
 
 UNCLE JIM 97 
 
 head. Then she drew back, and still holding him, 
 looked with tender eyes into his. 
 
 "Uncle Jim," she said, "that's your christening." 
 
 The next moment she was down and flitting on 
 ahead of him. 
 
 "The path's very narrow," she called. "You must 
 be content to follow the oldest living inhabitant." 
 
 At the gap in the fence he bade her good-by. To 
 his great delight she caught at his hesitating sug- 
 gestion that she should occasionally write to him and 
 tell him of their life and her mother's health. He 
 told her he would be up again, he thought, some time 
 during the summer. The date was uncertain. Then, 
 with her hand in his, she said with a wilful shake 
 of her head : 
 
 "No, not a Dios. It's hasta maiiana, Uncle Jim. 
 I won't have it anything but hasta maiiana." 
 
 "Well, then, hasta manana," he answered. "And 
 God bless you, little girl !" 
 
 That evening Colonel Parrish went to see Cusack. 
 He brought with him the title deeds and tax cer- 
 tificates of the Parrish tract. They lay scattered on 
 the office table on which the Colonel as he talked 
 leaned a supporting elbow. The interview was short, 
 and there were moments when it was heated, till 
 Cusack realized, as he afterwards expressed it to a 
 friend, "there are certain kinds of fools there's no 
 good bucking up against." The Colonel had deter- 
 mined to recognize the squatter's claim, and to end 
 all further litigation by making a legal transfer of 
 the property to Allen by means of a quit-claim deed. 
 He talked down argument and protest.
 
 98 THE PIONEER 
 
 "Why the devil should I keep the place?" he vo- 
 ciferated. "I'm sick of paying taxes on it and never 
 getting a cent. I've sunk thousands in it and not 
 got a dollar back. It's been a white elephant from 
 the first. Allen's welcome to it. I'm glad to get it 
 off my hands." 
 
 "But the spring," Cusack almost wailed in the 
 acuteness of his disappointment, "the spring and the 
 hotel ! They were going to raise Foleys from the 
 dead." 
 
 "Spring !" said the Colonel, rising and taking from 
 his pocket a fresh cigar "damned little picayune tea- 
 cup! That spring hasn't power to raise a mosquito 
 from the dead." 
 
 "Did you expect to find a geyser?" the irritated 
 lawyer retorted. 
 
 "I didn't expect to find what I did find, you can 
 bet on that," said his client, as he bent forward to 
 apply the tip of his cigar to the lamp chimney.
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 PRIZES OF ACCIDENT 
 
 It was half-past five the next morning when Kit 
 Carson paced away from the hotel stables into the 
 rosy daylight. With the freshness of the hour on 
 his face the Colonel passed along the hushed street 
 and then out into the red road between its clumps 
 of dusty foliage. 
 
 As he skirted what yesterday had been his own 
 land he looked on it with a new eye. It could be 
 made to support them well. No matter how low 
 Allen might sink they need never want again. The 
 hilly part, where the spring was, could be sold or 
 leased to some of the enterprising city hotel men. Or, 
 if they objected to that, they could increase their 
 market gardening to the dimensions of a large agri- 
 cultural enterprise. They could rent to a rancher a 
 portion of the rich, uncultivated land now lying idle, 
 and thus gain an income sufficient for them to develop 
 their own particular domain. To people of thrift 
 and energy the possibilities of the tract were large. 
 Alice could die in peace. Her girls were provided 
 for. 
 
 As the cottage came into view the rider reined up 
 and gazed at it. No smoke issued from the chimney. 
 99
 
 too THE PIONEER 
 
 They all still slept. In the crystal stillness of the 
 morning it looked peacefully picturesque, half veiled 
 in its greenery of shrubs and vines. The air about 
 it was impregnated with the delicate breath of the 
 roses that lined the path from the gate to the balcony. 
 
 He gave a slight shake to his rein, and Kit Carson, 
 who had been impatiently pawing with a proud fore- 
 foot, moved forward. The rider's glance wandered 
 to a window under the sloping roof, veiled by a blue 
 curtain. Was that the girls' room? The girls! The 
 two faces rose before his mental vision and he turned 
 his eyes from the window and let them pierce, far- 
 seeing and steady into the distance, into the future. 
 Before he came to Foleys he had not cared, he had 
 not dared, to look into the future. He had cowered 
 before its emptiness. Now the faces of the sisters 
 rose s"oftly bright in its melancholy obscurity, the 
 faces of Alice's daughters daughters that should 
 have been his. 
 
 A week after he reached San Francisco he had a 
 letter from June, a childish, incoherent letter, full of 
 impassioned terms of gratitude, broken into by dis- 
 tressed comments on her mother's health. Then, in 
 more sprightly vein, she told him of how Mr. Bar- 
 clay was stopping over at Foleys for a few days and 
 came nearly every day and helped them in the gar- 
 den, and Mr. Rion Gracey, riding back from Foleys 
 to the Buckeye Belle one evening, had dropped in for 
 a visit, and stayed to supper. 
 
 The Colonel seemed to see her as she wrote, laugh- 
 ing at one moment and then stopping to dash the tears 
 off her cheek as she had done at the spring. He heard
 
 PRIZES OF ACCIDENT 101 
 
 from no one else. Beauregard Allen had accepted 
 the transfer of the property as a business transac- 
 tion, the manner in which his adversary had desired 
 him to accept it. To his friends in San Francisco 
 the Colonel explained his speedy return and the 
 dropping of the case as he had done to Cusack. It 
 was not worth the time and trouble. The land was 
 remote, the spring a disappointment; he was glad to 
 be rid of it all. 
 
 Three weeks after this, sitting alone in his office, 
 he received by the afternoon mail a newspaper. It 
 was the Daily Clarion, an organ which molded pub- 
 lic opinion and supported a precarious existence in 
 Foleys. Unfolding the flimsy sheet he found a 
 marked paragraph, and turning to it he saw it to 
 be Alice's death notice. She had died three days be- 
 fore "at the residence of her husband, John Beau- 
 regard Allen." The paper slipped from his hand 
 to the floor and his head sank. He sat thus till the 
 twilight fell, alone in the dim office where the golden 
 letters that spelled his name the name of the suc- 
 cessful man shone faintly on the window. 
 
 That same afternoon the dead woman's husband 
 and children returned to the cottage after having 
 committed all that remained of her to the grave. Rosa- 
 mund had succumbed to the strain and sorrow of the 
 last few days, and gone to bed prostrated with a 
 headache. Allen, morose and speechless, had flung 
 himself in a chair in the living-room and there sat, 
 a heavy, inert figure. He had drunk heavily during 
 the last few days of his wife's illness, for he had 
 always loved her, and in his weakness of heart had
 
 102 THE PIONEER 
 
 fled from the sight of her suffering, and tried to find 
 surcease for his own. 
 
 It was left to June to prepare their supper and 
 accomplish the toilsome domestic tasks that Rosa- 
 mund shared with her. With a dead heart she set out 
 the meal, watered the garden, and finally set forth in 
 a flare of sunset to find Bloss and drive her home. 
 
 The cow had evidently strayed far. June's search 
 led her to the spots which Bloss was known to fre- 
 quent, but she could find no trace of her. Sometimes 
 the girl's voice, broken and hoarse with weeping, 
 rose on the rich stillness of the hour, calling to the 
 truant. She became irritable, exasperated against the 
 animal, who, on such a night as this, while her heart 
 was bursting with sorrow, ended the bitterness of the 
 day with so wearisome a hunt. Finally, exhausted 
 by long hours of watching and the fatigue of grief, 
 she burst into unrestrained sobs. With her face shin- 
 ing with tears, her breast convulsed, she tore her way 
 through thickets and scrambled over rocky spurs, ev- 
 ery now and then sending up a quavering cry for the 
 strayed cow. At length, brushing through a copse 
 of bay and alder, she came on the torn face of the 
 hill where the landslide had taken place. The ground 
 was covered with a debris of stones and dead trees. 
 Nature, to repair the damage, was already hiding the 
 rawness of the lacerated expanse under a veil of 
 small sprouting vegetation. Here, through a screen 
 of leaves, she at last caught sight of Bloss' red and 
 white side. 
 
 She cried to the cow, who gave a lazy flip of her 
 tail but no other sign of movement. June's irritated
 
 PRIZES OF ACCIDENT 103 
 
 misery gave way to a spasm of rage, and stooping, 
 she picked up a handful of the loose pieces of stone 
 strewn about her, and threw one at the runaway. 
 It struck with a thud. Bloss gave a surprised snort, 
 and, wheeling, brushed through the thicket. June 
 followed her, the stones pressed in a clutching hand 
 against her breast, one now and then launched in 
 the direction of the cow. These missiles, combined 
 with the thought of home, appeared to animate Bloss' 
 leisurely movements, and she hastened forward 
 through brush and over rock at a lolloping, uncouth 
 trot. 
 
 The dusk was settling into night when they reached 
 the shed. June's tears had ceased, but the abstrac- 
 tion of grief held her. She fastened the shed door 
 on the cow, and still absently clasping three or four 
 pieces of stone, entered the house. The door from 
 the balcony gave directly into the living-room. Here, 
 just as she had left him, she found her father. 
 
 The daughters of Beauregard Allen did not love 
 him with the same fond blindness to his faults 
 that had marked his wife. In the grinding pov- 
 erty of their later years they could not but see his 
 apathy, the selfishness of his heavy discouragement, 
 the weakness of his tendency to drink. Though the 
 filial sense was strong in them and the example of 
 their mother's uncomplaining devotion one that they 
 obediently followed, they realized that their father 
 was more a tottering pillar to support than a staff 
 upon which to lean. 
 
 Now, a vague, dark bulk in trie deserted room, so 
 fitted with memories of the dead woman, he was a
 
 io 4 THE PIONEER 
 
 figure of heart-piercing desolation. His daughter 
 moved to the table and said gently: 
 
 "Why, father dear, are you still sitting in the dark? 
 Why didn't you light the lamp?" 
 
 He answered with an inarticulate sound and did 
 not move. Setting the stones on the table June drew 
 the lamp toward her and lit it. The sudden flood of 
 light seemed to rouse him. The chair creaked under 
 his weight as he turned. His haggard eyes absently 
 traveled over the lamp and the table near it and 
 finally rested on the scattered fragments of rock. 
 June had bent down to look at the wick which she 
 was carefully adjusting, when she heard him give a 
 suppressed exclamation, and his long brown hand 
 entered the circle of lamplight and gathered up the 
 stones. The wick satisfactorily arranged, she settled 
 the shade and turned away. Her father drew his 
 chair closer to the slanting torrent of light, and hold- 
 ing the stones directly under it, leaned forward, scru- 
 tinizing them as he turned them about. 
 
 ''Where did you get these?" he said without look- 
 ing up. 
 
 She told him, turning again toward the table, ab- 
 sently watching him. 
 
 "Near the hillside? Just there where the piece of 
 the hill came down?" he queried. 
 
 "Yes, along the ground there. It's all strewed 
 with stones and earth and roots. There's quite a 
 wall of rock left bare and these bits of it are all over. 
 New weeds are sprouting everywhere. I suppose 
 that's what took Bloss there." 
 
 He rose and going to a book-case took out a hand
 
 PRIZES OF ACCIDENT 105 
 
 magnifying glass, and returning to the light, studied 
 the fragments through it. Something in his face as 
 he bent over them, struck through the lethargy of 
 her dejection. 
 
 "Father," she said, drawing near, "what are they? 
 What's odd about them?" 
 
 He lifted a face transfigured with excitement, and 
 leaning forward, laid a trembling hand on hers. 
 
 "It's float," he said, "undeniable float! If I'm not 
 mistaken we've got the ledge at last." 
 
 END OF BOOK I
 
 BOOK II 
 THE TOWN
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 DOWN IN THE CITY 
 
 In the darkness of the early November night Col- 
 onel Parrish rattled across town in a hired carriage. 
 It was half -past eight when he left his rooms (they 
 were a fine suite on a sunny corner of Kearney 
 Street), and now as he turned into Folsom Street he 
 calculated that if the girls were ready they could 
 be en route by nine o'clock. In the autumn of 1870 
 the hours for evening entertainments were still early, 
 and the particular entertainment to which the Colonel 
 intended taking June and Rosamund Allen was one 
 of the regular receptions which united the aristoc- 
 racy of San Francisco at the house of Mrs. Ira 
 Davenport. 
 
 The great detached bulks of the buildings that the 
 carriage passed gleamed with lights, for Folsom 
 Street was still the home of the elect. From the arch 
 of lofty porches hall lamps cast a faint gleam into 
 the outer darkness of shrubberies and lawns. Through 
 the scroll-work of high iron gates the imbedded 
 flags of the marble paths shone white between darkly 
 grassed borders. Here and there a black faqade was 
 cut into by rows of long, lighted windows, uncurtained 
 and unshuttered. The street suggested seclusion, 
 109
 
 no THE PIONEER 
 
 wealth and dignity. The fortunes, which were later 
 to erect huge piles on San Francisco's wind-swept hill- 
 crests, had not yet arisen to blight the picturesque- 
 ness of the gray, sea-girdled city. 
 
 His own house was one of the largest in the street. 
 Now, in the darkness, it loomed an irregular black 
 mass, cut into with squares and slits of light. Just a 
 month before the lease of his tenants had expired, and 
 he was able to see one, at least, of his dreams real- 
 ized Alice's daughters quartered under his roof. 
 
 The revolution of Fortune's wheel had been, where 
 the Aliens were concerned, sudden and dizzying. The 
 ledge, that man for years had fruitlessly sought, in 
 one night had been laid bare. Even for the time and 
 the country it was a startling reversal of conditions. 
 In the spring Beauregard Allen had been a beggar. 
 In the summer he saw himself a man of wealth. Ex- 
 perts pronounced the discovery one of moment. The 
 mine, called the Barranca, was regarded as richer 
 in promise than the Buckeye Belle. Distant portions 
 of the tract, which had come into his possession in 
 so unlocked for a manner, were sold for large sums. 
 The whole region was shaken into astonished ani- 
 mation and Foleys was more effectually wakened from 
 the dead than it would have been by the Colonel's 
 original scheme. 
 
 Allen's sloth and despondency fell from him like 
 a garment. With the ready money from the land 
 sales he at once began the development of the pros- 
 pect hole. In July a square tunnel mouth and a 
 board shed intruded on the sylvan landscape near 
 the landslide. In September a fair-sized hoisting
 
 DOWN IN THE CITY HI 
 
 works housed the throb of engines and the roll of 
 cars. The noise of Beauregard Allen's strike went 
 abroad through foot-hill California and its echo rolled 
 to San Francisco, where men who had known him 
 in the early days suddenly remembered him as "Beau" 
 Allen, the handsome Southerner, who had come to 
 grief and dropped out of sight in the fifties. 
 
 In September he came down to San Francisco and 
 saw the Colonel. The meeting at first was con- 
 strained, but as Allen spoke of his daughters and 
 the plans for their happiness and welfare that he had 
 in view the constraint wore away and the two men 
 talked as beings united by a mutual interest. The 
 Colonel had recognized the fact that the breach must 
 be healed. He had had to struggle against his old 
 repugnance, but there was nothing else for it. No 
 wrong, however deep, should stand between him and 
 Alice's daughters, and he could not know the daugh- 
 ters without accepting the father. And how he did 
 want to know them! They had already brought 
 brightness and purpose into his life. In an effort to 
 treat the matter lightly he told himself that the har- 
 boring of old resentments, when they blocked the way 
 to the forming of new ties, was too much like cut- 
 ting off your nose to spite your face. Deep in his 
 heart lay the feeling that, apart from his affection 
 for them, they might need him. He knew Allen of 
 old, and Alice was dead. 
 
 It was their father's intention to have them make 
 San Francisco their home. In the larger city they 
 would have the advantages of society and chances to 
 marry well. One of the objects of his visit was to
 
 112 THE PIONEER 
 
 look about for a house whence they could be launched 
 into the little world in which he once had played his 
 part. It was thus that the Colonel, the lease of his 
 old tenant having just expired, was able to offer them 
 his own house for as long a period of years as they 
 might wish. 
 
 But Allen, swollen with the pride of his new for- 
 tunes, would rent no house. He would buy one, a 
 fitting home for two such girls as his. When it came 
 to that, the Colonel was as willing to sell as to rent. 
 The price of thirty thousand dollars was put upon the 
 Folsom Street mansion, and Allen, being much im- 
 pressed by its size and old-fashioned splendor, pur- 
 chased it, paying down the sum of ten thousand dol- 
 lars, while the Colonel held a mortgage maturing in 
 three years for the other twenty thousand. Allen, 
 despite his sudden accession to wealth, claimed that 
 his expenses just now were of the heaviest. In Octo- 
 ber he contemplated the building of a twenty-stamp 
 mill at the mine, and the shaft house was to be en- 
 larged. The winter outfits for his daughters would 
 be costly. It was his intention that June and Rosa- 
 mund should be as richly and modishly clad as any 
 of the young women who cast a glamour over the so- 
 ciety of the city. 
 
 To-night they were to make their entrance into 
 that society. Mrs. Davenport was an old friend of 
 the Colonel's and he had asked for the invitations, 
 assuring her that she would find his protegees two of 
 the prettiest and sweetest girls in the world. Now as 
 he sprang from the carriage and pushed open the tall 
 gate of scrolled iron- work he smiled to himself, cheer-
 
 DOWN IN THE CITY 113 
 
 fully confident that he had not overstated the charms 
 of the Misses Allen. 
 
 His ring brought one of the new Chinese servants 
 to the door, a quiet man, so ft- footed as a cat, and 
 clothed in freshly-laundered white. Standing in the 
 hall under the light he watched this spectral figure 
 flit noiselessly up the stairway. The hall, papered 
 in a deep reddish purple on which here and there the 
 gleam of gold arabesques was faintly visible, was 
 wide and dim. It would require a galaxy of lamps 
 thoroughly to dispel the gloom that lurked in its 
 dusky corners. A stately staircase, thickly carpeted 
 and with a darkly-polished hand-rail, ran up in front 
 of him. There was a light again at the top of this 
 throwing faint glimmerings on receding stretches of 
 wall, also somberly papered. 
 
 Through the wide arch on his right he could look 
 into a half-lighted parlor, where a globe or two in the 
 chandelier shone a translucent yellow. To his left 
 the doors into the reception-room were open, and 
 here by a table, a reading lamp at his elbow, sat 
 Beauregard Allen smoking a cigar. He was in even- 
 ing dress, but a button or two of unloosened waist- 
 coat, and the air of sprawling ease that marked his 
 attitude, did not suggest the trim alertness of one 
 garbed and tuned for festival. 
 
 "Good evening, Parrish," he said. "The girls will 
 be down in a minute. I'm going to beg off. Can't 
 drag me away from a good cigar and comfortable 
 chair on such a damned cold night." 
 
 His face was flushed; he had evidently been drink- 
 ing more than was consistent with a strictly tern-
 
 ii4 THE PIONEER 
 
 perate standard, a condition which often marked 
 him after dinner. But the old tendency toward an 
 open and unabashed inebriety had been conquered. 
 Well-dressed, his beard trimmed, the sense of de- 
 gradation and failure lifted from him, he looked a 
 stalwart, personable man, in whom the joy of life was 
 still buoyantly and coarsely alive. 
 
 The Colonel, leaning against the door frame, was 
 about to launch into the desultory conversation that 
 fills gaps, when the rustle of skirts on the stairs 
 caught his ear. June and Rosamund were descend- 
 ing, their cloaks on their arms that they might show 
 themselves in their new finery. Their mourning for 
 their mother took the form of transparent black 
 gauze, through which the delicate whiteness of their 
 youthful arms and shoulders gleamed. They laughed 
 as they met the Colonel's eye, both slightly abashed 
 by the unwonted splendor of their attire. 
 
 Their sudden rise from poverty, their translation 
 to the city, and their short stay in its sophisticated 
 atmosphere, had already worked a marked change 
 in them. Their air of naively blushing rusticity was 
 gone. They looked finer, more mondaine, than they 
 had only six weeks before. Rosamund, who was of 
 an ample, gracious build, had already, by the aid of 
 the admirable dressmaker who had fashioned her 
 gown, achieved a figure of small-waisted, full-busted 
 elegance, which, combined with her naturally fine car- 
 riage, gave her an appearance of metropolitan poise 
 and distinction. She had that bounteous and bloom- 
 ing type of looks which is peculiai to the women of 
 California, and which (as is the case with the character
 
 DOWN IN THE CITY 115 
 
 that accompanies it) is curiously lacking in feminine 
 subtility and romantic suggestion. By far the hand- 
 somer of the two sisters she was not destined to cast 
 the spell over the hearts of men which was the pre- 
 rogative of June. 
 
 She too had improved, but neither skilful dress- 
 makers nor luxurious surroundings would ever make 
 her a radiantly good-looking or particularly notice- 
 able person. Her hair, which had been so unsightly 
 six months before, was now her one beauty. It hung 
 round her head in a drooping mass of brown curls, 
 the longest just brushing the nape of her neck. 
 Through them was wound a ribbon of black velvet 
 in the manner of adornment sometimes seen in 
 eighteenth century miniatures. 
 
 The girls grumbled a little at their father's de- 
 fection, but the truth was that they were so ex- 
 cited by the evening's prospect that their regrets had 
 a perfunctory tone. In the carriage they plied the 
 Colonel with questions as to the nature of the en- 
 tertainment and the people they were likely to meet. 
 It amused and somewhat puzzled him to see that the 
 anticipation of what he had supposed would be a 
 beguiling and cheerful amusement was throwing 
 them into nervous tremors. As the large outline of 
 the Davenport house rose before them, all attempt 
 at conversation died, and they sat, stiff and speech- 
 less, on the seat opposite him. 
 
 The Davenport house, as all old Calif ornians know, 
 was at that time and had been for ten years, the 
 focus of the city's social life. Mrs. Davenport was 
 a Southerner and had been a beauty, facts which
 
 ii6 THE PIONEER 
 
 had weighed with the San Franciscans since the days 
 when "the water came up to Montgomery Street." 
 The Southern tradition still retained much of its orig- 
 inal power. The war had not broken it, and the 
 overwhelming eruption of money, which the Corn- 
 stock was to disgorge, had not yet submerged the 
 once dominant "set." At its head Mrs. Davenport 
 ruled with tact and determination. She appeared to 
 the Aliens as a graciously cordial lady of more than 
 middle age, whose sweeping robe of gray satin 
 matched the hair she wore parted on her forehead 
 and drawn primly down over the tips of her ears. 
 
 To the sisters it was the entrance into a new world, 
 the world their parents had strayed from and often 
 described to them. Seated in arm-chairs of yellow 
 brocade they surveyed the length of the parlor, a 
 spacious, high-ceilinged apartment, of a prevailing 
 paleness of tint and overhung by crystal chandeliers. 
 The black shoulders of men were thrown out against 
 the white walls delicately touched with a design in 
 gilding. Long mirrors reproduced the figures of 
 women rising from - the curving sweep of bright- 
 colored, beruffled trains. A Chinaman, carrying a 
 wide tray of plates and glasses, moved from group 
 to group. 
 
 Soon several of the black coats had gathered round 
 the chairs of June and Rosamund. The Colonel 
 had to give up his seat, and June could see him talking 
 to men in the doorways or dropping into vacant places 
 beside older women. He kept his eye on them, how- 
 ever. It delighted him to see that their charm was 
 so quickly recognized. Round about him their name
 
 DOWN IN THE CITY 117 
 
 buzzed from a knot in a corner, or a group on a sofa. 
 Many of those present had known Beauregard Allen 
 in his short heyday. Almost everybody in the room 
 had heard of his strike near Foleys and sudden trans- 
 lation from poverty to riches. 
 
 When at length the Colonel saw the chair beside 
 June vacant he crossed the room and dropped into 
 it. He was anxious to hear from her how she was 
 enjoying herself. 
 
 "Well," he said, "the old man's been frozen out 
 for nearly an hour. Didn't it make you feel con- 
 science-stricken to see me hanging round the doorway 
 looking hungrily at this chair?" 
 
 "I was dying for that man to go," she answered. 
 "I did everything but ask him." 
 
 "Oh, you sinner!" he said, looking into her danc- 
 ing eyes. "Where will you go to when you die?" 
 
 "Where do you think you will?" she asked, grave, 
 but with her dimple faintly suggested. "I'd like to 
 know, because then I can arrange to have just about 
 the same sort of record, and we could go together." 
 
 He could not restrain his laughter, and she added 
 in her most caressing tone, 
 
 "It would be so dreary for you to go to one place 
 and me to be in another." 
 
 Before he could answer she had raised her eyes, 
 glanced at the door, and then suddenly flushed, her 
 face disclosing a sort of sudden quick snap into fo- 
 cused attention. 
 
 "Mr. Barclay," she said in a low voice. "I didn't 
 expect to see him to-night." 
 
 The Colonel turned his head and saw Jerry Barclay
 
 n8 THE PIONEER 
 
 entering the room in the company of a lady and 
 gentleman. Many other people looked at them as 
 they moved to where Mrs. Davenport stood, for they 
 were unquestionably a noticeable trio. 
 
 The woman was in the middle, and between the 
 proud and distinguished figure of Barclay and the 
 small, insignificant one of her other escort, she pre- 
 sented a striking appearance. She was of a large, 
 full build, verging on embonpoint, but still showing 
 a restrained luxuriance of outline. A dress of white 
 lace clothed her tightly and swept in creamy billows 
 over the carpet behind her. It was cut in a square 
 at her neck, and the sleeves ended at her elbows, 
 revealing a throat and forearms of milky whiteness. 
 This ivory purity of skin was noticeable in her face, 
 which was firmly modeled, rather heavy in feature, 
 and crowned with a coronet of lusterless black hair. 
 She was hardly handsome, but there was something 
 sensational, arresting, slightly repelling, in the sleepy 
 and yet vivid vitality that seemed to emanate from 
 her. 
 
 "Who is it?" said June in a low voice. "What a 
 curious looking woman!" 
 
 The Colonel, who had been surveying the new- 
 comers, looked at his companion with eyes in which 
 there was a slight veiled coldness. The same quality 
 was noticeable in his voice: 
 
 "Her name's Newbury, Mrs. William Newbury. 
 Her husband's a banker here." 
 
 "Is that her husband with her, that little man?" 
 
 "Yes,"
 
 DOWN IN THE CITY 119 
 
 "But he's so old ! He looks like her father. What 
 did she marry him for?" 
 
 "I don't know. I'm not her father-confessor. He's 
 got a good deal of money, I believe." 
 
 The Colonel did not seem interested in the subject. 
 He picked up June's fan and said, 
 
 "How did you like the young fellow who had this 
 chair just now, Stanley Davenport? He's the last 
 unmarried child my old friend has left." 
 
 The girl's eyes, however, had followed the new- 
 comers with avid, staring curiosity, and she said, 
 
 "Very much. Are Mrs. Newbury and her husband 
 great friends of Mr. Barclay's?" 
 
 "I believe they are. I don't know much about her. 
 I know her husband in business. He's a little dried 
 up, but he's a first-rate fellow in the main." 
 
 "Is she an American? She looks so queer and 
 foreign." 
 
 "Spanish, Spanish-Californian. She and her sister 
 were two celebrated beauties here about twelve years 
 ago. Their name was Romero Carmen and Guada- 
 lupe Romero and they were very poor. Their grand- 
 father had been a sort of a Shepherd King, owned a 
 Spanish grant about as big as a European princi- 
 pality, and when the Gringo came traded off big 
 chunks of it for lengths of calico and old firearms 
 and books he couldn't read. The girls were friends 
 of Mrs. Davenport's only daughter Annie, and she 
 gave them a start. Carmen she was the elder of 
 the two married an Englishman, a man of position 
 and means that she met in this house. She lives over
 
 120 THE PIONEER 
 
 in England. This one Lupe married Newbury 
 about ten years ago." 
 
 "Do you think she's pretty?" asked June, anxious 
 to have her uncertainty on this point settled by what 
 she regarded as expert opinion. 
 
 "No. I don't admire her at all. She was hand- 
 some when she married. Those Spanish women all 
 get too fat. You saw something of Barclay at Foleys 
 after I left, didn't you?" 
 
 She dropped her eyes to the hands folded in her 
 lap and said with a nonchalant air, . 
 
 "Yes, he was at Foleys for over a week. He came 
 back from Thompson's Flat just after you left, and 
 he used to come and see us every afternoon. We had 
 lots of fun. He helped us with the garden, and he 
 didn't know how to do anything, and we had to teach 
 him." 
 
 "You saw a lot of Rion Gracey too, I suppose," said 
 her companion, with a sidelong eye on her. 
 
 It pleased him to note that at this remark she 
 looked suddenly conscious. 
 
 The Colonel had for some time cherished a secret 
 hope. It was one of the subjects of mutual agree- 
 ment which had made it easier for him and Allen to 
 bury the hatchet. The latter had told him of Rion 
 Gracey 's continued visits to the cottage throughout 
 the summer, and both men had agreed that no woman 
 could find a better husband than the younger of the 
 Gracey boys. 
 
 June's conscious air was encouraging, but her 
 words were aggravatingly non-committal.
 
 DOWN IN THE CITY 121 
 
 "Oh, yes," she said, "we saw Mr. Gracey often. 
 He was always coming into Foleys to buy supplies 
 for the Buckeye Belle." 
 
 At that moment Barclay, who had turned away 
 from his companions, saw her, and with a start of 
 recognition followed by a smile of undisguised plea- 
 sure, hurried toward her. The Colonel rose with some 
 reluctance. He was surprised and not entirely pleased 
 at the open delight of the young man's countenance, 
 the confident friendliness of his greeting. He gave 
 up his chair, however, and as he crossed the room to 
 one of his elderly cronies, he saw that Mrs. Newbury 
 was watching Jerry Barclay and June with a slight, 
 lazy smile and attentive eyes. 
 
 "I came here to-night solely to see you," said the 
 young man, as soon as the Colonel was out of ear- 
 shot. 
 
 "But how did you know I was here?" asked the 
 innocent June. "I never told you." 
 
 "No, you naughty girl, you never did. But I heard 
 it." 
 
 "Little birds?" she queried, tilting up her chin and 
 looking at him out of the ends of her eyes. 
 
 "Little birds," he acquiesced. "And why didn't you 
 let me know? Don't I remember your making 
 me a solemn promise at Foleys to tell me the first 
 thing if you ever came to San Francisco? You were 
 doubtful then if you ever would." 
 
 "Yes, I think you do," she agreed. "That is, if 
 you've got a good memory." 
 
 "You evidently haven't."
 
 122 THE PIONEER 
 
 "I remembered it perfectly and was waiting until 
 we got settled in our new house before I wrote you. 
 I was going to give you a surprise." 
 
 "Well, you've surprised me enough already." He 
 leaned a little nearer to her, and looking at her with 
 eyes that were at once soft and bold said: "You've 
 changed so; you've changed immensely since I saw 
 you last." 
 
 She dropped her eyes and said demurely, 
 
 "I hope it's for the better," then looked up at him 
 and their laughter broke out in happy duet. 
 
 The Colonel heard it across the room, and glanc- 
 ing at them felt annoyed that June should look so 
 suddenly flushed and radiant. Evidently she and Jerry 
 Barclay, in the ten days he had spent at Foleys, had 
 become very good friends. 
 
 An hour later the Misses Allen were standing at 
 the top of the steps that led from the porch to the 
 street. Guests were departing in all directions, and 
 the lanterns of carriages were sending tubes of 
 opaque, yellow light through the fog. The Colonel 
 had gone in quest of theirs, cautioning his charges to 
 waft in the shelter of the porch for him. Here they 
 stood, close-wrapped against the damp, and peering 
 into the churning white currents. Just below them 
 two men, the collars of their coats up, paused to 
 light their cigars. One accomplished the feat with- 
 out difficulty; the other stood with his hand curved 
 round the match, which many times flamed and went 
 out. 
 
 Suddenly June heard his companion say between 
 puffs,
 
 DOWN IN THE CITY 123 
 
 "Queer, Mrs. Newbury being here!" 
 
 "Oh, I don't know," said the other, drawing a 
 new match from his pocket, "Mrs. Davenport knew 
 the Romero girls long before they were married. 
 They were friends of Annie Davenport's. Nobody 'd 
 ever breathed a word against either of them then. 
 She wouldn't throw Lupe down on a rumored scan- 
 dal. I don't see how she could." 
 
 "Lots of people have. And you call it a 'ru- 
 mored scandal' all you want; everybody believes it. 
 She owns him body and soul." 
 
 The other man had at last induced the tip of his 
 cigar to catch. He threw back his head and drew 
 a few quick inspirations. 
 
 "That's the story. But a woman like Mrs. Daven- 
 port is not going to damn her daughter's friend on 
 hearsay. Women have got a creed of their own; 
 they believe what they want to and they disbelieve 
 what they want to. She wants to believe that the 
 affair's purely platonic, and she does it." 
 
 "But Barclay! To hang round her that way in 
 public what a fool!" 
 
 "Oh, Barclay !" a shrug went with the words 
 "he does what he's told!" 
 
 The man turned as he spoke and saw the two girls 
 above him on the step. He threw a low-toned phrase 
 at his companion, and without more words they started 
 out and were absorbed in the darkness. Almost si- 
 multaneously a carriage rattled up and the Colonel's 
 voice bade June and Rosamund descend. 
 
 A half-hour later, as they were mounting the stairs 
 to their rooms, June said suddenly,
 
 124 THE PIONEER 
 
 "Did you hear what those men were saying on 
 the steps as we stood there waiting?" 
 
 They had both heard the entire conversation, and 
 though they did not understand the true purport of 
 the ambiguous phrases, they realized that they con- 
 tained a veiled censure of Mrs. Newbury and Jerry 
 Barclay. Their secluded bringing up in an impov- 
 erished home where the coarseness of the world never 
 entered had kept them ignorant of the winked-at 
 sins of society. Yet the crude frankness of mining 
 camps had paraded before their eyes many things 
 that girls brought up in the respectable areas of large 
 cities never see. 
 
 "Yes, I heard them," said Rosamund. 
 
 "What did they mean? I didn't understand them. 
 They seemed to think there was something wrong 
 about Mrs. Newbury." 
 
 "I don't know what they meant. But I didn't like 
 her looks at all. I wouldn't want her for a friend." 
 
 "They said something of Mr. Barclay too, didn't 
 they?" 
 
 "Yes; they said he was a fool and did as he was 
 told." 
 
 "Well," said June, bristling, "those are just the two 
 particular things about him I should think were not 
 true. But there was some one that they said she 
 I suppose that meant Mrs. Newbury owned body 
 and soul. Whom do you suppose they meant?" 
 
 "Her husband," said Rosamund promptly. "Whom 
 else could they mean?" 
 
 June had felt depressed on the way home. At these 
 words her depression suddenly vanished and she be-
 
 DOWN IN THE CITY 125 
 
 came wreathed in smiles. Thrusting her hand 
 through Rosamund's arm she gave it an affectionate 
 squeeze, exclaiming with a sudden sputter of laughter, 
 
 "Well, if his soul isn't a better specimen than his 
 body I don't think it's much to own." 
 
 Rosamund was shocked ; she refused even to smile, 
 as June, drooping against her shoulder, filled the 
 silence of the sleeping house with the sound of her 
 laughter.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 FEMININE LOGIC 
 
 Social life in San Francisco at this period had a 
 distinction, a half-foreign, bizarre picturesqueness, 
 which it soon after lost and has never regained. 
 Separated from the rest of the country by a sweep 
 of unconquered desert, ringed on its farther side by 
 a girdle of sea, the pioneer city developed, undis- 
 turbed by outside influences, along its own lines. 
 
 The adventures of forty-nine had infused into it 
 some of the breadth and breeziness of their wild spirit. 
 The bonanza period of the Comstock lode had not 
 yet arisen to place huge fortunes in the hands of 
 the coarsely ambitious and frankly illiterate, and to in- 
 fect the populace with a lust of money that has never 
 been conquered. There were few millionaires, and the 
 passionate desire to become one had not yet been 
 planted in the bosom of every simple male, who, under 
 ordinary conditions, would have been content to wield 
 a pick or sweep down the office stairs. The volcano 
 of silver that was to belch forth precious streams over 
 the far West, and from thence over the world, was 
 beginning to stir and mutter, but its muttering was 
 still too low to be caught by any but the sharpest ears. 
 
 The society which welcomed June and Rosamund 
 126
 
 FEMININE LOGIC 127 
 
 was probably the best the city ever had to offer. After 
 the manner of all flourishing communities it aspired 
 to renew itself by the infusion of new blood, and the 
 young girls were graciously greeted. Carriages rolled 
 up to the high iron gates, and ladies whose names 
 were of weight trailed their silk skirts over the 
 flagged walk. Coming in late in the wintry dusk it 
 was very exciting always to find cards on the hall 
 table. 
 
 There were often men's cards among them. A 
 good many moths had begun to flutter round the 
 flames of youth and beauty and wealth that burnt in 
 the Colonel's house on Folsom Street. In his con- 
 stant visits he had formed a habit of looking over 
 these cards as he stood in the hall taking off his over- 
 coat. The frequency with which the card of Mr. 
 Jerome Barclay lay freshly and conspicuously on top 
 of the pile struck him unpleasantly and caused him 
 to remark upon the fact to June. 
 
 "Yes, Mr. Barclay comes quite often," she said, 
 "but so does Mr. Davenport and Mr. Brooks and 
 Mr. Pierce, and several others." 
 
 She had changed color and looked embarrassed at 
 the mention of his name, and the Colonel had spoken 
 to Rosamund about it. The Colonel had begun to 
 rely upon Rosamund, as everybody did, and, like 
 everybody, he had come to regard her as much the 
 elder of the two sisters, the one to be consulted and 
 to seek advice of. Rosamund admitted that Mr. Bar- 
 clay did come rather often, but not indeed, as June 
 had said, oftener than several others. 
 
 "Does he come to see June, or you, or both of
 
 128 THE PIONEER 
 
 you?" the Colonel had asked bluntly, looking at the 
 last slip of pasteboard left by the young man. 
 
 "Oh, June, of course," said Rosamund, with a little 
 quickness of impatience. "They nearly all come to 
 see June." 
 
 "I don't see what the devil business he has doing 
 that," said the Colonel, throwing down the card with 
 angry contempt. "What's he come round here for, 
 anyway ?" 
 
 "Why shouldn't he?" asked Rosamund, surprised 
 at his sudden annoyance. 
 
 "Well, he shouldn't," said the Colonel shortly. 
 "That's one sure thing. He shouldn't." 
 
 And so that conversation ended, but the memory 
 of it lingered uneasily in Rosamund's mind, and she 
 found herself counting Jerry Barclay's calls and 
 watching June while he was there and after he had 
 gone. 
 
 The visits of the young man were not indeed suffi- 
 ciently frequent to warrant uneasiness on sentimental 
 scores. He sometimes dropped in on Sunday after- 
 .noon, and now and then on week-day evenings. What 
 neither Rosamund nor the Colonel knew was that 
 he had formed a habit of meeting June on walks she 
 took along the fine new promenade of Van Ness 
 Avenue, and on several occasions had spent a 
 friendly hour with her, sitting on one of the benches 
 in the little plaza on Turk Street. 
 
 The first and second times this had happened June 
 had mentioned the fact to her sister, and that a gen- 
 tleman should accidentally meet a lady in an after- 
 noon stroll had seemed a matter of so little impor-
 
 FEMININE LOGIC 129 
 
 tance that Rosamund had quickly forgotten it. The 
 subsequent meetings, also apparently accidental, June, 
 for some reason known to herself, had not mentioned 
 to any one. Now it was hard for her to persuade 
 herself that she met Jerry Barclay by anything but 
 prearranged design; and June did not like to think 
 that she met him, or any other man, by prearrange- 
 ment. So she let him elicit from her by skilful ques- 
 tioning, her itinerary for her afternoon walks when 
 she had no engagements, and took some trouble to 
 make herself believe that the meetings still had at 
 least an air of the accidental. 
 
 But why did she not tell her sister of these walks ? 
 Why, in fact, had she once or twice lately almost 
 misled Rosamund in her efforts to evade her queries 
 as to how she had passed the afternoon? 
 
 If June happened to be looking in the mirror when 
 she asked herself these questions she noticed that 
 she reddened and looked guilty. There was nothing 
 wrong in meeting Mr. Barclay and walking with him 
 or sitting on one of the benches in the quiet little 
 plaza. Their conversation had never contained a 
 word with which the strictest duenna could have 
 found fault. Why, then, did June not tell? She 
 hardly knew herself. Some delicate fiber of femi- 
 nine instinct told her that what was becoming a 
 secretly tremulous pleasure would be questioned, in- 
 terfered with, probably stopped. She knew she was 
 not one who could fight and defy. They would over- 
 whelm her, and she would submit, baffled and miser- 
 able. 
 
 If Jerry Barclay liked to talk to her that way in
 
 130 THE PIONEER 
 
 the open air, or on the park bench better than in the 
 gloomy grandeur of the parlor in Folsom Street, why 
 should he not? And yet she felt that if she had 
 said this to Rosamund with all the defiant confidence 
 with which she said it to herself, Rosamund would 
 in some unexpected way sweep aside her argument, 
 show it worthless, and make her feel that if Jerry 
 did not want to see her in her own house he ought 
 not to see her at all. So June used the weapons of 
 the weak, one of the most valuable of which is the 
 maintaining of silence on matters of dispute. 
 
 It was in February that their father suggested that 
 they should return the numerous hospitalities offered 
 them by giving a dance. It would not be a ball. They 
 were still too inexperienced in the art of entertain- 
 ment, and their mourning was yet too deep to per- 
 mit of their venturing on so ambitious a beginning. 
 "Just a house-warming," Allen said when he saw that 
 they were rather alarmed by the magnitude of the 
 undertaking. There was much talking and consult- 
 ing of the Colonel. Every night after dinner the girls 
 sat long over the coffee and fruit, discussing such 
 vital points as to whether there should be two salads 
 at the supper and would they have four musicians or 
 five. Allen called them "little misers," and told them 
 they "never would be tracked through life by the 
 quarters they dropped." It was interesting to the 
 Colonel to notice that Rosamund's habits of economy 
 clung to her, while June had assimilated the tastes 
 and extravagances of the women about her with a 
 sudden, transforming completeness. 
 
 It was at one of these after-dinner consultations
 
 FEMININE LOGIC 131 
 
 that he was presented with the list of guests written 
 out neatly in Rosamund's clear hand. Was it all right, 
 or did Uncle Jim think they had left out anybody? 
 
 As he ran his eye over it Allen said suddenly: 
 
 "They've got Mrs. Newbury down there. What do 
 you think about her?" 
 
 The Colonel, who was reading through his glasses, 
 looked up with a sharp glance of surprise and again 
 down at the list, where his eyes stopped at the ques- 
 tioned name. 
 
 "Oh, strike her off," he said. "What do you want 
 her for?" 
 
 "She's been here to see us," Rosamund demurred, 
 "and she asked us once to her house to hear some- 
 body sing." 
 
 "\Vhy shouldn't she come?" said June. "What is 
 there about her you don't like?" 
 
 "I didn't say there was anything," he answered in 
 a tone of irritated impatience. "But she's a good deal 
 older than you, and and well, I guess it wouldn't 
 amuse her. She doesn't dance. You don't want to 
 waste any invitations on people who may not come." 
 
 Apparently this piece of masculine logic was to 
 him conclusive, for he took his pencil and made a 
 mark through the name. 
 
 The evening of the dance arrived, and long before 
 midnight its success was assured. It was undoubtedly 
 one of the most brilliant affairs of the winter. It 
 seemed the last touch on the ascending fortunes of 
 June and Rosamund. They had never looked so well. 
 In her dress of shimmering white, which showed her 
 polished shoulders, Rosamund was beautiful, and
 
 I 3 2 THE PIONEER 
 
 June, similarly garbed, looked, as some of the women 
 guests remarked, "actually pretty." As a hostess she 
 danced little. Three times, however, Rosamund no- 
 ticed her floating about the room encircled by the arm 
 of Jerry Barclay. Other people noticed it too. But 
 June, carried away by the excitement of the evening, 
 was indifferent to the comment she might create. So 
 was Barclay. He had drunk much champagne and 
 felt defiant of the world. She felt defiant too, because 
 she was so confidently happy. 
 
 By three the last guests had gone. Allen, hardly 
 waiting for the door to slam on them, stumbled sleep- 
 ily to bed, and June followed, a wearied sprite, bits of 
 torn gauze trailing from her skirt, the wreath of jas- 
 mine blossoms she wore faded and broken, the starry 
 flowers caught in her curls. 
 
 "Rosie, I'm too tired to stay up a minute longer," 
 she called from the stairs, catching a glimpse of the 
 dismantled parlor with Rosamund, followed by a 
 yawning Chinaman, turning out lights and locking 
 windows. 
 
 "Go up, dear," answered Rosamund in her most ma- 
 ternal tone. "I'll be up in a minute. Sing's so sleepy 
 I know he'll go to bed and leave everything open if 
 I don't stay till he's done." 
 
 The sisters occupied two large rooms, broad-win- 
 dowed and spacious, in the front of the house. The 
 door of connection was never shut. They talked to- 
 gether as they dressed, walking from room to room. 
 The tie between them, that had never been broken 
 by a week's separation, was unusually close even for
 
 FEMININE LOGIC 133 
 
 sisters so near of an age, so united by mutual cares 
 and past sorrows. 
 
 June's room shone bright in the lights from the two 
 ground-glass globes which protruded on gilded sup- 
 ports from either side of the bureau mirror. It was 
 furnished in the heavily gorgeous manner of the pe- 
 riod and place. Long curtains of coarse lace fell over 
 the windows, which above were garnished with pale 
 blue satin lambrequins elaborately draped. The 
 deeply tufted and upholstered furniture was covered 
 with a blue and white cretonne festooned with woolen 
 tassels and fringes. Over the foot of the huge bed 
 lay a satin eiderdown quilt of the same shade as the 
 lambrequins. 
 
 June, completely exhausted, was soon in bed, and 
 lying peacefully curled on her side waited for her sis- 
 ter's footsteps. As she heard the creak of Rosa- 
 mund's opening door she called softly : 
 
 "Come in here. I want to talk. I've millions of 
 things to say to you." 
 
 Rosamund swept rustling into the room and sat 
 down on the side of the bed. Her dress was neither 
 crushed nor torn and the bloom of her countenance 
 was unimpaired by fatigue. 
 
 "Dear Rosie, you look so lovely," said June, curl- 
 ing her little body under the clothes comfortably 
 round her sister. "There was nobody here to-night 
 half as good-looking as you were." 
 
 She lightly touched Rosamund's arm with the tips 
 of her fingers, murmuring to herself, 
 
 "Lovely, marbly arms like a statue!"
 
 134 THE PIONEER 
 
 Her sister, indifferent to these compliments, which 
 she did not appear to hear, sat looking at the toe of 
 her slipper. 
 
 "I think it was a great success," she said. "Every- 
 body seemed to enjoy it." 
 
 "Of course they did. I know I did. I never had 
 such a beautiful, galumptious time in my life." 
 
 Rosamund gave her a gravely inspecting side- 
 glance. 
 
 "You tore your dress round the bottom, I saw. 
 There was quite a large piece trailing on the floor." 
 
 "Yes, it was dreadful," said June, nestling closer 
 about the sitting figure and smiling in dreamy de- 
 light. "Somebody trod on it while I was dancing, 
 and then they danced away with it round them, and 
 it tore off me in yards, as if I was a top and it was 
 my string." 
 
 "Were you dancing with Jerry Barclay?" asked 
 Rosamund. 
 
 "I don't think so." She turned her head in profile 
 on the pillow and looked at her sister out of the corner 
 of her eye. Meeting Rosamund's sober glance she 
 broke into suppressed laughter. 
 
 "What's the matter with you, Rosie?" she said, giv- 
 ing her a little kick through the bed-clothes; "you 
 look as solemn as an undertaker." 
 
 "I don't think you ought to have danced so often 
 with Jerry Barclay. It it doesn't look well. It " 
 she stopped. 
 
 "'It' well, go on. Tell me all about it. A child 
 could play with me to-night. You couldn't make me 
 angry if you tried."
 
 FEMININE LOGIC 135 
 
 "June," said Rosamund, turning toward her with 
 annoyed seriousness, "I don't think you ought to be 
 friends with Jerry Barclay." 
 
 "What do you say that for?" 
 
 Despite her previous remark as to the difficulty of 
 making her angry, there was a distinct, cold edge on 
 June's voice as she spoke. 
 
 "I found out to-night. Ever since we heard those 
 men talk that evening at Mrs. Davenport's I had a 
 feeling that something wasn't right. And then Uncle 
 Jim being so positive about not asking Mrs. Newbury 
 here this evening." 
 
 "What's Mrs. Newbury got to do with it?" 
 
 "Everything. It's all Mrs. Newbury. To-night in 
 the dressing-room some girls were talking about her 
 and Mr. Barclay ; I asked them what they meant, and 
 I heard it all. It's a horrid story. I don't like to 
 tell it to you." 
 
 "What is it?" said June. She had turned her head 
 on the pillow and stared full face at her sister. She 
 was tensely, frowningly grave. 
 
 "Well, they say every one says they're lovers." 
 
 "Lovers !" exclaimed June. "What do you mean by 
 that? She's married." 
 
 "That's just the dreadful part of it. They're that 
 kind of lovers the wrong kind. They've been for 
 years, and she loves him desperately and won't let 
 him have anything to do with anybody else. And Mr. 
 Newbury loves her, and doesn't know, and thinks 
 Jerry Barclay is his friend." 
 
 There was a silence in the room. Rosamund had 
 found it difficult to tell this base and ignoble piece
 
 136 THE PIONEER 
 
 of scandal to her sister. Now she did not look at 
 June because she loved her too much to witness the 
 shame and pain that she knew would be hers. 
 
 "It's too horrible," she continued, June uttering no 
 sound. "I wouldn't have told you, but well, we don't 
 want him coming here if he's that sort of man. And 
 Mrs. Newbury " she made a gesture of angry dis- 
 gust "what right had she to come here and call on 
 us?" 
 
 June still said nothing. Her hand was lying on 
 the counterpane and Rosamund, placing hers on it, 
 felt that it trembled and was cold. This, with the 
 continued silence, alarmed her and she said, trying 
 to palliate the blow, 
 
 "It seems so hard to believe it. He was so kind and 
 natural and jolly up at Foleys, as if he was our 
 brother." 
 
 "Believe it!" exclaimed June loudly. "You don't 
 suppose / believe it?" 
 
 Her tone was high, almost violent. She jerked 
 away her hand and drew herself up in the bed in a 
 sitting posture. 
 
 "You don't suppose I'd believe a shameful, wicked 
 story like that, Rosamund Allen?" 
 
 "But they all said so," stammered Rosamund, taken 
 aback, almost converted by the conviction opposing 
 her. 
 
 "Well, then, they say what's not true, that's all! 
 They're liars. Don't lots of people tell lies? Haven't 
 you found out that down here in the city most of the 
 things you hear aren't true? They just like to spread 
 stories like that so that people will listen to them.
 
 FEMININE LOGIC 137 
 
 Everybody wants to talk here and nobody wants to 
 listen. It's a lie just a mean, cowardly lie." 
 
 Her face was burning and bore an expression of 
 quivering intensity. Rosamund, astonished by her 
 vehemence, stared at her disquieted. 
 
 "But but everybody thinks so," was all she could 
 repeat. 
 
 "Then they think what's not so. Do you think so ?" 
 with eager challenge. 
 
 The other looked down, her brows drawn together 
 in worried indecision. 
 
 "I don't know what to think," she said. "When he 
 comes up in my mind, especially as he was at Foleys, 
 it seems as if I couldn't believe it either." 
 
 "There !" exclaimed June triumphantly. "Of course 
 you can't. Nobody who has any sense could. It's 
 just degraded, low-minded people who have nothing 
 better to do than spread scandals 'that could believe 
 such a story about such a man." 
 
 "But Mrs. Newbury," demurred her sister. "Why 
 did Uncle Jim not want us to ask her to-night?" 
 
 "What's Mrs. Newbury got to do with it? I don't 
 know. I don't care anything about her. I don't like 
 her. She looks like a large white seal, walking on 
 the tip of its tail. I think she's common and fat and 
 ugly. But what does she matter? If Mr. Newbury 
 loves her he's got very bad taste, that's all I've got to 
 say. And as to Jerry Barclay loving her? Why, 
 Rosamund " she suddenly dropped to her most 
 persuasive softness of tone and expression "you 
 know he couldn't." 
 
 "I don't know," said Rosamund. "I don't feel as
 
 138 THE PIONEER 
 
 if I knew anything about men, or what they like, or 
 what they don't like. You might think Mrs. New- 
 bury ugly and they might think her beautiful. You 
 never can tell. And then those men on the steps that 
 night at Mrs. Davenport's" she shot an uneasy 
 glance at her sister "that was what they meant." 
 
 "Rosie," said June, leaning toward her and speak- 
 ing with pleading emphasis, "you don't believe it?" 
 
 "I don't want to, that's certain." 
 
 "Well, then, say you don't." 
 
 "I can't say that positively. I wish I could." 
 
 She rose from her seat and moved away, absently 
 drawing the hair-pins from her coiled hair. June fell 
 back on the pillow. 
 
 "Well, I can," she said. "I never felt more posi- 
 tive about anything in my life." 
 
 Her sister turned back to the bedside and stood 
 there looking frowningly down. 
 
 "I hope you're right," she said. "I'd hate to think 
 any man like that had ever come here to see us or 
 been a friend of yours." 
 
 "So would I," said June promptly. "So would 
 any girl." 
 
 "Well, good night. You're tired to death. I'll put 
 the gas out." 
 
 June saw the tall white figure move to the bureau 
 and then darkness fell, and she heard its rustling 
 withdrawal. 
 
 She lay still for a time staring at the square of 
 light that fell from her sister's room through the open 
 door. Presently this disappeared and she moved her 
 eyes to the faint luminous line which showed the sep-
 
 FEMININE LOGIC 139 
 
 aration of the window curtains. She was still staring 
 at it wide-eyed and motionless when it grew paler, 
 whiter and then warmer with the new day. 
 
 She had spoken the truth when she said she did 
 not believe the ugly story. There are many women 
 who have the faculty of quietly shutting a door on 
 obvious facts and refusing them admittance into the 
 prim sanctuary of their acceptance. How much more 
 might a young girl, loving, inexperienced and tender, 
 refuse to believe a blasting rumor that had touched 
 a figure already shrined in her heart ! 
 
 But the shock she suffered was severe. That 
 such a story should be coupled with his name was 
 revolting to her. And far down in the inner places 
 of her being, where nature has placed in women a 
 chord that thrills to danger, a creeping sense of dread 
 and fear stirred. But she smothered its warning vi- 
 bration and, with her eyes fixed on the crack of light, 
 repeated over and over: 
 
 "Lies! lies! Miserable, cowardly lies I"
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 ONE OF EVE'S FAMILY 
 
 It was a few weeks after the ball that the Colonel 
 heard of the expected arrival in town of Rion Gracey 
 and Barney Sullivan en route to Virginia City. 
 
 From the great camp across the mountain wall in 
 the Nevada desert, an electric current had begun to 
 thrill and extend its vibrations wherever men con- 
 gregated. The autumn rumors that Virginia was not 
 dead persisted. The mutterings of the silver volcano 
 had grown louder and caught the ear of the hurrying 
 throng. The reports of a strike in Crown Point rose 
 and fell like an uneasy tide. The price of the stock 
 that in the spring of seventy had sold for seventy-five 
 cents had risen to two, and then to three, dollars. Men 
 watched it disquieted, loath to be credulous where they 
 had so often been the dupes of manager and manipu- 
 lator, yet tempted by the oft-repeated prophecy that 
 the great bonanzas of Virginia were yet to be dis- 
 covered. Throughout California and Nevada the 
 miners that three years before had left the dying camp 
 as rats leave a sinking ship, began to bind up their 
 packs and turn their faces that way. It was like the 
 first concentrating movement of a stealthily gather- 
 ing army. The call of money had gone thrilling along 
 140
 
 ONE OF EVE'S FAMILY 141 
 
 the lines of secret communication which connect man 
 with man. 
 
 The Graceys had large holdings in Virginia. The 
 group of unprofitable claims consolidated under the 
 name of the Cresta Plata was theirs, and Rion and 
 his superintendent were going up "to take a look 
 around." This was what the Colonel heard down 
 town. It was a piece of intelligence that was reported 
 as of weight. Mining men watched the movements 
 of the Gracey boys as those about great rulers follow 
 their actions in an effort to read their unexpressed 
 intentions. When the Graceys moved into camps or 
 out of camps, operators, managers and financiers noted 
 the fact. That Rion and Sullivan should take a de- 
 tour to San Francisco instead of going straight up 
 from Sacramento argued that their need was not 
 pressing. 
 
 The Colonel thought he knew why Rion had taken 
 such a roundabout route. He and Allen had had 
 many conversations on the subject of the match they 
 wished to promote and had not the least idea of 
 how to set about promoting. The Colonel had also 
 tried to have talks with June about it. It seemed to 
 him that a good way to further the matter and elicit 
 some illuminating remark from her was to tell her 
 at intervals that Rion Gracey was a man of sterling 
 worth in whose love any woman would find happi- 
 ness. To all of which June invariably agreed with 
 an air of polite acquiescence which the Colonel found 
 very baffling. His pet was to him the sweetest of 
 living women, but he had to admit it was not always 
 easy for him to understand or manage her.
 
 142 THE PIONEER 
 
 On the afternoon of the day he had heard of Rion's 
 expected arrival he had gone to see the new house 
 a friend had just completed on Van Ness Avenue. 
 The visit over he stood at the top of the flight of 
 stone steps, looking up and down the great street, 
 and wondering, as he tapped on his shoe with his 
 cane, whether he would go across to Folsom Street 
 for dinner or down to his club. 
 
 Suddenly his idle glance fell on a pair of figures 
 on the block above, walking with the loitering step 
 which betokens engrossing conversation. Their backs 
 were toward him, but one at least he thought he 
 recognized. He ran down the steps and in a few 
 minutes had gained on them and was drawing quick- 
 ly nearer. He had not been mistaken. The black 
 silk skirt, held up to reveal a pair of small feet in 
 high-heeled shoes, the sealskin jacket, the close-fit- 
 ting black turban hat, below which hung an uneven 
 shock of short, brown curls, were too familiar to him 
 to permit of any uncertainty. The man he was not 
 sure of, but as he drew closer he saw his face in 
 profile, and with a start of surprised annoyance rec- 
 ognized Jerome Barclay. 
 
 At the corner they turned up the cross street. A 
 short distance farther, on the angle of a small plaza, 
 intruded into the gray city vista a green stretch of 
 grass and shrubbery. The Colonel wondered if it 
 was the objective point of their walk, and this thought 
 added to the disquietude he already felt at the sight 
 of Barclay, for when people went into parks they sat 
 on benches and talked, sometimes for hours. 
 
 He was close at their heels before they heard his
 
 ONE OF EVE'S FAMILY 143 
 
 hail and turned. A momentary expression of annoy- 
 ance, gone almost as soon as it came, passed over 
 Barclay's face. June looked confused and, for the 
 first instant, the Colonel saw, did not know what to 
 say. 
 
 "Well," he said, trying to speak with genial un- 
 consciousness, "what are you doing up here so far 
 from your native haunts ?" 
 
 "I met Miss Allen on the avenue just below there," 
 said Jerry quickly, "walking up this way to make a 
 call on some friends of hers." 
 
 He spoke with glib ease, but his eye, which lighted 
 for an instant on June's, was imperious with a com- 
 mand. June was taken aback by his smooth readiness. 
 She did not like what he said, but she obeyed the com- 
 manding eye and answered with stammering reluc- 
 tance : 
 
 "Yes, the Nesbits. I was going there this after- 
 noon. They're just a block beyond here." 
 
 It was not exactly a lie, June thought, for had 
 Barclay not appeared she would doubtless have gone 
 to the Nesbits, wondering all the time what had hap- 
 pened to him. But Barclay had appeared, as he al- 
 ways did now at the time and place he so carelessly 
 yet so scrupulously designated, and June would not 
 have seen the Nesbits that afternoon. 
 
 "Suppose you take a little pasear with me instead 
 of going to the Nesbits," said the Colonel. "I'm not 
 conceited, but I think I'm just as interesting as they 
 are." 
 
 "And what are you doing up here?" she said, her 
 presence of mind, and with it her natural gaiety of
 
 144 THE PIONEER 
 
 manner, returning. "You're as far from your native 
 haunts as I am." 
 
 "I was calling, too," he answered, "on the Barkers. 
 But 7 didn't meet any one sufficiently interesting to 
 keep me from fulfilling my duties, and I have seen the 
 new house from the skylight to the coal-bin." 
 
 "Never mind," she said consolingly, "you've met 
 me. That's your reward for good conduct." 
 
 They had arrived at the upper corner of the plaza 
 where only the breadth of a street divided them from 
 the green, tree-dotted sward, cut with walks and set 
 forth in benches. Barclay, raising his hat and mur- 
 muring some conventional words of farewell, turned 
 and left them, and the Colonel and his companion 
 strolled across the road and over the grass toward a 
 bench, behind which a clump of laurels grew shelter- 
 ingly, a screen against the wind and fog. 
 
 "This is the most comfortable of all the benches," 
 said June artlessly as they sat down. "The laurels 
 keep the wind off like a wall. Even on cold days, 
 when the fog comes in, it's a warm little corner." 
 
 "You've been here before," said the Colonel, look- 
 ing at her out of the sides of his eyes. 
 
 A telltale color came into her cheeks, but the city 
 and its ways were training her, and she managed to 
 exclude confusion and consciousness from her face. 
 
 "Oh, yes," she answered, "several times. I some- 
 times rest here after I've been taking a long walk." 
 
 "That must be dull," said her companion. "I can't 
 see anything cheerful in sitting on a park bench by 
 yourself." 
 
 He looked at her again. But his bungling mascu-
 
 ONE OF EVE'S FAMILY 145 
 
 line line of procedure was not of the kind to entrap 
 even so untried a beginner. It made her smile a lit- 
 tle, and then she looked down to hide the smile. 
 
 "Wasn't it jolly that we met?" she said, stroking 
 the satiny surface of her new jacket and presenting 
 to his glance a non-committal profile. The Colonel 
 knew her well enough by this time to realize that she 
 intended neither to confess nor to be trapped into reve- 
 lations of past occupancy of the bench. He returned 
 to less intricate lines of converse. 
 
 "Who do you think's to be here to-morrow?" 
 
 "A friend?" 
 
 "A friend from Foleys, Rion Gracey, and Barney 
 Sullivan with him." 
 
 "Rion Gracey!" She looked pleased and slightly 
 embarrassed. "Really really !" She paused, her face 
 full of smiles, that in some way or other showed dis- 
 quietude beneath them. 
 
 "They're down from Foleys and going on to Vir- 
 ginia in a day or two. Queer they came around 
 this way, wasn't it?" 
 
 Again the Colonel could not keep from attempts 
 to plumb hidden depths. Again his inspecting eye 
 noticed a fluctuation of color. June was unquestion- 
 ably surprised by the news, but he could not be sure 
 whether she was pleased. 
 
 "You'll have to have them up to dinner," he con- 
 tinued. "You saw so much of them last summer be- 
 fore you left that you'll have to offer them some kind 
 of hospitality." 
 
 "Of course," she said hastily, flashing an almost in- 
 dignant look at him. "They'll take dinner with us,
 
 146 THE PIONEER 
 
 or breakfast, or lunch, or anything they like. I'd love 
 to see them and hear about everything up there. I 
 want to hear how Barney Sullivan's getting on with 
 Mitty. I thought they'd be engaged by this time." 
 
 "Perhaps they are" it must be confessed that the 
 Colonel's interest in the love affairs of his friend Mitty 
 sounded perfunctory "I wish Rion was, too." 
 
 "Yes," in a small, precise voice, "wouldn't it be 
 nice?" 
 
 "It would make me very happy," said the Colonel 
 gravely, "very happy, June. You know that." 
 
 "Would it?" with a bright air of innocent sur- 
 prise. "Why?" 
 
 The Colonel turned and looked at her squarely, 
 almost sternly. 
 
 ''You know why, June Allen," he said. 
 
 She had taken off her gloves and now suddenly 
 slipped her hand into his and nestled nearer to him. 
 
 "Don't talk solemnly," she said, in a coaxing voice. 
 "Don't make me feel as if I was in church." 
 
 He cast a side glance at her, caught her twinkling 
 eye, and they both laughed. 
 
 "You aggravating girl !" he said. "It's all for your 
 own good that I'm talking solemnly. I want you to 
 be happy." 
 
 "Well, I am happy, very happy. Don't you think 
 I look like a person who's happy?" 
 
 He did not look at her, and she raised herself, and 
 taking him by the two ears gently turned his face 
 toward her. 
 
 "Excuse me," she said politely, "but as you wouldn't 
 look at me I had to make you. Don't I look happy?"
 
 ONE OF EVE'S FAMILY 147 
 
 "Happy enough now," he answered. "I was think- 
 ing of the future." 
 
 "Oh, the future !" she made a sweeping gesture 
 of scorn "the future's so far away no one knows 
 anything about it. It's all secrets. Let's not bother 
 with it. The present's enough." 
 
 Her hand, as she held it up in front of her, sud- 
 denly caught her eye and fixed her attention. 
 
 "Look at my hands," she said. "They're getting 
 quite white and ladylike. They're losing their look 
 of honest toil, aren't they? How I've hated it!" 
 
 He held out his big palm and she placed her left 
 hand, which was nearest him, in it. Her hands were 
 small, the skin beautifully fine and -delicate, but they 
 showed the hard labor of the past in a blunting and 
 broadening of the finger-tips. The Colonel looked at 
 the little one lying in his. 
 
 "I don't see that there's anything the matter with 
 them," he said. "This one only wants one more thing." 
 
 "What's that?" 
 
 "A ring." 
 
 This time June was caught. 
 
 "A ring?" she said. "Well, I have several, but 
 they're not very pretty, and I thought I'd wait till 
 father gave me a really handsome one." 
 
 "I don't mean a handsome one. I mean a plain, 
 little gold one; just a band and worn on this finger." 
 
 He designated the third finger. June understood. 
 
 "Oh, Uncle Jim !" she said, trying to pull her hand 
 away, blushing and rebellious. 
 
 The Colonel held it tight, feeling the opportunity 
 too valuable to be trifled with.
 
 Z4 8 THE PIONEER 
 
 "And Rion Gracey to put it on," he added. 
 
 Her answer came almost angrily as she turned away 
 her face. 
 
 "Not for a moment." 
 
 "No, for a lifetime." 
 
 There was no reply and the Colonel loosed her hand. 
 She pushed it back into her glove saying nothing. 
 As she began to fasten the buttons he said: 
 
 "Do you often meet Barclay when you are out 
 walking, as you did this afternoon?" 
 
 Women, who are timid by nature, and who, com- 
 bined with that weakness, have an overmastering de- 
 sire to be loved and approved of, are of the stuff of 
 which the most proficient liars can be made. Had 
 June, in childhood, been intimidated or roughly treated 
 she would have grown up a fluent and facile perverter 
 of the truth. The tender influences of a home where 
 love and confidence dwelt had never made it neces- 
 sary for her to wish to conceal her actions or protect 
 herself, and she had grown to womanhood frank, can- 
 did and truthful. Now, however, she found herself 
 drawn into a situation where, if she were to continue 
 in the course that gave her the happiness she had 
 spoken of, she must certainly cease to be open, even 
 begin to indulge in small duplicities. It was with 
 a sensation of shamed guilt that she answered care- 
 lessly : 
 
 "No, not often. Now and then I have." 
 
 "Rosamund says he doesn't come to the house as 
 much as he used." 
 
 This was in the form of a question, too.
 
 ONE OF EVE'S FAMILY 149 
 
 "Doesn't he? I haven't noticed much." 
 
 Her heart accelerated its beats and she felt suddenly 
 unhappy, as she realized that she was misleading a 
 person especially dear to her. 
 
 "I'm glad of that, Junie dear. I don't like him to 
 be hanging round you. He's not the man to be your 
 friend." 
 
 June began to experience a sense of misery. 
 
 "What are you down on him for?" she said. "I 
 like him. I like him a great deal." 
 
 It seemed to her that by thus openly voicing her 
 predilection for Barclay she, in some way or other, 
 atoned for her previous prevarications. 
 
 "Like him a great deal?" repeated the Colonel, star- 
 ing somberly at her. "What does that mean?" 
 
 She was instantly alarmed and sought to obliterate 
 the effect of her words. 
 
 "Oh, I like him very much. I think he's interesting 
 and handsome, and and and very nice. Just that 
 way." 
 
 Nothing could have sounded more innocently tame. 
 The simple man beside her, who had loved but one 
 woman and known the honest friendship of others as 
 uncomplex as himself, was relieved. 
 
 "Barclay's not the man for a good girl to be friends 
 with," he continued with more assurance of tone. 
 "He's all that you say, handsome, and well educated, 
 and a smooth talker and all that. But his record is 
 not the kind a man likes. He's done things that 
 are not what a decent man does. I can't tell you. 
 I can't talk to you about it. But rely on me. I'm 
 right."
 
 150 THE PIONEER 
 
 "I know all about it," she answered, turning round 
 and looking calmly at him. 
 
 "All about it! about what?" he stammered, com- 
 pletely taken aback. 
 
 "About that hateful story of Mrs. Newbury." 
 
 The Colonel's face reddened slightly. He had the 
 traditional masculine idea of the young girl as a 
 being of transparent ignorance, off which the wicked- 
 ness of the world glanced as bird-shot off the surface 
 of a crystal ball. Now he was pained and shocked, 
 not only that June should have heard the story but 
 that she should thus coolly allude to it. 
 
 "Then if you've heard it," he said almost coldly, 
 "you should know without my telling you that Jerry 
 Barclay's no man for you to know, or walk with, 
 or have any acquaintance with." 
 
 "You don't suppose I believe it, do you?" she said 
 with the same almost hard composure. 
 
 This indeed was a new view of the situation. For 
 six years the Colonel had heard the affair between 
 young Barclay and Mrs. Newbury talked of and spec- 
 ulated upon. It had now passed to the stage of shelved 
 acceptance. People no longer speculated. Their con- 
 demnation savored even of the indifference of famil- 
 iarity. The only thing that nobody did was to doubt. 
 And here was a girl, looking him in the face and calm- 
 ly assuring him of her disbelief. Had he known more 
 of women he would have realized how dangerous a 
 portent it was. 
 
 "But but why don't you believe it?" he asked, 
 still in the stage of stammering surprise.
 
 ONE OF EVE'S FAMILY 151 
 
 "Because I know Mr. Barclay," she answered tri- 
 umphantly, fixing him with a kindling eye. 
 
 "Well, that may be a reason," said the Colonel, 
 then stopped and drew himself to an upright posi- 
 tion on the bench. He did not know what to say. 
 Her belief in the man he knew to be guilty had in 
 it a trustfulness of youth that was to him exceedingly 
 pathetic. 
 
 "You can believe just what you like, dear," he 
 said after a moment's pause, "it's the privilege of 
 your sex. But this time you'd better quit believing 
 and be guided by me." 
 
 "Why, Uncle Jim," she said leaning eagerly toward 
 him, "I'm not a fool or a child any more. Can't I 
 come to conclusions about people that may be right? 
 I know Mr. Barclay well, not for as long as you 
 have, but I shouldn't be surprised if I knew him a 
 great deal better. We saw him so often and so in- 
 timately up at Foleys, and he couldn't be the kind 
 of a man he is and be mixed up in such horrible scan- 
 dals. It's impossible. He's a gentleman, he's a man 
 of honor." 
 
 "Yes," nodded the Colonel, looking at the shrubs 
 in front of him, "that's just what he'd say he was 
 if you asked him." 
 
 "And it would be right. He's not capable of doing 
 dishonorable things. He's above it. Rosamund thinks 
 so, too." 
 
 "Oh, does she?" said the Colonel. 
 
 If he had not been so suddenly stricken with 
 worry and foreboding he could not have forborne
 
 152 THE PIONEER 
 
 a smile at this citing of Rosamund as a court of last 
 resort. 
 
 "Yes, Rosamund said she couldn't believe it either. 
 If you knew him as we do you'd understand better. 
 It's all lies. People are always talking scandal in 
 this place I've heard more since I came here than 
 I heard in the whole of my life before. It's a dread- 
 ful thing, I think, to take away a man's character just 
 for the fun of talking." 
 
 She had spoken rapidly and now paused with an 
 air of suspended interest, which was intensified by 
 her expression of eager questioning. The Colonel 
 looked at her. In a dim way she was struck, as she 
 had been before, by the intense melancholy of his 
 eyes sad old eyes that told of a life unfulfilled, de- 
 vastated, at its highest point of promise. 
 
 "June, dear," he said in a low voice, "you're not in 
 love with this man?" 
 
 The color ran over her face to the hair on her 
 forehead. The directness of the question had shocked 
 her young girl's delicacy and pride. She tried to 
 laugh, and then with her eyes down-drooped, said 
 in a voice of hurried embarrassment: 
 
 "No, of course not." 
 
 He smiled in a sudden expansion of relief. All 
 was well again. In his simplicity of heart it did not 
 occur to him to doubt her.
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 DANGER SIGNALS 
 
 Jerome Barclay lived with his mother in a new 
 house on Taylor Street, near Jackson. They had 
 only been there a short time. Before that South Park 
 had been their home. But within the last year or 
 two the fortunes of South Park had shown symp- 
 toms of decline, and when this happened Mrs. Simeon 
 Barclay had felt that she must move. 
 
 Since her arrival in San Francisco in the early 
 fifties, Mrs. Barclay had made many moves. These 
 were not undertaken because her habitats had been 
 uncomfortable, but because the fashionable element 
 of the city had shown from the first a migratory 
 tendency which was exceedingly inconvenient for 
 those who followed it. Mrs. Barclay had followed it 
 assiduously from the day she had landed from the 
 steamer, and had in consequence lived in many local- 
 ities, ranging from what was now Chinatown and in 
 the fifties had been the most perfectly genteel and 
 exclusive region, to the quietly dignified purlieus of 
 Taylor Street. 
 
 Simeon Barclay had crossed the plains in an em- 
 igrant train in forty-nine, and between that and sixty- 
 four, when he died, had made a fair fortune, first as 
 153
 
 154 THE PIONEER 
 
 a contractor and afterward as a speculator in real 
 estate. In St. Louis, his native place, he had begun 
 life as a carpenter, seen but little prosperity, and mar- 
 ried a pretty servant girl, whose mind was full of 
 distinctly formed ambitions. When he went to Cali- 
 fornia in the first gold rush he left his wife and son 
 behind him, and when, from the carpentering that he 
 did with his own hands in forty-nine, he passed to 
 the affluent stage of being a contractor in a large way 
 of business, he sent for her to join him. This she did, 
 found him with what to their small experience were 
 flourishing fortunes, and immediately started out on 
 that career of ambulating fashion which she had fol- 
 lowed ever since. 
 
 Barclay senior's fifteen years of California life were 
 full to the brim. He made fortunes and lost them, 
 lived hard, had his loves and his hates openly and 
 unblushingly, as men did in those wild days, and be- 
 came a prominent man in the San Francisco of the 
 early sixties. He had but the one child, and in him 
 the ambitions of both parents centered. The Missouri 
 carpenter had never been educated. He was always, 
 even at the end of his life, uncertain in his grammar, 
 and his wife had found it difficult to teach him what 
 she called "table manners." 
 
 Father and mother had early resolved that their 
 son should be handicapped by no such deficiencies. 
 They sent him to the best schools there were in San 
 Francisco and later to Harvard. There he was well 
 supplied with money, developed the tastes for luxu- 
 rious living that were natural to him, forgathered 
 ^with the riche'st and fastest men of his class, and left
 
 DANGER SIGNALS 155 
 
 a record of which collegians talked for years. After 
 his graduation he traveled in Europe for a twelve- 
 month, as a coping stone to the education his parents 
 had resolved should be as complete as money could 
 compass. 
 
 Shortly after his son's return Simeon Barclay died 
 in the South Park house. When it came to settling 
 up the estate it was found that he had left much less 
 than had been expected. The house and the income 
 of a prudently invested eighty thousand dollars was 
 all the widow and son had to their credit when the 
 outlying debts were paid. It was not a mean for- 
 tune for the place and the time, but both were queru- 
 lous and felt themselves aggrieved by this sudden 
 lightening of what had been for fifteen years a well- 
 filled purse. 
 
 Jerry, to whom a pecuniary stringency was one of 
 the greatest of trials, attempted to relieve the situ- 
 ation by speculating in "feet on the lode" in Virginia 
 City, and quickly lost the major part of his inherit- 
 ance. Even then there was no need for worry, as the 
 son had been taken into the business the father had 
 built up, which still flourished. But Jerry showed 
 none of the devotion to commercial life that had dis- 
 tinguished the elder man. In his hands the fortunes 
 of Barclay and Son, Real Estate Brokers, rapidly de- 
 clined. He neglected the office, as he did his home, 
 his mother, his friends. A devotion, more urgently 
 engrossing and intoxicating than business could ever 
 be, had monopolized his thoughts, his interests and 
 his time. 
 
 He was twenty- four when he returned from Europe,
 
 156 THE PIONEER 
 
 handsome, warm-blooded, soft-tongued, a youth 
 framed for the love of women. It speedily found him. 
 He had not been home six months when his infatuation 
 for the wife of William Newbury was common talk. 
 
 She was three years his senior, mismated to a man 
 nearly double her age, dry, hard, and precise. She 
 was a woman of tragedy and passion, suffering in 
 her downfall. She had at first struggled fiercely 
 against it, sunk to her fall in anguish, and after it, 
 known contending conflicts of flesh and spirit, when 
 she had tried to break from its bondage' and ever 
 sunk again with bowed head and sickened heart. Peo- 
 ple had wondered to see the figure of Lupe Newbury 
 bent in prayer before the altars of her church. In her 
 girlhood she had not been noted for her piety. Waking 
 at night, her husband often heard her soft padding 
 footfall as she paced back and forth through the 
 suite of rooms she occupied. He had never under- 
 stood her, but he loved her in a sober, admiring way, 
 showered money on her, believed in her implicitly. 
 This fond and unquestioning belief was the salt that 
 her conscience rubbed oftenest and most deeply into 
 the wound. 
 
 In those first years Jerry had given her his promise 
 never to marry. He told her repeatedly that he re- 
 garded her as his wife ; if she were ever free it would 
 be his first care to make her so before the eyes of the 
 world. But six years had passed since then, years 
 during which the man's love had slowly cooled, while 
 the woman's burned deeper with an ever-increasing 
 fervid glow. The promise which had been given in 
 the heat of a passion that sought extravagant terms
 
 DANGER SIGNALS 157 
 
 in which to express itself, was now her chief hold 
 upon him. In the scenes of recrimination that con- 
 stantly took place between them she beat it about his 
 ears and flourished it in his eyes. As she had no cun- 
 ning to deceive him in the beginning, she had no 
 subtilities to reawake old tenderness, rekindle old 
 fires. She was as tempestuously dark in her despair 
 as she was furious in her upbraidings, melting in her 
 love. He was sorry for her and he was also afraid 
 of her. He tried to please her, to keep her in a good 
 temper, and he refrained from looking into the future 
 where his promise and his fear of her, were writ 
 large across his life. 
 
 It was for his protection from scenes of jealousy 
 and tears that he had conducted his friendship with 
 June in a surreptitious manner. He had the caution 
 of selfish natures, and the underhand course that his 
 intrigue necessitated had further developed it. He 
 wanted to please himself always and to hurt no one, 
 because people, when they are hurt, disturb the joy- 
 ous tenor of life. Now, where June was concerned, 
 he was not doing any harm. He saw the girl in a 
 perfectly open manner except that he did not see her 
 in her own house. He had a right to spare himself 
 the railings to which he knew Lupe would subject 
 him, and which he dreaded as only a man can who 
 hears them from the lips of a woman he has ruined 
 and no longer loves. 
 
 That it was unfair to June he would not permit him- 
 self to think. He liked seeing her too much to give 
 it up, so he assured himself that it was a harmless 
 pleasure for both of them. Of course he could no>
 
 158 THE PIONEER 
 
 marry her. Even if he were free to do so he had no 
 such feeling for her. They were only friends. 
 Their conversation had never passed the nicely 
 designated limits of friendship. He had never 
 touched her hand save in the perfunctory pressure 
 of greeting and farewell. His respect for June was 
 genuine, only it was not as strong as his regard for 
 his own pleasure and amusement. 
 
 Yet, despite the assurances of the platonic coolness 
 of his sentiments, his desire for her society grew 
 with what it fed on. When by some engagement, 
 impossible to be evaded, they could not take their ac- 
 customed walk together, he was filled with an un- 
 reasonable disappointment, and was almost angry with 
 her till she should appear again. 
 
 On the last occasion the Colonel had interrupted 
 them only a few minutes after they had met. Jerry, 
 cheated of the hour he had intended spending on the 
 park bench with her, left them in a rage. And so im- 
 perative was his wish to see her that the next evening, 
 indifferent to the fact that he would probably find 
 the Colonel there, he made up his mind to go to the 
 house on Folsom Street and pay one of his rare calls. 
 
 Rion Gracey and Barney Sullivan were dining with 
 the Aliens that night. There was much to talk about 
 and the party sat long over the end of dinner, the 
 smoke of the men's cigars lying in light layers across 
 the glittering expanse of the table. There were cham- 
 pagne glasses beside each plate, the bubbles rising in 
 the slender stems to cluster along the rim. These 
 had appeared midway in the dinner, when, with much
 
 DANGER SIGNALS 159 
 
 stumbling and after repeated promptings and urgings 
 from Rion, Barney Sullivan had announced his en- 
 gagement to Summit Bruce. 
 
 With glasses held aloft the party pledged Mitty 
 and her lover. The encomiums of his fiancee 
 which followed made Barney even redder than the 
 champagne did. 
 
 "Oh, there's nothin' the matter with Mitt," he said 
 with a lover's modesty, "I ain't gone it blind choosin' 
 her." 
 
 "Mitty Bruce!" the Colonel exclaimed. "Mitty 
 Bruce is the finest girl in the California foot-hills !" 
 
 "I guess Barney thinks just about that way," Rion 
 answered, forbearing to stare at the blushing face 
 of his superintendent. 
 
 "Oh, Mitt's all there!" Barney repeated, allowing 
 himself a slight access of enthusiasm. "She's just 
 about on top of the heap." 
 
 Greatly to his relief the conversation soon left his 
 immediate affairs and branched out to the other mem- 
 bers of the little Foleys group. Black Dan was 
 still at the Buckeye Belle. His daughter was at 
 school in New York where she had been sent in the 
 autumn at her own request. The girls asked anx- 
 iously after her. The few glimpses they had had 
 of the spoiled beauty had inflamed their imagina- 
 tions. It seemed part of the elegant unusualness which 
 appertained to her that she should be sent to New 
 York to finish her education, with beyond that a pol- 
 ishing year or two of European travel. 
 
 "How wonderful she'll be when she comes back,"
 
 160 THE PIONEER 
 
 Rosamund had said with an unenvious sigh. "Per- 
 fectly beautiful and knowing everything like the her- 
 oine of a novel." 
 
 A slight trace of bitterness was noticeable in Rion's 
 answer. 
 
 "I think she'd have been a good deal more wonder- 
 ful if she'd stayed here. She's just the apple of her 
 father's eye, the thing he lives for. And now, unless 
 he goes East, and that's almost impossible with things 
 waking up this way in Virginia, he may not see her 
 for a year or two." 
 
 The mention of Virginia broke the spell of gossip 
 and small talk and the conversation settled down to 
 the discussion of the business, which, in different de- 
 grees, absorbed the four men. It was curious to notice 
 the change wrought in them by this congenial theme. 
 Sullivan's uncouthness and embarrassment fell from 
 him with the first words. His whole bearing was 
 transformed ; it became infused with alertness and 
 gained in poise and weight. The heaviness of his 
 visage gave place to a look of sharpened concentration. 
 His very voice took on different tones, quick, sure and 
 decisive. 
 
 But it was to Rion Gracey that the others deferred. 
 June, sitting silent in her chair, noticed that when he 
 spoke they listened, Sullivan with foxlike keenness of 
 face, the Colonel with narrowed eyes, ponderingly 
 attentive over his cigar, her father with a motion- 
 less interest showing in knit brows and debating 
 glance. Leaning back in an attitude of careless ease, 
 Rion spoke simply but with a natural dominance, for
 
 DANGER SIGNALS 161 
 
 here he was master. A thrill of surprised admira- 
 tion passed through the girl. He was a man among 
 men, a leader by weight of authority, to whom the 
 others unconsciously yielded the foremost place. 
 
 The room was dim with smoke when they finally 
 rose from the table. The mining discussion was still 
 in progress, but Rion dropped out of it to turn to his 
 hostess and draw back her chair. As he did so he 
 leaned over her shoulder and said in a lowered voice: 
 
 "It's too bad I've got to go on to-morrow. I wanted 
 to see you again. I wanted to talk to you." 
 
 The words were simple enough. The young girl, 
 however, looking uneasy, turned to glance at him. She 
 met his eyes, keen, deep-set, quiet, the eyes of the out- 
 door man accustomed to range over airy distances. 
 In them she saw a look which caused her to drop her 
 own. Murmuring a word or two of reply she turned 
 and passed through the doorway into the sitting-room 
 just behind Rosamund. That young woman suddenly 
 felt her arm pressed by a small, cold hand, and in 
 her ear heard a whisper: 
 
 "Don't leave me alone this evening with Rion Gra- 
 cey. Please don't." 
 
 Rosamund turned and shot an inquiring side-glance 
 at her sister's perturbed face. She strolled toward 
 the sitting-room bay-window and began to arrange the 
 curtains, June at her heels. 
 
 "Why not ?" she said in a whisper, pulling the heavy 
 folds together. 
 
 "I'm afraid of what he's going to say. Oh, 
 please" with as much urgency as the low tone em-
 
 162 THE PIONEER 
 
 ployed permitted "if he suggests that we go into 
 the drawing-room to look at photographs or albums 
 or anything, you come along, too." 
 
 "But why?" 
 
 "Rosie, don't be such a fool!" in an angry whis- 
 per. 
 
 Rosamund was about to retort with some spirit 
 when the click of the iron gate caught her ear. She 
 drew back the curtains and peeped out. A step sounded 
 on the flagged walk and a tall, masculine figure took 
 shape through the density of the fog-thickened atmos- 
 phere. She closed the curtains and looked at June 
 with an unsmiling eye. 
 
 "You needn't be afraid of being left alone with 
 anybody," she said. "Here's Jerry Barclay." 
 
 June drew back, her eyebrows raised into exclam- 
 atory semi-circles, an irrepressible smile on her lips. 
 
 "Rosamund," called Allen from the table, "where's 
 the ash receiver? Gracey's got nothing to put his 
 ashes in but the blue satin candy box one of June's 
 young men gave her for Christmas." 
 
 The entrance of Jerry Barclay a moment later had 
 a marked effect upon the company. He was known 
 to the four men and not especially liked by any one of 
 them. The Colonel had begun to feel for him a 
 sharp, disquieted repugnance. The one person in the 
 room to whom his entrance afforded pleasure was 
 June, and this she made an effort to hide under a 
 manner of cold politeness. 
 
 An immediate constraint fell on the party which 
 the passage of the evening did not dispel. Gracey 
 was angry that the advent of this man whom he men-
 
 DANGER SIGNALS 163 
 
 tally characterized as "a damned European dandy" 
 had deprived him of a tete-a-tete with June. He had 
 not intended, as the young girl feared, to ask her to 
 marry him. He had the humility of a true lover and 
 he felt that he dared not broach that subject yet. But 
 he had hoped for an hour's converse with her to take 
 with him on his journey as a sweet, comforting mem- 
 ory. Sullivan detested Jerry, whose manner he found 
 condescending, turned from him, and began talking 
 with an aggressive indifference to his host. But the 
 Colonel was the most disturbed of all. What worried 
 him was the difference between June's manner to 
 Jerry to-day, when others were present, and June's 
 manner to Jerry yesterday, when they had been walk- 
 ing alone on Van Ness Avenue. 
 
 By eleven o'clock they had gone and Allen having 
 stolen to bed, the sisters were left together in the 
 sitting-room. They were silent for a space, Rosa- 
 mund moving about to put out lights, give depressed 
 cushions a restoring pat, and sweep the ashes of the 
 fire into a careful heap beneath the grate, while June 
 idly watched her from the depths of an arm-chair. 
 
 "Aren't people funny?" said the younger sister sud- 
 denly, turning from her kneeling position on the rug, 
 the hearth-brush in her hand. "They seem to be so 
 different in different places." 
 
 "How do you mean?" said June absently. "Who's 
 different in a different place?" 
 
 "Well, Barney is. He's all right and looks just as 
 good as anybody up at the mines. And down here 
 he's entirely different, he looks so red, and his feet 
 are so big, and his hands never seem to know where
 
 164 THE PIONEER 
 
 to go unless he's talking about mining things. His 
 clothes never looked so queer up at Foleys, did they: 
 They seemed just like everybody else's clothes up 
 there." 
 
 "Oh, Barney's all right," returned the other, evi- 
 dently taking scant interest in the problem. "I'm 
 glad he and Mitty are going to be married." 
 
 "But Rion Gracey's not like that," continued Ros- 
 amund, pursuing her own line of thought. "He's 
 just the same everywhere. I think he looks better 
 down here. He looks as if he were somebody, some- 
 body of importance. He even makes other people, 
 that look all right when he's not by, seem sort oi 
 small and insignificant." 
 
 "Whom did he make look small and insignificant?" 
 said June suddenly in a key of pugnacious interest. 
 
 "Jerry Barclay. I thought Jerry Barclay looked 
 quite ordinary and as if he didn't amount to much 
 beside Rion. The things he said seemed snappish 
 and sometimes silly, like what a girl says when she's 
 cross and is trying to pretend she isn't." 
 
 "I don't think it very polite, Rosamund," said June 
 in a coldly superior tone, "to criticize people and talk 
 them over when they've hardly got out of the house." 
 
 "Well, perhaps it isn't," said Rosamund contritely, 
 returning to her hearth-brushing, "but like lots of 
 other things that aren't just right it's awfully hard 
 not to do it sometimes." 
 
 The girls went up stairs and June was silent. Rosa- 
 mund thought she was still annoyed by the criticism 
 of her friend, and so she was. For deep in her own 
 heart the thought that Rosamund had given voice to
 
 DANGER SIGNALS 165 
 
 had entered, paining and shocking her by its disloy- 
 alty, and making her feel a sense of resentment against 
 Rion Gracey.
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 THE GREAT GOD PAN 
 
 In the spring in San Francisco the trade winds come 
 and all wise Californians move inland. In the early 
 seventies the exodus to the country was not noticeably 
 large. Rural hotels were still small and primitive. 
 To be able to evade the fog-laden breath of the trades 
 was the luxury of the well-to-do, and the well-to-do 
 evaded them by retiring to country houses which 
 dotted the teeming reaches of the Santa Clara Val- 
 ley, or sought the shelter of the live-oaks where the 
 golden floor of the valley slopes up into the undula- 
 tions of the hills. 
 
 The Aliens moved down early in April. Their 
 father, after an afternoon's excursion in a buggy 
 with a real estate agent, came back one evening and 
 told them he had rented the De Soto house, back of 
 San Mateo, for three years, and they must be ready 
 to move into it in a week. 
 
 He was full of business and hurry in these days, 
 and said he could not help them much. Neither would 
 he be with them a great deal, as he would spend 
 most of his summer in town with occasional trips 
 to Virginia City. Crown Point was steadily rising 
 and the rumors of a new bonanza were on every 
 166
 
 THE GREAT GOD PAN 167 
 
 tongue. Rion Gracey had not returned, and Black 
 Dan had ridden over the mountains into the Nevada 
 camp on his own horse, a dislike for modern modes 
 of locomotion being one of his peculiarities. Allen 
 had bought heavily of the rising stock and seen him- 
 self on the road to even more dazzling fortune. He 
 had rented the De Soto place for the highest price 
 any real estate agent had yet dared to ask. People 
 who knew of the rate of his expenditure talked of a 
 beggar on horseback. But the Barranca was paying 
 well and the twenty-stamp mill was up and going. 
 
 The De Soto estate was part of the princely grant 
 that the Senorita Esperanza de Soto brought as a mar- 
 riage portion to her husband, Peter Kelley, a sailor 
 from a New England clipper which touched at Yerba 
 Buena in thirty-eight. At the time the Aliens rented 
 it, part of the great tract had been parceled out and 
 sold to householders. The central portion, where Peter 
 and the Senora Kelley had built a stately home, was 
 practically as it had been when the Yankee seaman 
 first ranged over it and realized the riches of his 
 bride. Now both sailor and seiiora were dead, and 
 their only son, Tiburtio Kelley, preferred a life in 
 Paris on the large fortune accumulated by his thrifty 
 father, to the dolce far niente of empty, golden days 
 in the Santa Clara Valley. 
 
 This central strip of the tract, which ran from the 
 valley up into the first spurs of the hills, was still a 
 virgin wilderness. Huge live-oaks, silvered with a 
 hoar of lichen, stretched their boughs in fantastic 
 frenzies. Gray fringes of moss hung from them, and 
 tangled screens of clematis and wild grape caught
 
 168 THE PIONEER 
 
 the sunlight in their flickering meshes or lay over 
 mounds of foliage like a torn green veil. The silence 
 of an undesecrated nature dreamed over all. Wood- 
 land life seldom stirred the dry undergrowth, the 
 rustle of nesting birds was rare in the secret leafy 
 depths of the oaks. Here and there the murmurous 
 dome of the stone pine soared aloft, the clouded dusk 
 of its foliage almost black against the sky. 
 
 For nearly two miles the carriage drive wound 
 upward through this sylvan solitude. As it approached 
 the house a background of emerald lawns shone 
 through the interlacing of branches, and brilliant bits 
 of flower beds were set like pieces of mosaic between 
 gray trunks. The drive took a sweep around a cir- 
 cular parterre planted in geraniums a billowing bank 
 of color under a tent of oak boughs and ended in a 
 wide, graveled space at the balcony steps. 
 
 The house was a spreading, two-story building of 
 wood, each floor surrounded by a deep balcony upon 
 which lines of French windows opened. Flowering 
 vines overhung, climbed and clung about the bal- 
 cony pillars and balustrades. Roses drooped in heavy- 
 headed cascades from second-story railings ; the wide 
 purple flowers of the clematis climbed aloft. On one 
 wall a heliotrope broke in lavender foam and the 
 creamy froth of the bankshur rose dabbled railings 
 and pillars and dripped over on to the ground. It was 
 a big, cool, friendly looking house with a front door 
 that in summer was always open, giving the ap- 
 proaching visitor a hospitable glimpse of an airy, un- 
 encumbered hall. 
 
 The move completed, June and Rosamund began to
 
 THE GREAT GOD PAN 169 
 
 taste the charm of the Californian's summer life. 
 There were no hotels near them. No country club 
 had yet risen to bring the atmosphere of the city into 
 the suave silence of the hills. It was a purely rural 
 existence: driving and riding in the morning, read- 
 ing in the hammock under the trees, receiving callers 
 on the balcony in the warm, scented end of the after- 
 noon, going out to dinner through the dry, dewless 
 twilight and coming home under the light of large, 
 pale stars in a night which looked as transparently 
 dark as the heart of a black diamond. 
 
 They were sometimes alone, but, as a rule, the 
 house contained guests. The Colonel at first came 
 down constantly, always from Saturday to Monday 
 and now and then for a week-day evening. But in 
 May the sudden leap of Crown Point to one hundred 
 and eighty upset the tranquillity of even cooler natures 
 than Jim Parrish's, and the stock exchange became 
 the center of men's lives. The long expected bonanza 
 had been struck. The San Franciscans, once more 
 restored to confidence in the great lode, were seized 
 with their old zest of speculation, and all the world 
 bought Crown Point. Allen saw himself on the road 
 to a second fortune, and threw his money about in 
 Virginia with an additional gusto, as it had been the 
 scene of some of his poorest days. 
 
 Even the Colonel was attacked by the fever and 
 invested. His financial condition had given him 
 grounds for uneasiness lately, and here was the chance 
 to repair it. A mine in Shasta, in which he had been 
 a large owner, shut down. He owned property in 
 South Park, and the real estate agents were beginning
 
 170 THE PIONEER 
 
 to shake their heads at the mention of South Park 
 property. It surprised him to realize that for the first 
 time in years he was short of ready money. He sold 
 two buildings far out among the sand dunes on upper 
 Market Street, and with the rest of his kind bought 
 Virginia mining stock with Crown Point and Belcher 
 at the head. 
 
 Under the live-oaks back of San Mateo the girls 
 only faintly heard the rising rush of the excitement. 
 The current circled away from their peaceful corner, 
 lapped now and then by a belated ripple. The country 
 life they both loved filled them with contentment and 
 health. Rosamund took to gardening again. Her 
 face shaded by a large Mexican hat, she might be 
 seen of a morning in confab with the Irish gardener, 
 astonishing him by her practical knowledge. In the 
 evening she surreptitiously "hosed" the borders, wish- 
 ing that her visitors would go back to town and leave 
 her to the peaceful pursuit of the work she delighted 
 in and understood. 
 
 June was not so energetic. She did not garden or 
 do much of anything, save now and then go for a 
 walk in the wild parts of the grounds. 
 
 As might be expected, Mrs. Barclay always moved 
 down to San Mateo in April. She was not rich enough 
 to own a large country place, but she did the best that 
 was in her and rented a pretty cottage outside the vil- 
 lage. Here Jerry came from town every Saturday 
 and stayed till Monday morning, and to her surprise 
 not infrequently appeared unannounced on week-day 
 afternoons, saying that business was dull, and there 
 was no necessity waiting about in town. The year
 
 THE GREAT GOD PAN 171 
 
 before she had complained greatly that her son's vis- 
 its to San Mateo were rare. This summer she had 
 no such grievance. He kept a horse in her small 
 stable, and as soon as he arrived had it saddled and 
 went out for a ride. Sometimes on Sunday he rode 
 over and called on the Aliens, but there were other 
 people to visit in the neighborhood and he did not go 
 to the Aliens' so he told his mother as often as he 
 would have liked. 
 
 The direction he took on the week-day afternoons 
 was always the same. No rain falls during the Cali- 
 fornia summer, there are no dark hours of thunder 
 and cloud; it is a long procession of blue and gold 
 days, steeped in ardent sunshine, cooled by vagrant 
 airs, drowsy with aromatic scents a summer made 
 for lovers' trysts. 
 
 Half-way up the winding drive to the De Soto 
 house Jerry had learned there was a path through 
 the underbrush which led to an opening, deep in the 
 sylvan wilderness, under the thick-leaved roof of an 
 oak. It had been a favorite spot of the late Senora 
 Kelley's, and all the poison oak had been uprooted. 
 With the canopy of the tree above a ceiling of 
 green mosaic in which the twisted limbs were im- 
 bedded and the screen of lightly hung, flickering 
 leafage encircling it, it was like a woodland room, the 
 bower of some belated dryad. 
 
 Sometimes Jerry had to wait for her, and lying 
 prone on the ground, his horse tethered to a tree 
 trunk near by, lay looking up, his senses on the alert 
 to catch her step. Sometimes she was there first, and 
 as he brushed through the covert, he saw her dress
 
 i;2 THE PIONEER 
 
 gleaming between the leaves in a spattering of white. 
 His heart was beginning to beat hard at the sound 
 of her advancing footfall. While he waited for her 
 he thought of nothing, his whole being held in a hush 
 of expectancy. When she came he found it difficult 
 for the first moment to speak easily. 
 
 On an afternoon early in June he sat thus waiting. 
 All the morning the thought of this meeting had filled 
 his mind, coming between him and his business. On 
 the train coming down the anticipation of it held him 
 in a trance-like quietude. He talked little to his 
 mother at lunch. He kept seeing June as she came 
 into sight between the small, delicately leaved 
 branches, dots of sun dancing along her dress, her 
 eyes, shy and full of delight, peeping through the 
 leaves for him. He answered his mother's ques- 
 tions at random and ate but little. The picture of the 
 white-clad girl grew in intensity, striking him into 
 motionless reverie, so that, his eyes fixed, he seemed 
 scarcely to breathe. 
 
 It was very warm. Lying on his back on the dried 
 grass, his hands clasped under his head, he gazed 
 straight before him at the long fringes of moss that 
 hung from a gnarled bough. His senses were focused 
 in an effort to disentangle her footstep from the 
 drowsy noises of the afternoon. All scruples, appre- 
 hensions of danger, were swept away by the hunger 
 for her presence. His mind had room for no other 
 thought. Every nerve was taut, every sense quiver- 
 ingly alert, as he lay, still as a statue, waiting for her. 
 
 Suddenly he rose on his elbow staring sidewise in 
 the concentration of hi^ Attention. The subdued, regu-
 
 THE GREAT GOD PAN 173 
 
 lar brush of her dress against the leaves came softly 
 through the murmurous quietness. He sprang to his 
 feet, strangely grave, his glance on the path she came 
 by. In a moment her figure speckled the green with 
 white, and she came into view, hurrying, sending 
 sharp, exploring looks before her. She saw him, in- 
 stantly fell to a slower pace, and tried to suppress 
 the gladness of her expression. But he saw it all, and 
 the quick breath that lifted her breast. Her hand 
 hardly touched his, and moving a little away from 
 him, she sank down on the ground, her white skirts 
 billowing round her. She pressed them into folds 
 with arranging pats, avoiding his eyes, and repeating 
 some commonplaces of greeting. 
 
 Jerry returned to his reclining posture, lying on 
 his side, his elbow in the grass, his hand supporting 
 his head. He, at first, made no pretense of moving 
 his eyes from her, and answered her remarks shortly 
 and absently. 
 
 Against the background of variegated greens she 
 presented a harmony of clear, thin tints like a water 
 color. Her dress of sheer, white muslin was cut 
 away from the throat in a point, and smoothly cov- 
 ering her arms and neck, let them be seen beneath 
 its crisp transparency, warmly white under the cold 
 white of the material. The heat of the afternoon 
 and the excitement of the meeting had called up a 
 faint pink to her cheeks. In her belt she had thrust 
 a branch of wistaria and the trail of blossoms hung 
 down along her skirt. She wore a wide leghorn hat, 
 and in this she had fastened another bunch, the flow- 
 ers lying scattered across the broad rim, and one
 
 174 THE PIONEER 
 
 spray hanging over its edge and mingling with the 
 curls that touched her neck. 
 
 Jerry had never seen her look as she did this after- 
 noon. Love, that she felt assured was returned, had 
 lent her the fleeting beauty of an hour. She did not 
 seek to penetrate the future. The happiness of the 
 present sufficed her. She said little, plucking at a tuft 
 of small wild flowers that grew beside her, con- 
 scious to her inmost fiber of her lover's eyes. 
 
 "Why don't you take off your hat?" he said. 
 "There's no sun here." 
 
 She obediently took it off and threw it on the 
 ground. The black velvet she wore around her head 
 had become disarranged and she raised her hands to 
 draw it into place and tuck a loosened curl under its 
 restraint. He watched her fixedly. 
 
 "Now," he said, reaching out to draw the hat to 
 him and taking one of the wistaria blossoms from 
 it, "put this in." 
 
 "I have no glass," she demurred, stretching a hand 
 for the flower. 
 
 "That doesn't matter. I'll be your glass. I'll tell 
 you if it isn't all right." 
 
 She tucked the stem of the blossom into the velvet 
 band, so that its trail of delicate lavender bells fell 
 downward behind her ear. 
 
 "How is that ?" she said, facing him, her eyes down- 
 cast. Her coquetries of manner had deserted her. 
 With the flush on her face a glowing pink and her 
 lashes on her cheeks, she was a picture of uneasy 
 embarrassment. 
 
 "Perfect," he answered. He continued to stare at
 
 THE GREAT GOD PAN 175 
 
 her for a moment and then said suddenly in a low 
 voice, 
 
 "Good heavens, how you've changed! It's a little 
 over a year now that I've known you and you're an 
 entirely different person from the girl with the short 
 hair I met up at Foleys. What have you done to 
 yourself? What is it that has changed you?" 
 
 "I think it's because I'm happy," she said, be- 
 ginning again to pick the wild flowers. 
 
 "Why are you happy?" 
 
 "I don't know. It's hard to say. I " she paused 
 and began to arrange her flowers in a careful bunch. 
 
 He suddenly dropped his eyes to the ground and 
 there was a silence. The sleepy murmur of insects 
 rose upon it. The sun, in an effort to penetrate the 
 inclosure, scattered itself in intermittent Bickerings 
 of brilliant light that shifted in golden spots along 
 the tree trunks or came diluted through the webbing 
 of twigs and vine tendrils. It was still very hot and 
 the balsamic odors of bay-tree and pine seemed to 
 grow more intense with the passing of the hour. 
 
 "You were such a quiet little thing up there," Jerry 
 went on, "working like a man in that garden of yours 
 and never wanting to go anywhere. Things down 
 here may have made you happy, but I sometimes 
 wonder if they haven't made you frivolous, too." 
 
 When Jerry ceased staring at her and began to talk 
 in this familiar, half-bantering strain, she felt more 
 at ease, less uncomfortable and conscious. She seized 
 the opening with eagerness and said, smiling down 
 at her little bouquet : 
 
 "But you know I am frivolous. I love parties and
 
 176 THE PIONEER 
 
 pretty clothes and lots of money to spend, and all the 
 good times going. I was that way at Foleys, only 
 I didn't have any of those things. I can be serious, 
 too, if it's necessary. When I haven't got the things 
 to be frivolous with, I can do without." 
 
 He stretched out his hand and plucked a long stalk 
 of feather-headed grass. 
 
 "Can you?" he said indolently. "Are you sure 
 you're not telling a little story?" 
 
 "No, no, quite sure. I have two sides to my char- 
 acter, a frivolous one and a serious one. You ought 
 to know that by now." 
 
 "Which have you shown to me oftenest?" He waj 
 peeling the stalk of its shielding blade of grass. 
 
 "I don't know. That's for you to say. Perhaps 
 it's been an even division." 
 
 He looked up. She was smiling slightly, her dimple 
 faintly in evidence. 
 
 "And I suppose the dimple," he said, "belongs to 
 the frivolous side." 
 
 "Yes. Even my face has two sides; the frivolous 
 one with the dimple and the serious one without." 
 
 "Let me see them," he said. "Let me judge which 
 of the two is the more attractive." 
 
 He leaned forward and with the tip of the long 
 spear of grass, touched her lightly on the cheek. 
 
 "Turn," he commanded, "turn, till I get a good 
 profile view." 
 
 She turned, presenting her face in profile, pure 
 as a cameo against the leafy background. 
 
 "That's the serious side," she said, raising her chin
 
 THE GREAT GOD PAN 177 
 
 slightly, so that her curls slipped back, disclosing her 
 ear. 
 
 "And now for the frivolous," he answered. "I 
 don't seem to know the serious side so well." 
 
 She turned her head in the other direction, her eyes 
 down-drooped. He drew himself nearer to her over 
 the ground, the grass spear in his hand. 
 
 "And so this is the frivolous. Shouldn't the dimple 
 be here?" 
 
 He touched her cheek again with the tip of the 
 grass, and as he did so the dimple trembled into 
 being. She looked at him slantwise, laughing, with 
 something breathless in the laughter. 
 
 As she met his glance her laughter died away. His 
 face had changed to something unfamiliar and hard. 
 He was pale, his eyes fierce and unloving. For a 
 moment she looked at him, some phrase of inquiry 
 dying on her lips, then she made an attempt to rise, 
 but he drew close to her and caught her hands. She 
 turned her head away, suddenly white and frightened. 
 
 "June," he whispered, "do you know how much I 
 love you?" 
 
 It was a whisper unlike anything she had ever 
 heard before. A whisper within herself responded to 
 it. She sat still, trembling and dizzy, and felt his 
 arms close about her, and her consciousness grow 
 blurred as his lips were pressed on hers. 
 
 The instant after he had loosed her and they had 
 shrunk from each other in guilty terror, the girl 
 quivering with a rush of half comprehended alarm, 
 the man struggling with contending passions. His
 
 178 THE PIONEER 
 
 face seemed to her full of anger, almost of hatred, 
 as he cried to her, 
 
 "Go home. I'm sorry. I shouldn't have touched 
 you. We can't come here again this way. I'm not 
 free to love you. Go home." 
 
 He made an imperious gesture for her to go, 
 almost as though driving her from his presence. White 
 as death and dazed by the terrifying strangeness of it 
 all, she scrambled to her feet, and turning from him, 
 set out at a run. She brushed through the bushes, her 
 eyes staring before her, her breast straining with dry 
 sobs. In one hand she still held her little bunch of 
 wild flowers, and with the other she made futile 
 snatches at her skirt, which she had trodden upon and 
 torn. 
 
 Gaining the end of the wood, she came into the 
 open garden, glaring with sun, deserted and brilliant. 
 Back of it stood the house, shuttered to the afternoon 
 heat and drowsing among its vines. She was about 
 to continue her course over the grass to the open 
 front door, when a footstep behind her, rapid as her 
 own, fell on her ear. For an instant of alert, lightly 
 poised terror, she paused listening, then shot forward 
 across the grass and on to the drive. But her pur- 
 suer was fleeter than she. Close at her shoulder she 
 heard him, his voice full of commanding urgency. 
 
 "Stop, I must speak to you." 
 
 She obeyed as she must always obey that voice, 
 and wheeled around on him, pallid and panting. 
 
 "June, dearest, forgive me. I forgot myself and 
 I've frightened you. But we mustn't meet that 
 way any more."
 
 THE GREAT GOD PAN 179 
 
 She looked at him without answering. He was as 
 pale as she. The lower part of his face seemed to 
 tremble. He had difficulty in controlling it and speak- 
 ing quietly. 
 
 "It's true what I said," he went on. "I love you. 
 I've done so for months. I was to blame, horribly 
 to blame. You're so young such a child. I was 
 the one to blame for it all." 
 
 "For what?" she said. "What's there to blame any- 
 body for? What has happened all of a sudden?" 
 
 He came closer to her and looked her steadily in 
 the eye. 
 
 "I am not free," he said in the lowest audible voice. 
 "I can't marry you. I am not free." 
 
 She repeated with trembling lips, 
 
 "Not free! Why not?" 
 
 "No. If I were oh, June, if I were!" He 
 turned away as if to go, then turned back, and said, 
 
 "Oh, June, if I were, we would be so happy! If 
 I could undo the past and take you !" 
 
 His voice broke and he looked down, biting his 
 underlip. She understood everything now, and for the 
 moment speech was impossible. There was a slight 
 pause, and then he said, 
 
 "I wouldn't let myself see the way it was going. 
 I lied to myself. I loved you better every day, and 
 I persuaded myself I didn't, and that it was nothing 
 but a friendship to both of us. We mustn't meet this 
 way any more. But we will see each other sometimes 
 at people's houses ? We're not to be strangers." 
 
 She turned dazedly away from him to go to the 
 house. For a step or two he let her go. Then he
 
 180 THE FIONEER 
 
 followed her, caught her hand with its bunch of limp 
 flowers, and said with urgent desperation: 
 
 "I'll see you sometimes. I can't give you up 
 entirely. Perhaps perhaps later, when time has 
 passed, we can be friends. June, I can't give it all 
 up like this." 
 
 She turned on him a face whose expression pierced 
 through his egotism. 
 
 "Let me go into the house," she whispered. "I 
 can't say anything now. Let me go into the house." 
 
 He dropped her hand, and turning, walked rapidly 
 toward the driveway. June ran to the house. 
 
 It was wrapped in complete silence. Not a sound 
 or movement came from it. She had but one idea, 
 to mount the stairs unseen, gain her room and then 
 lock the door. Noiseless and fleet-footed she sped 
 up the veranda steps, flew through the open door, and 
 then cowered against the wall. Rosamund was on 
 the stairs coming down. 
 
 "June," she said sharply, "where did Jerry Bar- 
 clay come from, and what was he saying to you out 
 there? I've been watching you from the window." 
 
 Then she saw her sister's face. Her own changed 
 in a flash. Its severity vanished, and concern, alarm, 
 love, took its place. She ran downward to the figure 
 at the stair-foot, pressed against the wall. 
 
 "What's happened? June, what's the matter?" 
 
 Her startled whisper broke the sunny stillness with 
 a note of the deadly realism of life amid the sweet 
 unconcern of nature. She tried to clasp June, who 
 made an effort to squeeze past her, crushed against 
 the wall, her head down, like one who fears recogni-
 
 THE GREAT GOD PAN 181 
 
 tion. When, finding it impossible to escape, she sud- 
 denly collapsed at Rosamund's feet, curled up like a 
 person in physical anguish, and cried with smothered 
 violence, 
 
 "He's not free, Rosamund. It's all over; every- 
 thing's over. It's all true, and we've got to end it 
 all. He's not free." 
 
 Rosamund realized vaguely what had happened. 
 She was a loving woman, but she was a practical one, 
 too. There were people in the house who must not 
 see June just at this crisis. She was much the larger 
 and stronger of the two girls, and she bent down and 
 attempted to raise the prostrate figure. 
 
 "June, listen. We were going out driving at five. 
 Mary Moore may be down at any moment. Come 
 quick; she mustn't see you. She's the worst gossip 
 in San Francisco. Come, I'll help you." 
 
 She dragged the girl up with an arm around her, 
 hurried her to the top of the stairs, along the hall, and 
 into her room. There she let her fall into an arm- 
 chair, and, stepping back, locked the door. 
 
 In the sweet-scented, airy room, with its thin mus- 
 lin curtains softening the hot brilliancy of the land- 
 scape, June sat in the arm-chair, silent and motion- 
 less, her face pinched. Rosamund, who had never 
 seen her sister like this, did not know what to do, and 
 in despair, resorted to the remedies she had been ac- 
 customed to using when her mother had been ill. She 
 softly rubbed June's temples with cologne and fanned 
 her. Finally she knelt down by her side and said 
 tenderly, 
 
 "What is it, Junie, dear ? Tell it to me,"
 
 i82 THE PIONEER 
 
 "I have told it to you," said June. "He's not free ; 
 that's all. You all said it, but I wouldn't believe it. 
 Now he's said it and I've got to believe it." 
 
 She spoke in a high, hard voice, and Rosamund, 
 kneeling on the floor, put her arms round her, and 
 said with ingenuous consolation, 
 
 "But now you know it, the worst's over." 
 
 "Everything's over," said June dully. 
 
 Her eyes fell to her lap, and there, in one hand, 
 she saw the wilted remains of the little bunch of wild 
 flowers. A sudden realization of what her feelings 
 had been when she picked them, how joyous, how 
 shyly happy, how full of an elated pleasure of life, 
 and what they were now, fell upon her with desolat- 
 ing force. She gave a cry, and, turning from her 
 sister, pressed her face against the back of the chair 
 and burst into a storm of tears.
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 READJUSTMENT 
 
 June and July passed, and the life in the De Soto 
 house was very uneventful. As soon as the group 
 of guests left June requested her sister to ask no 
 more visitors for a time, and the mid-summer days 
 filed by, unoccupied in their opulent, sun-bathed splen- 
 dor. 
 
 The blow at first crushed her. Despite the warn- 
 ings she had received, it had come upon her with 
 the stunning force of the entirely unexpected. The 
 very fact that Jerry had been attacked by scandal 
 had lent an exalted fervor to her belief in him. Even 
 now, had there been a possibility of her continuing 
 in this belief, she would have persisted. Weak, lov- 
 ing women have an extraordinary talent for self-de- 
 ception, and June combined with weakness and love 
 an irrepressible optimism. She tried to plead for him 
 with herself, argued his case as before a stern judge, 
 attempted in her ignorance to find extenuating cir- 
 cumstances for him, and then came face to face with 
 the damning, incontrovertible fact that he himself had 
 admitted. 
 
 It was a blasting experience. Had she known him 
 less well, had their acquaintance been of shorter dura- 
 183
 
 184 THE PIONEER 
 
 tion, the blow would probably have killed her love. 
 But the period of acquaintance had been long, 
 the growth of affection gradual. By the time the 
 truth was forced upon her, her passion had struck 
 its roots deep into her heart, and she was not strong 
 enough to tear it out. 
 
 In the long summer days, wandering about the 
 deserted, glowing gardens, she began the work of 
 reconstructing her ideal. She told herself that she 
 would always love him, but now it was with no con- 
 fidence, no proud joy in a noble and uplifting thing. 
 With agonizing throes of rebirth, her feeling for 
 him passed from the soft, self-surrendering worship 
 of a girl to the protective and forgiving passion of 
 a woman. As it changed she changed with it. The 
 suggestion of the child that had lingered in her van- 
 ished. The freshness of her youth went for ever. 
 The evanescent beauty that happiness had given her, 
 which on the day of Barclay's declaration had reached 
 its climax, shriveled like a flower in the heat of a 
 fire. She looked pale, pinched, and thin. Eying her 
 image in the glass, she marveled that any man could 
 find her attractive. 
 
 In the first period of her wretchedness *she was 
 numbed. Then, the house swept of its guests and 
 she and Rosamund once more alone, her silence broke 
 and she poured out her sorrows to her sister. Rosa- 
 mund heard the story from the first day at Foleys 
 to its fateful termination in the Senora Kelley's wood- 
 land bower. 
 
 She listened with unfailing sympathy, interrupted 
 by moments of intense surprise. The revelations of
 
 READJUSTMENT 185 
 
 the constant meetings with Barclay, which had been 
 so skilfully kept secret, amazed and disconcerted her. 
 She tried to conceal her astonishment, but now and 
 then it broke out in startled queries. It was so hard 
 to connect the unconscious and apparently candid 
 June of the winter with this disclosure of a June who 
 had been so far from candid. It was nearly impos- 
 sible to include them in the same perspective. The 
 culprit, engrossed in the recital of her griefs, was 
 oblivious of her sister's growing state of shocked 
 amaze, which sometimes took the form of silence, and 
 occasionally expressed itself in gently probing ques- 
 tions. 
 
 "But, June," she could not help saying in protest, 
 "didn't you realize something wasn't all right when 
 you saw he'd rather meet you outside than see you 
 at home?" 
 
 June turned on her an eye of cold disapproval. 
 
 "No. And I don't see now that that's got anything 
 to do with it." 
 
 Rosamund subsided meekly, unable to follow the 
 intricacies of her sister's mental processes. 
 
 She did not argue with June it was hopeless in 
 the sufferer's present state of mind and she made 
 few comments on Barclay's behavior. But she had 
 her opinion of him, and it was that he was one of 
 the darkest of villains. As to her opinion of June's 
 part in the story, she was a loyal soul and had none. 
 All she felt was a flood of sympathy for the shocked 
 and wounded girl, and a worried sense of respon- 
 sibility in a position with which she felt herself un- 
 able to cope. It was with great relief that, toward
 
 186 THE PIONEER 
 
 the end of July, she received a letter from the Colonel, 
 who had been six weeks in Virginia City, telling her 
 he would be with them on the following Sunday. 
 
 She drove down to the train to meet him with the 
 intention of preparing him for the change in his 
 favorite. She had written to him that June was not 
 well. Driving back from the station she had ample 
 time to expatiate on this theme and warn him not to 
 exclaim unduly on her changed appearance. The 
 Colonel began to be apprehensive and ask penetrative 
 questions, to which she had no answer. He leaped 
 out of the carriage at the veranda steps and ran up 
 to the top, where June stood. 
 
 The change in her, flushed with welcome, was not 
 strikingly apparent at the first glance. It was later 
 that he began to realize it, to be startled and then 
 alarmed. She sat quiet through dinner, nibbling mus- 
 ingly at her food, once or twice not answering him. 
 The empty silence of the house struck chill on him, 
 and when he had commented on the absence of 
 visitors, she had said with sudden gusty irritation, 
 
 "There's been nobody here for over a month. I 
 don't want anybody to come. I'll go away if any- 
 body's asked. I like being alone this way." 
 
 He looked at Rosamund with an almost terrified 
 inquiry. She surreptitiously raised her brows and 
 gave her head a warning shake. 
 
 It was late in the evening before he had a chance to 
 speak to Rosamund alone. Then, June having gone 
 to her room, and he and Rosamund being left alone 
 in the sitting-room, he laid his hand on the young 
 girl's shoulder, and said in a voice of command,
 
 READJUSTMENT 187 
 
 "Now, Rosamund, I've got to hear all about this. 
 What the devil's been going on down here?" 
 
 She told him the whole story, greatly relieved to 
 have a listener who could advise her. 
 
 The Colonel was staggered by it. He said little, 
 but Rosamund was not half-way through when he 
 began pacing up and down, his hands in his pockets, 
 every now and then a low ejaculation breaking from 
 him. He, too, was astounded by the account of June's 
 underhand behavior. He had thought the two girls 
 as simple as children. That his own particular dar- 
 ling could have consented to, and then so dexterously 
 carried out, a plan of procedure so far from what he 
 had imagined a young girl would do, was painful 
 and shocking to him. But as June's love could not 
 be killed by one sort of disagreeable revelation, so 
 his could suffer no abatement from another kind. 
 Manlike, he immediately began to make excuses for 
 her. 
 
 "She was too young to be allowed to go round that 
 way alone," he burst out angrily. "There was nobody 
 to take care of her. What good are two old Silurians 
 like me and your father to look after girls? I told 
 him six months ago he ought to get some kind of 
 an old woman in the house who'd knit in corners and 
 hang round after you." 
 
 Rosamund continued her story and he went on 
 with his walk. Now and then, as she alluded to Bar- 
 clay's part in the affair, suppressed phrases that were 
 of a profane character broke from him. When she 
 had concluded he stood for a moment by the window 
 looking out*
 
 i88 THE PIONEER 
 
 "Well, the mischief's been done. He's made the 
 poor little soul just about as miserable as she can 
 be. I'd like to blow the top of his head off with one 
 of my derringers, but as I can't have that satisfac- 
 tion there's no good thinking of it. All we can do is 
 to try and brace her up some way or other." 
 
 Rosamund made no answer and after a moment of 
 silence, he continued, 
 
 "And I suppose it lets poor Rion out?" 
 
 "Oh, yes," breathed Rosamund with a melancholy 
 sigh. 
 
 The Colonel walked to the other window muttering 
 in his wrath. 
 
 "He was coming down here, Rosie, to ask her. 
 They've made a pile of money up there, in this Crown 
 Point business, and they're buying up all the claims 
 that might have clouded the title of the Cresta Plata. 
 They believe there's a bonanza there, and the Gracey 
 boys don't often make mistakes. They'll be million- 
 aires before they're done. But that doesn't count. 
 What does is that Rion Gracey 's the finest man in 
 California, bar none. The woman that he married 
 would be loved and taken care of, the way the way a 
 woman ought to be. Good Lord, what fools we are 
 and how we tear our lives to pieces for nothing!" 
 
 "Don't blame her, Uncle Jim. She's just got so 
 fond of that man she hasn't any sense left." 
 
 "Blame her! Have I ever blamed her? Why, 
 Rosie, I'd die for her. I'll have to go up to Virginia 
 and put Rion off. What can I say to him?" 
 
 "Tell him she doesn't care for him." said the truth- 
 ful Rosamund.
 
 READJUSTMENT 189 
 
 The Colonel paused by the table, looking down and 
 jingling the loose silver in his pockets. 
 
 "No," he said, "I'm not going to tell him that. 
 That would be harder on Rion than on most men. 
 Women, you know, change. June's very young. She's 
 still a child in many things." 
 
 "She isn't the same sort of child she was two 
 months ago," said Rosamund sadly. 
 
 "No, but she's young in years only twenty-one. 
 Dear girl, that's a baby. Your mother was older than 
 that when I knew her, and and she changed." 
 
 "How changed?" Rosamund asked with some 
 curiosity. 
 
 "Her heart changed. She other men cared for 
 her before your father came along. She once cared 
 for one of them." 
 
 The Colonel paused and cleared his throat. 
 
 "Mother was engaged to some one else before 
 father. She told me so once, but she didn't say who." 
 
 "Well, there was no doubt of her second love being 
 deep. In fact, it was the deeper of the two." 
 
 "I wish June would care for Rion Gracey. But 
 if you'd hear her talk!" with hopeless recollection 
 of June's sentimental transports. "It sounds as if she 
 didn't know there was a man in the world but that 
 miserable Barclay. She's just bewitched. What's 
 the matter with women that they're always falling in 
 love with the wrong man?" 
 
 There was another pause. 
 
 "I'll do my best," said the Colonel at length, "to 
 keep Rion from coming down and trying his luck. 
 He mustn't see her now. She'd refuse him in such
 
 190 THE PIONEER 
 
 a way that he'd never dare to come near her again. 
 And you, Rosie, try and cheer her up and keep her 
 from thinking of Barclay." 
 
 On Monday morning the Colonel left for San 
 Francisco, and a few days later was again en route 
 for Virginia City. 
 
 The rest of the summer slowly passed, idle and 
 eventless. June brightened a little with the passage 
 of the weeks, but was far from her old self. Now and 
 then she saw Barclay at the station, in the house of 
 friends, or met him in the village. At first he merely 
 bowed and passed on. But before the summer was 
 over he had spoken to her; in the beginning with the 
 short and colorless politeness of early acquaintance- 
 ship, but later with something of his natural bon- 
 homie. 
 
 Once at an afternoon garden fete she suddenly 
 came out on a balcony and found him there alone. 
 For a moment they stood dumb, eye full on eye, then 
 began speaking of indifferent things, their hearts beat- 
 ing hard, their faces pale. It was the first conversa- 
 tion of any length they had had since the meeting in 
 the wood. They parted, feeling for the moment 
 poignantly disturbed and yet eased of the ache of 
 separation. From that on they spoke at greater 
 length, talking with an assumption of naturalness, 
 till finally their fragmentary intercourse assumed a 
 tone of simple friendliness, from which all sentiment 
 was banished. This surface calm was all that each 
 saw of the other's heart, but each knew what the calm 
 concealed. 
 
 In October the Aliens returned to town. The Col-
 
 READJUSTMENT 191 
 
 onel had managed to keep Rion Gracey from going to 
 San Francisco "to try his luck" until this late date. 
 It would have been impossible had not Fate been with 
 him. In the growing excitement of the reawakened 
 mining town Rion was continuously occupied, and 
 he was a man to whom work was a paramount duty. 
 But in October he slipped his leash for a week and 
 ran down to San Francisco. In four days he re- 
 turned, as quiet as ever, and inclined to be harder 
 with his men. The Colonel knew what had happened, 
 and Black Dan guessed. Outside these two, no one 
 understood why Rion Gracey had become a more 
 silent and less lenient man after a four days' visit 
 to the coast
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 BUSINESS AND SENTIMENT 
 
 The winter of '7i-'72 was a feverish one for San 
 Francisco. The rising excitement in Virginia ran like 
 a tidal wave over the mountains to the city by the 
 sea and there broke in a seething whirl. There was 
 no stock market in the Nevada camp. Pine Street 
 was the scene of the operations of capitalist and 
 speculator the arena where bull and bear met. 
 
 In Virginia men fought against the forces of na- 
 ture. They matched their strength with the elements 
 of the primeval world. Water and fire were their 
 enemies. Their task was the tearing out from the 
 rock-ribbed flanks of the mountains the treasure that 
 nature had buried with jealous care. They performed 
 prodigies of energy, conquered the unconquerable, 
 rose to the height of their mighty antagonist, giant 
 against giant. 
 
 In San Francisco men fought with one another. 
 The treasure once in their hands, the tattle lost its 
 dignity and became the ignominious scramble of the 
 swindler and the swindled. The gold and silver 
 thrown among the crowd ran this way and that, like 
 spilled quicksilver. Most of it ran the way its manipu- 
 lators directed, into pockets that were already full, 
 192
 
 BUSINESS AND SENTIMENT 193 
 
 carrying with it the accumulation of gold from other 
 pockets less full, whose owners were less cunning. 
 
 Through the winter Crown Point and Belcher 
 the neighboring mine into which the ore body ex- 
 tended continued to rise. Confidence had been re- 
 stored; everybody was investing. Clerks and servant 
 girls drew their savings out of banks and stocking 
 feet and bought shares. In April the stock had 
 reached its highest point, seven hundred and twenty- 
 five dollars. In May, one month later, it dropped to 
 one hundred and seventy-five. It was the greatest 
 and most rapid decline the San Francisco stock mar- 
 ket had ever known. 
 
 The city was for the moment stunned by it. The 
 confidence in Virginia for three years regarded as 
 "petered" had returned in full force. The sudden 
 drop knocked the breath from the lungs of those who 
 had been vociferating the recrudescence of the Corn- 
 stock* A quantity of fortunes, great and small, were 
 swept away in the collapse. The brokers' cries for 
 "mud" drew the last nickels from the clerks and 
 the servant girls, the last dollars from their employers. 
 When the wave receded the shore was strewn with 
 wrecks. For the second time this wave had slowly 
 risen to level-brimming flood, broken, swept back 
 and left such a drift of human wreckage. 
 
 Throughout the city there was wailing. Nearly 
 everybody had suffered. The last remnant of the 
 fortune left to Jerry Barclay by his father was gone. 
 His mother too had lost, fortunately not heavily. But 
 she bemoaned her few thousands with as much zeal
 
 194 THE PIONEER 
 
 as her cook did the five hundred, which constituted 
 the savings of years. 
 
 Among the heaviest losers was Beauregard Allen. 
 Had not the Barranca been behind him he would 
 have been a ruined man. As it was, the second for- 
 tune he saw himself possessed of was swept away in 
 a few disastrous days. The Barranca, while its yield 
 had not of late been so large or so rich as during its 
 first year, still gave him what he once would have 
 considered a princely income. But he lived up to and 
 beyond it. His expenditures during the last year had 
 been exceedingly heavy. He had private extrava- 
 gances of his own, besides the lavish manner of living 
 in which he encouraged his daughters. He had leased 
 the De Soto house for three years at a fancy rent. The 
 Colonel's mortgage on the Folsom Street house would 
 mature in another year. The interest which fell due 
 in January he had neglected to pay. He had had 
 the money and then a jeweler had threatened to bring 
 suit for an unpaid-for diamond bracelet, and the 
 money had gone there, quickly, to keep the jeweler 
 quiet. 
 
 Three years ago at Foleys had any one told him 
 that he would own a mine like the Barranca and 
 enjoy an income from it such as still was his, he 
 would have wondered how he could best expend such 
 wealth. Since then the beggar on horseback had 
 ridden fast and far. Now, in morose absorption, he 
 reviewed his expenses and his debts. His petty vanity 
 forbade him to economize in his manner of living. 
 He had raised his head before men and he would 
 not lower it again. Some financiering would be nee-
 
 BUSINESS AND SENTIMENT 195 
 
 essary to pay up his brokers, maintain the two fine 
 establishments in which his daughters ruled, and have 
 the necessary cash for the diamond bracelets and 
 suppers after the theater that absorbed so many un- 
 counted hundreds. There was solace in the thought 
 that Parrish held the mortgage on the Folsom Street 
 house. However restive other creditors might grow 
 Parrish could be managed. 
 
 The Colonel in these troublous days was also 
 glumly studying his accounts. Crown Point, which 
 was to repair the recent decline in certain of his 
 investments, had swept away in its fall a portion 
 of that comfortable fortune in which its owner had 
 felt so secure. He had had several losses of late. 
 From the day of his relinquishment of the Parrish 
 Tract bad luck seemed to follow him. Owing to 
 an uncontrollable influx of water the mine in 
 Shasta had been shut down indefinitely. The South 
 Park houses were declining in value, the city was 
 growing out toward the property he had sold on 
 upper Market Street, which a year ago had been a 
 bare stretch of sand. The Colonel looked grave as he 
 bent over his books ; his riches were something more 
 than a matter of mere personal comfort and con- 
 venience. 
 
 On a blank sheet of paper he jotted down what 
 his income would be after all these loppings off. Then 
 over against the last line of figures jotted down a 
 second line of his expenditures. For some time he 
 pondered frowningly over these two columns. They 
 presented a disconcerting problem. 
 
 For the past six or seven years he had spent some
 
 196 THE PIONEER 
 
 five thousand per annum on himself, the rest on cer- 
 tain charities and what he lumped together under 
 the convenient head of "Sundries." It was a word 
 which covered among other things numerous presents 
 and treats for June and Rosamund. "Sundries" 
 had consumed a great deal of ready money, nearly 
 as much as Allen's diamond bracelets and theater sup- 
 pers, and the Colonel sighed as he realized they must 
 suffer curtailment. The private charities were rep- 
 resented by a few written words with an affixed line 
 of figures: "Carter's girl at Convent;" "Joe's boy," 
 "G. T.'s widow." When the figures were added up 
 they made a formidable sum. 
 
 The Colonel looked at it for another period of 
 frowning cogitation. Then on the edge of the paper 
 he put down the items of his own private account. 
 There was only one which was large the rent of 
 the sunny suite on the Kearney Street corner. 
 Through that item he drew his pen. 
 
 The next time he dined with the Aliens he told 
 them that he was going to move. He had found his 
 old rooms too large and he had decided to take a 
 smaller suite in the Traveler's Hotel. The girls 
 stared in blank surprise. Allen looked at him with 
 quick, sidelong curiosity. He wondered at the move. 
 He knew that Parrish had been hard hit, but he still 
 must have enough left to live on comfortably in the 
 style he had maintained since his return from the war. 
 The Traveler's Hotel was a come-down a place on 
 the built-out land below Montgomery Street, respect- 
 able enough, but far different from the luxurious 
 rooms on the Kearnev Street corner.
 
 BUSINESS AND SENTIMENT 197 
 
 The girls were amazed, distressed, had endless 
 questions as to why Uncle Jim should do such a 
 strange thing. He laughed and parried their queries. 
 Had they forgotten that he was a pioneer, who had 
 slept under the stars on the American River in forty- 
 nine? In those days the Traveler's Hotel would have 
 been regarded as the acme of luxury. 
 
 "And why," he said, "should the old man to-day 
 turn up his nose at what would have been magnifi- 
 cence to the young man in forty-nine?" 
 
 During this winter of storm and stress June stood 
 on the edge of the excitement looking on. The self- 
 ishness of a purely individual sorrow held her back 
 from that vivid interest and participation that would 
 once have been hers. She was tender and loving to 
 the Colonel, and she bore patiently with the moody 
 irritation that often marked her father's manner, but 
 for the most part she gave to the matters that once 
 would have been of paramount interest, only a shadow 
 of her old blithe attention. 
 
 Yet she was not entirely unhappy. She had ac- 
 cepted the situation, and, knowing the worst, tried 
 to readjust her life to an altered point of view. Her 
 comfort lay in the thought that Jerry loved her. The 
 enchantment of the days when she had dreamed a 
 maiden's dreams of a life with the one chosen man, 
 was for ever gone. She marveled now at the rain- 
 bow radiance of that wonderful time when mere liv- 
 ing had been so joyous, and happiness so easy and 
 natural. 
 
 But Jerry loved her. In the rending of the fabric 
 of her dreams, the shattering of her ideals, that re-
 
 198 THE PIONEER 
 
 mained. She hugged it to her heart and it filled the 
 empty present. Of the future she did not think, 
 making no attempt to penetrate its veil. Only her 
 youth whispered hope to her, and her natural buoy- 
 ancy of temperament repeated the whisper. 
 
 Of Jerry's feelings toward her she knew, without 
 being told, but one evening, late in the winter, he 
 again spoke of them. It was at a party at Mrs. Dav- 
 enport's. For the first time during the season they 
 had danced together. As a rule their intercourse 
 was limited to the few words of casual acquaintance- 
 ship, greetings on the stairway, conventional common- 
 places at suppers or over dinner-tables. Under this 
 veil of indifference each was acutely conscious of 
 the other's presence, thrilled to the other's voice, 
 heard unexpectedly in a lull of conversation or the 
 passing of couples in a crowded doorway. 
 
 At Mrs. Davenport's party Jerry had drunk freely 
 of the champagne and the restraint he kept on himself 
 was loosened. Moreover, Lupe was not present, and 
 he felt reckless and daring. After a few turns among 
 the circling couples they dropped out of the dance, 
 and he drew June from the large room into a small 
 conservatory. Here in the quiet coolness, amid the 
 greenery of leaves and the drip of falling water, he 
 took her two hands in his, and in the sentimental 
 phrases of which he had such a mastery, told her of 
 his love. 
 
 She listened with down-drooped eyes, pale as the 
 petals of the lilies round the fountain, the lace on 
 her bosom vijb/^ljjg with the beating of her heart.
 
 BUSINESS AND SENTIMENT 199 
 
 "Say you love me," he had urged, pressing the 
 hands he held, "I want to hear you say it." 
 
 "You know I do," she whispered, "I don't need to 
 say it." 
 
 "But I want to hear you say those very words." 
 
 She said them, her voice just audible above the clear 
 trickling of the falling water. 
 
 "And you'll go on loving me, even though we don't 
 see each other except in these crowded places, and 
 I hardly dare to speak to you, or touch your hand?" 
 
 "I always will. Separation, or distance, or time 
 will make no difference. It's it's for always with 
 me." 
 
 She raised her eyes and they rested on his in a 
 deep, exalted look. She was plighting her troth for 
 life. He. too, was pale and moved, and the hands 
 clasped round hers trembled. He cared for her with 
 all the force that was in him. He was neither exag- 
 gerated nor untruthful in what he said. When he 
 told a woman he loved her he meant it. There would 
 have been no reason or pleasure to Jerry in making 
 love unless the feeling he expressed was genuine. 
 Now his voice was hoarse, his face tense with emo- 
 tion, as he said : 
 
 "It's for life with me, too. There's no woman in 
 the world for me but you, June. Whatever I've 
 done in the past, in the future I'm yours, for ever, 
 while I'm here to be anybody's. Will you be true?" 
 
 "Till I die," she whispered. 
 
 Their trembling hands remained locked together, 
 and eye held eye in a trance-like steadiness that
 
 200 THE PIONEER 
 
 seemed to search the soul. To both, the moment had 
 the sacredness of a betrothal. 
 
 "Some day perhaps we can be happy/' he mur- 
 mured, not knowing what he meant, but anxious to 
 alleviate the very genuine suffering he experienced. 
 She framed some low words over which her lips 
 quivered, and in his pain he insisted : 
 
 "But you will wait for me, no matter what time 
 passes? You won't grow tired of waiting, or cease 
 to care? You'll always feel that you're mine?" 
 
 "I'm yours for ever," she answered. 
 
 These were the only words of love that passed be- 
 tween them, but at the time they were uttered they 
 were to both as the words of a solemn pact. For the 
 rest of the winter Jerry avoided her. His passion was 
 at its height. Between it and his fear of Lupe he 
 was more wretched and unhappy than he had ever 
 been in his life. 
 
 During the spring, with its tumult of excitement 
 and final catastrophe, and the long summer of dreary 
 recuperation, June walked apart, upheld by the mem- 
 ory of the vows she had plighted. Money was made 
 and lost, the little world about her seethed in angry; 
 discouragement while she looked on absently, ab- 
 sorbed in her dream. What delighted or vexed peo- 
 ple was of insignificant moment to her. In the midst 
 of surroundings to which she had once given a spark- 
 ling and intimate attention she was now a cool, indif- 
 ferent spectator. Her interest in life was concentrated 
 in the thought that Jerry had pledged himself to her.
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 NEW PLANETS 
 
 The year after the Crown Point collapse was a sad 
 and chastened one. Money was tight on all sides. 
 Large houses were closed, servants discharged, dress- 
 makers' bills cut down. Many families hitherto 
 prominent dropped out of sight, preferring to hide 
 their poverty in remote corners of the city, whence, 
 in some cases, they never again emerged. The win- 
 ter, shorn of its accustomed gaieties, was dull and 
 quiet. 
 
 With the spring there came a revival of life and 
 energy. The volatile spirit of the Californians began 
 to rise. One of the chief causes of this was a new 
 series of disturbing rumors from Virginia City. In 
 February a strike was reported in the recently consol- 
 idated group of claims known as the California and 
 Consolidated Virginia. A vein of ore seven feet wide 
 and assaying sixty dollars to the ton had been un- 
 covered. Talk of the Nevada camp was in the air. 
 The San Franciscans were incredulous, as fearful of 
 mining stock as the singed cat of the fire, but they 
 listened and watched, feeling the first faint unrest of 
 hope and temptation. 
 
 Socially too, the city showed signs of returning 
 201
 
 202 THE PIONEER 
 
 cheerfulness. This was due not only to the natural 
 rebound after a period of depression, but to two new 
 arrivals of the sort which those small segregated 
 groups known as "society" delight to welcome and 
 entertain. 
 
 The first of these was Mercedes Gracey. Glamour 
 of many sorts clung about the name of this favorite 
 of fortune. To her natural attractions were added 
 those supposed to be acquired by a sojourn in older 
 and more sophisticated localities. Mercedes had 
 passed from her New York boarding-school to the 
 finishing influences of a year "abroad." She had 
 traveled in Europe with a chaperone and taken on 
 the polish of accomplishment under the guidance of 
 experienced teachers. Such news of her as had 
 drifted back to San Francisco was eagerly seized 
 upon by the less fortunate home dwellers. From time 
 to time the newspapers printed items about Miss 
 Gracey's triumphant career. Before her arrival San 
 Francisco had already developed a possessive pride in 
 her as a native daughter who would add to the glory 
 of the Golden State. 
 
 Mercedes would not, probably, have been the object 
 of such interest had not the fortunes of her father 
 and uncle been for the past three years steadily as- 
 cending. The Gracey boys had of late risen from 
 the position of a pair of well-known and capable 
 mining men to that of two of the most prominent fig- 
 ures in the state. Their means were reported large. 
 They had been among the few who had got out of 
 the Crown Point excitement at the right moment, sell- 
 ing their stock at the top price. They were now de-
 
 NEW PLANETS 203 
 
 veloping their Cresta Plata property. Should this pan 
 out as they expected there was no knowing where the 
 Gracey boys' successes would end. Mercedes was 
 the only woman relative they possessed. It was no 
 wonder that she was regarded with an almost rever- 
 ential interest, and her return evoked as much curios- 
 ity as though it were that of an errant princess. 
 
 Black Dan, who had gone to New York to meet 
 her, brought her back in triumph. His idolatrous 
 love had known no abatement in the two years' sepa- 
 ration. To have her finally restored to him, in an 
 even completer state of perfection, was a bewildering 
 happiness to him. His primitive nature strove to 
 show its gratitude and tenderness in extravagant 
 ways. He showered presents on her, ordered the 
 finest suite in the newly-completed Lick House to be 
 prepared for her, offered to rent any .country place 
 she might choose. That she should accompany him 
 to the rough life of Virginia, where he spent most of 
 his time, he never expected. It would be enough for 
 him to see her on his frequent visits to the coast. 
 
 The other notable visitor who arrived in the city 
 almost simultaneously was a young Englishman, 
 Lionel Harrower. He, too, took up his residence in 
 the Lick House, and it was but natural that some 
 of the interest evoked by the appearance of Black 
 Dan's daughter should be deflected toward him. 
 
 Young Harrower was a nephew of that English- 
 man who fifteen years before had married Mrs. New- 
 bury's sister, Carmen Romero. He was finishing his 
 education by a trip around the world, and had de- 
 cided to make a stop of some length in California,
 
 204 THE PIONEER 
 
 then a terra incognita to the traveling Briton. From 
 his Spanish-Californian aunt he had brought letters 
 to the Newburys, Mrs. Davenport, and other promi- 
 nent San Franciscans. 
 
 The Englishman of Harrower's class was at that 
 time a rarity in the far West. Bonanza heiresses had 
 not yet arisen to be the bait for well-born foreigners 
 of all nations. California, outside its own borders, 
 still enjoyed its original reputation as a land of pic- 
 turesque gold-diggers and romantic gamblers, and 
 the wandering noble of Anglo-Saxon or Gallic ex- 
 traction avoided it as an unsafe place, where men 
 were still free with the revolver and the bowie knife. 
 
 Harrower was an even more engrossing object of 
 local curiosity than Mercedes. He was a good-look- 
 ing young man of five and twenty, quiet in manner, 
 non-committal and brief of speech, deeply interested 
 in all he saw, and very shy. He was the heir to a 
 baronetcy and fine country place in Warwickshire. 
 His grandfather, the present baronet, was in his 
 eighty-first year, and, though a hale old man, could 
 not be expected to live much longer. When he died 
 Lionel Harrower would inherit the title and lands, 
 thereby coming into possession of one of the oldest 
 and most beautiful estates in the county. The young 
 man neither looked nor hinted any of these matters. 
 But they were all carefully set down in the letters 
 that Carmen Romero wrote to her sister and her 
 friends, and they passed from mouth to mouth, ac- 
 cumulating material as they progressed. San Fran- 
 cisco had not had enough experience in the visiting 
 patrician to be familiar with all the delicate grada-
 
 NEW PLANETS 205 
 
 tions of rank, and Harrower was regarded as of 
 hardly less distinction than a reigning Grand Duke. 
 
 With the appearance of these two interesting 
 strangers the city emerged from its apathy of de- 
 pression. A desire to impress the new-comers hos- 
 pitably took possession of it. Both Mercedes and 
 Harrower were caught in the whirl of a round of 
 entertainments, during which they constantly en- 
 countered each other. Thrown thus together their 
 acquaintance rapidly grew. Harrower had not been 
 a month in San Francisco when the little world about 
 him was speculating on his interest in the daughter 
 of Black Dan Gracey. 
 
 Mercedes was now nearly nineteen years of age. 
 With her Spanish blood to round and ripen her, that 
 corresponded to the Anglo-Saxon woman's twenty- 
 five. For all her American birth and education she 
 was at heart a Latin, subtile, complex, and revengeful. 
 There was little of her father in her. She had none 
 of his simple largeness of temperament, but was 
 made up of feline intricacies of caprice, vanity, and 
 passion. At the present stage in her life her strongest 
 instinct was love of admiration. She had early com- 
 prehended the power of her beauty, and to exercise 
 this power was to her a delight which never lost its 
 zest. To throw a spell over men was the thing Mer- 
 cedes loved best to do, and could do with remarkable 
 proficiency, considering her years and inexperience. 
 
 So far she had had few opportunities. Mrs. Camp- 
 bell, the chaperone to whom her father had intrusted 
 her, was a capable New England woman who had 
 early recognized the responsibilities of her position.
 
 206 THE PIONEER 
 
 Mercedes, rich and beautiful, was a prize for which 
 princes might have sued. But Mrs. Campbell had 
 received instructions from Black Dan that he did not 
 want his daughter taken from him by marriage with 
 a foreigner, and Mercedes, during her year in Europe, 
 was guarded like a princess traveling incognito. 
 When she returned to San Francisco she had never 
 yet received an offer of marriage, and even her ad- 
 mirers had been restricted in number and kept sternly 
 at bay. 
 
 To Mercedes, Lionel Harrower represented all that 
 was most choice in position and rank. Through her 
 travels she knew more of the class he stood for than 
 the admiring San Franciscans, and it was a class in 
 which she ardently desired to install herself. She 
 questioned the young man of his country and his 
 people, prevailed upon him to show her a photograph 
 of the stately Elizabethan manor house which was his 
 home, and to talk to her of the life he led upon his 
 ancestral acres. It was like an English novel, and 
 Mercedes saw herself moving through it, lovely, proud 
 and desired, as its conquering heroine. 
 
 In June she left the Lick House for the country 
 place in the Santa Clara Valley that Black Dan had 
 taken for her. This was the estate of Tres Pinos, 
 one of the show places of the great valley, recently 
 thrown upon the market by the death of its owner. 
 
 Tres Pinos soon became the focusing point of the 
 region's summer life. The wide balconies were con- 
 stantly filled with visitors, the velvet turf of the 
 croquet grounds was swept by the crisp flounces of 
 women's dresses, the bedrooms in the big house were
 
 NEW PLANETS 207 
 
 always occupied. Mrs. Campbell, precise, darkly clad, 
 and primly well-bred, presided with an all-seeing 
 eye, astonishing the Californians by her rigid ob- 
 servance of the smaller conventionalities. Through 
 all Mercedes flitted, clad in French dresses, more or- 
 nate and elegant than any ever seen before in Cali- 
 fornia, a smilingly gracious and finished person, evok- 
 ing fear and jealousy in her own sex, and eliciting 
 a rather awed admiration from the other. 
 
 That Lionel Harrower was a constant visitor at 
 Tres Pinos the gossips were quick to note. When 
 the young man announced his intention of spending 
 the summer in California it seemed to them that 
 there was no more doubt as to the state of his feelings. 
 What they did not know was that his presence at 
 Tres Pinos was evoked by a constant flutter of scented 
 notes from the chatelaine. There were many times 
 when he had refused the invitations with which Miss 
 Gracey showered him. He had found California, its 
 scenery and people, of so much interest, that a single 
 segregated interest in one particular human being had 
 had no time to develop in him. But Mercedes did 
 not think this. She felt quite sure that Lionel Har- 
 rower was remaining in California because of an 
 engrossing and unconquerable sentiment for her. 
 
 One Sunday, late in June, he made one of the 
 party which was spending the week-end at Tres Pinos. 
 In the warm middle of the Sabbath afternoon, her 
 visitors scattered over the croquet ground or en- 
 joying the siesta in the shuttered gloom of their bed 
 chambers, Mercedes started out to find him. She 
 slipped down the wide staircase, peeped into the dim
 
 208 THE PIONEER 
 
 drawing-room, cooled by closed blinds and filled 
 with the scent of cut flowers, and then slipped out on 
 to the balcony. 
 
 A spiral of cigarette smoke rising from a steamer 
 chair betrayed his presence. He was comfortably 
 outstretched in loose- jointed ease, a novel raised 
 before a pair of eyes which looked suspiciously sleepy, 
 his cigarette caught between his lips. At the sound 
 of her voice he sprang up, but she motioned him 
 back into his chair, and sitting down opposite began 
 to rally him on his laziness. He looked at her with 
 drowsy good humor, his lids drooping. Her figure 
 in its pale colored muslin dress was thrown out 
 against a background of velvety lawns and the 
 massed, juicy greens of summer shrubbery. It was 
 the middle of the afternoon, hot and still. From the 
 croquet ground came the soft, occasional striking of 
 balls. 
 
 "Just listen to them," said the young man, "they're 
 actually playing croquet!" 
 
 "Lots of people play croquet on Sunday," said 
 Mercedes with some haste, as she disliked to have 
 it thought that she was ignorant of any intricacy of 
 etiquette. "I don't see anything wrong in it." 
 
 "It's not the Sunday part of it. It's the energy. 
 Fancy standing out in that sun of your own free 
 will !" 
 
 "You're horribly lazy," said the young girl. "It's 
 your worst fault. You do nothing all day but lie 
 about on the balcony and drink lemonade." 
 
 "I could drink beer," said Harrower dreamily, "but 
 I've never seen anything but lemonade."
 
 NEW PLANETS 209 
 
 "Well, I've come to tell you that I'm going to 
 insist on your being more energetic. I want you to 
 take me for a drive." 
 
 "A drive! Now? But, my dear Miss Gracey, the 
 sun's simply scorching." 
 
 Mercedes flushed slightly. Her cavalier's manner 
 ^of accepting the suggestion did not please her. 
 1 "If you're afraid of your complexion," she said, 
 "you can hold my parasol over your head. I'll drive." 
 
 Harrower laughed. When she said things of this 
 kind he thought her what he would have called "great 
 fun." Still he would have much preferred remaining 
 on the balcony with his novel and his cigarette, to 
 braving the heat of the afternoon, even in Miss 
 Gracey's smart new pony phaeton, with Miss Gracey 
 in the driver's seat. He sat up, rubbing his eyes 
 into a more wakeful brightness and smothering a 
 yawn. 
 
 "Where are we to drive to? Menlo Park again?" 
 
 "No, I'm going to take you back in the hills to the 
 De Soto place. It was originally an old Spanish grant 
 and part of the place is just the way it used to be. 
 The Aliens live there. They moved down early this 
 year, so I don't think you met them in town. Some 
 people think the girls are very pretty." 
 
 "Pretty girls !" said Harrower, pricking up his ears. 
 "By all means let's go." 
 
 He looked at her laughing, for he thought she 
 would enjoy the humor of his sudden enthusiasm. 
 Instead, for a fleeting second, her face was clouded 
 with annoyance. Then she recovered herself and 
 rose to her feet, moving away from him.
 
 210 THE PIONEER 
 
 "The horses are ready now," she said. "I'll go up 
 for my hat and parasol and I'll expect to find you at 
 the steps when I come down." 
 
 The heat was waning, the live-oak shadows lying 
 dark and irregular over the drive, when the phaeton 
 approached the Aliens' balcony. The light dresses of 
 the Allen girls were thrown up by the darker gown of 
 dignified middle age. Mrs. Barclay was sitting in 
 a wicker arm-chair near the balustrade fanning her- 
 self with a palm-leaf fan. Mercedes muttered annoy- 
 ance to her companion, and then her glance was 
 charged with a sudden infusion of interest as it fell 
 on a graceful masculine back bending over a table 
 set with plates and glasses, behind which' June Allen 
 was standing. 
 
 "That must be Jerry Barclay," she murmured to 
 Harrower, as, with dexterous exactness she brought up 
 the phaeton wheels against the mounting block. "I've 
 not met him yet. He's been in Virginia City, like 
 everybody else." 
 
 "Ah aw! Yes, of course," Harrower murmured 
 vaguely, not knowing or caring in the least about 
 Jerry Barclay, but filled with sudden admiration for 
 the fresh-faced, blonde girl who rose at their approach 
 and came to the top of the steps. Though she had 
 never seen him before she included him in the sweet 
 frank smile and friendly glance with which she 
 greeted Mercedes. 
 
 "Rosamund," said Mercedes, throwing the reins 
 around the whip with the easy flourish of the ex- 
 pert, "I've brought over Mr. Harrower. He's mak- 
 ing a collection of Californian specimens, and I
 
 NEW PLANETS 211 
 
 thought perhaps he'd like to see you. He'll put you 
 down under the head of vertebrate fauna, I suppose." 
 
 The stranger, whose face had grown exceedingly 
 red, did not know whether in the free, untrammeled 
 West this constituted an introduction. The young 
 woman, however, solved the difficulty by coming 
 down a step or two and extending a welcoming hand. 
 He looked into a pair of gray eyes, unusually honest 
 and direct, and heard her saying in a voice, not low- 
 keyed, but clear and full, 
 
 "I'm glad you came, Mr. Harrower. It was very 
 kind of Mercedes to bring you." 
 
 On the balcony above Mrs. Barclay had risen and 
 was looking at the new-comers with avid curiosity. 
 She had already talked them threadbare in every 
 drawing-room from Millbrae to Menlo Park. Her 
 personal acquaintance with both was very slight and 
 this was a good opportunity to improve it and arrive 
 at conclusions, to air which she could once again 
 make a tour of the country houses and be sure of 
 eager attention. 
 
 Behind her, at a table laden with a silver pitcher, 
 glasses and plates, June was standing. She was pour- 
 ing out a glass of lemonade, which Jerry was waiting 
 to take to his mother, when the phaeton drove up. 
 The glass was filled and the pitcher set down, before 
 either of them looked at the new arrivals. Then 
 Jerry turned and his eyes fell on them. He stopped 
 short, the glass in his hand. Mercedes, a smile of 
 greeting on her lips, was just mounting the steps. 
 
 "Heavens, what a girl!" he said in a whisper, turn- 
 ing to June.
 
 212 THE PIONEER 
 
 "Yes," she answered in an equally low voice, "she's 
 very pretty." 
 
 "Pretty ! pretty !" he ejaculated, mechanically set- 
 ting the glass down. "Why she's a dream!" 
 
 He turned again and looked at Mercedes, who was 
 speaking to his mother. His face was staring with 
 admiration, a slight fixed smile on his lips. It was 
 the look of the male suddenly stricken by the physical 
 charm of the female. June dropped her eyes to the 
 table with a sensation of feeling cold, insignificant 
 and small. 
 
 "Your mother's lemonade," she said, pushing the 
 glass toward him. "You were going to take it to her." 
 
 He did not appear to hear her. His eyes were 
 fastened on Mercedes, the slight smile still on his 
 lips. Forgetful of the glass with which June had 
 touched his hand, he slowly walked across the bal- 
 cony to where Mrs. Barclay stood and said gaily, 
 
 "Mother, won't you introduce me to Miss Gracey? 
 We came very near meeting at Foleys three years 
 ago and just missed it. I don't want that to happen 
 again." 
 
 When June had welcomed her guests she went back 
 to her seat behind the table. Presently Mrs. Bar- 
 clay drew her chair nearer to her, for Mrs. Barclay 
 began to feel that to be a fifth among four young 
 people so well pleased with one another was not en- 
 tertaining. So she moved up toward June and talked 
 to her about the dishonesty of the new butcher at 
 San Mateo as compared with that of the old butcher 
 at Menlo Park. 
 
 June listened and now and then spoke. She did
 
 NEW PLANETS 213 
 
 not seem to know much about either butcher, and 
 Mrs. Barclay made a mental note of the fact that 
 she must be a poor housekeeper. Once or twice she 
 looked at the elder woman with eyes that were dis- 
 concertingly empty of attention. When that lady 
 rose to go she remarked that the girl looked pale and 
 tired. She said this to Jerry on the way home. 
 
 "Did she?" he answered absently. "Poor little 
 June! She's just the dearest little woman in the 
 world. But isn't that Gracey girl a wonder? I never 
 saw a more beautiful face."
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 THE CHOICE OF MAIDS 
 
 During the months of summer, dwellers along the 
 line of the railway became familiar with the figure of 
 Lionel Harrower. He constantly went down to San 
 Mateo on Sunday afternoons and returned to town 
 on Sunday evening. This, at first, was regarded as 
 the outward and visible sign of his devotion to Miss 
 Gracey, but by and by it was remarked that he did 
 not take the Gracey carriage which so often stood 
 under the live-oaks at the depot, but mounted a 
 hired hack and was driven off in the direction of the 
 De Soto house. 
 
 It was a Sunday or two after Mercedes had driven 
 him there that the young Englishman had appeared 
 on the balcony steps, very red and warm from the heat 
 of the afternoon, and paid a long call, which extended 
 so far into the twilight that he was bidden to dinner 
 and did not go back to town till a late evening train. 
 
 It had evidently been an enjoyable afternoon, for 
 he repeated it, and then again repeated it, and finally 
 let it develop into a habit. He wrote to his relations 
 in England that he was deeply interested in California 
 and was studying the mining industry of that remark- 
 able state. And it is true that once in the middle of 
 214
 
 THE CHOICE OF MAIDS 215 
 
 the summer he went to Virginia for a few days and 
 came back with his mind full of excellent material 
 for a letter to his grandfather which should prove 
 how profound had been his study of the American 
 mining and engineering methods. 
 
 The first afternoon that Mercedes found him on 
 the Aliens' balcony she was openly surprised. The 
 second she was sweet and gracious, but her rose-leaf 
 color deepened at the sight of him, and it was notice- 
 able that, for one who was usually so completely 
 mistress of herself, she was distrait and lacking in 
 repose. On leaving, she had asked him if she 
 could drive him back to the station, as her road lay 
 that way, to which the young man had answered, with 
 the stiff politeness of embarrassment, that he was to 
 stay to dinner "he always did on Sunday." 
 
 This was the inception of a situation that, before 
 the summer was over, had caused more heart-burn- 
 ings, more wakeful nights and distressed days, than 
 the peaceful valley had known in many years. 
 
 For the first time in an existence of triumph and 
 adulation Mercedes knew defeat. She had been cer- 
 tain of her attraction for Harrower, and confident 
 that by her beauty and her wiles she could, before his 
 departure, fan his interest to a warmer flame. Yet 
 July was not spent before she realized that a force 
 more potent than any she could put forth was lead- 
 ing the young man in another direction. His visits 
 to the Aliens' grew more and more frequent as those 
 to Tres Finos became less so. Curiosity in his in- 
 terest in the occupants of the De Soto house evolved 
 itself into curiositv in his interest in Rosamund Allen.
 
 216 THE PIONEER 
 
 He forgot the tours he had intended to take into the 
 interior, showed no more interest in Virginia City, 
 and gave up his plan of a horse-back expedition to 
 the Yosemite. He spent the summer in town, making 
 trips to San Mateo that grew more and more frequent. 
 
 It was difficult for Mercedes to believe it, but when 
 she did it kindled sleeping fires in her. She was doubly 
 wounded; heart and pride were hurt. Her overmas- 
 tering vanity had received its first blow. Not only 
 had she lost the man for whom her feeling was daily 
 growing warmer, but it would be known of all men 
 that he had withdrawn his affections from her to 
 place them on a girl far her inferior in looks, educa- 
 tion and feminine charm. That he should have pre- 
 ferred Rosamund was particularly maddening Rosa- 
 mund, whom she had regarded as commonplace and 
 countrified. She looked in her glass, and furious 
 tears gathered in her eyes. It was staggering, in- 
 comprehensible, but it was true. She was discarded, 
 and people were laughing at her. 
 
 Two instincts strong in women of her type rose 
 within her. One demanded revenge and the other 
 protection of her pride. She burned with the de- 
 sire to strike back at those who had hurt her, and 
 at the same to hide the wounds to her self-love. She 
 knew of but one way to do the latter, and it came upon 
 her not suddenly, but with a gradually uplifting 
 illumination that it could be successfully combined 
 with the execution of the former. 
 
 Mercedes, who liked gossip, had heard the story of 
 Jerry Barclay's complication with Mrs. Newbury, and 
 of how it was popularly supposed to have prevented
 
 THE CHOICE OF MAIDS 217 
 
 his marriage to June Allen. The busy scandal-hunters 
 of the city had somehow unearthed the story that 
 Jerry and June would have married had the former 
 been free. Mercedes, with her woman's quickness, 
 guessed that June was the sort of girl who would 
 remain constant in such a situation. But Jerry was 
 a being of another stripe, a man of an unusual attrac- 
 tion for women and of a light and errant fancy. She 
 had not met him half a dozen times when she came 
 to the conclusion that his love for June was on the 
 wane, his roving eye ready to be caught, his ear held, 
 by the first soft glance and flattering tongue he 
 encountered. 
 
 Thus the way of protecting herself and of hitting 
 back at one at least of the Aliens was put into her 
 hand. She did not care for Jerry, save as he was use- 
 ful to her, though he had the value of the thing 
 which is highly prized by others. She used every 
 weapon in her armory to attract and subjugate him. 
 Jerry himself, versed in the wiles of women as he 
 was, was deceived by her girlishly open pleasure in 
 his attentions, her fluttered embarrassment when he 
 paid her compliments. 
 
 His first feeling toward her was an unbounded ad- 
 miration for her physical perfections, to which was 
 added a complacent vanity at her obvious predilection 
 for him. But the woman that he regarded as a 
 naive ingenue was a being of a more complex brain, 
 a more daring initiative, and a cooler head than he 
 had ever possessed. Vain and self-indulgent, the 
 slave of his passions, he was in reality a puppet in 
 the hands of a girl fifteen years his junior, who, under
 
 218 THE PIONEER 
 
 an exterior of flower-like delicacy, had been eaten 
 into by the acids of rage and revenge. 
 
 While he still thought himself a trifler in the outer 
 court of sentiment he was already under her domin- 
 ion. He thought of himself as taking an impersonally 
 admiring interest in her when he was continually 
 haunted by the thought of her, and hastened to spend 
 his spare hours beside her, his eyes drinking in her 
 beauty, his vanity fostered and stimulated by the 
 flattery she so cunningly administered. Like Paris, 
 he felt himself beloved by goddesses. June's image 
 faded. Two years had passed since his confession in 
 the wood. He had seen her only at intervals and 
 then under a perpetual ban of restraint. He was not 
 the man to remain constant to a memory. June 
 hovered on the edges of his consciousness like a sad- 
 eyed shadow, looking at him with a pleading protest 
 that made him feel angry with her. She was a dim, 
 unappealing figure beside the radiant youthfulness, 
 the sophisticated coquetries of Black Dan's daughter. 
 
 During the early part of the summer June was in 
 ignorance of the momentous shuffling of the cards of 
 her destiny. She lived quietly, rarely going to the 
 city, and spending most of her time in the gardens 
 or on the balcony. Rosamund, who went about more, 
 marketed in the village and shopped in town, began 
 to hear rumors of Jerry's interest in Miss Gracey. 
 She met them riding together in the hot solitude of 
 the country roads, saw them meet on the trains to the 
 city. Finally the rumors passed to San Francisco and 
 the Colonel heard them. He came down to San Ma- 
 teo that Saturday to talk things over with Rosa-
 
 THE CHOICE OF MAIDS 219 
 
 mund. They were worried and uneasy, a sense of 
 calamity weighing on them both. 
 
 Though June was one of those women who obsti- 
 nately adhere to the bright side, who cling to hope 
 till it crumbles in their hands, she felt, during the 
 summer, premonitions of ill fortune. Those inex- 
 plicable shadows of approaching evil that Nature 
 throws forward over the path of sensitive tempera- 
 ments had darkened her outlook. She questioned 
 herself as to her heaviness of heart, assuring herself 
 that there was no new cloud on her horizon. In the 
 constancy of her own nature she did not realize, as 
 a more experienced woman would, that her hold on 
 Jerry was a silken thread which would wear very 
 thin in the passage of years, and be ready to snap at 
 the first strain. 
 
 But the moods of apprehension and gloom began 
 to be augmented by ripples from the pool of gossip 
 without. She heard that Jerry was oftener in San 
 Mateo than ever before, and she saw him less fre- 
 quently. One afternoon she met him driving with 
 Mercedes, and the girl's radiant smile of recognition 
 had something of malicious triumph under its beam- 
 ing sweetness. June drove home silent and pale. In 
 her room she tried to argue herself out of her de- 
 pression. But it stayed with her, made her preoccu- 
 pied and quiet all the evening, lay down with her at 
 night, and was heavy and cold at her heart in the 
 morning. 
 
 <w At the end of September they returned to town. 
 They had been back a few weeks when one after- 
 noon she met Jerry on the street and they stopped
 
 220 THE PIONEER 
 
 for a few moments' conversation. It was nothing 
 more than the ordinary interchange of commonplaces 
 between old friends, but when he had passed on, the 
 girl walked forward looking wan and feeling a deadly 
 sense of blankness. He was the same man, gay, hand- 
 some, suave, and yet he seemed suddenly far removed 
 from her, to be smiling with the perfunctory polite- 
 ness of a stranger. The chill exhaled by a dying 
 love penetrated her, pierced her to the core. She did 
 not understand it, him, or herself. All that she knew 
 was that the sense of despondency became suddenly 
 overpowering, and closed like an iron clutch on her 
 heart. 
 
 It was an overcast autumn that year, with much 
 gray weather and early fogs. The city had never 
 looked to June so cheerless. She was a great deal 
 alone, Rosamund's time being more and more claimed 
 by Lionel Harrower. He was her first lover, and it 
 was a part of Rosamund's fate that he should have 
 come to her unexpected and unasked for. She was 
 of the order of women who stand where they are 
 placed, doing what comes under their hand, demand- 
 ing little of life, and to whom life's gifts come as a 
 surprise. 
 
 That such a man as the young Briton should prefer 
 her to her sister, whose superior charm she had always 
 acknowledged and been proud of, was to her aston- 
 ishing. She was sobered and softened in these days 
 of awakening love. One could see the woman, the 
 mother, ripe, soft, full of a quiet devotion, slowly 
 dawning. Sometimes she was irritable, a thing pre- 
 viously unknown. She could not believe that Har-
 
 THE CHOICE OF MAIDS 221 
 
 rower loved her, and yet as the days passed, and she 
 found the hours spent with him growing ever more 
 disturbingly sweet, she wondered how she could ever 
 support a life in which he did not figure, and the 
 thought filled her with torturing fears. 
 
 One gray afternoon, Rosamund having left for a 
 walk in the park with Harrower, June, after wander- 
 ing about the empty house for a dreary hour, re- 
 solved that she too would go out for a stroll. She 
 had felt more cheerful lately. Jerry had come to call 
 two days before, when she was out, and this fact had 
 seemed to her a proof of his unwaned interest. She 
 had written him a brief note, stating her regrets at 
 missing him and her hopes that he would repeat the 
 visit soon. This was only polite and proper, she 
 assured herself. 
 
 Her walk took her to Van Ness Avenue and then 
 up the side street toward the little Turk Street plaza. 
 For the past two years it had been a favorite prome- 
 nade of hers. The present was not sufficiently fraught 
 with pain to render memories of a happier past un- 
 bearable. She strolled through the small park and 
 then returned and walked back toward the avenue. 
 As she turned the corner into the great thoroughfare, 
 she stopped, the color dying from her face, the soft- 
 ness of its outlines stiffening. 
 
 Walking slowly toward her were Jerry and Mer- 
 cedes Gracey. They were close together, Mercedes 
 lightly touching with the tips of her fingers the top 
 of the ornamental fence beside her. Her eyes were 
 down-drooped, her whole air one of maidenly mod- 
 esty, which yet had in it something coyly encouraging.
 
 222 THE PIONEER 
 
 Jerry, close at her shoulder, was looking down at her, 
 with the eyes of a lover. 
 
 For the first moment June was too stricken to 
 move. She stood spellbound, poised in mid-flight, 
 hungrily staring. Then the desire for concealment 
 seized her, and she was about to turn and steal back 
 to the corner whence she had come, when Mercedes 
 raised her eyes and saw her. She threw a short, 
 quick phrase at Jerry, and he started and drew him- 
 self up. June moved forward, and as she approached 
 them forced her lips into a smile and bowed. She 
 was conscious that Jerry had flushed and looked angry 
 as he raised his hat. But Mercedes enveloped her 
 in a glance of fascinating cordiality, inclining her 
 head in a graceful salutation. 
 
 A half-hour later June gained her room and 
 sank into an arm-chair. For some time she sat mo- 
 tionless, gazing at the gray oblongs of the two win- 
 dows with their shadowy upper draperies. As the 
 look in Jerry's face kept rising upon her mental 
 vision, she experienced a slight sensation of nausea 
 and feebleness. But even in this hour of revelation 
 she kept whispering to herself, 
 
 "He couldn't ! He couldn't ! He couldn't have the 
 heart ! He couldn't hurt me so !" 
 
 The few poor memories she had of moments of 
 tenderness between them, the meager words of love 
 that she had regarded as binding vows, rose in her 
 mind. It had seemed to her he could no more dis- 
 regard them than she could. She thought of herself 
 responding to the love of another man of its im- 
 possibility and sat bowed together in her chair, for
 
 THE CHOICE OF MAIDS 223 
 
 the first time catching a revealing gleam of the dif- 
 ference in their attitudes. Then the memory of Mrs. 
 Newbury came to her, and with it a strengthening 
 sense of his unbreakable obligation. Nearly three 
 years ago, when June had first heard of this, it had 
 seemed so degraded and repulsive that she had shrunk 
 from the thought of it. Now, sitting lonely in the 
 twilight, her eyes staring at the gray panes, she re- 
 called it with relief, found it a thing to be glad of, 
 to congratulate herself upon. The city had put its 
 stain upon her. Her maidenly fastidiousness was 
 smirched with its mud. 
 
 Plunged in these dark thoughts she did not hear 
 the door open, nor see Rosamund's head gently in- 
 serted. It was not till the rustling of her advanc- 
 ing skirts was distinct on the silence that June 
 started and turned. The last light of day fell through 
 the long window on the younger girl's face, rosy with 
 exercise, and shining with a new happiness. She 
 paused by June's chair and stood there, looking down. 
 For the first time in her life the preoccupation of 
 her own affairs prevented her from noticing her sis- 
 ter's sickly appearance. 
 
 "It's all arranged, June," she said in a low voice. 
 
 "Arranged!" repeated June, looking up quickly, 
 her ear struck by something unusual in her sister's 
 tone. "What's arranged?" 
 
 "Everything between Mr. Harrower and me. We're 
 we're " 
 
 "You're engaged?" said June, almost solemnly. 
 
 Rosamund, looking into the upturned face, nodded. 
 There was a sudden pricking of tears under her
 
 224 THE PIONEER 
 
 eyelids, an unexpected quivering of her lips. She 
 bent down and laid her cheek against her sister's, 
 and in the dim room they clung together for a silent 
 moment, one in the first flush of her woman's happi- 
 ness, the other in the dawning realization of her 
 desertion.
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 THE QUICKENING CURRENT 
 
 The last quarter of 1873 was for California and 
 Nevada a period of steadily augmenting excitement. 
 The rumor of new strikes in the California and Con. 
 Virginia grew with each week, seizing upon the 
 minds of men, shaking them from the lethargy of 
 their disbelief, arresting them in the plodding ways 
 of work by the temptation of riches, in vast quanti- 
 ties, easily made, open to the hands of all who dared. 
 
 Reports from Virginia by wire, by letter, by word 
 of mouth poured into San Francisco. The news that 
 a southeast drift had run into a rich ore-body in the 
 California and Con. Virginia was two weeks later 
 supplemented by a rumor that a chamber had been 
 cut in the ledge, the ore-surface assaying from ninety- 
 three to six hundred and thirty-two dollars per ton. 
 
 The male population of the city surged back and 
 forth across the mountains, seized with the fever for 
 gold. The wild days of mining speculation were not 
 yet fully inaugurated, but with the increasing dis- 
 coveries shares in all the properties near the new 
 bonanzas began to rise, and the world once more 
 began to buy. From across the mountains truth and 
 rumor flowed in ever-accelerating waves to San 
 225
 
 226 THE PIONEER 
 
 Francisco, and stocks began to leap as they had done 
 in the Crown Point and Belcher days. 
 
 In the middle of this outer ring of excitement the 
 little group of the Colonel and his friends was 
 shaken by tumults of its own creating. The great 
 wheel outside spun round with fury while the little 
 wheel inside flew with an equal speed. It seemed as 
 if the fever of life around them was communicating 
 itself to them, making their blood flow quicker, their 
 pulses throb harder, lifting them up to planes where 
 the air was charged with dynamic forces, and elec- 
 tric vibrations hummed along the serene currents of 
 life. 
 
 Both Allen and the Colonel were smitten by temp- 
 tation. Like a man suddenly arrested in happy, un- 
 disturbed wayfaring by some irresistible call to sin, 
 the Colonel stood irresolute, fighting with his desire 
 once more to "try his luck." His resources had 
 grown smaller again within the last year, and he 
 found it meant financiering to keep up the donations 
 for "Carter's girl" and "G. T/s widow." Early in the 
 year he had sold one of the South Park houses, almost 
 the only good piece of property he still retained, paid 
 his assessments for the new pumps they were put- 
 ting up in the mine in Shasta and placed "Joe's boy" 
 in business. "Carter's girl" would not be a care much 
 longer. She was eighteen and engaged to be married. 
 "G. T.'s widow" was the only pensioner that would 
 remain on his hands till either he or she was called 
 to a final account. The Colonel felt that he must live 
 up to her ideal of him, which was that he was as 
 good financially as the Bank of England.
 
 THE QUICKENING CURRENT 227 
 
 Allen had not a thought to give to such matters as 
 individual pecuniary obligations. He was continually 
 at his mine or in Virginia, returning for brief visits 
 at odd times, when he talked thickly and volubly of 
 the wonderful developments of the Nevada camp. He 
 was deteriorating rapidly. He drank now in the 
 daytime. There were stories going about that 
 ore in the Barranca was very low grade, the ore- 
 body narrowing. In October the Colonel met a min- 
 ing man from the locality who said it was common 
 talk at Foleys that the Barranca was "pinching out." 
 Whether it was or not Allen was known to be in- 
 vesting in "wildcat" in Virginia. He went about 
 with his pockets full of maps which he was per- 
 petually unrolling and pointing out this or that un- 
 developed claim which would some day yield a new 
 bonanza and was now a prospect hole in the sage 
 brush. 
 
 The engagement of Rosamund filled him with de- 
 light. He was a man whose affection was largely 
 founded on pride, and it satisfied him that one of 
 his girls should "capture," as he expressed it, a 
 fiance so eminently eligible. He made much of Rosa- 
 mund, of whom he had never before been as fond as 
 he was of June, and treated Harrower with a familiar 
 jocoseness under which that reserved young man 
 winced and was restive. 
 
 "He thinks I'm rich," Allen had said one evening 
 to the Colonel as they sat alone over their cigars. 
 "He thinks he's going to get a fortune with Rosa- 
 mund." 
 
 "What put that into your head?" the Colonel had
 
 228 THE PIONEER 
 
 asked in sudden annoyance. "The boy loves her as 
 he ought to. He's a man, that fellow. He's not 
 after money." 
 
 "Maybe that's your opinion," the other had re- 
 turned, "but I happen to have a different one. He 
 takes me for a millionaire mining man and thinks 
 Rosamund's going to get her slice of the millions for 
 a dowry. He's going to get left, but that's not my 
 concern or yours. Rosamund '11 have as good a 
 trousseau as any girl, but when you come to 
 dowry !" 
 
 He broke off, laughing. The Colonel found it 
 difficult to respond without a show of temper. 
 
 "You're all off," he answered dryly. "When his 
 grandfather dies and the old fellow's over eighty 
 now he'll have one of the finest estates in the part 
 of England where he's located. What's he want with 
 your money? Why, he could buy up and put in 
 his pocket a whole bunch of plungers like you, with 
 your wildcat shares. Can't you believe that the 
 boy's honestly in love with a girl like Rosamund?" 
 
 "Oh, Jim, you're an old maid!" the other returned 
 with his irritating, lazy laughter. "He's in love with 
 Rosamund all right, but he's also in love with the 
 money he thinks he's going to get with her. But 
 don't you fret. It'll be all right. He's a decent 
 enough fellow, but it's a good thing for us he's not 
 got more sense." 
 
 Thus the older men had their anxieties, as the 
 young people had theirs. And all this agglomeration 
 of divers emotions and interests concentrated, even 
 as the pressure in the city without, the year
 
 THE QUICKENING CURRENT 229 
 
 sweeping toward its close with ever increasing mo- 
 mentum, like a river rushing toward the sea. 
 
 October was a month of movement, pressure and 
 stir. While San Francisco waited expectant for its 
 first cleansing rains, Harrower left for England, to 
 return in the spring and claim his bride. In the long 
 gray afternoons June sat much at home, brooding 
 over the sitting-room fire, waiting for a visitor who 
 never came. Mercedes moved up from Tres Pinos 
 and took possession of the city house her father had 
 rented for her. She was blooming and gay after her 
 summer in the country. Her heart was swelled with 
 triumph, for she knew the game was won, and, caught 
 in the eddies of the whirling current, she too was 
 swept forward toward a future that was full of tan- 
 talizing secrets.
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 LUPE S CHAINS ARE BROKEN 
 
 One of the most harassed and uneasy men in these 
 stormy days was Jerry Barclay. He had arrived at 
 a point in his career where he stood arrested and 
 uncertain between diverging paths. His infatuation 
 for Mercedes drew him to her like a magnet and sent 
 him from her in troubled distress, not knowing what 
 to do, longing for his freedom and sometimes wonder- 
 ing whether he would marry her if he had his free- 
 dom. 
 
 He thought she loved him as other women had 
 done, and he often wondered if he really loved her. 
 In the sudden glimpses of clairvoyance which come 
 to souls swayed by passion, he saw life with Mer- 
 cedes as a coldly splendid waste in which he wan- 
 dered, lonely and bereft of comfort. Shaken from 
 his bondage by one of these moments of clear 
 sight, he felt a conviction that he did not love her, 
 declared himself free of her enchantments, and at 
 the first glance of invitation in her eyes, the first 
 beckoning gesture of her hand, was back at her side, 
 as much her slave as ever. 
 
 He pushed June from his mind in these days, saw 
 her seldom, and then showed that cold constraint of 
 230
 
 LUPE'S CHAINS ARE BROKEN 231 
 
 manner which the artless and unsubtile man assumes 
 to the woman toward whom he knows his conduct 
 to be mean and unworthy. June lay heavy on his 
 conscience. The thought of her and what she was 
 enduring made him feel ashamed and guilty. And 
 he was angry that he should feel this way angry 
 with June, against whom he seemed to have a special 
 grievance. 
 
 He argued with himself that he was under no ob- 
 ligation to her. He had never made any binding 
 declaration to her, and he had honestly told her 
 that he was not free to marry. How many men 
 would have done that? If she was so unsophisticated 
 as to take the few sentimental remarks he had made 
 as a serious plighting of vows it was not his 
 fault. He affected to have forgotten the remarks. 
 Even in thinking to himself he assumed the air of one 
 who finds it too trivial a matter for remembrance. 
 But the truth was that every sentence was clear in 
 his mind, and the recollection of the pure and honest 
 feeling of that year stung him with an unfamiliar 
 sense of shame. 
 
 In his heart he knew that of the three women who 
 had played so prominent a part in his life, June was 
 the one he had really loved. There were moments 
 now, when, deep in the bottom of his consciousness, 
 he felt that he loved her still. The clairvoyant glimpses 
 of a life with her were very different. But he was 
 not free ! Why, he said to himself with a magnani- 
 mous air, why waste her life by encouraging her in 
 fruitless hopes? Mercedes was quite a different 
 person. She could take care of herself.
 
 232 THE PIONEER 
 
 They were certainly troublous times for Jerry. He 
 had a man's hatred of a scene and the interviews he 
 had with Mrs. Newbury were now always scenes. He 
 left her presence sore and enraged with the fury of 
 her taunts, or humiliated by the more intolerable 
 outbursts of tears and pleadings, into which she some- 
 times broke. 
 
 He felt with a sort of aggrieved protest that after 
 nearly ten years of devotion Lupe ought to be more 
 reasonable. Jerry was confidently sure that, as he 
 expressed it, he had "shown himself very much of 
 a gentleman" where Lupe was concerned. He had 
 been gentle and forbearing with her. Long after 
 his affection had died he had been patient with her 
 exactions and borne her upbraidings. He had kept 
 a promise that had been made in the first madness of 
 their infatuation and that many men would have re- 
 garded as ridiculous. In his behavior to his mistress 
 Jerry saw himself a knight of chivalry. He did not 
 tell himself that the main ingredient of his chivalry 
 was a secret but acute fear of the violent woman 
 whom his neglect had rendered desperate. She had 
 threatened that she would kill herself. Once or twice 
 of late, in what he called her "tantrums," she had 
 threatened to kill him. After these interviews Jerry 
 went from her presence chilled and sobered. She 
 was in despair and he knew it and knew her. Some 
 day Lupe might keep her word. 
 
 One afternoon in October he had stopped in at 
 the. Newbury house to pay one of those brief vis- 
 its which had replaced the long stolen interviews of 
 the past. He had met Newbury down town in the
 
 LUPE'S CHAINS ARE BROKEN 233 
 
 morning and been told that Lupe was not feeling 
 well. She had lately suffered from headaches, an 
 unknown ailment for her. Newbury was worried; he 
 wanted her to have the doctor, for she really looked 
 bad and seemed very much out of spirits. 
 
 Jerry found her looking exceedingly white and 
 very quiet. She had evidently been ill and showed 
 the marks of suffering. He was relieved to see that 
 she was in a fairly tranquil state of mind, with no in- 
 tention of making a scene. In fact, to his secret joy 
 he found that he could keep the conversation on the 
 impersonal, society plane upon which he had often 
 before attempted to maintain it, invariably without 
 success. But Lupe to-day had evidently no spirit to 
 quarrel or to weep. She sat in a large arm-chair in 
 an attitude of listless weariness, her skin looking 
 whiter, her hair and eyes blacker than usual. She had 
 lost in weight and though in her thirty-seventh year 
 was as handsome as she had ever been. 
 
 Jerry kept one eye on the clock. If he could get 
 away early enough he was going to see a new horse 
 Black Dan had just given Mercedes. A year of prac- 
 tice had made him very expert in bringing interviews 
 with Lupe to an abrupt end, leaving her too quickly 
 to give her time to change from the serenity of gen- 
 eral conversation to the hysterical note of rage and 
 grievance. 
 
 "Well, Lupe," he said, rising and going to her side, 
 "I must be going. I'm glad you're so much better. 
 You ought to take more exercise." 
 
 He took her hand and smiling down at her pressed 
 it. She looked at him with her somber eyes, large
 
 234 THE PIONEER 
 
 and melancholy in their darkened sockets. The look 
 was tragic and with alarm he attempted to draw his 
 hand away. But she held it, drew it against her 
 bosom, and bowed her face on his arm. 
 
 "Oh, Jerry," she almost groaned, "is this you and 
 I?" 
 
 "Of course, dear," he said glibly, patting her lightly 
 on the shoulder with his free hand. "You'll be all 
 right soon if you'll take more exercise. You're just 
 a little bit inclined to the lazy all you Spanish women 
 are." 
 
 She made no answer and he could feel her body 
 trembling. 
 
 "Come, Lupe," he said with a touch of urgency in 
 his voice, "I must go, my dear girl. I've got some- 
 thing to do at half-past four." 
 
 "Are you going to Miss Gracey's?" she said "with- 
 out moving or loosening her hold of his hand. 
 
 "Oh, Lupe, dear," he answered impatiently, "don't 
 let's get on those subjects to-day. I've had such a 
 nice time here with you this afternoon, just because 
 you've been pleasant, and quiet and reasonable. Now 
 don't spoil it all by beginning to fight and find fault." 
 
 She raised her head but still held his hand pressed 
 against her heart. 
 
 "I'm not going to fight," she said in a low tone, 
 "my fighting days are over." 
 
 "That's the most sensible thing that I've heard you 
 say for a long time. You've just worn yourself out 
 by the way you've stormed and raged. That's why 
 you've felt so sick. It isn't worth while." 
 
 "No, I suppose not." She looked up at him with
 
 LUPE'S CHAINS ARE BROKEN 235 
 
 eyes of gloomy tenderness, and opening her fingers 
 one by one let him draw his hand away. 
 
 "You're going to Miss Gracey's?" she said again. 
 
 He averted his head with a quick movement of im- 
 patience. 
 
 "Please tell me," she pleaded, "I'm not bad tem- 
 pered to-day." 
 
 "Well, yes, since you say so, I am going there. But 
 there's no necessity to get excited about it. You 
 know, Lupe, we've known each other a long, long 
 time." 
 
 He paused, furtively watching her, on the alert to 
 fly if she showed the symptoms of storm he knew so 
 well. But she remained passive, almost apathetic. 
 The thought crossed his mind that she must have been 
 much sicker than Newbury had imagined, and a gust 
 of pity for her stirred in him. He bent down and kissed 
 her heavy hair. 
 
 "You know," he said gently, "when years roll by 
 as they have with us changes come. But we'll al- 
 ways be friends, won't we, Lupe?" 
 
 "I don't know," 'she said, "always is a long word. 
 But I'll always love you. That's my punishment for 
 my sins." 
 
 The clock chimed the half -hour and Jerry patted 
 her again on the shoulder. It was as bad to have 
 Lupe talk of her sins as it was to have her upbraid 
 him with his. 
 
 "I'll see you again soon," he said brightly, "but I 
 must fly now. Take good care of yourself. Try and 
 be more cheerful and go out more. Fresh air's the 
 thing for you,"
 
 236 THE PIONEER 
 
 When he had put on his coat in the hall he ap- 
 peared at the open doorway and smiled a last good- 
 by at her. She was sitting in the arm-chair in the 
 same listless attitude. She nodded to him without 
 smiling, and he was again struck by her unusual 
 pallor and the darkness of her eyes. 
 
 "She's really been sick," he said to himself as he 
 ran down the steps, for he was late. "Poor Lupe ! 
 How hard she takes everything!" 
 
 The next afternoon he was summoned from his 
 office by a message that a woman wanted to see him 
 in the hall outside. He went out wondering and 
 found Pancha, the Mexican servant maid who had 
 been in Mrs. Newbury's service since her marriage 
 and was in the secret of their liaison. After the 
 fashion of her race the woman wore a black shawl 
 over her head in place of a hat, and her face between 
 its folds was drawn and pale. In a few broken sen- 
 tences she told him that her mistress was desperately 
 ill; something terrible had happened to her in 
 the night. It was hard to grasp her meaning, for she 
 spoke very poor English and Jerry had no Spanish, 
 but he learned enough to know that Lupe was un- 
 doubtedly in a serious state. With the assurance 
 that he would come as soon as he could he sent the 
 woman away and went back into the office. 
 
 Half an hour later he started for the Newbury 
 house. He was alarmed and chilled. He could not 
 picture Lupe a woman of superb physique stricken 
 down in twenty-four hours. She had been pale and 
 listless but otherwise well yesterday. Pancha, who 
 was not used to sickness, had probably been fright-
 
 LUPE'S CHAINS ARE BROKEN 237 
 
 ened and had exaggerated. Thus he tried to lift the 
 weight which had suddenly fallen on his heart. He 
 no longer loved Lupe, but he "did not want anything 
 to happen to her," he thought to himself as he ap- 
 proached the door. 
 
 Here at the curb he saw two doctors' buggies, 
 and, at the sight, his sense of alarm increased. There 
 was no question about it; something serious was evi- 
 dently the matter. 
 
 He asked for Newbury and after a moment's wait 
 in the hall saw the door into the sitting-room open 
 and that gentleman issue forth, closing the door on 
 a murmur of male voices. Newbury looked an aged 
 man, gray and haggard. Without any greeting, 
 evidently too distraught by sudden calamity to won- 
 der how Jerry had heard the bad news, he said in a 
 low voice: 
 
 "They're holding a consultation in there" his 
 sunken eyes dwelt on the young man's and he shook 
 his head. "No hope, none. She can't possibly get 
 well. They don't think she'll live more than a day 
 or two." 
 
 "What what is it?" stammered Jerry, horror- 
 stricken. "What's happened to her?" 
 
 "A paralytic stroke. She had it early in the even- 
 ing. Pancha found her lying on the sofa like a per- 
 son resting, but she was paralyzed and couldn't speak. 
 That was what the headaches meant and we were 
 such fools we didn't think anything of them." 
 
 "Is she conscious? Does she know?" Jerry asked, 
 not knowing what to say, his whole being flooded with 
 a sense of repulsion and dread.
 
 238 THE PIONEER 
 
 "I think so and so does Pancha. The doctors 
 don't. She can't speak or move but her eyes look 
 full of life and intelligence, and once or twice she's 
 tried to smile." 
 
 A soft footfall on the stairs above caught their 
 ears and they looked up. The Mexican woman was 
 descending, her eyes on Jerry. Newbury cried at her 
 in Spanish, his voice suddenly hoarse with a muffled 
 agony of fear. She shook her head and answered 
 in the same language, speaking at some length. New- 
 bury translated : 
 
 "She's told Lupe that you're here and thinks she 
 wants to see you. She says she's tried to speak, and, 
 as far as she can follow, she's under the impression 
 that Lupe's asked for you." 
 
 It was a hateful suggestion to Jerry. He was 
 shocked enough already without having to suffer see- 
 ing Lupe in this unfamiliar state. He detested sad 
 things and kept them out of his life with the utmost 
 care. But Newbury and the woman were watching 
 him. He realized that they both expected him to go. 
 Deep down in the inner places of his soul the thought 
 that Lupe could not speak passed with a vibration 
 of relief. 
 
 They followed Pancha up the softly carpeted 
 stairs and along the passage. The woman passed 
 through a doorway, making a gesture for them to 
 wait, then put her head out and beckoned them in. 
 
 The darkness of evening had fallen and the large 
 room was well-lighted. By the bed two gas jets, 
 burning under ground-glass globes, threw a brilliant 
 light over the sick woman. She was lying straight
 
 LUPE'S CHAINS ARE BROKEN 239 
 
 and stark on her back, the bed-clothes smooth over 
 the undulations of her body and raised into points 
 by her feet. Spreading over the pillow beside her, 
 like the shadow of death waiting to cover her, was 
 her hair, a black, dense mass, crossing the bed and 
 falling over its edge. Her face was as white as the 
 pillow, her eyes staring straight before her with a 
 stern, frowning look. A stillness reigned in the room ; 
 death was without the door waiting to get in. 
 
 Newbury went toward her. Jerry hung back gazing 
 fearfully at her. She was invested with a strange, 
 alien terror, a being half initiated into awful myste- 
 ries. The inflexible sternness of her face did not soften 
 as her husband bent over her and said gently: 
 
 "Dearest, Jerry came to see how you were. He's 
 here. Would you like to see him?" 
 
 She gave a low sound, undoubtedly an affirmative. 
 Pancha, who was at the foot of the bed, enunciated 
 a quick phrase in Spanish. Newbury stepped aside 
 and beckoned Jerry forward. As her lover came 
 within her line of vision her eyes softened, the stiffen- 
 ed lips expanded with difficulty into a slight smile. 
 
 "Of course she knows you," Newbury said in a 
 choked whisper. "Oh, my poor Lupe !" 
 
 His voice broke and he turned away convulsed and 
 walked to the window. With the Mexican woman 
 watching him from the foot-board, Jerry bent down 
 and kissed her very softly on the forehead and both 
 eyes. She made an effort to lift her face to his caress 
 like a child, and as he drew back her eyes dwelt on his, 
 full of the somber and unquenchable passion that had 
 killed her. He tried to speak to her but found it im-
 
 240 THE PIONEER 
 
 possible. Memories of the old days rushed upon 
 him of her resistance to his fiery wooing, of the 
 first years of their intimacy and the tortures of her 
 conscience that her love could never deaden, and now 
 this ending amid the ruins of her anguish and his 
 hard coldness. 
 
 He turned and groped his way out of the room. 
 On the stairs Newbury joined him, touched beyond 
 measure at the sight of his grief. With assurances 
 that he would be up in the morning to inquire, Jerry 
 escaped from the house and fled into the night, now 
 dark and full of the chill of fog. 
 
 He could not sleep, and in the morning walked 
 up to the house before breakfast for news. The ser- 
 vant at the door told him that Mrs. Newbury was 
 dead, having passed away quietly without renewal 
 of consciousness or speech as the day was dawning. 
 
 Without a word he turned from the door and walked 
 down the street to where a car line crossed it. Stand- 
 ing on the corner waiting for the car, he was accosted 
 by a boy selling the morning papers, and mechanically, 
 without consciousness of his action, he bought one. 
 
 In the same mazed state he opened it and looked 
 at the front page. The first paragraph that met his 
 eye was an announcement that the rumored strike 
 of a great ore-body of astounding richness in the 
 Cresta Plata was confirmed. The excitement in Vir- 
 ginia was intense, the mine being regarded as second 
 only to the Con. Virginia. "This," concluded the 
 paragraph, "will raise the fortunes of the Gracey boys 
 far above the six naught mark, well up on the list of 
 bonanza millionaires."
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 A MAN AND HIS PRICE 
 
 The ball given by Mrs. Davenport, to introduce to 
 San Francisco society the fiancee of her son Stanley, 
 was long remembered as one of the most brilliant en- 
 tertainments ever given in California. 
 
 The exhilaration of prosperity was in the air. Stocks 
 were mounting, everybody was making money. More 
 new dresses were ordered for Mrs. Davenport's ball 
 than ever before for any one function. The jewelers 
 were selling diamonds to men and women who five 
 years before had lived in two-room cabins and worn 
 overalls and calicos. Black Dan Gracey had come 
 down from Virginia to see his daughter and bought 
 her a diamond tiara which it was said eclipsed any- 
 thing of the kind ever sold in San Francisco or even 
 New York. The bonanza times were beginning, 
 and the fiery wine of life they distilled mounting to the 
 heads of men. 
 
 To Rosamund's surprise June announced her inten- 
 tion of going to the ball. She had gone out little 
 lately, since the death of Mrs. Newbury, now six 
 weeks past, not at all. Every evening she had sat in 
 the parlor in Folsom Street, waiting. But the visitor 
 she expected never came. It was typical of her in- 
 241
 
 242 THE PIONEER 
 
 eradicable optimism that she should still have expected 
 him. Rosamund had heard and seen enough to feel 
 certain that he would never come, that every leisure 
 hour he had was spent with the daughter of Black 
 Dan Gracey. All Mercedes' other charms were now 
 enhanced by the luster of great wealth, and the Col- 
 onel had told Rosamund that Jerry's business was 
 practically nil, his private fortune gone. It was nec- 
 essary to say no more. 
 
 June dressed herself for the ball that night as for 
 a crisis. She had ordered a new gown, and sheathed 
 in its glimmering whiteness, with filmy skirts falling 
 from her hips to the floor in vaporous layers, was an 
 ethereally fairy-like figure. Like many women who are 
 not handsome but possess a delicate charm of appear- 
 ance, she varied singularly in looks. To-night the 
 evanescent beauty, that was now and then hers, re- 
 visited her. She was not the blushing, soft-eyed girl 
 that Barclay had kissed in the woods at San Mateo, 
 but a graceful woman in whose fragile elegance there 
 was something spiritual and poetic. She noticed her 
 pallor and accentuated it with powder, rubbing it 
 along her shoulders till they looked like marble. In 
 all this luminous whiteness of skin and raiment her 
 lips were unusually red, her eyes dark and brilliant. 
 She scrutinized herself in the mirror, drew down ten- 
 drils of hair from the coil that now crowned her 
 head, studied her profile and coiffure in the hand 
 glass and tried different jeweled pendants round her 
 neck. She was like a general before battle who re- 
 views his resources and tries to display them to the 
 best advantage.
 
 A MAN AND HIS PRICE 243 
 
 Owing to a delay in the arrival of the carriage they 
 were late. It was half-past ten an unwonted hour 
 for those days when they entered the house. At its 
 wide-flung portals currents of revelry and joy seemed 
 to meet them. There was the suggestion of festival 
 in the air; the rhythm of dance music swelled and 
 faded over the hum of voices. Room opened from 
 room with glimpses of polished floors between long 
 trains, reflections of bare shoulders in mirrors, gleams 
 of diamonds, sharp and sudden under the even flood 
 of light from the chandeliers. Over all hung the per- 
 fume of flowers, great masses of which stood banked 
 in corners, or hung in thick festoons along the walls. 
 
 The Colonel escorted his charges to the end of the 
 drawing-room where Stanley Davenport's fiancee 
 stood beside the hostess receiving guests and congrat- 
 ulations. Their few sentences of greeting accom- 
 plished, they moved aside toward the wide door of 
 entrance. From this vantage point their eyes were 
 instantly attracted by the figure of Mercedes Gracey 
 surrounded by a little group of admirers. 
 
 In the full panoply of ball dress the young 
 woman was truly magnificent. Black Dan's last gift 
 was a fitting crown for such a head. She was pro- 
 fusely be jeweled, exceedingly bare as to neck and 
 shoulders, and robed in a sparkling splendor of lace 
 traced out and weighted with silver which looked 
 like a symbolic incarnation of the riches she repre- 
 sented. She was brilliantly animated, turning her 
 head this way and that as the members of the little 
 court pressed on her notice. Rosamund, who was 
 very quick to notice significant details, was struck
 
 244 THE PIONEER 
 
 by the fact that there were nearly as many women 
 as men about her. 
 
 She was about to mention this to June, when the 
 various young men, who had detached themselves from 
 other groups at the appearance of the Misses Allen, 
 bore down upon them, fluttering programs. A 
 wall of black coats formed about the girls, and the 
 Colonel, seeing the intricate rites of program com- 
 paring fairly inaugurated, backed away from them 
 and leaned against the door frame, idly surveying the 
 scene. 
 
 A hand on his shoulder made him start and turn, 
 and then break into the broad smile of fellowship he 
 reserved for just a few people. 
 
 "Rion, old son!" he exclaimed grasping the hand 
 of his friend, "what brings you here, floundering 
 round among all these trains and frills?" 
 
 The other laughed. He had not been in San Fran- 
 cisco for nearly a year. He was a little leaner, harder 
 and tougher than he had been on his last visit, when 
 the Colonel had only seen him once or twice and he 
 had refused an invitation to dine in Folsom Street. 
 
 "I'm down to escort my niece. Dan couldn't come, 
 so I was offered up. Mercedes had a notion she had 
 to have the males of her family grouped round her 
 to-night and telegraphed up for one of us. Dan would 
 rather shut down the Cresta Plata than disappoint 
 her, so as he couldn't come I had to." 
 
 "You're being broken in early. At my age it's 
 about all a fellow's good for. I take the girls wherever 
 they go, and what's more, I enjoy it. Have you seen 
 them yet?"
 
 A MAN AND HIS PRICE 245 
 
 He indicated the white-robed figures of June and 
 Rosamund in front of him. Rion nodded. Before he 
 had spoken to the Colonel he had stood just behind 
 him watching June. Her back was toward him but 
 as she turned he caught glimpses of her profile. He 
 had not dared to speak to her. His stop with the Colo- 
 nel was a half-way halt, a pause to gain courage, 
 cheered by a hope that the older man might break the 
 ice of their meeting. 
 
 "How are they?" he said in a matter-of-fact tone, 
 while his heart pounded with mingled hope and dread 
 of June's turning and seeing him. 
 
 "Well, very well," said the other briskly. "Rosa- 
 mund's a perfect picture of health and happiness. 
 And June well, perhaps she's a little thin and not 
 quite up to her usual spirits. But she looks very 
 pretty to-night." 
 
 He waited to see what Rion would say to this. The 
 Colonel had wondered of late if his friend had heard 
 any gossip of June and Barclay. He knew the mining 
 man led a simple life of engrossing work among men, 
 far from the circles where the meaner spirits of the 
 world seek to unveil the hidden wounds of their fel- 
 lows. Rion's answer struck upon his complacency 
 with an impact of disturbing surprise.- 
 
 "Do you know if Barclay's here yet? Have you 
 seen him ? Mercedes sent me to find out if he'd come 
 He said he'd be late, and she seems to think it's about 
 time for him to illuminate the place by his presence. 
 But I can't find him." 
 
 "Barclay!" exclaimed the older man in a disgusted 
 tone. "What's Mercedes want with him? A hand-
 
 246 THE PIONEER 
 
 some girl like that oughtn't to bother her head about a 
 skunk like Barclay." 
 
 "Go slow, Jim, go slow now," said Rion, laughing ; 
 and placing his big hand on the Colonel's shoulder 
 he pressed it hard. "Mustn't talk that way to me 
 about Jerry any more. He's going to become a mem- 
 ber of the family. He and Mercedes are engaged. 
 It's announced to-night. That's why I'm here. That's 
 why Mercedes wanted the men of the family to rally 
 round her, and lend the weight of their approval to 
 something they don't approve of at all." 
 
 For the first moment the Colonel was too staggered 
 to speak. He had expected it as Rosamund had 
 but not so soon, not so indecently soon. His mind 
 leaped forward to the certainty of June's hearing it 
 suddenly from a partner and something distressing 
 happening. 
 
 "Stay here, Rion, for a moment," he said quietly. 
 "I want to speak to Rosamund." 
 
 Even as he stepped forward, Rosamund, a few 
 yards in front of them, wheeled suddenly from the two 
 men before her, and came toward him. One glance 
 at her face told him that she too had heard, 
 v "Uncle Jim," she whispered, as they came together 
 and she made a desperate clutch at him, "quick! 
 something dreadful's happened. Mercedes and Jerry 
 are engaged and it's announced to-night. Everybody's 
 talking of it. Jack Griscom's just told me. What'll 
 we do? June may hear it at any moment. We've 
 got to get her away before she does." 
 
 June stood just beyond them. Breaking into
 
 A MAN AND HIS PRICE 247 
 
 Rosamund's last words came the little blow of her fan 
 striking the floor. Her program fluttered down be- 
 side it. 
 
 "Why, Miss Allen," said her companion, a youth 
 who had been the first to impart the news of the even- 
 ing, "what is it? You're dropping everything." 
 
 As he bent on his knees to pick up the fallen prop- 
 erties, the Colonel roughly pushed him aside. June's 
 stricken face appalled him. He drew one of her hands 
 through his arm, and said in a low authoritative voice : 
 
 "Come. We're going home. Walk to the door 
 and I'll get the carriage in a minute." 
 
 She made an effort and turning moved toward the 
 door. In the passing in and out of laughing people, 
 flushed with exercise and pleasure, no one noticed 
 her except Rion, who suddenly saw her approach and 
 sweep by, her eyes staring before her, her face set like 
 a stone. Rosamund had taken the fan and program 
 from the astonished boy, and with a rapid sentence to 
 the effect that her sister felt faint, followed them. 
 Rion dared to touch her arm as she passed through 
 the doorway. 
 
 "What's the matter with June?" he said bruskly. 
 "She looks as if she were dying." 
 
 "She's sick. She she feels faint. It's it's a 
 sort of an attack." 
 
 She hurried on down the long flagged hall, at one 
 side of which was the dressing-room. Rion followed 
 and saw the three enter it. He stood outside, irreso- 
 lute, not liking to look in through the open doorway 
 and unable to go away. Presently the Colonel emerged,
 
 248 THE PIONEER 
 
 saw him, and hurrying toward him, said in quick, 
 low-toned urgency: 
 
 "You're just the man I want. June's sick. I'm 
 going to get the carriage and I don't want any of these 
 fools of people round here to see her. You bring her 
 down as soon as she's ready." 
 
 "What's the matter with her?" Rion asked again. 
 "Is it serious?" 
 
 "It's it's the heart," said the Colonel, bent on 
 shielding his darling even to her lover and his own 
 friend. "She's she's had attacks before. Yes, it's 
 damned serious." 
 
 He was gone with the words, and Rion, standing 
 by the dressing-room door, looked in and caught a 
 glimpse of June standing between Rosamund, who 
 was fastening her cloak, and a white-capped negress 
 who was draping a lace scarf over her head. She 
 looked like a sleep-walker, wide-eyed and pallid un- 
 der their arranging hands. He did not move away 
 this time, but instead walked to the door and said 
 to Rosamund: 
 
 "The Colonel wants me to take you to the car- 
 riage." 
 
 As they moved toward him he entered, drew June's 
 hand inside his arm and walked down the hall to the 
 door. There were several short flights of marble steps 
 leading from the porch to the street. When he came 
 to these he threw her cloak aside, pushing it out of 
 his way, put his arm around her and half carried her 
 down. Her body in the grasp of his arm seemed piti- 
 fully small and frail. She said nothing, but he felt 
 that she trembled like a person in a chill.
 
 A MAN AND HIS PRICE 249 
 
 At the foot of the steps the carriage stood, the Col- 
 onel at the door. The hour was an auspicious one 
 for an unseen exit. It was too late for the most dila- 
 tory guest to be arriving, and too early for the most 
 unfestal to be leaving. The street was devoid of pe- 
 destrians and vehicles, and lit by the diminishing 
 dots of lamps and the gushes of light from the illum- 
 inated house, presented a vista of echoing desertion. 
 
 The Colonel opened the carriage door, helped 
 Rosamund in first and lifted June in after her. 
 He was standing with the handle in his hand when 
 a footstep he had vaguely heard advancing through 
 the silence struck loud on his ear. He turned quickly 
 and saw a man come into view from the angle of 
 the side street, walk rapidly toward the house, and 
 then stop with that air of alertly poised hesitancy 
 which suggests a suddenly caught and concentrated 
 attention. The object of this attention was the Colo- 
 nel's figure, and as the new-comer stood in that one 
 arrested moment of motionless scrutiny, the Colonel 
 saw by the light of an adjacent lamp that it was Jerry 
 Barclay. They recognized each other, and the ad- 
 vancing man drew back quickly into the shadow of 
 the house. 
 
 "Rion," said the Colonel, turning to his friend, 
 "would you mind taking the girls home? I've just re- 
 membered something I have to do that will detain me 
 for a few minutes. I'll go round the other way and 
 be at Folsom Street almost as soon as you are." 
 
 He waited to see Rion enter and then slammed 
 the door on him, and drew back from the curb. 
 
 As the carriage disappeared around the corner he
 
 250 THE PIONEER 
 
 walked forward to the spot where Jerry was con- 
 cealed. He could see his figure pressed back against 
 the fence, faintly discernible as a darker bulk amid 
 the darkness about it, a pale line of shirt bosom 
 showing between the straight blackness of the loosen- 
 ed coat fronts. 
 
 "I knew that was you, Jerry," he said. "It's no 
 good hiding." 
 
 Jerry stepped forward into the light of the lamp. 
 He was enraged and chagrined at the encounter. 
 
 "Hiding?" he exclaimed haughtily. "Why should 
 I be hiding?" 
 
 The Colonel came close to him and said with low- 
 toned emphasis: 
 
 "Because you're a liar and a coward, Jerry Barclay ; 
 and you were afraid to meet me." 
 
 Jerry drew back crying with amazed rage: 
 
 "Colonel Parrish!" 
 
 "And you tried to hide from me to-night when I 
 know what you are and what you've done. You scrub 
 
 _yOU" < 
 
 Barclay hit furiously at him, but the older man 
 evaded the blow, and seizing him by the loosened 
 fronts of his coat, with his open hand struck him on 
 both sides of the face and then flung him against 
 the fence. He squared himself to meet an onslaught 
 but Jerry struck heavily and fell, a dark, sprawling 
 mass on the sidewalk. The oath that he shouted as 
 he reeled back was bitten in two by an ejaculation 
 of pain and he lay motionless, groaning in the dark. 
 
 "Stay there and howl," said the Colonel. "If I 
 stayed another moment I'd kick you as you lie."
 
 A MAN AND HIS PRICE 251 
 
 And he turned and ran down the street. The rattle 
 of a carriage struck his ear and a coupe turned the 
 corner, its lamps glaring like two round yellow eyes. 
 He hailed it, thrust a handful of silver into the driver's 
 hand, and gave him the Allen address on Folsom 
 Street. 
 
 As the carriage rattled across town he lay back, 
 his blood singing in his ears, his heart racked with 
 rage and pain. He had done no good, probably been 
 very foolish. But as June's face rose on his memory, 
 he wished he had hit harder, and the recollection of 
 Jerry groaning against the fence soothed his pain.
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 THE BREAKING POINT 
 
 In the middle of the December afternoon the Col- 
 onel had come in early to his rooms to change his 
 coat and brush up a bit. He was going to call on the 
 wife of a pioneer friend who had just returned from 
 Europe. The Colonel was punctilious and called in 
 a black coat, which he now stood brushing beside the 
 window and anxiously surveying, for he had been a 
 man who was careful of his dress, and the coat looked 
 shiny. 
 
 It was a chill gray day and he looped back the lace 
 curtains to see better. Outside, the fog was beginning 
 to send in long advancing wisps which projected a 
 cold breath into the warmest corners of the city. A 
 mental picture rose on his mind of the sand dunes 
 far out with the fleecy curls and clouds sifting noise- 
 lessly over them. The vision was not cheering and he 
 put it out of his mind, and in order to enliven his 
 spirits, which were low, he whistled softly as he 
 brushed. 
 
 The room the bare hotel parlor of that kind of 
 
 suite which has a small windowless bedroom behind 
 
 it looked out on the life of one of the down-town 
 
 streets. The Traveler's Hotel had not yet quite fallen 
 
 252
 
 THE BREAKING POINT 253 
 
 from grace, though the days of its prosperous prime 
 were past. On the block opposite it a few old sheds 
 of wood and corrugated iron (relics of the early 
 fifties) toppled against one another and sheltered a 
 swarming vagabond life. The hotel itself still pre- 
 served its dignity. The shops on its ground floor 
 were respectable and clean. There was a good deal of 
 Spanish and Italian spoken in them, which seemed to 
 accord with their pink and blue door-frames, the 
 Madeira vines growing in their windows, and the smell 
 of garlic that they exhaled at midday. 
 
 The Colonel was giving the coat a last inspection 
 when a knock made him start. His visitors were 
 few, and his eyes were expectantly fixed on the door 
 when in answer to his "come in" it slowly opened. 
 A whiff of perfume and a rustle of silks heralded the 
 entrance of June, who stood somewhat timidly on the 
 threshold looking in. 
 
 "Jtmie!" cried the Colonel in delighted surprise. 
 "My girl come to see the old man in his lair!" 
 
 And he took her by the hand and drew her in, kiss- 
 ing her as he shut the door, and rolling up his best 
 arm-chair. 
 
 She did not sit down at once and he said, still 
 holding her hand by the tips of the fingers and look- 
 ing her over admiringly: 
 
 "Well, aren't you a beautiful sight! And just the 
 best girl in the world to come down here and see 
 me." 
 
 She smiled faintly and answered: 
 
 "Wasn't I lucky to find you? I've been coming for 
 some days only only " she sat down on the arm
 
 254 THE PIONEER 
 
 of the chair, prodding at the carpet with the end of 
 her umbrella and looking down. 
 
 "Only you had so many other things to do," he sug- 
 gested. 
 
 "No, not that," still looking down at the tip of 
 the umbrella. "Only I think I hadn't quite enough 
 courage." 
 
 She rose from the arm of the chair and walked 
 to the window. As she moved the rustle of her rich 
 dress and the perfume it exhaled filled the room. The 
 Colonel looked at her uneasily. It was three weeks 
 since the Davenport ball. She had kept her room 
 for some days after the ball, saying she was sick. 
 After that she had appeared, looking miserably ill, 
 and in manner cold and uncommunicative. She had 
 spoken of Jerry's engagement to no one, not even to 
 Rosamund. To the Colonel she had been gentle, 
 quiet, and for the first time in their acquaintance in- 
 different and unresponsive. What her appearance 
 this afternoon portended he could not guess. 
 
 "Not enough courage!" he now repeated. "Was 
 there ever any time since I've known you when you 
 wanted courage to come to me?" 
 
 "Never before," she answered, standing with her 
 back to him looking out of the window. 
 
 Her voice, her attitude, her profile against the pane, 
 were expressive of the completest dejection. She 
 was expensively and beautifully dressed in a crisp 
 silken gown of several shades of blue. Every detail 
 of her appearance was elegant and fastidious. In her 
 years of city life she had developed all the extrava- 
 gance, the studious consideration of her raiment, of
 
 THE BREAKING POINT 255 
 
 a fashionable woman. Now her costly dress, the jew- 
 eled ornaments she wore, her gloves, her hat with its 
 long blue feather that rested on her bright-colored 
 hair, the tip of the shoe that peeped from her skirt, 
 combined to make her a figure of notable feminine 
 finish and distinction. And surrounded by this elab- 
 oration of careful daintiness, her heaviness of spirit 
 seemed thrown up into higher relief. 
 
 "Come, sit down," said the Colonel, rolling the chair 
 toward her. "I can't talk comfortably to you when 
 you stand there with your back to me looking out of 
 the window as if we'd been quarreling." 
 
 She returned to the chair and obediently sank into 
 it. Her hands hung over its arms, one of them lan- 
 guidly holding the umbrella. He had thought his 
 suggestion about quarreling would make her laugh, 
 but she did not seem to have heard it. 
 
 "And now," he said, drawing a chair up beside her, 
 "let's hear what it is you hadn't the courage to tell 
 to your Uncle Jim? Have you been robbing or mur- 
 dering, or what?" 
 
 "I've been staying in the house mostly, looking out 
 of the window. I don't feel much like going out. 
 I oh, Uncle Jim," she said, suddenly turning her 
 head as it rested on the chair-back and letting her 
 eyes dwell on his, "I've been so miserable!" 
 
 He leaned forward and took her hand. He had noth- 
 ing to say. Her words needed no further commentary 
 than that furnished by her appearance. With the 
 afternoon light shining on her face, she looked a wo- 
 man of thirty, worn and thin. All the freshness of 
 the young girl was gone.
 
 256 THE PIONEER 
 
 "That's what I've come to talk about," she said. 
 "I don't feel sometimes as if I could live here any 
 longer, as if I could breathe here. I hate to go 
 out. I hate to meet people. Every corner I turn 
 I'm afraid that I may meet them and and then " 
 her voice suddenly became hoarse and she sat up and 
 cleared her throat. 
 
 For a moment a heavy silence held the room. The 
 Colonel broke it. 
 
 "How would you like to go up to Foleys for 
 a while?" he suggested. "Your father was telling me 
 the other day that the superintendent of the Barranca 
 had a nice little house and a very decent sort of wife. 
 You could stay there. It would be a change." 
 
 "Foleys 1" she echoed. "Oh, not Foleys ! It's too 
 full of the past before anything had happened. No, I 
 want to go away, far away, away from everything. 
 That's what I came to talk about. I want to go to 
 Europe." 
 
 "Europe !" he exclaimed blankly. "But but you'd 
 be gone for months." 
 
 "Yes, that's just it. That's what I want to be 
 gone for months, for years even. I want to get away 
 from San Francisco and California and everything I 
 know here." 
 
 The Colonel was silent. He felt suddenly depressed 
 and chilled. San Francisco without June! His life 
 without June! The mean little room with its hideous 
 wall paper and cheap furniture came upon him with 
 its true dreary strangeness. The city outside grew 
 suddenly a hollow place of wind and fog. Life, that
 
 THE BREAKING POINT 257 
 
 was always so full for him, grew blank with a sense 
 of cold, nostalgic emptiness. He had never realized 
 before how she illumined every corner of it. 
 
 "Well, dearie," he said, trying to speak cheerfully 
 "that sounds a big undertaking; sort of thing you 
 don't settle up all in a minute. You couldn't go alone 
 and Rosamund couldn't go with you." 
 
 "I know all that. I've thought it all out. I haven't 
 slept well lately and I arranged it when I was awake 
 at night. I could take some one with me, a sort of 
 companion person. And then when Rosamund got 
 married and came over there with Lionel, why, then 
 I could stay with them. Perhaps I could live with 
 them for a while. He has such a big house." 
 
 She paused, evidently waiting to see how the Col- 
 onel would take her suggestions. 
 
 "That's all possible enough," he said, "but well, 
 there's your father. How about him?" 
 
 "Oh, my father!" the note of scorn in her voice 
 was supplemented by a side look at him which showed 
 she had no further illusions as to her father. "My 
 father can get on very well without me." 
 
 Even if she had come to know Allen at his just 
 worth, the hardness of her tone hurt the Colonel. It 
 showed him how deep had been the change in her 
 in the last three years. . 
 
 "It's hard on him just the same," he said, "to lose 
 his two daughters at once." 
 
 "Parents have to lose their children," she answered 
 in the same tone. "Suppose I'd married a foreigner 
 like Rosamund?"
 
 258 THE PIONEER 
 
 The Colonel did not answer. Suddenly she laid the 
 hand near him on his. 
 
 "There's only you and Rosamund," she said. "And 
 now Rosamund's going too." 
 
 "It's it's pretty hard even to think of," he an- 
 swered. 
 
 "But, Uncle Jim," she urged in the egotism of her 
 pain, blind to all else, "I can't stay here. It's too 
 much. You must guess how I feel." 
 
 "I can guess," he answered, nodding. 
 
 "I can't bear it. I can't stand it. If I could die it 
 would be all right, but I can't even die. I've got 
 to go on living, and if I stay here I've got to go on 
 hearing everybody talking about them and saying how 
 happy they are. Every time I go out I run the risk 
 of meeting them, of seeing them together, with Jerry 
 looking at her the way he used to look at me." 
 
 She spoke quietly, staring at the window before 
 her with steady eyes. 
 
 "June," he said almost roughly, "I want to talk 
 sensibly to you. All the traveling in Europe won't 
 make you feel better if you don't make an effort to 
 shake yourself free of all this. Now listen Barclay's 
 shown you what he is. He's a blackguard. I told 
 it to you three years ago, and you know it now by 
 your own experience. Why do you love him? Why 
 do you go on caring for a dog like that? I I upon 
 my word, dearest, if it was any girl but you I'd be 
 ashamed of her." 
 
 "You don't love a man because he's good, or no- 
 ble, or any of those things. It's not a thing you reason 
 about. It's something that steals into you and takes
 
 THE BREAKING POINT 259 
 
 possession of you. I know what Jerry is. I suppose 
 it's all true what you say. He may be different from 
 what I thought he was. He may be cruel and unkind 
 to me. But that won't make me change." 
 
 "But good God, he's treated you like a dog 
 thrown you over for a girl with money, made sur- 
 reptitious love to you when he was bound to a woman 
 he'd ruined and whose husband was his friend! 
 Heavens, June, you can't love a dirty scrub like that ! 
 You're a good girl honest and high-minded you 
 can't go on caring for him when you see now what he 
 is!" 
 
 "Oh, Uncle Jim, dear, you can't change me by 
 talking that way. Women don't love men with their 
 reason, they love them with their hearts. The Jerry 
 that I know is not the Jerry that you know. There 
 are two, and they're quite different. The Jerry that 
 I know and used to meet in the plaza on Turk Street, 
 was always kind and sweet to me, and I used to be 
 so happy when I was with him ! I know now they're 
 both true. I guess yours is as true as mine. But 
 even if it is, I care just the same. There's no arguing 
 or convincing only just that fact." 
 
 "After he's made a public show of you and engaged 
 himself to Mercedes not two months after Mrs. New- 
 bury's death? Such a dirty record! Such a mean, 
 cold-blooded, calculating cur! Oh, June, where's 
 your pride?" 
 
 "Dead," she said bitterly, "dead long ago." 
 
 She suddenly sat upright, turned on him, and spoke 
 with somber vehemence: 
 
 "There's no pride, there's no question of yourself
 
 260 THE PIONEER 
 
 sometimes I think there's no honor, with a girl who 
 feels for a man as I do for him. I know him now, 
 all about him. I know in my heart that he's what you 
 say. I think sometimes, deep down under everything, 
 I have a feeling for him that is almost contempt. But 
 I'm his while he's alive and I am. I can't any more 
 change that than I can make myself taller or shorter. 
 If I'd known in the beginning what I do now it would 
 have all been different. It's too late now to ask me 
 where my pride is, and why I don't tear myself free 
 from such a bondage. It's spoiled my life. It's bro- 
 ken my heart. Sometimes I wish Jerry was dead, be- 
 cause then I know I'd be myself again." 
 
 He looked at her horrified. Pallid and shrunken in 
 her rich clothes, eaten into by the passion that now, 
 for the first time, he heard her confess, it seemed to 
 him that she could not be the girl he had met at Foleys 
 three and a half years ago. To his strong, self-deny- 
 ing nature, her weakness was terrible. He did not 
 know that that weakness was one of the attributes 
 which made her so lovable. 
 
 "I dare say there's something bad about me," she 
 went on. "I can see that other people don't feel this 
 way. I know Rosamund wouldn't. If Lionel had 
 not really cared for her and asked her to marry him 
 she would have gone to work and just uprooted him 
 from her mind like a weed in a garden. She wouldn't 
 have let things that weren't right get such a hold on 
 her. But I I never tried to stop it. And now the 
 weed's choked out everything else in the garden." 
 
 "Don't let it choke out everything. Root it up! 
 Tear it out ! Don't be conquered by a weed, June."
 
 THE BREAKING POINT 261 
 
 *'Oh, Uncle Jim," she almost groaned with the eter- 
 nal cry of the self-indulgent and weak, "if only I had 
 stopped it in the beginning! I wouldn't have grown 
 to love him so if I'd known. It's been such useless 
 suffering. Nobody's gained anything by it. It's all 
 been such a waste !" 
 
 There was a silence. The Colonel sat looking 
 down with his heart feeling heavy as a stone. 
 When he came against that wall of acquiescent femi- 
 nine feebleness, he felt that he could say nothing. 
 She stirred in her chair and said, her voice suddenly 
 low, her words coming slowly: 
 
 "They're to be married in January. It's going to 
 be a short engagement. Black Dan's going to give 
 them a house down here with everything new and 
 beautiful. I'll see them all the time, everywhere. I 
 know just the way they'll look, smiling into each 
 other's eyes." 
 
 She stopped and then sat up with a rustling of 
 crushed silks. 
 
 "How do people bear these things? I haven't hurt 
 anybody or done any harm to have to suffer this way. 
 When I'm alone I keep thinking of them how happy 
 they are together, not caring for anything in the world 
 but each other. I think of him kissing her. I think 
 that some day they'll have a baby " her voice trailed 
 away hoarsely and she sank back in the chair, her 
 head on her breast. 
 
 The Colonel got up and walked to the window. 
 These same savage pangs had once torn him. In his 
 powerful heyday it had taken all the force of his man- 
 hood to crush them, How could she wage that blast-
 
 262 THE PIONEER 
 
 ing fight? He turned and looked at her as she sat 
 fallen together in the embrace of the chair. 
 
 "I think you're right, June, about going away," he 
 said. "It's the best thing for you to do. The old 
 man'll have to get on as well as he can for a while 
 without you." 
 
 She did not move and answered in a dull voice: 
 
 "It's the only thing for me to do." 
 
 "When were you thinking of going?" 
 
 "Soon as soon as I can. Anyway before January. 
 I must go before then. And and Uncle Jim, this 
 was what I came to ask you and was afraid. We've 
 been a long time getting to it." 
 
 She looked at him with a sort of tentative uneasi- 
 ness. 
 
 "It's asking a good deal," she added, "but you've 
 always been so good to me." 
 
 "What is it, dearie?" he said gently. "Don't you 
 know it's my pleasure to do anything for you ?" 
 
 "I want you to give me the money to go with." 
 
 For a moment the Colonel was so surprised that 
 he looked at her without answering. As she spoke 
 the color came faintly into her face. 
 
 "It it won't be so very much," she went on hur- 
 riedly, "perhaps enough for a year. I thought five 
 thousand dollars would do." 
 
 "Five thousand dollars," he said, recovering him- 
 self, "five thousand dollars? Why of course " 
 
 He paused, looking down on the floor and asking 
 himself where he was to get five thousand dollars. 
 
 "I'll get it for YOU, only you'll have to give me a 
 few days."
 
 THE BREAKING POINT 263 
 
 She leaned forward with a sudden energy of ani- 
 mation and clasped his hand.* 
 
 "I knew you'd do it," she said. "I knew if I came 
 to you for help I'd never be disappointed. I asked 
 father for it, and he! " she completed the sentence 
 with a shrug. 
 
 "He hadn't it, perhaps," suggested the Colonel. 
 
 "That's what he said. He said he couldn't possibly 
 give it to me, that he was in debt now. And look at 
 the way we live! Look at this dress! He knows 
 how I feel. He has only to look at me, but he said 
 he couldn't give it." 
 
 "Will five thousand be enough, do you think?" said 
 the Colonel, who had no comments to make on Allen, 
 of whose mode of life and need of money he knew 
 more than June. 
 
 "I don't know. I don't know anything about travel- 
 ing. I've never been anywhere but in California and 
 Nevada. But it ought to be enough for a while. Any- 
 way, if I had that I could go, I could get away from 
 all this. I could get away from San Francisco and 
 California, and the people and things that torture 
 me." 
 
 She rose from the chair and picked up her umbrella. 
 Her languor of dejection had returned. She cast a 
 listless eye toward the pane and said: 
 
 "I must go. It'll soon be dark." Then she moved 
 toward the window and for a moment stood looking 
 down on the street. 
 
 "It's quite easy for you to give it to me, isn't it?" 
 she asked without turning. "You're not like father, 
 always talking about your wonderful, priceless stocks,
 
 264 THE PIONEER 
 
 and with not a cent to give a person who's just about 
 got to the end of everything." 
 
 "Don't talk about that," he answered quickly. 
 "There can't be a better use for my money than to help 
 you when you're in trouble. I'll see you in a few days 
 and arrange then to give it to you." 
 
 She turned from the window. 
 
 "Well, good-by, then," she said. "I must go. Good- 
 by, Uncle Jim, my own dear, dear Uncle Jim." 
 
 She extended her hand to him, and as he took it, 
 looked with wistful eyes into his. 
 
 "I feel as if you were really my father," she said. 
 "It's only to a father or mother that a person feels they 
 can come and ask things from as I have from you 
 to-day." 
 
 The Colonel kissed her without speaking. At the 
 doorway she turned and he waved his hand in fare- 
 well, but again said nothing. 
 
 June walked home through the soft gray damp 
 of the late afternoon. As she looked up the lines 
 of the long streets that climbed the hills, then sloped 
 down toward the water front, she saw the fog blotting 
 them out, erasing outlines, stealthily creeping down- 
 ward till the distance looked like a slate blurred by a 
 wet sponge. She remembered evenings like this in 
 the first year of her San Francisco life, when she 
 walked home briskly with the chill air moist on her 
 face and her imagination stirred by the mystery and 
 strangeness of the dim, many-hilled city, veiled in 
 whorls and eddies of vaporous white. There was 
 no beauty in it to-night, only a sense of desolation, cold 
 and creepingly pervasive as the fog.
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 
 BED-ROCK 
 
 It took the Colonel a week to raise the money. He 
 did it by selling the second of his South Park houses. 
 The sale being a hurried one of property already well 
 on the decline, the house realized less than, even in 
 the present state of eclipse, it was worth. Five years 
 before it had been appraised at fifteen thousand dol- 
 lars. To-day the best offer he could get was nine. 
 
 He placed the money in the bank, the five thousand 
 to stay there till June had decided more definitely on 
 her movements. The remainder he would leave on 
 deposit to his own account. June, in Europe, with 
 five thousand dollars to her fortune, was not beyond 
 the circle of his sense of responsibility. Some one 
 must have money to give her when she needed it, as 
 she certainly would. Her habits of economy had 
 long ago been sloughed off with her faded cotton 
 dresses and her country-made boots. Rosamund 
 would be able to give her a home, but there must be 
 some one somewhere upon whom she could make a 
 demand for funds. 
 
 There was no need now for the Colonel to study 
 his accounts. He knew them through and through. 
 There was so little to know. The shut-down mine 
 265
 
 266 THE PIONEER 
 
 in Shasta and his mortgage on the Folsom Street 
 house were all that was left to him. On the day that 
 the sale of the South Park house was decided upon 
 he wrote to Rion Gracey, asking him for a position, 
 any overground position that the owners of the Cresta 
 Plata thought he would suit. It was a hard letter to 
 write. He was nearly sixty, and he had never, since 
 his youth, asked any one for anything for himself. 
 But one must live, "G. T.'s widow" had to be con- 
 sidered, not to mention June, living in England and 
 having to be dressed as June should always be dressed. 
 
 Two days later the details of the sale were com- 
 pleted and the money deposited. Late that afternoon 
 the Colonel, clad carefully in the shiny coat June 
 had caught him brushing, went across town to Fol- 
 som Street. He had done what she had asked and 
 all was ready. 
 
 The servant told him she was confined to her 
 room with a bad cold, and after a few minutes' wait 
 in the hall, he was conducted up stairs, and found 
 her lying on a sofa in the great front room, with its 
 lofty ceiling and tall, heavily draped windows. The 
 sofa was drawn up before a small fire that sent a 
 fluctuating glow over her face, flushed with a slight 
 fever, and burnished the loose coil of brown hair that 
 crowned her head. She had a heavy cold, her voice 
 was hoarse, her words interrupted at intervals by a 
 cough. She was delighted to see him, sitting up 
 among the cushions on which she reclined to hold out 
 her hand, and rallying him on the length of time 
 since his last visit. 
 
 "But I've been busy," he said, drawing a chair up
 
 BED-ROCK 267 
 
 to the foot of the sofa, "busy over your affairs, young 
 woman." 
 
 "My affairs," she answered, looking puzzled; then 
 with sudden comprehension, "Oh, the money!" 
 
 "That's it," he nodded, "the money. Well, it's all 
 ready and waiting for you in the bank. When you 
 want it we'll open an account for you, or buy a letter 
 of credit with it, or make whatever arrangement 
 seems best. Anyway, there it is whenever you want 
 to go." 
 
 "Oh, Uncle Jim!" she breathed. "And now what 
 do you think's happened?" 
 
 "What?" he asked with suddenly arrested atten- 
 tion. It was on his mind that startling things might 
 be expected to happen in the Allen household at any 
 moment. 
 
 "I'm not going !" 
 
 "You're not going? Junie, don't tell me that!" 
 
 The joy in his voice and eyes was transfiguring 
 in its sudden radiance. 
 
 He left his chair and sat down on the end of the 
 sofa near her feet, leaning toward her, pathetically 
 eager to hear. 
 
 "I've changed my mind," a gleam of her old co- 
 quetry brightened her face. "Isn't that one of the 
 privileges of my sex?" 
 
 "What made you change it? Good Lord, dearie, 
 I'm so glad!" 
 
 "I'll tell you all about it. There are several threads 
 to this story. In the first place Rosamund didn't 
 like it. She thought it was queer for me to go to 
 Europe alone and leave father, and just before her
 
 268 THE PIONEER 
 
 wedding, too. She wouldn't hear of my not being at 
 the wedding. But the other reason was more the real 
 one." 
 
 She sat up, her elbow in the cushions, her head on 
 her hand, the fingers in her loosened hair. Her eyes 
 on the fire were melancholy and contemplative. 
 
 "You remember what I said to you about not 
 being able to live here any longer? How I couldn't 
 stand it? Well, father's going to Virginia City." 
 
 "What difference does that make ? He's been going 
 there for years." 
 
 "Yes, but to live I mean. To take us and make 
 our home there. That's the reason I've changed my 
 mind. I needn't go so far as Europe. We're all 
 going to leave California and live in Nevada." 
 
 The Colonel was astonished. He was prepared for 
 strange actions on Allen's part, but a bodily family 
 removal to Virginia when his affairs were in so 
 complicated a condition was unlocked for, and in- 
 comprehensible. And why had not Allen spoken to 
 him of it? When in town they saw each other almost 
 daily on Pine and Montgomery Streets. 
 
 "Isn't it a very sudden decision of your father's?" 
 he asked. "He had no idea of it last week. You 
 didn't know it when you came to see me that day, 
 did you?" 
 
 "I didn't know of it till two days ago. It's all 
 happened in a minute. Father himself didn't know 
 it. I was still thinking about going away and arguing 
 with Rosamund about it, when he came and told us 
 he'd decided to move to Nevada, that he had more 
 business there than here, and it would be much cheaper
 
 BED-ROCK 269 
 
 having one house in Virginia than for him to be up 
 there, with us down here in San Francisco. What 
 made it particularly easy and convenient was that 
 some one wants to buy the house." 
 
 This was a second shock, but there was illumination 
 in it. The listener felt now that he was getting to 
 the heart of the matter. 
 
 "Buy the house!" he ejaculated. "This house?" 
 
 "Yes, this house. I've forgotten the man's name. 
 Some one from Sacramento wants to buy it just as 
 it stands, with the furniture and everything. It's not 
 a very good offer, but property's gone down here, as it 
 has all over this side of town, and father says it's not 
 bad, considering that it makes it so much easier for 
 us to go." 
 
 He was, for the moment, too astonished to make 
 any comments. She spoke as though the sale was 
 decided on, the move settled. He knew that neither 
 of the sisters was aware of the mortgage he held on 
 the property, and he listened to her in staring silence 
 as she went on: 
 
 "So that's why I'm not going to Europe. Vir- 
 ginia's far enough away from San Francisco. I'll 
 I'll not see them up there or hear about it as I 
 would down here. And then there was another rea- 
 son that's made me glad to stay. When I thought of 
 leaving you and Rosamund it was so hard too 
 hard ! I don't seem to be one of those independent 
 women who can go about the world alone far away 
 from the people they love. I'd leave my roots behind 
 me, deep down in the ground I came from. I don't 
 think I could ever pull them up. And if I tried and
 
 270 THE PIONEER 
 
 pulled too hard they'd break, and then I suppose I'd 
 wither up and die." 
 
 She turned her eyes from the fire to him. She 
 was smiling slightly, her face singularly sad under 
 the smile. He looked at her and said softly: 
 
 "My girl!" 
 
 He sat on with her for a space, discussing the move 
 and making plans. With some embarrassment he told 
 her of the fact that he had written to Rion Gracey, 
 applying for a position. The thought that he would 
 be in Virginia called the first real color of life and 
 pleasure into her face that he had seen there for 
 weeks. He saw that the excitement of the move, the 
 hope of change from the environment in which she 
 had so suffered, had had a bracing and cheering effect 
 on her. It was evident that she had set her heart on 
 going. Despite her cold and general air of sickly 
 fragility she was more like herself, showed more of 
 her old vivacity and interest, than she had done since 
 the night of the Davenport ball. 
 
 On his way down the stairs he decided, if Allen 
 was not in, to wait for him in the sitting-room. But 
 as he reached the stair foot a faint film of cigar 
 smoke and the more pungent reek of whisky floated 
 from the open doorway, and told him that the master 
 of the house was already there. 
 
 Allen was sitting by the table, a decanter and glass 
 near his elbow, his cigar poised in a waiting hand, 
 as he listened to the descending footsteps. The China- 
 man had told him that Colonel Parrish had called to 
 see June, and Allen stationed himself by the door- 
 way to catch the visitor on his way out.
 
 BED-ROCK 271 
 
 "That you, Jim?" he called, as the footfall neared 
 the end of the flight. "Glad you came. Drop in here 
 for a minute before you go. I've something I want 
 to talk to you about." 
 
 The Colonel entering, noticed that the other was 
 even more flushed than he usually was at this hour, 
 and that his glance was evasive, his manner con- 
 strained. He pushed his cigar-case across the table 
 with a hand that was unsteady, and tried to cover his 
 embarrassment by the strident jocularity of his greet- 
 ing. The Colonel, sitting down on the arm of a heavy 
 leather chair, did not beat about the bush. 
 
 "What's this June's been telling me," he said, 
 "about you all moving to Virginia? Since when have 
 you decided on that?" 
 
 "Only a day or two ago. I was going around to 
 see you to-morrow, about it, if you hadn't come this 
 afternoon. I've about made up my mind to go. My 
 business is all up there now. There's no sense liv- 
 ing in Virginia two-thirds of the time and running 
 a house down here." 
 
 "How about Rosamund's wedding?" the Colonel 
 asked. 
 
 "Have it up there. You can have a wedding in 
 Virginia just as well as you can in San Francisco. 
 I can rent a house a first-rate house, furnished and 
 all ready, and give her just as good a send-off as any 
 girl in California. That's what I calculate to do. It'll 
 require money up there or down here, but that's an 
 expense that's got to be." 
 
 "June says you've had an offer for this house. Who 
 made it, and what's he offered?"
 
 272 THE PIONEER 
 
 Allen leaned forward to knock off the ash of 
 his cigar on the tray beside him. 
 
 "That's what I wanted to see you about," he said 
 slowly. "Yes, I've had an offer. It's from a man 
 named Spencer from Sacramento. Just come down 
 here to settle. He's got a big family, and wants a 
 good sized house and garden for the kids to play in. 
 Fashionable locality doesn't count for much with him. 
 He's offered twenty-five thousand down for the place 
 as it stands, furniture and all." 
 
 There was a slight pause and the speaker added: 
 
 "It's what decided me to go to Virginia, get rid of 
 this and and get some ready money. I'm pretty 
 close to the ragged edge, Jim." 
 
 "I don't see how it's going to benefit you," said 
 the Colonel. "My mortgage and the interest for two 
 years back, paid in full, doesn't leave you much more 
 than your fares to Virginia." 
 
 Allen got up, walked a few steps away, then came 
 back and stood by the Colonel's chair. His face was 
 deeply flushed, but it had lost its embarrassed air. 
 He looked resolute and determined. 
 
 "Jim," he said doggedly, "I've got to have that 
 money." 
 
 "Beau Allen," said the Colonel in the same tone, 
 "by what right do you dare to say that to me?" 
 
 For a silent moment they eyed each other, then 
 the elder man went on: 
 
 "Twenty-five years ago you stole my sweetheart. 
 Four years ago you tried to steal my land and I gave 
 it to you, because you had a wife and two helpless 
 children; and now you're trying to steal my house."
 
 BED-ROCK 273 
 
 'Tve got the same right as I had before," said 
 the other, "I've still got two helpless children." 
 
 "Am I to be robbed to provide for your children?" 
 
 "You're using pretty strong words, Jim, but you've 
 had provocation. You've met bad usage at my hands 
 and you've given back good. Give it back once more, 
 for the last time. Give it back for the sake of my two 
 girls. They're as helpless now as they ever were, and 
 God knows I'm as unable to help them." 
 
 "Why should I keep on providing for your chil- 
 dren? You're their father, younger than I, and as 
 able-bodied. Four years ago I put you on your feet 
 when I gave you the Parrish Tract. You've had your 
 chances, the best I could give you. I'm on the ragged 
 edge too. I'm sixty years old and I've had to apply 
 for a position." 
 
 "Listen to me, Jim," with desperate urgence. "Let 
 me have this money till after Rosamund's marriage. 
 Let me have fifteen thousand dollars of it So help 
 me God, I'll invest the rest in your name in any securi- 
 ties you mention. Don't you see I've got to have 
 money till after that? I can't let Harrower know 
 we're bust. You think he doesn't care. But I tell 
 you he does. What's going to happen to Rosamund 
 if he throws her over at the last moment?" 
 
 The Colonel was silent, looking at the ash tray from 
 beneath down-drawn, bushy brows. Allen close at 
 his elbow continued with fevered intensity: 
 
 "Rosamund's wrapped up, body and soul, in that 
 man. What's she going to do if he backs out? And 
 you know him ; you've seen the kind he is, daft about 
 his family and his ancient, honorable name. Even
 
 274 THE PIONEER 
 
 if he doesn't want money with her do you think he, 
 with his ancestors' portraits hanging on the walls, 
 wants to marry a girl whose father's a busted mining 
 speculator in debt all round, who hasn't got the 
 means to buy his daughter a decent dress to get 
 married in? Look at June! Are the futures of both 
 my daughters going to be ruined because I'm broke? 
 Good God, Parrish, you care for them! You can't 
 now, when you see what June's been brought to, stand 
 in the way of Rosamund's happiness." 
 
 The Colonel sat looking at the ash tray for a frown- 
 ing moment, then he said: 
 
 "What have you done with the spring? If there 
 had been no mineral on the land the spring would 
 have brought you an income for years." 
 
 "I sold* the land with -the spring on it, after the 
 Crown Point collapse. Blake, the hotel man in San 
 Jose, bought it, and is building a hotel up there now. 
 That's the past. I'm not defending it, nor my life 
 between then and now. I'm talking of my children. 
 Put me, and what I am, out of the question. It's my 
 two girls that count just now." 
 
 The Colonel rose, and walking to the fireplace, 
 stood there with his elbow on the mantel-piece, looking 
 down at the small fire that glowed in the grate. Allen 
 by the table watched him with anxious, waiting eyes. 
 
 "I've got chances in Virginia," he said. "Living 
 on the spot there's a different proposition from run- 
 ning back and forth like this. The Maybough prop- 
 erties that I'm interested in are looking pretty prom- 
 ising. Inside of a year, if they turn out as we expect, 
 I may be able to pay you the whole sum back."
 
 BED-ROCK 275 
 
 The Colonel gave a suppressed sound, short and 
 scornful, but did not raise his head. The other went 
 on. 
 
 "Fifteen thousand will carry us to Virginia and 
 over the wedding. Harrower's to be back in the 
 spring and they'll be married as soon as he comes. 
 Spencer wants the house in January or February. 
 That will just about fit in. We can go to Virginia 
 as soon as the sale's completed and have everything 
 ready and in shape by the time Harrower gets here. 
 And it will be better for June, too, better to get her 
 out of all this. She feels pretty bad, poor little girl ! 
 One of the reasons that makes me so keen about 
 selling the place and leaving is to get her away from 
 all this talk about Barclay and that Gracey girl." 
 The Colonel, without raising his eyes, said: 
 "You'll want the whole twenty-five thousand." 
 "No no " said Allen with undisguised eagerness, 
 hope illuminating his face, "fifteen will do, though 
 of course twenty would be better. Fifteen ought to 
 carry us well along into the summer, and by that time 
 the Maybough should be paying. There'll be the 
 wedding and the trousseau. Of course twenty would 
 be better, but if you'll let me have the fifteen I can 
 do it. I'll invest the other ten any way you may say 
 and " 
 
 He stopped as the Colonel turned from the fire with 
 a short laugh. 
 
 "Sell the house," he said, "and take it all." 
 "What? " Allen did not quite dare to believe it. 
 "Sell the house. See Spencer as soon as you can, 
 and I'll give you satisfaction of the mortgage."
 
 276 THE PIONEER 
 
 "Jim!" the other ejaculated, and held out a shak- 
 ing hand. 
 
 But the Colonel brushed by it and passed into the 
 hall, where his hat and coat hung. Allen followed 
 him, trying to talk, but he stopped the feeble words 
 of gratitude. Standing under the hall lamp, the light 
 falling on his white hair, he said, 
 
 "There's no thanks between you and me. If it 
 wasn't for your daughters I'd see you standing on 
 the corner begging for nickels and not drop one in 
 your tin cup. And you know it. You know, too, 
 what I feel about them, and why I feel it. You know 
 I'd do it again if I had the money. But I haven't. 
 There's not much more to be got out of me. You've 
 about sucked me dry." 
 
 The night was clear and he walked home, slowly 
 and lingeringly by a circuitous route of cross-streets. 
 At first he paced onward in an absorbed reverie, his 
 eyes down, striking the cracks in the pavement with 
 the tip of his cane. Presently he looked up above the 
 housetops, at the widths of sky sown with great, calm 
 stars. It was early night; only the larger stars were 
 visible. Once or twice as he walked on looking up, 
 he laughed, a short, dry laugh, at himself and the fol- 
 lies he had committed. 
 
 When he reached his own room in the Traveler's 
 Hotel he found Rion's answer to his letter. Standing 
 under the feeble light that fell from the sitting-room 
 chandelier he read it. It was short, for Rion was but 
 a poor correspondent. The position of assistant sec- 
 retary of the Cresta Plata would be vacant on Januarv 
 first. The Gracey boys would be flattered if one of
 
 BED-ROCK 277 
 
 James Parrish's reputation and position would care 
 to fill it. The salary would be five hundred dollars a 
 month. 
 
 The Colonel turned the letter over, eying it. The 
 heaviness of his spirit was lightened. Through the 
 few lines he seemed to feel the strong grip of the min- 
 ing man's hand, to meet the searching look of his 
 keen, honest eyes. They would all be together in 
 Virginia not such a bad beginning for a new life at 
 sixty. 
 
 SND OF BOOK H
 
 BOOK III 
 
 THE DESERT
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 NEVADA 
 
 The mountain wall of the Sierra bounds California 
 on its eastern side. It is a rampart, towering and im- 
 pregnable, between the garden and the desert. From 
 its crest, brooded over by cloud, glittering with 
 crusted snows, the traveler can look over crag and 
 precipice, mounting files of pines and ravines swim- 
 ming in unfathomable shadow, to where, vast, pale, 
 far-flung in its dreamy adolescence, lies California, 
 the garden. On the other side gaunt, hostile, gray 
 is Nevada, the desert. 
 
 In other lands nature and man have ended their 
 struggle for supremacy. Man has conquered and 
 nature, after long years of service, is glad to work 
 for him, to quicken the seed he sows, to swell the fruit 
 on the branch, and ripen the heads of grain. She 
 laps him round with comfort, whispers her secrets 
 to him, reveals herself in sweet, sylvan intercourse. 
 And he, cosily content, knows her as his loving slave, 
 no more rebellious, happy to serve. 
 
 But in Nevada, nature is still unconquered, sav- 
 age and supreme. It is the primordial world, with 
 man a shivering stranger amid its grim aloofness. 
 When the voice of God went out into the darkness and 
 281
 
 282 THE PIONEER 
 
 said, "Let there be light," the startled life, cowering 
 in caves arid beneath rocks, may have looked out on 
 such a land an unwatered waste, treeless, flower- 
 less, held in an immemorial silence. 
 
 Man as we know him has no place here. He is a 
 speck moving between the dome of sky and the floor 
 of earth. Nature scorns him, has watched him die 
 and whitened his bones in a few blazing weeks. The 
 seed he plants withers in its kernel, the earth he turns 
 up, frosted with alkali, drops apart in livid flakes. 
 The rare rivers by which he pitches his tent are 
 sucked into the soil, as though grudging him the 
 few drops with which he cools his burning throat. 
 An outcast from a later age he is an intruder here. 
 These solemn wastes and eternal hills have not yet 
 learned to call him master. 
 
 When the pioneers trailed across it, Nevada was 
 to them only "the desert," a place where the horrors 
 of heat and thirst culminated. They knew it as a 
 sterile, gray expanse, breaking here and there into 
 parched bareness, and with lines of lilac-blue or red- 
 dish-purple hills seeming to march with them as they 
 moved. From high places they saw it outspread like 
 a map, its surface stippled with sage and the long 
 green ribbon of a tree-fringed river looping across 
 its grim aridity. At evening it took on limpid, gem- 
 like colors. The hills turned transparent sapphire 
 and amethyst, the sky burned a thin, clear red. An 
 unbroken stillness lay upon it and struck chill on the 
 hearts of the little bands who, oppressed by its vast 
 indifference, cowered beneath its remote, unfamiliar 
 stars.
 
 NEVADA 283 
 
 As they passed across it they mined a little; here 
 and there they scraped the surface, clustered round a 
 stream bed for a day or two and sent the water cir- 
 cling in their pans. But California, the land of prom- 
 ise, was their goal. With the western sun in their eyes 
 they looked at the mountain wall and spoke of the 
 Eldorado beyond where the gold lay yellow in the 
 sluice box, and flecked with glittering flakes the pros- 
 pector's pan. 
 
 That was in forty-nine. Ten years later they were 
 hurrying backward over the mountains to the streams 
 that drain Mount Davidson. Nevada had its wealth 
 too, a hidden, rock-ribbed wealth, jealously buried. 
 They tore it out, built a city of tents and shacks as 
 they delved, and in ten years more were gone again, 
 dispersed over the far West like the embers of a 
 fire which a wind scatters. 
 
 Then once again the barren state drew them back. 
 Deep in the roots of Mount Davidson one of the 
 greatest ore-bodies in the world lay buried. This time 
 they gathered in their might. Miner, engineer, as- 
 sayer, stock-jobber, manipulator, manager and mil- 
 lionaire poured over the mountain wall, bringing in 
 their train the birds of prey that follow in the wake of 
 the mining army. The city of tents and cabins grew 
 into a city of streets and buildings and spread, climb- 
 ing the mountain side in terraces. A railroad crawled 
 perilously to it, looping over the mountain flanks. In 
 a cleared nook by a river the smoke of its mills black- 
 ened the sky. 
 
 Isolated from the rest of the world, encircled by 
 desolation, the town seethed and boiled with an ab-
 
 284 THE PIONEER 
 
 normal activity, a volcano of life in the midst of a 
 dead land. About it the desert brooded, pressing in 
 upon it, watching and waiting. To it the little city 
 was an outside thing, hostile, alien, unwelcome. It 
 scorned the pigmy passions of its men and women, 
 had no sympathy with the extravagances of their 
 money madness. When they had been brushed away 
 like an ant-hill by a passing foot, it would sweep 
 over their town, obliterate their traces, reclaim its 
 own. And once again the silence of a landscape 
 where there is neither ripple of water nor murmur 
 of leaf would resettle in crystal quietude. 
 
 Confined within their own walls, with no outlet for 
 the pressure under which they lived, the inhabitants 
 of Virginia burned with a wild activity and energy. 
 The conditions of life were so unusual, so fiercely 
 stimulating to effort and achievement, that average 
 human beings were lifted from their places and be- 
 came creatures of dauntless initiative. They con- 
 quered the unconquerable, accomplished triumphs of 
 daring and ingenuity where under ordinary circum- 
 stances they would have recoiled before insuperable 
 obstacles. They were outside themselves, larger for 
 good or evil than they had ever been before or 
 would be again. Nature had dared them to her van- 
 quishing and they had risen to the challenge. 
 
 In the spring of 1874 the ferment incident to the 
 opening of the great ore-body that has gone down in 
 history as the "Big Bonanza," began to bubble toward 
 boiling point. Month by month stocks had steadily 
 risen, and month by month the huge treasure cham- 
 ber, filled with silver as a nut is with kernel, devel;
 
 NEVADA 285 
 
 oped in ever increasing richness. The city was 
 packed close as a hive with bees with twenty-five 
 thousand souls all quivering to the increasing mo- 
 rn entum of the excitement. The mines were a dy- 
 namo whence electric vibrations spread into the world 
 outside. The dwellers in huts among the sage were 
 shaken by them. They thrilled along the Pacific slope. 
 In New York and London men felt them and their 
 pulses quickened. The Bonanza times were nearly 
 at the flood. 
 
 The city grew with astonishing rapidity, breath- 
 lessly climbed the side of Mount Davidson in ascend- 
 ing tiers of streets. There was no time for grading 
 or paving. Two stories in the front meant four in 
 the back, the kitchens of B Street looked over the 
 shingled roofs of the shops on C Street. It was a 
 gray town, clinging to a desolate mountain side, in 
 a gray country. At its base, appearing to force it up 
 the slope, were the hoisting works of the mines, dot- 
 ted so .close along the lode they nearly touched. 
 Every mine in this line was a mighty name in the 
 world of finance. New York, London and Paris wait- 
 ed each morning to hear news from the town in the 
 wilderness. And as the ant-hill swarmed and trem- 
 bled with the 'fury of its concentrated life, the desert 
 looked on, serene, incurious, still,
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 OLD FRIENDS WITH NEW FACES 
 
 The Allen girls moved to Virginia City in April. 
 Their father had gone there early in the year and 
 taken a house which would be a proper and fitting 
 place from which to marry Rosamund. He had found 
 what he thought suitable in the mansion, as they 
 called it in Virginia, of one Murchison, a mining 
 superintendent, who, in the heyday of sudden riches, 
 had built him a comfortable home and then died. 
 
 The Murchison mansion had come on the market 
 just at the right moment, Allen told people. Men 
 wondered where his money came from, as the current 
 talk among his kind was that "the bottom had fallen 
 out of the Barranca, and Allen was bust." He him- 
 self spread the story that successful speculations had 
 once again set him on his feet. That something had 
 done so was proved by his renting of the Murchison 
 mansion, a furnished house in the Virginia City of 
 that period being an expensive luxury. 
 
 It stood at the south end of B Street, perched high 
 on the top of two sloping terraces which were bulk- 
 headed by a wooden wall, surmounted by an orna- 
 mental balustrade. Small fruit trees and flowering 
 shrubs clothed the terraces in a thin, flickering fo- 
 286
 
 OLD FRIENDS WITH NEW FACES 287 
 
 liage, just showing its first, faint tips of green when 
 the girls arrived. A long flight of steps ran up to 
 a balcony which rounded out about the front door, 
 and upon which one seemed to be mounted high in 
 the air, looking down over a dropping series of flat 
 and peaked roofs to where the dark red walls and 
 tall chimneys of the hoisting works clustered about 
 the city's feet. Beyond this unrolled the wild, bare 
 landscape, undulating line of mountain beyond moun- 
 tain, cut clear as cameos against the blue Nevada sky. 
 
 The vivid green streak made by the Carson River 
 gleamed to the right. At the limit of sight, fitted into 
 a gap between the hills, was the Carson desert, a 
 patch of stark, yellow sand. 
 
 The girls were not surprised at the style of the 
 house. They knew vaguely that their father's affairs 
 were not as satisfactory as they had been, but of their 
 truly desperate nature they had no suspicion. There 
 were delays in the sale of the Folsom Street property, 
 and it was not till March that the new tenant appeared 
 from Sacramento to take possession. In response to 
 their father's orders they obediently gathered together 
 their belongings, closed the house, and made the move 
 to Virginia without assistance from him. 
 
 Events had fallen together in an unexpected way, 
 but one that in the end spared June those glimpses 
 of her lover's happiness that she had told the Col- 
 onel would be unbearable. It is true that she had to 
 see the carriages drive to Jerry's marriage and hear 
 the sound of his wedding bells. But before that event 
 circumstances had developed which made radical 
 changes in the plans of bride and groom. Black Dan
 
 288 THE PIONEER 
 
 had discovered that Jerry's business had dwindled to 
 nothing, his private fortune vanished in the Crown 
 Point collapse. The bonanza king, with his rapidly 
 accumulating millions, had a sturdy, American ob- 
 jection to an idle man, especially when that man was 
 to be the husband of his only child, and was known 
 to be of a light and pleasure-loving temperament. A 
 position was made for Jerry on the Cresta Plata, with 
 duties sufficiently exacting to keep him continually 
 occupied, and with the added attraction of an exceed- 
 ingly generous salary. 
 
 Mercedes sulked when she heard it. She did not 
 want to live in Virginia. She had thought she might 
 go there from time to time, flit through it, a disturb- 
 ing vision of beauty to miners and millionaires, but 
 to take up her residence there was a different matter. 
 She wanted to occupy the fine house her father had 
 given her in San Francisco, entertain royally and be 
 a queen of society, with Jerry as a necessary satellite 
 circling about. She complained to Black Dan, even 
 cried a little, and for the first time in Tier life found 
 him obdurate. 
 
 The doting father was troubled about the future of 
 his child. He disliked the marriage she was making, 
 but knew that to protest against it was hopeless. He 
 mistrusted Jerry, whose record he had often heard 
 canvassed, and whose style, as a charmer of women, 
 he despised. He wanted the pair under his eye. He 
 wanted to keep his hand tight on his son-in-law. He 
 did not believe that the man loved Mercedes, and he 
 took a bitter satisfaction in bringing him to Virginia 
 and setting him to work.
 
 OLD FRIENDS WITH NEW FACES 289 
 
 "Rion and I can watch him," he thought to him- 
 self. "We'll keep his nose to the grindstone, and if 
 he shows any symptoms of lifting it we'll hold it 
 closer." 
 
 Black Dan said little of his uneasiness to any one 
 save his brother. The two men had the same opinion 
 of Jerry, and though neither expressed it to the other, 
 each felt cold doubts as to the happiness of the 
 marriage. 
 
 Early in January, after a honeymoon of less than 
 a week, Jerry was summoned to his new duties. He 
 and Mercedes were installed in a house on R Street 
 which had been hired and hastily refitted for them. 
 Here in the heart of a biting Nevada winter their 
 married life began. Neither bride nor groom guessed 
 that it was being surreptitiously watched by three 
 pairs of interested eyes. To the observation of the 
 suspicious and inimical Graceys that of Colonel Par- 
 rish was added. He too had come to Virginia on the 
 first of January to assume his position as assistant 
 secretary of the Cresta Plata. He and Rion had 
 settled themselves in comfortable quarters on the 
 floor over Caswell's drug store, where their rooms 
 gave on a balustraded wooden veranda which looked 
 out on the turmoil of C Street. 
 
 It was not from Jerry, but from Mercedes that the 
 first signs of discontent came. She had hated Vir- 
 ginia from the first glimpse of it. The cold, bleak 
 town, buffeted by furious winds, clinging to its bare 
 mountain side, revolted her. Her little soul shrank 
 before the loneliness of the silent desert. She was 
 essentially a Southron, a lover of sunshine, bright
 
 290 THE PIONEER 
 
 colors, and gaiety. Moreover, for the first time in 
 her life, she felt neglected. In Virginia City in 1874 
 there were more engrossing interests than the allure- 
 ment of women. It was a man's town, where the 
 softer sex was in the background, save as a diver- 
 sion and spectacular luxury. Mercedes was often 
 lonely. Jerry had flung himself into the speculative 
 fever of the time with fury. Even Black Dan was 
 preoccupied and abrupt. Making millions is, after 
 all, the most absorbing pastime that man may know. 
 
 Finally a delicacy of the throat developed, and 
 Mercedes looked pale and thin, and began to cough. 
 It was April, she had been married four months, and 
 she wanted to go ; she wanted San Francisco and 
 sunshine, and the amusements for which she lived. 
 
 Jerry did not protest. The dream of passion was 
 at an end. The Mercedes he had come to know in 
 the intimacy of married life was so different a being 
 from the Mercedes who had beguiled him in the sum- 
 mer, that he was not sorry to have her leave him. 
 His pride was hurt and he felt angry and bitter 
 against her, but he had no poignant regrets. Neither 
 had loved. The ignoble instincts that had drawn them 
 together were satiated. Her woman's spite had worked 
 itself out. His lust for her wealth, his desire for her 
 possession, were satisfied. They were willing to part. 
 
 She left in April, it being understood that Jerry 
 was to "go below" to see her every two weeks. The 
 story that her health had been impaired by a climate 
 which had proved too severe for many before her, 
 was given out as the reason for her departure. Black 
 Dan even was made to believe it. He also believed
 
 OLD FRIENDS WITH NEW FACES 291 
 
 her assurances that she would return in the summer. 
 He thought the few tears she shed were grief at part- 
 ing with a husband whom he supposed she loved. He 
 determined to watch Jerry closer than ever, and for 
 this purpose moved into the house on B Street, where 
 the husband was now left alone. 
 
 Thus it fell out for June that she was spared the 
 sight of Jerry as a joyous bridegroom. Almost simul- 
 taneously with the Aliens' move to Virginia, Merce- 
 des left it. June and Rosamund were arranging the 
 Murchison mansion on B Street when Mrs. Jerome 
 Barclay was beginning those extensive purchases in 
 San Francisco which were to render her home on 
 Van Ness Avenue a truly "palatial residence." 
 
 June saw her old lover often. The contracted size 
 of the town made it impossible for her to avoid him. 
 More than once they encountered each other in the 
 houses of friends, and were forced to interchange the 
 little dead phrases of society. Both were shaken by 
 these accidental meetings. June dreaded and shrank 
 from the sight of his face and the sound of his voice ; 
 but Jerry went away from her presence, stirred and 
 uplifted, his mind full of the thought of her, his 
 sense of her charm reawakened. 
 
 His life, crowded with the strenuous business of 
 men, was empty of what had been for years its main 
 interest and preoccupation. The vain man, confi- 
 dent of his attractions, had been played with and 
 scornfully cast aside. The bitterness of his marriage 
 was as wormwood to him. He felt sore toward 
 Mercedes, whose indifference toward him had roused 
 in him the angry amaze that a spoiled child feels
 
 292 THE PIONEER 
 
 toward the stranger who is proof against, its blan- 
 dishments. He felt himself wronged, and in a 
 way, trapped. They made him work like a day 
 laborer for his salary, and his wife had left him. That 
 was what he'd got by marrying! Lupe, poor, dead 
 Lupe, would not have treated him so! And June 
 what a fool he'd been! He forgot that June had no 
 money, and for that reason he had put her resolutely 
 aside. He forgot that last year he had avoided her 
 and tried to banish all thought of her. In his long- 
 ing for the adulation and tenderness upon which he 
 had lived her image came nearer and nearer, grew 
 more and more disturbing and sweet. 
 
 Early in May Rosamund left for a week's visit to 
 San Francisco to accomplish the major part of her 
 trousseau-buying. June, left in the Murchison man- 
 sion to "keep house" a duty whicfi she performed 
 but ill found many empty hours on her hands. She 
 had made few friends in the new town. The apathy 
 which had fallen on her at the time of Jerry's en- 
 gagement had not lifted, and the coming loss of Rosa- 
 mund weighed heavier every day. In the tumult 
 around her her life was quiet and colorless. She told 
 the Colonel that he was the only constant visitor she 
 had. 
 
 "If you've another as regular as I am," he had 
 answered, "I'll have to look into it." 
 
 Then he had added, in what he fondly thought was 
 a light, unmeaning tone, "Don't even see much of 
 Rion?" 
 
 "Rion?" June had replied with the arched eyebrows 
 of surprised query. "I don't see him at all."
 
 OLD FRIENDS WITH NEW FACES 293 
 
 After that there was nothing more to be said, ex- 
 cept of course for the Colonel to go to Rion and ask 
 him why he had not called on Miss Allen, and for 
 Rion, red and embarrassed, to answer that he did 
 not suppose Miss Allen would care to see him, but if 
 she did he would go. 
 
 There was one house to which she did pay con- 
 stant visits. This was Mitty Sullivan's, on the north 
 side of town, near the Cresta Plata hoisting works. 
 
 These were booming days for Mitty. Her hus- 
 band's fortune was mounting in leaps too vast and 
 rapid to be easily calculated. The Gracey boys' be- 
 lief in their superintendent had not been misplaced. 
 The brawny, half-educated Irishman had risen to a 
 commanding position, and was respectfully alluded to 
 as having "the best nose for ore in the two states." 
 He was already very rich, having for the past four 
 years successfully speculated on "inside information." 
 His great gains made even the princely salary he re- 
 ceived on the Cresta Plata seem small. He was in 
 the thick of the whirlpool now and Mitty was with 
 him. She had a baby, a girl, and she saw it, backed 
 by the fortune that she and Barney were making, 
 going to Europe and marrying "a lord." For Mitty's 
 horizon had widened with astonishing rapidity since 
 the days when she waited on table at the Foleys hotel. 
 
 On one of the afternoons of Rosamund's absence 
 June walked across town for a chat and a cup of tea 
 with her old-time friend. From B Street and its 
 neat house-fronts and gardens she descended to the 
 never-ending movement of the street below. This 
 the main stem of the mining city for ever seething
 
 294 THE PIONEER 
 
 with a turbulent current of life, was the once famous 
 C Street, a thoroughfare unique in the history of 
 American towns. 
 
 The day shift would not be up for hours yet. 
 When its time was up the mines would vomit forth 
 thousands of men, who, penned all day in the dark, 
 Stirling heat of the underground city, would pour into 
 the garish brilliancy of the overground one for the 
 diversions of the night. Here, in the gusto of their 
 liberation, they would range till daylight, restless 
 eddies of life, passing up one street and down the 
 other, never silent, never still, pressing vaguely on 
 through the noise and glare, with the encircling 
 blackness hanging round their little piece of the ani- 
 mated, outside world, like an inky curtain. 
 
 At all hours the street was crowded. Now it 
 stretched up its mile or two of uneven length like a 
 gray canon, filled to both walls with a human river. 
 Under the arcade formed by a continuous line of 
 roofs that jutted from the second-story windows 
 across the sidewalk, an endless throng passed up and 
 down. They collected in groups before shop win- 
 dows, overflowed the sidewalk and encroached on the 
 middle of the roadway, congested in a close packed, 
 swaying mass of heads in front of the bulletin boards 
 where the stock quotations were pasted up, gathered 
 in talkative knots at corners. 
 
 The street, in the mud of which playing cards, bits 
 of orange peel, fragments of theatrical posters, scraps 
 of silk and ribbon were imbedded like the pattern in 
 n. carpet, was as full as the sidewalk. The day of 
 the overland freighters was past, but ore wagons still
 
 OLD FRIENDS WITH NEW FACES 295 
 
 drove sixteen-mule teams, the driver guiding by a 
 single rope, the mules bending their necks under the 
 picturesque arches of their bells. Between these, 
 busy managers flashed by in their buggies, stopping 
 here and there to lean from their seats for a moment's 
 converse with a knot of men. In more fashionable 
 equipages, brought up from San Francisco and drawn 
 by sleek-skinned, long-tailed horses, the wives of sud- 
 denly enriched superintendents lolled back gorgeously, 
 their beruffled silk skirts floating out over the wheel, 
 the light flashing on their diamonds. 
 
 Over all this movement of life there was an un- 
 ceasing swell of sound, a combination of many notes 
 and keys, more noticeable by reason of the outlying 
 rim of silence. Thousands of voices blended into a 
 single sonorous hum, through which broke the jing- 
 ling of pianos from the open doors of saloons, the 
 click of billiard balls, the cries of the drivers to their 
 mules, the raucous voices of street hawkers selling 
 wares at populous corners, and the sweet, broken 
 melody of the bells. Beneath this a continuous level 
 undertone was the murmur of machinery, with the 
 faint throb of the engines beating through it like the 
 sound of the steady, unagitated pulse-beats of a labor- 
 ing Titan. 
 
 June pressed through the throng, walking rapidly 
 toward the upper end of C Street. Here, looking down 
 on the dark red walls and tall chimneys of the Cresta 
 Plata, stood the pretty, one-story cottage where 
 Mitty Sullivan lived. It was surrounded by a square 
 of garden, in which lilacs were budding and apple- 
 trees showed a delicate hoar of young blossom.
 
 296 THE PIONEER 
 
 Mitty's prosperity revealed itself in many ways. She 
 had a nurse for the baby as well as a "hired girl." 
 She was exceedingly anxious to spend money and 
 very ignorant of how to do it. She had passed the 
 stage a recognized station in the ascending career 
 of the western wife where her husband had presented 
 her with diamond ear-rings. The silver, crystal, and 
 Britannia metal in the superintendent's cottage were 
 astonishing; only to be rivaled in extravagance by 
 the dresses which hung in Mitty's own wardrobe and 
 which had been ordered regardless of cost from 
 the best dressmakers in San Francisco. 
 
 She greeted June with affection and drew her into 
 the parlor, recently furnished with a set of blue and 
 gold brocade furniture, the windows draped with 
 lambrequins to match. There was a brilliant mo- 
 quette carpet on the floor and the walls were hung 
 with oil paintings, which Barney had bought on a 
 recent visit to the coast. A quantity of growing 
 plants in the windows added a touch of beauty to. the 
 glaring, over-furnished room. 
 
 Mitty herself had grown into a blooming matron, 
 a trifle coarse, for she was fond of "a good table" and 
 saw to it that her hired girl knew how to produce 
 one, and already menaced by the embonpoint which 
 is so deadly a foe to Californian beauty. The baby 
 girl on her arm was a rosily healthy infant, with 
 Barney's red hair and her mother's freshness of 
 color. Twenty years later she would bring her share 
 of the Bonanza fortune, which her father was then 
 accumulating, to the restoration of the old New York 
 family into which she was to marry. Her sister yet
 
 OLD FRIENDS WITH NEW FACES 297 
 
 unborn was to do the same charitable act by the 
 castle and estates of an English earl, who in return 
 would make her a countess. 
 
 The greetings over, the baby was placed by the 
 table in her high chair and given a string of spools 
 and a rubber rabbit to play with, while Mitty, com- 
 fortably settling herself in an arm-chair, inquired if 
 June had noticed the stock quotations on her way 
 down. The hired girl, who was setting down the 
 tea tray, listened with open attention for the answer. 
 Both mistress and maid were "plunging" according 
 to their means, and when June confessed that she 
 had passed the bulletins without reading the figures, 
 the two speculators looked at each other in open 
 dismay. 
 
 "It's so long to wait till Barney comes home," 
 Mitty complained. "I thought of course you'd read 
 them as you passed." 
 
 June was contrite, but could remember nothing. 
 
 "And I wanted to know so much ! They say that 
 Peruvian's getting soft. They were saying so this 
 morning anyway. You didn't even hear anything as 
 you came along? I believe you're the only woman in 
 Virginia who doesn't speculate." 
 
 June had not even heard. The knowing volubility 
 of Mitty on the fluctuations of stocks in which she 
 was as well versed as Barney himself, seemed little 
 short of miraculous to the only woman in Virginia 
 who didn't speculate. 
 
 The servant, who had been eagerly listening to the 
 conversation, now broke in. 
 
 "I'll run up and have a squint round, Mrs. Sulli-
 
 298 THE PIONEER 
 
 van. Maybe I can pick up more than Miss Allen." 
 
 Mitty tried to be dignified and give the proposition 
 a deliberate consideration. But her consent came 
 with a promptitude it was difficult to suppress. As 
 the woman whisked out through the kitchen door 
 she said in a tone intended to excuse her lack of 
 discipline : 
 
 "That girl's got all her money in Peruvian, and 
 hearing it was 'soft' has sort of upset her. Last week 
 she told me she was thirty thousand dollars ahead. 
 She only came to live with us because Barney being 
 one of the big superintendents, she thought she'd get 
 points, and as she's an A i girl I've got to humor her." 
 
 They chatted over their tea, Mitty regaling her 
 guest with the gossip of the day, of which she was 
 full. They had been talking some time when the 
 conversation turned on Mercedes and Jerry. It was 
 the first time the subject had come up between them. 
 Mitty knew part at least of her friend's story, and 
 she had tried to spare her, but she hated Mercedes, 
 who had treated her with scornful indifference, and 
 she hated Jerry because Barney did. She was glad 
 now to give her candid opinion to the woman they 
 had combined to hurt. 
 
 "They said it was her health that was bad, and 
 that was why she had to quit and go below. Health !" 
 with a compressing of the corners of her mouth and 
 a glance of side-long meaning. "Her health's all right; 
 it was her temper." 
 
 "Temper!" said June faintly. "Uncle Jim said her 
 throat was delicate and she had a cough." 
 
 "Cough !" snorted Mitty. "We all have coughs, but
 
 OLD FRIENDS WITH NEW FACES 299 
 
 we don't leave our husbands and go cavorting down 
 to San Francisco to throw round money and pick up 
 some other man. She didn't care for him. That was 
 all that was the matter. It's a simple disease and a 
 lot of 'em get it." 
 
 June silently stirred her tea. Every word pierced 
 her, but she wanted to hear them. She had heard 
 nothing of the separation, except the generally ac- 
 cepted story of Mercedes' delicate health. Instinct 
 told her that Mitty, the woman, had looked deeper 
 and would know more of what had really been the 
 case. Without speaking she raised her eyes from the 
 cup and fixed them on the baby, who in an excess of 
 affection was licking the face of the rubber rabbit. 
 Mitty went on with complacent volubility: 
 
 "Barney thought maybe it was a baby. He's a 
 simple, innocent sort of man, Barney Sullivan. But 
 I said to him, 'Don't you f^r, there won't be any 
 babies in that house! The Lord ain't goin' to make 
 such a break as to give that woman a baby.' I guess 
 not," said Mitty, folding her arms and looking grimly 
 round the room as if challenging an unseen audience 
 to contradict her. 
 
 June returned to the stirring of her tea while her 
 hostess continued, 
 
 ''No. She just hated Virginia. Nobody was stand- 
 ing round here to kiss her boots and do the door- 
 mat act. And she didn't like Jerry well enough for 
 him to make her stand it. You have to like a man 
 a good deal to stay here in winter," in the tone of 
 one who is forced to admit a melancholy fact. "If 
 you don't ; you're liable to pretend to get sick and
 
 300 THE PIONEER 
 
 have to go below for a spell. I've seen many of 'em 
 go that way." 
 
 "Didn't Jerry try to stop her?" said June in a low 
 voice. 
 
 "Try to stop her?" with angry contempt "not 
 much! He didn't care. Why, June Allen, he was 
 glad, downright glad, I believe, to have her go. He 
 don't care for anything under the canopy but Jerry 
 Barclay." 
 
 "He cared when he married her." June's voice was 
 lower still and shook. Her friend noticed it and de- 
 termined to sow seed, now she had the opportunity. , 
 
 "Next to himself Jerry Barclay cares for money. 
 That's what he was after, and he didn't get it the way 
 he expected. He's got the smoothest tongue any man 
 ever had in his head, and he's used it right along to 
 get money with. How long was Mrs. Newbury 
 dead when he % got engaged to Mercedes Gracey? And 
 do you suppose he'd have ever asked her if they 
 hadn't struck one of the biggest ore-bodies in Vir- 
 ginia on the fifteen hundred foot level of the Cresta 
 Plata? But they've got him by the leg up here now," 
 with an exultant laugh "the whole three of 'em's 
 on to him. They give him a big salary and don't 
 they make him work for it oh, my ! There ain't 
 no drones in the Gracey boys' hive, you can bet, and 
 Jerry Barclay's got to hustle for every cent he earns. 
 No San Francisco and good times for him ! If Mer- 
 cedes was to cry and do the loving wife act to Black 
 Dan and say she couldn't live without her husband I 
 wouldn't bet but what she'd get him. But she ain't 
 {lone it, She don't want him, Junie. That's what's
 
 OLD FRIENDS WITH NEW FACES 301 
 
 the matter in that shebang. Neither one of 'em 
 wants the other." 
 
 "Why did she marry him?" said June. "Why did 
 she" 
 
 The baby here interrupted by giving vent to a 
 loud exclamation, and at the same time disdainfully 
 casting her rubber rabbit on the floor. Then she leaned 
 over the arm of her high chair, staring with motion- 
 less intentness at the discarded rabbit, as if expect- 
 ing to see it get up and walk away. 
 
 "That's the thing that gets me," said Mitty thought- 
 fully. "Why did she marry him? She could have 
 got a better man than Jerry, though I suppose he was 
 about the best in sight at the time. But she's like the 
 baby here always cryin' and stretchin' out for toys 
 she can't reach. Then you give her the toy and she 
 looks it all over and suddenly gives a sort er dis- 
 gusted snort, and throws it on the floor. She ain't 
 got no more use for it, and the first thing you know 
 she'll be stretchin' out for another one." 
 
 June made no answer to this and Mitty, big with 
 her subject, for her dislike of Mercedes was an ab- 
 sorbing sentiment, went on: 
 
 "She treated him like dirt. Barney was up there 
 one night while they were at dinner. He was just in 
 the room in front with the curtains down between and 
 they didn't know he was there. He said he could 
 hear her pickin' at Jerry because he'd been half an 
 hour late for dinner. He said she kep' on pickin' and 
 pickin' and Jerry not saying a word. Barney says 
 to me when he got home, 'Jerry's paid high for his 
 position.' And I says to him when he told me, 'TKat
 
 302 THE PIONEER 
 
 woman's goin' to make every one pay high for any- 
 thing they get out er her. She's not givin* things 
 away free gratis.' " 
 
 The baby's contemplation of the fallen rabbit had 
 by this time lost its charm. She threw herself back 
 in her chair and raised her voice in a wail distinctly 
 suggestive of weariness of spirit and ennui. Mitty 
 lifted her, a formless, weeping bundle, from her chair, 
 and June's offer of the rabbit was met by an angrily 
 repulsing hand and a writhing movement of irritated 
 disgust. 
 
 "She's tired, poor lamb !" said Mitty, rocking her 
 gently to and fro and slapping on her back with a 
 comforting, maternal hand. "We try to keep her 
 awake till Barney gets in. He just thinks there's 
 nothing in the world like his baby." 
 
 The dusk was beginning to subdue the brilliancy of 
 sunset, and June, buttoning herself into her jacket, 
 bade mother and child good night. Mitty's cheerful 
 good-bys followed her down the passageway, the 
 baby's now lusty cries drowning the last messages 
 which usually delay feminine farewells. 
 
 Once outside, she walked rapidly toward home, 
 avoiding the crowds on C Street, and flitting, a small, 
 dark figure, through less frequented byways. Tumult 
 was in her heart, also the sense of dread that had been 
 with her ever since she came to Virginia and knew 
 her old lover was so near. 
 
 Since his marriage she had tried with desperate 
 persistence to uproot him from her thoughts. She 
 not only had begun to realize his baseness of charac- 
 ter, but the realization was becoming not a matter of
 
 OLD FRIENDS WITH NEW FACES 303 
 
 words, but a living force which was beginning to 
 chill the feeling that for so long had held her in its 
 grasp. The first symptom of a decline in love, the 
 comprehension and dislike of the faults of the being 
 loved, had begun to stir in her. 
 
 Now Mitty's unexpected revelation had upset this 
 more normal and serener frame of mind. She felt 
 herself suddenly swept backward toward a point that 
 she had hoped was far behind. An elation rose in 
 her that frightened her and filled her with shame. 
 Jerry sordid, throwing her from him for the lust of 
 money, was a bearable thought. It was Jerry Toving 
 and beloved that had been too bitter to be borne. 
 And Mitty had said there was no love on either side 
 he was glad to have his wife go. 
 
 A turmoil of many feelings battled in her and the 
 two strongest and most violently opposed were fear 
 and joy. As she stole homeward through the darken- 
 ing streets fear became stronger than joy. The future 
 loomed suddenly sinister. Her loneliness stretched 
 darkly menacing before her. Rosamund would soon 
 be gone gone so far, never again to be reached with, 
 an outstretched hand or a calling voice. And Jerry 
 would be there, close to her, Jerry who did not love 
 his wife, and was glad to have her go.
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 SMOLDERING EMBERS 
 
 Rosamund's marriage was set for the end of May. 
 There had been great preparations for the event, 
 which was to be the most brilliant one of its kind 
 that had ever taken place in the town or state. A 
 costly trousseau had been ordered from San Fran- 
 cisco. It was understood that the wedding break- 
 fast was to come from the same place and be the 
 most sumptuous and elaborate ever given in Vir- 
 ginia. Men heard these rumors with surprise and 
 once more wondered where Allen was getting the 
 money "to splurge with." Even the astute Graceys 
 were puzzled. Only the Colonel was non-committal 
 and looked on quietly. 
 
 "Rosamund's going to have the finest send-off I 
 can give her," Allen said to him a week before the 
 wedding. "It's the best I can do for her. It's a 
 good thing Harrower's only here for a few days." 
 
 The Colonel felt like adding it was an extremely 
 good thing, as otherwise Harrower might be called 
 upon to pay for the splendor of his own nuptials. 
 Twenty-five thousand dollars would not go far with 
 a man, who, with debts pressing on every side, was 
 304
 
 SMOLDERING EMBERS 305 
 
 spending money as Allen was in giving Rosamund a 
 fine "send-off." 
 
 A week before the day set Harrower arrived and 
 took up his residence at the International Hotel. It 
 was a feverish, over-crowded week, full of bustle and 
 fussy excitement. There were people constantly at 
 the Murchison mansion and Allen was constantly out 
 of it. Had Harrower been more versed in the ways 
 of the American parent he would have realized that 
 his future father-in-law was avoiding him. But the 
 young man, who thought everything in the place 
 curious and more or less incomprehensible, regarded 
 his behavior as merely another evidence of the Ameri- 
 can father's habit of letting his children manage 
 their own affairs. He did not like Allen and wanted 
 as quickly as possible to get through the spectacular 
 marriage, and take Rosamund away to the peace of 
 his ancestral acres and the simple country life they 
 both loved. 
 
 To June this last week was a whirl of days and 
 nights, reeling by over a dragging, ceaseless sense 
 of pain.. To both girls the separation was bitter, but 
 Rosamund, passing into the arms of an adored hus- 
 band, for the first time in a life of unselfishness, did 
 not enter into her sister's feelings. She spoke often 
 of the visit June was to pay them next winter. Lionel 
 was as anxious as Rosamund for her to come. 
 The bride and groom were to travel on the con- 
 tinent for part of the summer and then visit his 
 people, introducing Rosamund to her new relations. 
 But by November they would be settled in Monk's 
 Court that was Lionel's home and then June was
 
 306 THE PIONEER 
 
 to come. Rosamund even hinted at a cousin of 
 Lionel's, a "very decent chap" Lionel had said, who 
 was rich and single and "just the right sort for June." 
 
 There were six months between now and then, six 
 short months to Rosamund beginning a brilliant new 
 life with her lover; and six long months to June 
 alone in the mining city, surrounded by the gray 
 desert. 
 
 The wedding day came and the excitement quieted 
 down to the sudden hush of that solemn moment 
 when the voice of a priest proclaims a man and 
 a woman one. The ceremony was performed in the 
 house, Lionel, after some qualms, having agreed to 
 it. June stood beside her sister in the alcove of the 
 bay-window and listened to the words which pledged 
 her to a man of another country and to a life in a 
 distant land. Rosamund was pale as she turned from 
 the clergyman to greet the guests that pressed round 
 her. It was a sacred moment to her, the giving of 
 herself in its fullest and deepest significance to the 
 man she loved, till death should part them. 
 
 It was beyond doubt a very brilliant wedding. The 
 house, hung with flowers every blossom sent up from 
 San Francisco wrapped in cotton wool lost its bare, 
 half-furnished look and became a bower. The cos- 
 tumes of the women many imported from Paris 
 were in all cases costly and in some beautiful. The 
 men, who squeezed past one another on the stairway 
 and drank champagne in corners, stood for more 
 wealth than the whole of the far West had known 
 till the discovery of the Cresta Plata and the Big 
 Bonanza. The millions that the arid state was pour-
 
 SMOLDERING EMBERS 307 
 
 ing out in a silver stream were well represented in 
 the Murchison mansion that afternoon. 
 
 The breakfast seemed to June a never-ending pro- 
 cession of raised champagne glasses and toasts. She 
 had a vision of the Colonel's white head bent toward 
 Rosamund over the low-bowled, thin-stemmed glass 
 in which the golden bubbles rose, and of the husky 
 note in his voice as he wished her joy. She saw her 
 father, with reddened face and bloodshot eyes, rise 
 to his feet, and with the southern fervency of phrase, 
 which he had never lost, bid his daughter God-speed 
 and farewell, the glass shaking in his hand. Harrower 
 stood up beside his bride, her listening face fair and 
 spiritual between the drooping folds of her veil, and 
 said a few words of thanks, halting and simple, but 
 a man's words nevertheless. 
 
 Then the time came for the bride to go up stairs 
 for the change of dress. The guests made a path 
 for her, and June followed the tall figure with its 
 long, glimmering train. 
 
 They said little as Rosamund took off her wedding 
 finery and donned her traveling dress. But at the 
 door of the room they clasped each other in a dumb 
 embrace, neither daring to speak. As she descended 
 Rosamund drew her veil down to hide her tears. Her 
 lips were quivering, her heart was rent with the 
 pain of the parting. June came behind her, calm and 
 dry-eyed, the bleak sense of depression that she had 
 felt for weeks closing round her black and heavy. 
 Part of herself the strong, brave part seemed to 
 be torn away from her with the going of the sister, 
 upon whom she had always leaned.
 
 3 o8 THE PIONEER 
 
 She stood on the balcony and waved her hand as 
 the carriages drove away toward the station. Most 
 of the guests went with them to see the bride and 
 groom off. A stream of people poured down the 
 stairs, laughing, chattering, calling back good-bys 
 to June, as she stood by the door, pale but resolutely 
 smiling. She noticed the three tall figures of the 
 Colonel and the Gracey brothers as they crossed the 
 street together, the Colonel turning to wave his hand 
 to her. Her father had gone before them. Finally 
 everybody had left, and she turned slowly back into 
 the deserted house. 
 
 How empty is was! Her footsteps echoed in it. She 
 passed into the parlor, into which, from the broad bay- 
 window the afternoon light poured coldly. Linen had 
 been stretched over the carpet, and on this white and 
 shining expanse the broken heads of roses and torn 
 leaves lay here and there. The flowers in the recess 
 where the bride and groom had stood were already 
 fading, and the air was heavy with their dying 
 sweetness. 
 
 She looked into the dining-room at the expanse of 
 the rifled table, where the mounds of fruit had been 
 broken down by eager hands and the champagne 
 bubbles rose languidly in the half-filled glasses. There 
 were no servants about and the perfect silence of the 
 house was more noticeable in this scene of domestic 
 disorder. She had ascended the stairs and was look- 
 ing out of a back window when she saw its explana- 
 tion. From the kitchen entrance the servants, headed 
 by the chef brought up from San Francisco for the
 
 SMOLDERING EMBERS 309 
 
 wedding, stealthily emerged. Struggling into their 
 coats and hastily jamming on their hats they ran in 
 straggling line in the direction of the depot, intent, 
 as the rest of the world, on seeing the bride depart. 
 Last of all the Chinaman issued forth, and setting 
 his soft felt wide-awake on his carefully uprolled 
 queue, stole with soft-footed haste after them. 
 
 Nothing can be more full of the note of human 
 desolation than an occupied house suddenly vacated. 
 June passed from room to room feeling the silence as 
 part of the depression that weighed on her. Through 
 the windows she could see the wild, morose land- 
 scape, beginning to take on the hectic strangeness of 
 tint that marked its sunset aspect. Its weird hostility 
 was suddenly intensified. It combined with the silence 
 to augment her sense of loneliness to the point of the 
 unendurable. She ran down the stairs and out on to 
 the curve of balcony which extended from the front 
 door. 
 
 Some children were playing in the street below, and 
 their voices came to her with a note of cheer. Lean- 
 ing listlessly against the balustrade she looked up the 
 street, wondering when her father would be back. She 
 had ceased to note his comings and goings, but this 
 evening she watched for his return as she might have 
 done in her childhood. There was no sign of him, 
 and might not be for hours. After the train left he 
 would probably range about the town, whose night 
 aspect he loved. 
 
 She turned her head in the opposite direction, and 
 her eyes became suddenly fixed and her body stiffened.
 
 310 THE PIONEER 
 
 A man was coming down the street, swinging lightly 
 forward, looking over the tops of the houses toward 
 the reddening peak of the Sugar Loaf. There was 
 only one man in Virginia with that natural elegance 
 of form, that carriage full of distinction and grace. 
 
 For the first moment he did not see her, and in 
 that moment June felt none of the secret elation that 
 had been hers in the past at sudden sight of him. 
 Instead, a thrill of repugnance passed through her, to 
 be followed by a shrinking dread. She moved softly 
 back from the balustrade, intending to slip into the 
 hallway, when he turned his head and saw her. 
 
 The old pleasure leaped into his face. She saw that 
 he pronounced her name. He flung a cautious look 
 about him and then crossed the road. With his hand 
 on the gate he gazed up and said, with something of 
 secrecy in his air and voice : 
 
 "Have they all gone?" 
 
 June's affirmative was low. Her repugnance had 
 vanished. Her desire to retreat had been paralyzed 
 by the first sound of his voice. 
 
 "And they've left you all alone?" 
 
 The tone was soft with the caressing quality that 
 to Jerry was second nature when an attractive woman 
 listened. 
 
 "Yes, they went to the station to see them off. I 
 didn't want to go, so I stayed," she returned stam- 
 meringly. 
 
 Jerry opened the gate. 
 
 "Can I come up?" he said in the lowest tone that 
 would reach her ear. "I hate to think of you all by 
 yourself up there, and Rosamund gone."
 
 SMOLDERING EMBERS 311 
 
 June looked at him and murmured an affirmative 
 that he could not have heard, but he put his foot on 
 the lowest step. She dropped her eyes to her hands 
 resting on the balustrade, while the beating of her 
 heart increased with his ascending footfall. When 
 he had reached her side she was trembling. In those 
 few sentences from the bottom of the stairs he seemed 
 suddenly to have obliterated the past year. The words 
 were ordinary enough, but his eyes, his tone, his man- 
 ner as he now stood beside her, were those of the old 
 Jerry, before Mercedes had stolen him away. 
 
 She raised her eyes to his and immediately dropped 
 them. The soft scrutiny of his gaze the privileged 
 gaze that travels over and dwells on a loved face, 
 with no one to challenge its right increased her 
 flushed distress. Jerry, too, was moved. For both of 
 them the moment was fraught with danger, and he 
 knew it better than she. 
 
 "You're all tired out," he said, with his tender tone 
 slightly hoarse. "Let's go in ancl sit down." 
 
 She led the way through the hall, now beginning 
 to grow dim with the first evening shadows, into the 
 long, bare parlor. There was a sofa drawn up against 
 the wall and on this she sat, while Jerry placed a small 
 gilded chair close in front of her. 
 
 "How deserted it looks !" he said, gazing about the 
 room. "I suppose everybody was here? I saw a per- 
 fect mob of people going down to the station." 
 
 "Yes, everybody went, even the servants. They 
 stole away without telling me. They didn't even wait 
 to clear the things off the table. That's why it's so 
 quiet."
 
 3 i2 THE PIONEER 
 
 Both spoke rapidly to hide their agitation. The 
 woman's was more apparent than the man's. She 
 kept her eyes down and Jerry watched her as she 
 spoke. It was the first time for over a year that he 
 had had a chance to scrutinize her at will. She had 
 changed greatly. Her freshness was gone, her face 
 looked smaller than ever and to-day was almost hag- 
 gard. But Jerry had had his fill of beauty. She 
 loved him still, and she was the one woman of the 
 three he had loved. Ever since Mercedes had left 
 him he had been telling himself this, and the thought 
 had been taking fiery possession of him, growing 
 more dominant each day. 
 
 "Rosamund's made a fine marriage, hasn't she?" 
 he went on, with more fluency. "Some day she'll be 
 Lady Rosamund, and won't she be a stunning Lady 
 Rosamund? She's made for it. Do you remember 
 the time when I was up at Foleys and you had the 
 garden there? What a lot has happened in these last 
 four years." 
 
 "Yes, a lot," June assented. A broken rose-bud lay 
 on the sofa beside her. She picked it up and began 
 to open its leaves. 
 
 "And who'd have supposed then that Rosamund 
 was going to live in England, and some day be Lady 
 Rosamund?" There was a slight pause, and he added 
 in a lower voice, as if speaking to himself: "Who'd 
 have supposed any of the things were going to happen 
 that did?" 
 
 June pressed apart the rose petals in silence. 
 
 "Who'd have supposed I would have done the
 
 SMOLDERING EMBERS 313 
 
 things that I have done?" he said, speaking in the 
 same low voice, but now it was suddenly full of 
 significance. 
 
 He was looking directly at her. His eyes called 
 hers, and with the rose-bud still in her hand, she 
 looked into them for a long motionless moment. It 
 was a look of revelation. He saw her will, like a 
 trapped bird, fluttering and struggling in his grasp. 
 
 "You're just the same, June," he said on a rising 
 breath. 
 
 "No, no," she faltered, "I've changed in every way. 
 You don't know how I've changed. I'm quite a dif- 
 ferent person." 
 
 "But you haven't lost faith in me?" he said, lean- 
 ing nearer to her. , 
 
 She drew back, pressing her shoulders against the 
 sofa, and gazing at him with a sort of suspended ap- 
 prehension. He did not seem to notice her shrinking 
 and went on impetuously: 
 
 "You understand if there were mistakes and errors 
 and and and miserable misunderstandings, that I 
 was led into them. I was a blind fool. Mercedes 
 never cared for me. She told me so three months 
 after we were married. She left me of her own free 
 will. She was glad to go, and I well, I'll tell you 
 the truth, June I wasn't sorry." 
 
 His face was full of angry confession. He had hr d 
 no intention of talking to her in this way, but now he 
 suddenly wanted to reinstate himself in her good 
 opinion and be soothed by her sympathy. She stopped 
 him.
 
 3 I4 THE PIONEER 
 
 "Don't talk about it. It's done. If you made a 
 mistake, it's done, and that's the end. Oh, Jerry, 
 don't talk about it." 
 
 She rose to her feet; the room was getting dim. 
 Outside the royal dyes of sunset had faded from the 
 sky and the twilight was softly settling. 
 
 "I'll have to light the gas," she stammered. "The 
 servants haven't come in yet. This half-light makes 
 me blue." 
 
 Jerry stood aside as she went to the mantel and 
 from among the embanked flowers drew the match- 
 box. The chandelier hung just above his head draped 
 with garlands of smilax. It was high and as June 
 came forward with the lighted match, he stretched out 
 his hand to take it from her. They were close to- 
 gether under the chandelier as their hands touched. 
 Each felt the tremulous cold of the other's fingers 
 and the match dropped, a red spark, between them. 
 
 With suddenly-caught breath Jerry stretched his 
 arms out to clasp her but she drew back, her hands 
 outspread before her, crying, 
 
 "Don't, Jerry, don't! Oh, please don't!" 
 
 She backed away from him and he followed her, 
 not speaking, his face set, his arms ready to enfold her. 
 She was stopped in her recoil by the sofa, and stand- 
 ing against it she looked at him, with agonized plead- 
 ing, whispering, 
 
 "Don't, Jerry. Oh, please go. Please go and leave 
 me ! You loved me once." 
 
 He stopped, stood looking at her for a moment of 
 stricken irresolution, then turned without a word and 
 left the room.
 
 SMOLDERING EMBERS 315 
 
 June fell on the sofa, her face in her hands. She 
 heard his step in the passage, then sharp on every 
 stair as he ran down to the street. In the darkening 
 room she sat trembling, her face hidden, alone in the 
 empty house.
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 A WOMAN'S "NO" 
 
 Rion Gracey called on June as the Colonel had 
 suggested, called again the week after, and in a short 
 time formed a habit of dropping in every Sunday 
 evening. He generally found the Colonel there, and 
 in the first stages of reopening the friendship the 
 elder man had been very convenient in relieving the 
 meetings of the constraint which was bound to hover 
 over them. But as the spring Sundays passed and 
 the constraint wore away, Rion did not so thoroughly 
 appreciate the presence of his friend. With surprise 
 at his own subtility for the mining man was of those 
 who go forcefully over obstacles, not around them 
 he discovered what evenings the Colonel did not dine 
 with June and began to make his appearance then. 
 
 He generally found her alone. She had made no 
 effort to enlarge her acquaintance, and after the wed- 
 ding her father was constantly in San Francisco or 
 at more congenial haunts in the town. It raised agi- 
 tating hopes in Rion to see that she was openly 
 and unaffectedly glad to see him. There was a con- 
 fidence, a something of trust and reliance in her 
 manner that for him had not been there before. 
 He thought she had never been so winning as she was
 
 A WOMAN'S "NO" 317 
 
 on these lonely evenings, when her face lighted at the 
 sight of him, and her smile was full of a soft wel- 
 come, touched with girlish shyness. 
 
 Women like to think that the beloved member of 
 their sex plays so filling and absorbing a part in the 
 life of the enslaved man, that all other matters are 
 crowded from his mind. The interests of business 
 dwindle to the vanishing point, the claims of friend- 
 ship have no place in a heart out of which all else 
 has been pushed. Love, while it lasts, holds him in 
 a spell, and then, if only then, the woman is a reign- 
 ing goddess. 
 
 Rion Gracey was not of this order of man. He 
 had loved June since his meeting with her at Foleys, 
 but he had led a life so full of work and business, so 
 preoccupied with a man's large affairs, that there 
 were periods of weeks when he never thought of 
 her. Yet she had been and was the only woman he 
 had ever truly cared for and ardently desired. Be- 
 fore his meeting with her women had been merely 
 incidents in his onward career. When, during the 
 summer at Foleys, he had come to know her, he had 
 realized how different was the place she would have 
 taken in his life from the transitory interests which 
 were all he had so far known. Then, for the first 
 time, he understood what a genuine passion means 
 to a genuine man. 
 
 When she had refused to marry him he had left 
 her sore and angry. But the crowded life in which 
 he was so prominent a figure soon filled with vital 
 interests every moment of his days. His wound was 
 not healed, but he forgot its ache. He rigorously
 
 318 THE PIONEER 
 
 pushed the thought of her from his mind. She was 
 not for him, and to think of her was weakness. Then 
 he heard a rumor that Barclay was an admirer of 
 hers, and he shut his mouth and tried harder than 
 ever not to think. 
 
 But time passed and June did not marry. Jerry, 
 given his freedom, married Mercedes. Rion, a man 
 to whom small gossip was dull, a thing to give no 
 heed to as one walked forward, heard none of the talk 
 of Jerry's change of heart. It filtered slowly into 
 Virginia, which was across the mountains in another 
 state, and occupied in a big way with big matters. 
 Even Barney Sullivan, who was well primed with 
 San Francisco gossip after Mitty's return from visits, 
 "down below," did not mention to his chief anything 
 of Miss Allen and Jerry Barclay. 
 
 When he heard she was coming to Virginia the 
 love-obsession that the woman likes to believe in, 
 came near taking possession of him. For a day or 
 two he was shaken out of the current of his every- 
 day life and found it hard to attend to his work. 
 The thought of seeing her again filled this self-con- 
 tained and masterful man with tremors such as a 
 girl might feel at the coming of her lover. The first 
 time he saw her on C Street he found it difficult to 
 collect his thoughts for hours afterward. 
 
 The change in her, the loss of what good looks she 
 had once possessed, did not diminish or alter his feel- 
 ing. If he had been asked, if he thought her pretty 
 he would have honestly said he did not know, he had 
 never thought about it. He did not know how old she 
 was, nor could he cite any special points of beauty
 
 A WOMAN'S "NO" 319 
 
 that his eye, as a lover, had noted. Her only physi- 
 cal attribute that had impressed him was her small- 
 ness, and this he had noticed because in walking with 
 her, her head only came to a little above his shoul- 
 der, and he was sometimes forced to bend down to 
 hear her. 
 
 He had been wondering what to do when the Colo- 
 nel asked him to call. Unless the suggestion had 
 come from some one in authority he never would 
 have dared to go, for he was a lover at once proud 
 and shy, not of the kind who batter and browbeat 
 a woman into acquiescence. Her first meeting with 
 him, dominated as it was by mutual embarrassment, 
 at least showed him that she was not displeased to 
 see him. Since then the meetings had been frequent, 
 her pleasure at his coming open for any one to see, 
 and Rion's hopes, in the beginning but faint, had 
 waxed high and exultant. 
 
 To June, he and the Colonel were the only two 
 figures of an intimate interest in her life. He seemed 
 to fill its emptiness, to cheer its isolation. She looked 
 forward to his coming, hardly knowing why, except 
 that a sense of comfort and strength came with him. 
 He was often in her thoughts, and she found herself 
 storing up small incidents in her daily life to tell him, 
 for no reason but that his unspoken sympathy was 
 pleasant. She felt the consciousness so sweet to 
 women that all which concerned her was of mo- 
 ment to him. Now and then the Colonel's past asser- 
 tions that the girl who married Rion Gracey would 
 be happy, rose in her mind. She begar to under- 
 stand that it might be so, and what it would mean.
 
 320 THE PIONEER 
 
 this strong man's love and protection guarding a 
 woman against the storm and struggle of the world, 
 with which she personally was so unfitted to cope. 
 
 One evening, a month after the wedding, he found 
 her sitting on the balcony reading. It had been 
 warm weather for a day or two and the windows and 
 doors of the lower floor were thrown open, showing 
 the receding vista of dimly-lighted rooms and pas- 
 sages. She was dressed in white and had a book 
 he had given her lying open across her knees. As 
 the gate clicked to his opening hand she started and 
 looked down, then leaned forward, her face flush- 
 ing, her lips parting with a smile of greeting. It 
 was a look that might have planted hope in any man's 
 heart. 
 
 "I'm so glad you've come," she said, gazing down 
 on him as he ascended. "I was just wondering if you 
 would. When you want a thing very much it never 
 seems to happen. But now you've happened, so I 
 never can say that again." 
 
 "Yes, I've happened," he answered with the phleg- 
 matic air with which he hid his shyness. "Are you 
 all alone again?" 
 
 "Yes, quite alone. But I've been reading the book 
 you gave me and it's made me forget all about it. 
 I've nearly finished it. It's a splendid book." 
 
 "I'll get you another to-morrow," he said, leaning 
 with his back against the railing and looking at her 
 with a fond intentness of which he was unconscious. 
 She was pretty to-night in her white dress and with 
 her cheeks flushed with pleasure at his coming. Riori,
 
 A WOMAN'S "NO" 321 
 
 who did not notice looks, noticed this, and it stirred 
 his heart. 
 
 "Let's go in," he said. "There's a sort of chill in 
 the air. You mustn't catch cold. If you got sick 
 you'd have to be sent down to San Francisco. There's 
 no proper person here to take care of you." 
 
 She rose and stood in front of him, half turned to 
 
 go- 
 
 "Wouldn't that be dreadful!" she said with careless 
 lightness. "I wouldn't go. Uncle Jim would have 
 to give up his work on the Cresta Plata and take care 
 of me." 
 
 "We wouldn't want you to go," he answered, as 
 he followed her into the hall. "Anyway, I'd want to 
 keep you here." 
 
 She did not appear to notice the change of 
 pronoun, nor the fact that his voice had dropped on 
 the last sentence. With her white dress sweeping 
 spectrally before him he followed her into the dim 
 parlor. 
 
 Something in the intimacy of the still, soft dusk, 
 and the sudden wakening into imperious dominance 
 of his feeling for her, made him move away from 
 her and about the room. Through the open door 
 of the dining-room he saw the white square of the 
 table glimmering in the twilight, with one place set, 
 the crumpled napkin on the cloth, the single wine 
 glass, its lower half dark with wine, a scattering of 
 crimson cherries dotting the glaze of a plate. 
 
 "Did you dine alone, too?" he asked. 
 
 "Yes, father's dining in town to-night and you or
 
 322 THE PIONEER 
 
 Black Dan sent the Colonel into Empire till to- 
 morrow." 
 
 She looked round at him over her shoulder, the 
 lighted match in her hand sending a glow over her 
 face, which was half-plaintive, half-laughing. 
 
 "It's very mean of you to send the Colonel away on 
 nights when he dines with me." 
 
 "Well, honestly, I never thought about it," stam- 
 mered Rion, trying to look contrite, but glad in his 
 heart that the Colonel was, for this evening at least, 
 well out of the way. "And, anyway, it was Dan who 
 sent him. He thinks there are certain things nobody 
 can do as well as Parrish." 
 
 "Of course he's right about that," she answered. 
 "But he ought to remember that one of the things the 
 Colonel does best is to be company for me." 
 
 The gas was lit and she was adjusting the shade of 
 a lamp on a side table. As she spoke she looked over 
 the bright chimney at him, with the smile that held 
 in it so much of melancholy. 
 
 "It's pretty dreary for you here, isn't it?" he said. 
 
 Her lips suddenly trembled and she bit the under 
 one. For a moment her control was shaken, and to 
 hide it she bent over the lamp, pretending to arrange 
 the wick. The pause was heavy till she said in her 
 usual tone: 
 
 "Well, lately it has been rather lonely. It's hard to 
 get used to Rosamund's not being here." 
 
 She crossed the room to the sofa and sat down in 
 the corner of it, Rion taking a chair near her. As 
 she patted her skirt into satisfactory folds, she said, 
 her eyes fixed on her arranging hand,
 
 A WOMAN'S "NO" 323 
 
 "It takes a person a long time to get used to some 
 one they care for going so far off. I sometimes 
 wonder if they ever do." 
 
 He looked at her, murmuring some casual response, 
 his mind not on his words. Against the sheer white 
 of her dress a locket she wore suspended round her 
 neck by a narrow black velvet, caught and lost the 
 light as her breast rose and fell. He was conscious 
 of its regular gleam, of the darkness of her hand 
 against the white folds of her skirt, of the slim small- 
 ness of her figure reclining in the angle of the sofa. 
 
 Another pause fell between them, this time uncom- 
 fortable with a sense of extreme constraint; June's 
 hand ceased moving and joined its companion in her 
 lap. She raised her eyes timidly and met his, intent, 
 motionless, fixed deeply upon her. The locket rose 
 brightly into the light on a sharply caught breath. 
 
 "Why did Black Dan send the Colonel into Em- 
 pire?" she faltered. 
 
 "Do you remember what I asked you more than 
 two years ago in San Francisco?" was his answer. 
 
 She tried to temporize and said nervously, 
 
 "Two years back is a long way to remember." 
 
 "I asked you to marry me, and you said no. Do 
 you remember?" 
 
 She nodded. 
 
 "I'm going to ask you the same thing again." 
 
 "Oh, Rion !" she murmured in an imploring under- 
 tone. 
 
 "I can only say the same things I said then. I'm 
 not a smooth talker, like some of the men you've 
 known. I want you for my wife, and I'll do every-
 
 324 THE PIONEER 
 
 thing I can to make you happy. That's about the 
 whole thing." 
 
 She rose with some broken words he did not catch 
 and passed round behind the sofa, where she stood, 
 her hand resting on the back, her face averted. He 
 rose, too, but made no attempt to approach her. 
 
 "I don't know much about women," he continued. 
 "I don't know how to talk to them. You're the only 
 one of them I've ever felt this way to ; and I'm pretty 
 sure I'll never feel so to any other. I love you. I've 
 tried to stop it and I can't. It's stronger than I am." 
 
 She made no reply, and after waiting a moment, 
 he said, his voice slightly hoarse: 
 
 "Well, say something to me." 
 
 "I don't know what to say," she murmured, her 
 face turned away. 
 
 He made a step toward the sofa, and as she heard 
 him, she drew back as if frightened. He stopped in- 
 stantly, regarding her with a sudden frowning fixity 
 of suspicion and anger. 
 
 "Don't you care for me, June?" he said. 
 
 "Yes, yes, of course so much, so much more than 
 I used to. But, Rion " 
 
 She turned and looked at him, one of her hands 
 raised as if to ward him off. He started forward to 
 seize the hand, but she quickly drew it back and 
 clasped it round the locket. 
 
 "Not that way," she faltered, "not the way you 
 want." 
 
 "Are you going to say no to me again?" 
 
 "Oh, Rion !" she pleaded.
 
 A WOMAN'S "NO" 325 
 
 "Do you care for me? Answer. Don't beat about 
 the bush." 
 
 "I care for you immensely. I've always cared for 
 you, but lately it's been something quite different, 
 something much deeper. You've been so kind to me." 
 
 "Never mind about my kindness, do you love me?" 
 
 "I but no not " she stammered a series of dis- 
 connected words, and came to a stop. 
 
 He took a step nearer to her and said in an authori- 
 tative voice, "Answer me. Will you be my wife?" 
 
 "I can't," she said, in the lowest tone he could hear. 
 
 "You can't? Then it's no again?" 
 
 "It's not exactly no. Or if it is, it's not the same 
 kind of no it was before." 
 
 "What do you mean by that? There's only one kind 
 of no in a matter like this." 
 
 "Well, this is a different kind. It must be a dif- 
 ferent kind. It mustn't be a no that makes us stran- 
 gers as it did before." 
 
 He gave a suppressed exclamation, angry and vio- 
 lent, and turned to the table for his hat. 
 
 "A man's not a fool or a child," he said, "to be 
 spoken to like that." 
 
 She followed his movements, saw him stretch his 
 hand for the hat, and cried, 
 
 "Oh, don't go don't go this way don't be angry 
 with me let me explain." 
 
 He turned and looked at her with a face grown cold 
 and hard. 
 
 "What is there to explain? I want you to be my 
 wife. You don't want to. That's the whole matter."
 
 326 THE PIONEER 
 
 "Oh, no it isn't. It's not like it was the other 
 time. I didn't care then, but I do now, more than 
 you think, much more. Everything's different. I 
 can't bear to have you go. I can't bear to lose you." 
 
 "Is that the reason you've looked so pleased when- 
 ever I came? Was that the reason you told me just 
 now that you wanted me to come so much you didn't 
 think I would ? I've been a fool, no doubt, but it 
 seems to me that a smarter man than I might have 
 thought you meant it." 
 
 She flushed deeply, up to her hair. 
 
 "I did mean it," she said in a low voice. 
 
 Hope sprang to his face and he came close to her: 
 
 "Then if you meant it, say you love me, say you'll 
 marry me. That's the only thing I want you to say 
 to me." 
 
 She shrank away again and without waiting for 
 her answer, he turned the light gone from his face 
 and reached for his hat. 
 
 "Don't go; don't go," she begged. "There are 
 things I want to say to you," but this time he did not 
 let false hopes beguile him. 
 
 "Good-by," he said gruffly, and walked to the 
 door. 
 
 As he passed her she slipped round the sofa and 
 came after him : 
 
 "It mustn't be good-by. Say good night. I won't 
 let you say good-by." 
 
 "It's good-by this time, young woman," he said 
 grimly. "Good-by for keeps." 
 
 She laid her hand on his arm and that stopped 
 liim. With an ,ajj p/ .enforced patience he stood, his
 
 A WOMAN'S "NO" 327 
 
 face turned from her, waiting. For a moment she 
 did not speak, and he said: 
 
 "Come, what is it? If it's that I'm to dangle round 
 as I've been doing for the past two months, let's not 
 waste time over that; I'm not that kind of a man. 
 There's too much for me to do to waste my time and 
 thoughts hanging round a girl who's only fooling with 
 me." 
 
 "I was not fooling," she said humbly; "I meant it 
 all." 
 
 "Evidently we didn't both mean the same thing." 
 
 "No, but now that we understand, don't go off this 
 way saying it's to be good-by for keeps. I shall be 
 so lonely without you. I trust in you so. I lean 
 on you " 
 
 "Lean on the Colonel," he interrupted, almost 
 brutally. "He's a more reliable staff than I am." 
 
 "But we can still be friends," she urged, not ap- 
 pearing to notice his harshness. 
 
 "No, we'll not be friends." 
 
 Looking down at her he forgot his sternness and 
 his voice grew suddenly roughened with feelings he 
 could not disguise. 
 
 "I can't be your friend, June Allen. There may 
 be men who can be the friend of the women they feel 
 to as I do to you, but I'm not that kind. I can be 
 your husband, only that. There's to be no play at 
 friendship where I'm concerned, no taking your hand 
 to shake when I want to take you in my arms and 
 keep you there, where no other man in the world can 
 lay his finger on you or think of you as something 
 he can try to win. You must belong to me, want to
 
 328 THE PIONEER 
 
 belong to me, come to me of your own free will, 
 or else we must be strangers." 
 
 He took her hand, lifted it from his arm and with 
 a short "Good-by" turned and left the room. 
 
 June stood under the chandelier listening to his 
 retreating footsteps as they passed along the 
 hall and then down the outside stairs. She remained 
 motionless, looking down, her ear strained to catch 
 the diminishing footfalls as they reached the end of 
 the steps and were deadened in the dust of the street. 
 He was leaving her never to come back, disappearing 
 from her life and the place he had of late taken in it, 
 into the night and the distance. As she listened her 
 heart momently grew heavier, the sense of empty 
 desertion about her became suddenly overwhelming. 
 
 "Everybody I care for is going away from me," 
 she whispered to herself. "Soon there won't be any- 
 body left."
 
 CHAPTER V 
 "HER FEET GO DOWN TO DEATH" 
 
 Jerry was in a bad temper. For some days he had 
 been disturbed by rumors of Rion Gracey's atten- 
 tions to June. In the long twilights of the summer 
 evenings Rion had been constantly seen mounting the 
 steps of the Murchison mansion. The single state of 
 the Gracey boys had long been a matter of comment, 
 and, as their riches grew it was regarded with in- 
 creasing wonderment. Black Dan's heart may have 
 been buried in the grave of his child wife, but Rion 
 had never paid any attention to any woman. There- 
 fore, when it was known of men that he was a fre- 
 quent visitor at the Aliens', the little world in which 
 he was a marked man began to whisper. 
 
 Jerry did not at first hear these rumors. He was 
 not only kept busy from morning till night but he was 
 entirely preoccupied in his own affairs. His femi- 
 nine love of intrigue for its own sake was overpow- 
 ered by such respect and honest tenderness as he still 
 possessed for June. After his interview with her 
 he determined not to see her again. June was not 
 like Lupe Newbury and his feeling for her was differ- 
 ent. He said to himself with a sense of magnanimity 
 that no unhappiness should ever come to her from 
 329
 
 330 THE PIONEER 
 
 him, and in order to be on the safe side he would 
 keep away from her. 
 
 As had been the case with Jerry all his life, there 
 was method in his morality. He had gained at least 
 one thing by his marriage and that was his con- 
 nection with the all-powerful Graceys. Though he 
 disliked both men, who, he knew, regarded him with 
 secret contempt, their patronage was too valuable 
 to be jeopardized. June's happiness and honor were 
 precious things, but no more so than his own con- 
 nection with the owners of the Cresta Plata. So he 
 stayed away from her, feeling himself a paladin of 
 virtue, and sentimentally thinking of her alone in the 
 Murchison mansion, dreaming of him. 
 
 This agreeable arrangement of the situation was 
 suddenly disrupted by the stories of Rion's atten- 
 tions. Jerry's high thoughts of renunciation were 
 swept away in a flood of jealous indignation. At 
 first he refused to believe it. He was absolutely con- 
 fident of June's constant and long-suffering affec- 
 tion for him. That she should marry some one else 
 he had deemed impossible. But one of the Gracey 
 boys it did not much matter which the owners 
 of one of the richest mines on the Comstock, was a 
 very different matter. Money loomed the largest thing 
 on Jerry's horizon. He did not believe it could take 
 a less prominent place on that of other people of 
 June especially, whose father he knew to be finan- 
 cially embarrassed. The thought of her his own 
 especial property triumphantly marrying a million- 
 aire, leaving him, as it were, stranded, having lost 
 everything and been "done" on every side, infuriated
 
 "HER FEET GO DOWN TO DEATH" 331 
 
 him. The jealousy that had possession of him was 
 fierce, the jealousy of the man whose love is of the 
 destructive, demolishing kind. 
 
 On the day he had risen up in a bad temper he had 
 heard what amounted to confirmation of the rumor. 
 One of the office clerks in the Cresta Plata had told 
 him that Rion's infatuation for the young woman 
 was leading him into lovers' extravagances. A man 
 who had always been indifferent to his dress, he was 
 now getting all his clothes from San Francisco. He 
 had books, flowers, and candies sent up for her all 
 the time. He was with her constantly. 
 
 "Rion Gracey's never looked at a woman before," 
 was the young man's final comment, "and that's the 
 kind that it takes most hold on. He's got it bad and 
 can't hide it. It's out on him for any one to see, like 
 the measles." 
 
 Jerry's jealousy and alarm boiled past the point 
 of prudence. He made up his mind to get off early 
 that afternoon and go to see June, and, as he ex- 
 pressed it in his own thoughts, "have it out with her." 
 He had no idea what he intended to say, but he was 
 going to find out what her attitude was to Rion, and, 
 if need be, accuse her of her perfidy. 
 
 He had perfected his plan of escape from the office 
 when Black Dan informed him that he was consid- 
 ering the purchase of a new horse and wotild be 
 obliged if Jerry a notable judge of horseflesh would 
 take it for a spin along the grade road and report his 
 opinion of it. Black Dan's requests in this way were 
 exceedingly like commands. But no one, from Barney 
 Sullivan, the smartest superintendent in Virginia, to
 
 332 THE PIONEER 
 
 the youngest miner working on the ore-breasts, had 
 ever dared to question them. With his face red with 
 rage Jerry bowed his head in acquiescence, and that 
 afternoon at the hour when he had hoped to be con- 
 fronting June in her own parlor he was flying along 
 the road toward Carson, cursing to himself as he 
 held the reins over the back of Black Dan's new 
 horse. 
 
 The afternoon was magnificent, held in a diamond - 
 like transparence and blazing with sun. The moun- 
 tain air tempered its heat. As Jerry flew along that 
 remarkable road which curves, like an aerial terrace, 
 round the out-flung buttresses of Mount Davidson, 
 the Sierra, a lingering enameling of snow on its sum- 
 mits, spread before him. Rising high in tumbled 
 majesty, mosaics of snow set in between ravines of 
 swimming shadow, it looked unsubstantially enormous 
 and unreal like scenery in dreams. Between it and 
 Mount Davidson vast, airy gulfs of space fell away 
 that seemed filled, as a glass might be with water, 
 with a crystal stillness. The whole panorama, clari- 
 fied by thin air, and with clear washes of shade laid 
 upon it, was like a picture in its still, impersonal se- 
 renity. 
 
 Jerry, in his rage, let the horse have its head and 
 they sped forward, past the outlying cabins that made 
 a scattering along the approach to the town, past the 
 timbered openings of the lone prospector's tunnels, 
 to where the ledge of road rimmed the barren moun- 
 tain flank. They were flying forward at an exhilara- 
 ting pace when he noticed a woman's figure some dis-
 
 "HER FEET GO DOWN TO DEATH" 333 
 
 tance in front walking on the narrow edge of path 
 and moving forward at a brisk rate of speed. As he 
 overhauled it his glance began to fasten on it with 
 growing eagerness. The woman heard the thud of 
 the flying hoofs behind her, and drew aside, as close 
 to the outer edge as she dared, looking with eyes 
 that blinked in the sunlight at the approaching buggy. 
 Jerry's face flushed with a sudden realizing of the 
 completely unexpected. It was June. 
 
 She did not recognize him at first, and drew back, 
 as the horse, in a swirl of dust and spume flakes, came 
 to a stop beside her. Then she saw who it was and 
 with a low-toned "Jerry!" stood staring at him. 
 
 " Yes, it's I," he said hurriedly, leaning forward. 
 "Get in and I'll take you for a spin." 
 
 She drew away, shaking her head. The spirited 
 horse, excited by its run, began to bite at the bit, 
 arch its neck and back prancingly. Jerry had to with- 
 draw his attention from the girl, and, swearing in a 
 soft undertone, bestow it on the animal. 
 
 "Come, June," he said, trying to speak coaxingly, 
 "there's no harm in driving for half an hour with me. 
 This is a new horse I'm trying for Black Dan and 
 it's a perfect stunner." 
 
 She murmured a refusal, backing away from the 
 wheels. The horse paused for a moment in its curvet- 
 ings and Jerry had an opportunity to look at her 
 and say in his most compelling tone: 
 
 "I only want you to drive up a mile or two with 
 me. It's a glorious afternoon, and it's worth some- 
 thing to ride behind a horse like this. I'm not going
 
 334 THE PIONEER 
 
 to say anything to you you won't like to hear. You 
 needn't be afraid. You and I are too old friends not 
 to trust each other." 
 
 She wavered. 
 
 "Come, get in," he said, his voice soft and making 
 an urgent upward movement with his chin, that seemed 
 to draw her into the buggy as his hand might. She 
 put her foot on the step and the next moment was 
 beside him. The horse leaped forward and the road 
 began to flash by like a yellow ribbon. 
 
 For some moments they were silent, Jerry with 
 his eyes on the road ahead. They whirled round one 
 of the projecting spurs of the mountain and, seeing 
 the long curve before them clear of vehicles, he turned 
 and looked at her. His eyes as they met hers were 
 hard and angry. 
 
 "I've been hearing things about you!" he said. 
 
 "Things! What things?" 
 
 "I fancy you know." 
 
 "I don't know what you mean," she answered un- 
 easily. "What sort of things?" 
 
 "The last sort of things in the world I want to 
 hear." 
 
 She looked away making no answer and he said : 
 
 "I've heard that Rion Gracey is in love with you." 
 
 "Oh, is that it?" she commented in a low voice. 
 
 Her manner irritated him. She did not seem to 
 realize the seriousness of the charge. 
 
 "Yes that's it," he replied, continuing to regard 
 her with a look of pugnacious ill-humor. 
 
 She again made no reply and he persisted angrily: 
 v "Is he?"
 
 "HER FEET GO DOWN TO DEATH" 335 
 
 "I don't want to talk about it. It's not fair. You've 
 no right to ask." 
 
 "No right to ask !" he exclaimed in enraged amaze- 
 ment. "No right to ask! My God, that's a remark 
 for you to make to me!" 
 
 He turned his face to the horse, his mouth set, 
 his lips compressing words that he dared not utter. 
 It was evidently all true. The thought that she might 
 be already engaged to Rion entered his mind, carry- 
 ing with it a sensation of appalling blankness. With 
 a flash of revealing truth he saw that his life, with 
 June completely gone from it, would be for ever savor- 
 less and without meaning. He had not realized before 
 how much he cared for her. 
 
 For a space there was silence. They sped round 
 another buttress and saw an unobstructed semicircle 
 of road before them. Without looking at her he said 
 abruptly : 
 
 "Are you going to marry him?" 
 
 "No," she answered. 
 
 "No?" he almost shouted, this time turning to stare 
 at her. 
 
 She turned her face away repeating the negative. 
 
 "Why not?" 
 
 "I I don't oh, Jerry, don't question me this 
 way. It's not fair." 
 
 "But he has asked you?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "And you've refused him?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 "I haven't got that sort of feeling for him. I ad-
 
 336 THE PIONEER 
 
 mire him. I respect him above all men. I can't tell 
 you how much he was to me, how I leaned on him, 
 depended on him, but " 
 
 She stopped, looking down. Jerry, holding the reins 
 in his loosely gloved hand, leaning toward her, and 
 into her ear whispered: 
 
 "But you don't love him." 
 
 He turned back to the horse with his face alight 
 with triumph. The relief that she was still his, that 
 love of him had made her refuse such an offer, intox- 
 icated him. He could have sung and shouted. He was 
 silent, however, his eyes on the horse, conscious in 
 every fiber of the proximity of the woman who, he 
 now knew, had not the power to break from his in- 
 fluence. 
 
 Neither spoke again, till the buggy, cresting 
 the last rise, came out on the shoulder of the moun- 
 tain, whence the road loops downward through the 
 sage to Washoe Lake. Below them, at the base of 
 the Sierra, the lake lay, a sheet of pure blue, its banks 
 shading from the gray of the surroundings to a vivid 
 green where the water moistened them. There was 
 something human in this evidence of the land's read- 
 iness to bloom and beautify itself when the means 
 were given it. It was a touch of coquetry in this 
 austere, unsmiling landscape that seemed so indif- 
 ferent. 
 
 Silent, the man and woman looked down, neither 
 thinking of what they saw. The spirited horse was 
 now willing to rest for a space, and stood, an equine 
 statue against the sky, eagerly sniffing the keen air, 
 his head motionless in a trance of alert attention,
 
 "HER FEET GO DOWN TO DEATH" 337 
 
 his ears pricking back and forth. A gulf of silence 
 encircled them, pin-points of life in an elemental 
 world. 
 
 June sat with relaxed muscles, her hands in her 
 lap, her eyes on the lake. The stormy, troubled joy, 
 so far from happiness, that was hers when with 
 Jerry, held her. She had no desire to speak or move. 
 The consciousness of his presence was like a drug 
 to her energies, her reason, and her conscience. Sitting 
 beside him, in this sun-steeped, serene solitude, the 
 sense of wrong in his companionship became less 
 and less acute, the wall of reserve between them 
 seemed to evaporate. Sin and virtue, honor and dis- 
 honor, seemed the feeble inventions of timid man, 
 oppressed and overwhelmed by this primordial nature 
 which only sympathized with a pagan return to itself. 
 
 From an absent contemplation of the landscape 
 Jerry turned and looked at his companion. He sur- 
 veyed her with tender scrutiny, noting points in her 
 appearance he had loved the slight point with which 
 her upper lip, just in the middle, drooped on her under 
 one, the depression of her dimple, the fineness of her 
 skin. 
 
 "No one else in the world has got the same sort of 
 face as you," he said at length. 
 
 "That's not to be regretted," she murmured fool- 
 ishly. 
 
 "You've the dearest little mouth, the way your up- 
 per lip comes down in a point on your lower one! I 
 don't believe there's another woman in the world with 
 such a queer little fascinating mouth." 
 
 He continued to gaze at her, half-smiling, but with
 
 338 THE PIONEER 
 
 intent eyes. Both felt the desire to talk leaving them. 
 The silence of the landscape seemed to take possession 
 of them, to make speech seem trivial and unnecessary. 
 
 "Why did you refuse Rion Gracey?" he said sud- 
 denly in a lowered voice. 
 
 She did not reply and he repeated the question. 
 
 "I didn't care for him," she said so low he could 
 hardly hear the words. 
 
 He laid his hand on hers, gathering up her small 
 fingers in his large grasp. 
 
 "Why?" he repeated, pressing them. 
 
 She turned away in evident distress and he whis- 
 pered : 
 
 "Was it because you loved me?" 
 
 Her head drooped and he put his lips almost against 
 her cheek as he whispered again: 
 
 "It was. I know it." 
 
 They were silent once more, neither looking at the 
 other now. Both trembled, guilt and fear strong in 
 their hearts. 
 
 At this moment a rabbit sprang from a sage bush 
 across the path, and the horse, curling backward in 
 a spasm of fear, rose to its hind legs and then leaped 
 forward along the road. It took Jerry a full five 
 minutes to control him and turn his head toward 
 home. 
 
 "I'll take you back now," he said, throwing the 
 words sidewise at her as they flew onward. "I'll stop 
 at the mouth of Crazy Saunders' Tunnel. You can walk 
 in from there. If I drove you into town some idiot 
 would see us and make talk. I never saw anything 
 like this place. If Saint Cecilia and Jephthah's daugh-
 
 "HER FEET GO DOWN TO DEATH" 339 
 
 ter settled here for a week they'd cook up some gossip 
 about them." 
 
 There was no more speech between them till they 
 saw the timbered opening of Crazy Saunders' Tun- 
 nel loom in sight. Beyond, the first cottages of the 
 town edged the road. 
 
 At the tunnel's mouth Jerry drew up. June put 
 her foot forward for the step, and as she did so 
 he leaned toward her and said: 
 
 "I'm coming to see you soon." 
 
 She looked quickly at him, protest and alarm in her 
 face. 
 
 "No, don't do that," she said almost sharply. "I 
 don't want you to. You mustn't." 
 
 "Why not?" he answered in a tone of cool defiance. 
 "Why shouldn't I ? We're old friends. I see no reason 
 why I shouldn't come up to see you now and then." 
 
 The fretting horse, capering and prancing with 
 impatience, cut off further conversation. June scram- 
 bled out, reiterating: 
 
 "No, don't come. I don't want you to." 
 
 As the horse sprang forward Jerry called over 
 his shoulder: 
 
 "Hasta manana, Senorita. I'm not going to say 
 good-by." 
 
 June walked home with her eyes down-drooped, 
 her head hanging. She took no heed of the brilliant 
 colors that were lending beauty to the crumpled sky- 
 line of the mountains. She did not see the people 
 who passed her, some of whom knew her and won- 
 dered at her absorption. Her thoughts went back to 
 the days at Foleys when she and Rosamund had
 
 340 THE PIONEER 
 
 made money with the garden and had been so full 
 of work and healthy, innocent happiness. Then she 
 thought of the life in San Francisco, with its growth 
 of lower ambitions, its passion and its suffering. And 
 now this so dark, so menacing, so full of sudden, 
 unfamiliar dread ! 
 
 A phrase she had heard in church the Sunday be- 
 fore rose to her recollection: "Her feet go down to 
 death." As her thoughts roamed somberly back over 
 the three epochs of her life the phrase kept recurring 
 to her, welling continually to the surface of her mind, 
 with sinister persistence 
 
 "Her feet go down to death."
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 THE EDGE OF THE PRECIPICE 
 
 Since his connection with the Graceys Jerry had 
 been buying stock in the numerous undeveloped and 
 unpaying mines which had cropped up like mush- 
 rooms round the edges of the town. In the end of 
 July a new strike in the two-thousand- foot level of the 
 Cresta Plata sent the stock of the mines in the vicin- 
 ity suddenly up. As the vein was opened it devel- 
 oped into a discovery of great importance. The shares 
 Jerry held doubled in value and continued to advance. 
 August was not half over when he realized that, on 
 paper at least, he was again a rich man. 
 
 The realization brought with it a pulsing sense of 
 exhilaration. It meant not only the joys of independ- 
 ent wealth, which were to him among the dearest 
 on earth, but the liberty to do with his life what he 
 pleased. It was not only freedom from the Graceys, 
 with whom his work had become a detested servi- 
 tude, but an escape from the bonds his marriage had 
 cast round him. Escape from it all the scorn of his 
 employers, the drudgery of his position, the meaning- 
 less tie that held him to an unloved wife and denied 
 him the woman he craved. 
 
 The fever of the time and his own mounting for- 
 341
 
 342 THE PIONEER 
 
 tunes was in his blood. Actions that under normal 
 conditions would -have seemed to him base he now 
 contemplated with a sense of headstrong defiance. 
 He was on fire with the lust of money and the desire 
 of woman. The two passions carried him off his 
 feet,t swept away his judgment and reason. But the 
 instinctive deceptiveness of the lover of intrigue did 
 not desert him. While he was inwardly contemplat- 
 ing desperate steps, on the surface he appeared to 
 be merely full of boyish animation and high spirits. 
 
 To June alone he was different, a man of almost 
 terrifying moods, before whom at one moment she 
 shrank and the next melted. He had brushed aside 
 her request not to see her, as he would later on brush 
 aside all her requests, her reticences and modesties, 
 and be the master of a broken and abject slave. 
 
 Despite his desire to be with her he saw her sel- 
 dom. The mining town offered few opportunities 
 for meetings, which, however innocent they might 
 be, were more agreeable if they took place in the se- 
 clusion of parks and quiet byways than on the crowd- 
 ed sidewalks of the populous streets. There were 
 no wooded lanes for man and maid to loiter in, no 
 plazas with benches in sheltered corners. In its hand- 
 to-hand fight against elemental forces the town had 
 no time to make concessions to the delicately de- 
 batable diversions of social life. It only recognized 
 a love that was honestly licit or frankly illicit. 
 
 A few hurried visits at the Murchison mansion in 
 the late afternoon when the Colonel was known to 
 be busy at the office and Allen was still down town, 
 were the only times that Jerry had been able to have
 
 THE EDGE OF THE PRECIPICE 343 
 
 speech with her. These interviews had at first been 
 presided over by an outward seeming of that coolly 
 polite friendship of which Jerry liked to talk. The 
 conversation avoided all questions of sentiment as 
 the man and woman seemed to avoid the proximity 
 one of the other, sitting drawn apart with averted eyes, 
 talking of impersonal matters. 
 
 But as his holdings advanced in value, as he saw 
 himself day by day loosening the bonds that bound 
 him to his employers, his wife, a society of which he 
 was weary, his restraint was relaxed. His words grew 
 less fluent, his pose of friend changed to that of the 
 man on whose conversation moments of silence fall 
 while he looks with ardent eyes on a down-drooped 
 face. June made a last desperate stand, tried with de- 
 spairing struggles to draw back from the fate closing 
 around her. Even now she did not realize how close 
 she was to the edge of the precipice. But Jerry did. 
 He knew they were standing on its brink. 
 
 One evening, early in September, June and the Col- 
 onel were sitting together at dinner in the dining-room 
 of the Murchison mansion. Allen had gone to San 
 Francisco for a week, and the Colonel was to dine 
 with June every evening till his return. He spent 
 as much of his time as possible with the young girl 
 in these lonely days. Even Mitty Sullivan and the 
 baby were away, having gone to Lake Tahoe for 
 two months. Thus the one house to which June 
 could constantly go and be cheered by the society 
 of a woman friend was closed to her. 
 
 Since Rosamund's wedding the Colonel had seen 
 a distinct change in his darling. He set it down to
 
 344 THE PIONEER 
 
 grief at her sister's departure. She was pale and 
 listless. The joy of youth had gone completely from 
 her. Of late he had noticed that she was often absent- 
 minded, not answering him if he spoke to her. He 
 worried over her with a man's helplessness in situa- 
 tions of complicated feminine tribulation. Allen, 
 drunk half of the time, absent the other half, was no 
 guardian for her. Yet the Colonel could not take 
 her away from him. He was her father. Sometimes 
 when he let himself build air castles over his after- 
 dinner cigar, he thought that perhaps Allen might 
 die or marry again and then June would come to 
 him and be his daughter. He would watch over 
 her and lap her round with love and tenderness, and 
 far off, in a rosy future, he would see her giving her 
 hand to Rion, the man, he told himself, that Provi- 
 dence had made for her. 
 
 Her appearance to-night shocked him. She was 
 pallid, the delicate blue blur of veins showing on her 
 temples, her eyes heavy and darkly shadowed. He 
 noticed that she ate little, crumbling her bread with a 
 nervous hand, and only touching her lips to the rim 
 of the wine glass. She was unusually distraught, often 
 not answering the remarks he made to her, but sit- 
 ting with her lids down, her eyes on her restlessly 
 moving fingers. 
 
 Toward the end of dinner a sense of apprehension 
 began to pervade him. If she continued to droop 
 this way she might contract some ailment and die. 
 Her mother had died of consumption and consump- 
 tion often descended from parent to child. He knew 
 now that her likeness to Alice went deeper than mere
 
 THE EDGE OF THE PRECIPICE 345 
 
 outward form into the secret springs of thought and 
 action. It was one of those careful and perfect re- 
 productions of type to which Nature is now 
 and then subject. June was her mother in looks, in 
 character, in temperament. It was so singularly close 
 a resemblance that it seemed but natural to dread 
 for her the disease that had killed the elder woman. 
 
 "You feel perfectly well, Junie?" he inquired, try- 
 ing to speak easily but with anxious eyes on her. 
 
 "Well ?" she repeated. "Oh, quite well ! I've never 
 been better. What makes you ask?" 
 
 "I thought you looked pale, paler than usual, and 
 seemed out of spirits. Are you out of spirits, dearie ?" 
 
 "I've not been very cheerful since since Rosa- 
 mund left." 
 
 She concluded the sentence with an effort. The 
 half-truth stuck in her throat. She had been in a 
 state of confused misery for days, but the pain of her 
 deception pierced through it. 
 
 "I hate to leave you looking like this," he contin- 
 ued. "I'm sure you're not well." 
 
 "Leave me !" she exclaimed with a startled emphasis. 
 "You're not going to leave me?" 
 
 Her face, full of alarmed protest, astonished him. 
 
 "Of course I'm not going to leave you. I'm going 
 down to San Francisco on Monday for two weeks, 
 that's all. Business of Black Dan's." 
 
 She sat upright, bracing her hands against the 
 edge of the table and said, almost with violence: 
 
 "Don't go. I don't want you to go. You mustn't 
 go." 
 
 "But, my dear little girl, it's only for two weeks,
 
 346 THE PIONEER 
 
 perhaps less. I expect to be back Friday evening. 
 I know it's lonely for you, but you know we have to 
 put up with a good deal on our way through this 
 world. You've found that out, honey. We've got to 
 have our philosophy pretty handy sometimes." 
 
 "Oh, philosophy! I haven't got any. I only seem 
 to have feelings." 
 
 She rose from her chair, the Colonel watching her 
 with anxiously knit brows. Her distress at the thought 
 of his leaving her filled him with uneasy surprise. It 
 seemed so disproportioned to the cause. She passed 
 round the table and came to a halt beside him. 
 
 "Can't you put it off?" she said, trying to speak 
 in her old coaxing way. "Put it off till I go to 
 England to visit Rosamund." 
 
 "Oh, June!" he exclaimed, hardly able to forbear 
 laughing. "What a thing for a girl who's lived among 
 mining men almost all her life to suggest! You won't 
 go for over two months yet, and this is important. It's 
 about the new pumps for the two-thousand-foot level. 
 I leave on Monday." 
 
 "Monday!" she repeated with the same air of star- 
 tled alarm. "Next Monday?" 
 
 "Yes. If all goes well I won't be gone two weeks. 
 I'll be back Friday night. I'll bring you up some 
 new books, and anything else you can think of. You 
 know this is business, and there's no fooling with 
 Black Dan. If you were sick in bed it would be a 
 different matter. But as it is I must go." 
 
 Without more words she turned away and went 
 slowly back to her seat. The Colonel, worried and
 
 THE EDGE OF THE PRECIPICE 347 
 
 baffled, watched her apprehensively. He thought to 
 prick her pride into life and said rallyingly: 
 
 "I'm beginning to think you're just a little bit 
 spoiled. The old man's making a baby of you. You're 
 just as much of a child as ever." 
 
 He looked at her with a twinkling eye, hoping to 
 see her laugh. But she was grave, leaning languidly 
 against the back of the chair. 
 
 "I'm not as much of a child as you think," was her 
 answer. 
 
 On the following Monday, en route to the depot, 
 the Colonel paused on the outskirts of the crowd 
 round the stock bulletins pasted up in a broker's win- 
 dow. He did not see that Jerry was on the other side 
 of the crowd. But Jerry saw him, and through the 
 openings between the swaying heads, eyed him warily. 
 
 As the elder man turned away in the direction of 
 the depot, Jerry backed from the edges of the crowd 
 to watch the retreating figure. His handsome face 
 only showed a still curiosity, but there was malevo- 
 lence in his eyes. He had quietly hated the Colonel 
 since the night of the Davenport ball and awaited 
 his opportunity to return that blow. 
 
 "Old blackguard!" he thought to himself, "I'll be 
 even with you soon, now !" 
 
 The month of September advanced with early dark- 
 ening evenings and the clear sharpening of outlines 
 which marks the first breath of autumn. It was easier 
 for Jerry now to see June. In the late afternoons 
 the twilight came quickly and he could mount the 
 long stairs to the Murchison mansion without fear
 
 348 THE PIONEER 
 
 of detection. The Colonel was away. Allen had 
 returned but was much out, and when at home was 
 closeted in a small room of his own that he called 
 his office. The way was clear for Jerry, but he 
 still advanced with slow and cautious steps. 
 
 The Colonel had been gone over a week when one 
 evening June entered the office to consult with her 
 father about an unpaid household bill for which a 
 tradesman had been dunning her. The shortness of 
 money from which Allen had been suffering since 
 Rosamund's marriage, was beginning to react upon 
 June. Several times of late the holders of accounts 
 against her father had paid personal visits to the 
 Murchison mansion. She had not yet grasped the 
 hopeless nature of their situation. Even in the town 
 Allen's insolvency was not known. It was simply ru- 
 mored that he was "hard-up." 
 
 As she opened the door in answer to his "Come 
 in" she smelt the sharp odor of burning paper, and 
 saw that the grate was full of charred fragments. 
 Portions of a man's wardrobe were scattered about 
 on the various pieces of furniture, and on a sofa 
 against the wall two half-packed valises stood open. 
 Allen sat at his desk, amid a litter of papers, some 
 of which he had been tearing up, others burning. 
 As his eye fell on his daughter he laid his hand 
 over an open letter before him. 
 
 She came in, holding the bill out toward him, and 
 timidly explaining her entrance and its cause, for 
 of late he had been fiercely irascible. To-night, how- 
 ever, he greeted her with unusual gentleness, and
 
 THE EDGE OF THE PRECIPICE 349 
 
 taking the paper from her hand looked at it and 
 laid it aside. 
 
 "Thompson," he said; "tell him his account will 
 be settled in a few days. And any of the others that 
 send in bills like this, tell them the same thing." 
 
 "Are you going again?" she asked, looking at the 
 valises. 
 
 "Yes, to-morrow. You can just casually let these 
 fellows know that I've gone down to San Francisco 
 to sell some stock, and everything will be satisfac- 
 torily settled up when I get back." 
 
 "When will you get back?" she asked, not from de- 
 sire for his presence, but to know what to say to the 
 uneasy tradesmen. 
 
 "You tell them next week," he said, "that'll quiet 
 them. But I may be longer. It may be two or even 
 three weeks. I've lots of things to arrange, so don't 
 you worry if I don't show up next week or even later." 
 
 He tore the letter he had been covering with his 
 hand into small pieces and, rising, threw them into 
 the grate on the smoldering remnants of the others. 
 
 "Uncle Jim's down below now," she said, "you'll 
 probably see him." 
 
 "But he'll be back in a few days, won't he?" he 
 queried, looking at her with sudden, sharp inquiry. 
 "If if I should be delayed, as I told you I might 
 be, he'll be here and he'll look after you. You see more 
 of him now than you do of me. He seems to be more 
 your father than I." 
 
 "He's here oftener," she said apologetically, "you're 
 away so much."
 
 350 THE PIONEER 
 
 "Maybe that's it. I'm not kicking about it. He's 
 the Graceys' right hand man now. He's on top of 
 the heap. He'll always look out for you, and he'll 
 be able to do it." 
 
 He turned to throw some more papers on the 
 burning pile, missing her look of surprise. 
 
 "Always look out for me!" she repeated. "There's 
 no need for him to do that. You'll be back soon." 
 
 "You needn't take me so literally. But you ought 
 to know by this time that the future's a pretty un- 
 certain thing. If anything should happen to me, it's 
 just as I say, he'd be here on the spot ready and willing 
 to take care of you. You can't look for much from 
 me. If I died to-morrow I wouldn't leave you a cent. 
 The Barranca's petered." 
 
 "But the stocks you're going to San Francisco to 
 sell? They must be worth a good deal. Everybody's 
 stocks seem to be worth something now. Mitty Sul- 
 livan's cook says she's thirty thousand ahead." 
 
 "Oh, yes, they'll bring something." He spoke ab- 
 sently, took up Thompson's bill and thrust it on a 
 spike with others of its kind. "There they are, all 
 the tradesmen. Don't let them bother you. You'd 
 better run along now and let me finish up." 
 
 "Can I help you pack?" she suggested with timid 
 politeness. 
 
 He shook his head, his eye traveling down a new 
 letter he had picked up from the desk. 
 
 "Good night," she said, moving toward the door. 
 
 He dropped the letter and, following her, put his 
 arm around her and kissed her. It was an unexpected
 
 THE EDGE OF THE PRECIPICE 351 
 
 caress. He and his daughter had grown very far 
 apart in this last year. 
 
 "Good-by," he said gently, and turning from her 
 went back to his papers. 
 
 "Run along," he said without looking up. "I'll be 
 busy here for some hours yet." 
 
 When she came down to breakfast the next morn- 
 ing he had already gone. The Chinaman told her he 
 had left early, driving into Reno by private convey- 
 ance in order to catch the first morning train to the 
 coast. 
 
 That evening Jerry beat out the last spark of her 
 resistance. He held her close in his arms, his cheek 
 against hers, and revealed to her his plan of elopement. 
 Trembling and sobbing she clung to him, under his 
 kisses the words of denial dying on her lips. He paid 
 no heed to her feeble pleadings, hushing her protests 
 with caresses, whispering of their happiness, murmur- 
 ing the lovers' sentences that, since Eve, have been the 
 undoing of impassioned women. 
 
 When he stole down the steps in the darkness of 
 the early night, triumph was in his heart. She was 
 his when he chose to take her, her will as water, her 
 resistance only words. A new world of love, liberty 
 and riches lay before him. The bleak town and its 
 bitter memories would soon be far behind, and June 
 and he in a strange country and a new life would 
 begin their dream of love.
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 THE COLONEL COMES BACK 
 
 Jerry's plans had been laid with the utmost secrecy 
 and care. It behooved him to be wary, for he knew 
 that detection would mean death. Neither the Col- 
 onel nor Black Dan would have hesitated to shoot 
 him like a dog if they had known what he contem- 
 plated, and working day by day in an office with 
 these men, in a town the smallness and isolation of 
 which rendered every human figure a segregated and 
 important unit, it required all the shrewdness of which 
 he was master to mature his design and arouse no 
 suspicion. 
 
 The time had now come when everything was sud- 
 denly propitious. Had the Prince of Darkness been 
 giving Jerry's affairs his particular attention, circum- 
 stances could not have fallen together more conven- 
 iently for the furthering of his purpose. 
 
 In the office of the Cresta Plata it was arranged 
 that every two weeks he should be given three or 
 four days off to go to San Francisco and visit his 
 wife. These holidays, which were grudgingly doled 
 out by Black Dan, always included the Sunday, as the 
 older man was determined his son-in-law should have 
 as little immunity from work as possible. In the mid- 
 352
 
 THE COLONEL COMES BACK 353 
 
 die of the week Jerry was informed that he could 
 leave for San Francisco on the following Saturday 
 morning to report again at the office on Wednesday. 
 
 The granting of this five days' leave of absence 
 made the elopement easy of accomplishment, robbing 
 it of the danger of detection that Jerry realized and 
 shrank from. He and June could leave on Fri- 
 day night and take the overland train eastward. They 
 would have five days' start before discovery was made, 
 and in five days they would be so far on their 
 journey that it would be easy for them to conceal 
 themselves in some of the larger "towns along the 
 route. Mercedes, who was a bad correspondent, could 
 be trusted not to write to her father, and Allen, ac- 
 cording to June's artless revelations, was gone for a 
 much longer time than he wanted known. Finally 
 the last and most serious obstacle was removed in 
 the shape of the Colonel. Jerry being in the office 
 knew that his enemy would not be back before Tues- 
 day or Wednesday, as the work of inspecting the 
 pumps had been slower than was anticipated. 
 
 Months of waiting and planning could not have ar- 
 ranged matters more satisfactorily. Luck, once again, 
 was on his side, as it had been so often in the past. 
 
 Early on the Friday morning he went to the livery 
 stable that he always patronized, and where he knew 
 the finest team of roadsters in Nevada was for hire. 
 Mining men of that day were particular about their 
 horses. There were animals in the Virginia stables 
 whose superiors could not be found west of New 
 York. The especial pair that Jerry wanted were 
 only leased to certain patrons of the stable, but Jerry,
 
 354 THE PIONEER 
 
 an expert on horseflesh, besides being Black Dan 
 Gracey's son-in-law, had no difficulty in securing them 
 for that evening. 
 
 He had had some idea of driving into Reno him- 
 self and letting June come in on the train, but he had 
 a fear that, left alone, she might weaken. To be sure 
 of her he must be with her. Moreover, there was 
 little risk in driving in together. They would not 
 start until after dark and their place of rendezvous 
 would be a ruined cabin some distance beyond the 
 Utah hoisting works on the Geiger grade. The spot 
 would be deserted at that hour, and even if it were 
 not, the spectacle of a buggy and pair of horses was 
 so common that it would be taken for that of some 
 overworked superintendent driving into Reno on a 
 sudden business call. 
 
 From the stable he returned to the office and alone 
 there wrote a hasty letter to June. He had told her 
 the outline of his plan, and that Friday would be 
 the day, but he had given her no details of what 
 their movements would be. Now he wrote telling her 
 minutely of the time and place of departure and im- 
 pressing upon her not to be late. He would, of course, 
 be there before her, waiting in the buggy. There was 
 a party of Eastern visitors to be taken over the mine 
 in the afternoon, and it would be easy for him to get 
 away from them, leaving them with Marsden, the 
 foreman, change his clothes, and be at the place indi- 
 cated before she was. He was still fearful that she 
 might fail him. Now, as the hour approached, he was 
 so haunted by the thought that he asked her to send 
 at least a few words of answer by his messenger.
 
 THE COLONEL COMES BACK 355 
 
 Half an hour later Black Dan entered the office and 
 paused by his son-in-law's desk to give him some in- 
 structions as to the Eastern visitors and the parts of 
 the mine they were to be shown. They were people 
 of importance from New York, the men being heavy 
 shareholders in the Cresta Plata and the Con. Virginia. 
 The ladies of the party were to be relegated to the 
 care of Jerry and Marsden the foreman, and not to 
 be taken below the thousand-foot level. Black Dan 
 and Barney Sullivan would take the men farther 
 down. Jerry was to be ready in the hoisting works 
 at four o'clock. 
 
 As Black Dan was concluding his instructions Jer- 
 ry's messenger reentered the office and handed the 
 young man a small, pale gray envelope. It was 
 obviously a feminine communication, and its recipient, 
 under the darkly scrutinizing eye of his father-in-law, 
 flushed slightly, but he gave no other sign of con- 
 sciousness, and as Black Dan passed on to the inner 
 office, he sat down and opened the letter. 
 
 It was only a few lines in June's delicate hand- 
 writing : 
 
 "I will be there. I go to my ruin, Jerry, for you. 
 Will there be anything in our life together that will 
 make me forget that? June." 
 
 Jerry read it over several times. It certainly did 
 not breathe an exalted gladness. Away from him 
 she always seemed in this condition of fear and doubt. 
 It was his presence, his hand upon her, that made her 
 tremulously, submissively his. He would not be sure 
 of her till she was beside him to-night in the buggy. 
 
 Would that hour ever come ? He looked at the clock
 
 356 THE PIONEER 
 
 ticking on the wall. With every passing moment his 
 exaltation seemed to grow stronger. It was difficult 
 for him to be quiet, not to stop and talk to everybody 
 that he encountered with a feverish loquacity. The 
 slowly gathering pressure of the last month seemed 
 to culminate on this day of mad rebellion. With- 
 in the past two weeks his stocks had increased largely 
 in value. He was a rich man, and to-night with the 
 woman he loved beside him he would be free. 
 He and she, free in the great outside world, free to 
 love and to live as they would. Would the day never 
 pass and the night never come? 
 
 In San Francisco the Colonel was completing the 
 business of the pumps as quickly as he could. He felt 
 that he was getting to be a foolish old man, but he 
 could not shake off his worry about June. Her words 
 and appearance at their last interview kept recurring 
 to him. Many times in the past year he had seen 
 her looking pitifully fragile and known her to be 
 unhappy, but he had never before felt the poignant 
 anxiety about her that he now experienced. 
 
 Despite his desire to get back with as much speed 
 as possible, unforeseen delays occurred, and instead of 
 returning on Friday, as he had hoped, he saw that he 
 would not be back before Wednesday. He wrote this 
 to June in a letter full of the anxious solicitude 
 he felt. To this he received no answer, and, his worry 
 increasing, he was about to telegraph her when he 
 received a piece of information that swept all minor 
 matters from his mind. 
 
 On Thursday at midday he was lunching with a 
 friend at the club, when, in the course of conversation,
 
 THE COLONEL COMES BACK 357 
 
 his companion asked him if he knew the whereabouts 
 of Beauregard Allen. The words were accompanied 
 with a searchingly significant look. The Colonel, an- 
 swering that Allen was in Virginia, paused in his 
 meal and became quietly attentive. He knew more 
 than others of Allen's situation. Of late he had 
 scented catastrophe ahead of his one-time comrade. 
 The man's face opposite him struck an arrow of sus- 
 picion through his mind. He put down his wine glass 
 and sat listening, his expression one of frowning 
 concentration. 
 
 His friend was a merchant with a large shipping 
 business between San Francisco and Australia. That 
 morning he had been to the docks to see a ship about 
 to sail, which carried a cargo of his own. The ship 
 took few passengers, only two or three, he thought. 
 While conversing with the captain he had seen dis- 
 tinctly in the doorway of an open cabin Beauregard 
 Allen unpacking a valise. In answer to his question 
 the captain had said it was one of his passengers 
 taken on that morning. He had brought no trunks, 
 only two valises, and given his name as John Mont- 
 gomery. 
 
 "It was Beauregard Allen," the Colonel's inform- 
 ant continued. "The man's no friend of mine, but 
 I've seen him round here for years. He looked up and 
 saw me and drew back quick, as if he did not want 
 to be recognized." 
 
 "He'd taken passage this morning, you say?" asked 
 the Colonel. 
 
 "Yes, to Melbourne. There was only one other 
 passenger, a drunken boy being sent on a long sea
 
 358 THE PIONEER 
 
 voyage by his parents. They'll make a nice, inter- 
 esting pair." 
 
 The Colonel looked at his plate silently. He was 
 sending his thoughts back over the last year, trying 
 to collect data that might throw some light on what 
 he had just heard. 
 
 "You're certain it was Allen, not a chance like- 
 ness?" he said slowly. 
 
 "I'll take my oath of it. Why, I've seen the man 
 for the past four years dangling around here. I 
 know his face as well as I know yours, and I had a 
 good look at it before he saw me and jumped back. 
 He's got in too deep and skipped. Everybody has 
 been wondering how he kept on his feet so long." 
 
 "He's in pretty deep, sure enough," said the Colo- 
 nel absently. "You said Melbourne was the port? 
 When do they sail?" 
 
 "Midday to-day. They're off by now. They'll be 
 outside the heads already with this breeze." 
 
 The Colonel asked a few more questions and then 
 rose and excused himself. His business was pressing. 
 
 His first action was to send a telegram to Rion 
 Gracey, asking him if Allen had left Virginia and 
 where June was. The answer was to be sent to the 
 club. Then he went forth. His intention was to 
 inquire at the hotels patronized by Allen on his fre- 
 quent visits to the city. As he went from place to 
 place the conviction that the man seen by his friend 
 had been June's father, and that he had fled, strength- 
 ened with every moment. 
 
 A feverish anxiety about June took possession of 
 him. If her father had decamped leaving her
 
 THE COLONEL COMES BACK 359 
 
 alone, she would have to face his angry creditors. 
 He thought of her as he had last seen her, exposed 
 to such an experience, and his heart swelled with pity 
 and rage. Possibly she knew, had guessed what 
 was coming and had begged him to stay with her to 
 protect and care for her in a position for which 
 she was so little fitted. And he had left her left 
 her to face it alone! 
 
 He returned to the club, having heard no word of 
 Allen, and found Rion's answer to his telegram. It 
 ran: 
 
 "Allen left for coast Wednesday morning. June 
 here. What's amiss?" 
 
 It seemed to the Colonel complete confirmation of 
 his fears. Allen leaving Wednesday morning would 
 reach San Francisco some time that night. Evi- 
 dently his plans had been made beforehand, for the 
 ship he had taken was one of the fastest merchant- 
 men on the Pacific and was scheduled to leave at mid- 
 day Thursday. 
 
 Nothing was suspected at Virginia yet, and June 
 was there alone. At any moment now, the informa- 
 tion being in the hands of more than one person, 
 Allen's flight might be made public, and she, his only 
 representative, would become the victim of the rage of 
 the petty creditors who would swarm about her. He 
 was the one human being upon whom she could call. 
 No duty or business would hold him from her. A 
 thrill of something like joy passed through him when 
 he realized that now, at last, he could stand between 
 her and all trouble a lion with its cub behind it. 
 
 He took the evening train for Virginia, hoping to
 
 360 THE PIONEER 
 
 reach Reno the next morning and catch the branch 
 line into the mining town. But luck was against him. 
 A snow-shed was down near the summit. Though it 
 was only the latter half of September, a premature 
 blizzard wrapped the mountain heights in a white 
 mist. For eight hours the train lay blocked on an 
 exposed ridge, and it was late afternoon when it 
 finally set the Colonel down at Reno. 
 
 The delays had only accelerated his desire to be 
 with June. During the long hours of waiting his 
 imagination had been active, picturing her in various 
 distressing positions, besieged by importunate cred- 
 itors. He hired the fastest saddle horse in the Reno 
 stables and rode the twenty-one miles into Virginia 
 in an hour. It was dark when he reached there. The 
 swift ride through the sharp autumnal air had braced 
 his nerves. He was as anxious as ever to see her, 
 but he thought that before he did so he would stop 
 for a few moments at the Cresta Plata and see Rion, 
 explain his early return, and learn if anything was 
 known in Virginia of Allen's flight. 
 
 The office was already lighted up and behind it the 
 great bulk of hoisting works loomed into the night, 
 its walls cut with the squares of illumined windows, 
 its chimneys rising black and towering against the 
 stars. A man who came forward to take his horse 
 told him that the gentlemen were all in the mine with 
 a party of visitors. The Colonel, hearing this, turned 
 his steps from the office to the door of the hoisting 
 works a few yards beyond. 
 
 The building, full of shadows despite the lanterns 
 and gas jets ranged along its walls, looked vacant
 
 THE COLONEL COMES BACK 361 
 
 and enormous in its lofty spaciousness. The noise of 
 machinery echoed through it, the vibration shaking 
 it as if it were a shell built about the intricacies of 
 wheels, bands, and sheaves that whirred and slid in 
 complicated, humming swiftness against the ceiling. 
 The light struck gleams from the car tracks that 
 radiated from the black hole of the shaft mouth 
 where it opened in the middle of the floor. It was 
 divided into four compartments, and from these a 
 thin column of steam arose and floated up to the roof. 
 Here and there a few men were moving about, and 
 aloft behind their engines were the four engineers. 
 They were mute as statues, their eyes fixed on the 
 dials in front of them which registered the move- 
 ments of the cages underground; their, ears on the 
 alert to catch the notes of their bells, to them in- 
 telligible as the words of a spoken language. Near 
 the shaft mouth sitting on an overturned box was 
 Rion Gracey. 
 
 He saw the Colonel and rose to his feet with an 
 exclamation of surprise and pleasure. The elder 
 man, drawing him aside, told him the reason of his 
 return and asked him news of June. Moving toward 
 the door they conversed together in lowered voices. 
 The Colonel, now convinced that no suspicion of 
 the nature of Allen's absence had yet reached Vir- 
 ginia, felt his anxieties diminished. He said that 
 he might attend the dinner which Black Dan was 
 giving that evening to the Easterners. Rion was now 
 waiting for them to come up. Barclay and the 
 women ought to be up at any moment; they had 
 been underground nearly two hours, an unusual
 
 362 THE PIONEER 
 
 length of time, for even on the thousand-foot level 
 the heat was intense. 
 
 His anxieties soothed, the Colonel left the build- 
 ing, his heart feeling lighter than it had felt for 
 two weeks. 
 
 With a step of youthful buoyancy he mounted 
 the steep cross streets which connected by a series 
 of stairs and terraces the few long thoroughfares of 
 the town. He was out of breath when he saw the 
 dark shape of the Murchison mansion standing high 
 on its crest of ground against a deep blue, star- 
 dotted sky. His approach was from the side, and 
 that no lights appeared in any of the windows in 
 that part of the house did not strike him as unusual. 
 But when he reached the foot of the long stairway 
 and looking up saw that there was not a gleam of 
 light to be seen on the entire fagade, his joy suddenly 
 died, and in its place a dread, sharp and disturbing, 
 seized him. 
 
 For a moment he stood motionless, staring up. 
 The shrubs that grew along the sloping banks of the 
 garden rustled dryly in the autumn night. There 
 was something sinister in the high form of the house, 
 mounted aloft on its terrace, no friendly pane gleam- 
 ing with welcoming light, no sound near it but the 
 low, occasional whispering of dying vegetation. 
 As he ran up the steps, his footfall sounded singular- 
 ly loud and seemed to be buffeted back from empty 
 walls. 
 
 His first and second pull of the bell brought no 
 response. Between them he listened and his ear 
 caught nothing but the stillness of desertion. His
 
 THE COLONEL COMES BACK 363 
 
 third furious peal was answered by a distant footstep. 
 He heard it come shuffling along the hall, pause, and 
 then a light broke out through the glass fanlight 
 above the portal. The door was opened a crack, and 
 through this aperture a section of the Chinaman's 
 visage was revealed, lit by a warily inspecting eye. 
 
 The Colonel pushed the door violently in, sending 
 the servant back with it against the wall. Kicking it 
 to behind him he demanded between his panting 
 breaths : 
 
 "Where's Miss Allen?" 
 
 "She's gone," said the Chinaman, exceedingly 
 startled by this violent entry. "All gone." 
 
 "All gone! All gone where?" 
 
 "I no savvy. Trie boss he gone two, thlee days. 
 Gone San Francisco. Miss Allen she go just now." 
 
 "She's only just gone? You mean she has just 
 gone down town to buy something or see some one?" 
 
 "No. She go 'way. She say, 'Sing, I go 'way.' 
 She take a bag." 
 
 "She's gone with a bag. Where the devil has she 
 gone to ? Don't be such a damned fool ! Where'd she 
 go?" 
 
 "No savvy. She no tell me. She take bag and go 
 just now. She give me letter for you. I get him. 
 He tell you." 
 
 "You've got a letter for me? Why didn't you say 
 that before? Go get it, and go quick." 
 
 The Chinaman shuffled up the hall and turned into 
 the dining-room. The Colonel, having caught his 
 breath, leaned against the wall under the hall gas. 
 Jie thought probably June had gone to Lake Tahoe
 
 364 THE PIONEER 
 
 to visit Mitty Sullivan. Considering the situation it 
 was the best thing she could have done. As the 
 servant reappeared with a letter in his hand he said: 
 
 "When did she leave this?" 
 
 "Now," answered the laconic Oriental. "She give 
 him to me and say, 'Give him Colonel Pallish. He 
 come back Tuesday, Wednesday mebbe. You give 
 him letter sure; no forget.' You come back before, 
 I give him now." 
 
 The Colonel had not listened to the last phrases. 
 He moved closer to the gas and tore open the letter. 
 To his surprise he saw that it was several pages in 
 length, covered closely with June's fine writing. His 
 eye fell on the first sentence, and he uttered a sudden 
 suppressed sound and his body stiffened. The words 
 were: 
 
 "Dear, darling, Uncle Jim. I who love you more 
 than anybody in the world am going to hurt you so 
 much. Oh, so terribly ! Will you ever forgive me ? 
 Will you ever again think of June without sorrow 
 and pain?" 
 
 He stood motionless as a thing of stone, while his 
 glance devoured the page. He did not read every 
 word, but from the closely written lines sentences 
 seemed to start out and strike his eyes. He turned 
 the sheet and saw farther down a paragraph that 
 told him everything: 
 
 "The future is all dark and terrible, but I am going. 
 I am going with Jerry. I am going wherever he 
 wants, I am what he wants to make me. It's only 
 death that can break the spell. Good-by, dearest, 
 darlingest XJncle fai. Oh, good-by! If I could
 
 THE COLONEL COMES BACK 365 
 
 only see you again for one minute! Even when you 
 read this and realize what I have done I know that 
 you will love me and make excuses for me, I who 
 will be no longer worthy your love or your pity." 
 
 The Colonel's hand with the letter crushed in it 
 dropped to his side. For a moment he stood rigid, 
 his face gray in the gas light. It was too unex- 
 pected a blow to be grasped in the first paralyzing 
 second. Then he turned furiously on the servant, 
 shouting : 
 
 "Where did she go? Where did she go?" 
 
 The man cowered terrified against the wall, stam- 
 mering in broken phrases, 
 
 "I no savvy ! How I savvy ? She go with a bag. 
 She say, 'Give him the letter' and I give him. You 
 read him. I no savvy any more." 
 
 The Colonel's hand on his chest forcing him back 
 against the door-post cut short his words : 
 
 "When did she go? How long ago? Answer hon- 
 estly, or, by God, I'll kill you!" 
 
 His face added to the man's terror, but it also 
 steadied his shaking nerves: 
 
 "She go not one hour ; thlee-quarters. She come to 
 me with bag and say, 'Good-by, Sing, I go for long 
 time.' She give me the letter and say give him to 
 you Tuesday, Wednesday. Then she go." 
 
 "Which way?" 
 
 "I don't see. I don't look. I go down stairs. I 
 go sleep on my bed. I hear bell and wake. That's 
 all." 
 
 The Colonel released him and turned to the door. 
 The man evidentlv knew no more than he said. She
 
 366 THE PIONEER 
 
 had been gone less than an hour. That was all there 
 was to tell. 
 
 As he ran down the long stairs he had no definite 
 idea in his mind. She had left to run away with 
 Jerry three-quarters of an hour earlier. That was 
 all he thought of for the moment. Then the frosty 
 sharpness of the night air began to act with tonic 
 force upon him. His brain cleared and he remem- 
 bered Rion's words. Half an hour ago Barclay was 
 still in the mine. There had evidently been some 
 delay in his coming up. No trains left the town as 
 late as that. June had gone somewhere to meet 
 him, to some place of rendezvous whence they would 
 probably drive into Reno. If Barclay had not yet 
 left the mine he could be caught, and then 
 
 With wild speed he ran along the streets, leaping 
 down the short flights of steps that broke the ascend- 
 ing sidewalks. He thrust people aside and rushed 
 on, gray-faced and fiery-eyed. For the second time in 
 his life there was murder in his heart. 
 
 Through the darkness of his mind memories of 
 her passed like slides across a magic lantern. A 
 sudden picture of her that day long ago at the spring, 
 when she had asked him to let her mother stay in his 
 cottage, rose up clear and detached on his mental 
 vision. He heard again the broken tones of her voice 
 and saw her face with the tears on it, childish and 
 trustful, as it had been before the influence of Jerry 
 had blighted its youth and marred its innocence. 
 
 The fury that possessed him rose up in his throat. 
 He could not have spoken. He could only run on, 
 tearing his way through the crowds on C Street,
 
 THE COLONEL COMES BACK 367 
 
 across it to a smaller thoroughfare and down that to 
 where the dark mass of the Cresta Plata build- 
 ings stood out against the night. He heard the 
 distant hum of the machinery, and then, unexpected 
 and startling, the roar of men. It was like the noise 
 when the day shift came up and every ascending cage 
 was packed solid with miners. 
 
 As he approached the door the men began to come 
 out, streams of them, some running, others gather- 
 ing in knots. Hundreds of men poured into the 
 night, gesticulating, shouting, congesting in black 
 groups, whence a broken clamor of voices rose. He 
 realized the strangeness of it, that something was 
 the matter, but it was all dim and of no importance 
 to him. His mind held only one thought. Rushing 
 past them he cried: 
 
 "Barclay! Is Barclay up yet? Do you know where 
 Barclay is?" 
 
 An Irishman, who stumbled against him in the 
 dark, paused long enough to shout to him: 
 
 "It's Barclay that's hurt. Hurry up, Colonel, they'll 
 be wanting you inside. It's a doctor 'I'm after. God 
 knows if he is where they say he is, there's no life in 
 him now."
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 THE AROUSED LION 
 
 Black Dan, as he walked to the office that Friday 
 morning, had been giving serious thought to the sit- 
 uation of his son-in-law. Mercedes had not spent the 
 summer in Virginia as her father had hoped and 
 expected. When he saw her in San Francisco, as 
 he did every few weeks, she talked of her delicate 
 throat and expressed a fear of the climate. It was 
 evident that she could not or would not live there. 
 
 That his daughter loved her husband Black Dan 
 had no doubt. And as he walked to the mine that 
 morning he was pondering a scheme he had lately 
 been considering of sending Jerry to San Francisco, 
 to be placed in charge of his large property interests. 
 Though he regarded his son-in-law with contemptu- 
 ous dislike, he could not deny that the young man 
 had worked hard and faithfully all summer. More- 
 over, the stealthy watch kept upon him had revealed 
 no irregularities in his conduct. In a place and at 
 a time when men led wild lives with wilder asso- 
 ciates, Jerry's behavior had been exemplary. His 
 life had been given to work and business ; women had 
 no place in it. 
 
 368
 
 THE AROUSED LION 369 
 
 With these thoughts in his mind Black Dan entered 
 the office and paused by his son-in-law's desk. As 
 he stood there a boy walked in and handed the young 
 man a small gray envelope that bore a superscrip- 
 tion in a delicate feminine hand. Black Dan also saw 
 that Jerry, under his unshakable sang-froid, was dis- 
 concerted. That the receipt of the letter was disturb- 
 ing to its recipient was as plain to the older man as 
 that the letter was from a woman. 
 
 He passed on to his own office with his mind in 
 an entirely different condition from what it had been 
 when he entered the building. After all their watch- 
 fulness, was Jerry playing at his old game? The 
 thought made Black Dan breathe curses into his 
 beard. He saw Rion, himself and the Colonel out- 
 witted, and Jerry laughing at them in his sleeve. 
 And deeper than this went the enraging thought of 
 Mercedes supplanted by one of the women that flour- 
 ish in mining camps, birds of prey that batten on the 
 passions of men. 
 
 He had work to do, however, and, for to-day, at 
 least, would have to put the matter out of his mind. 
 Time enough when the Easterners were gone. Black 
 Dan, like many men of his day and kind, was par- 
 ticularly anxious to impress the Easterners, and to 
 make their three days' stay in the town a revel of 
 barbaric luxury. The dinner he was to give them 
 that evening was to be a feast of unrivaled splendor, 
 every course ordered from San Francisco, the wine as 
 choice as any to be bought in the country, the china, 
 glass, and silver imported at extravagant cost from 
 the greatest factories of Europe, the cigars of a
 
 370 THE PIONEER 
 
 costly rarity, a brand especially sent from Havana 
 for the bonanza king and his associates. 
 
 Now from among the specimens of ore that stood 
 along the top of his desk he selected one of unusual 
 form and value to give to the most distinguished of the 
 strangers. It was a small square of blackish mineral 
 on which a fine, wire-like formation of native silver 
 had coiled itself into a shape that resembled a rose. 
 It had the appearance of a cunning piece of the silver- 
 smith's art, a flower of silver wire delicately poised 
 on a tiny fragment of quartz rock. Thrusting it 
 into his coat pocket, he left the office, on his way out 
 passing Jerry, who was bending studiously over his 
 desk. 
 
 He walked rapidly up through the town, to the same 
 livery stable to which his son-in-law had already 
 paid a visit. One of the diversions to which the 
 visitors were treated was the drive along the 
 mountain road to Washoe Lake. This, Black Dan 
 had arranged, would be the entertainment for the 
 following morning. He with his own Kentucky thor- 
 oughbreds, would drive the men, while the women of 
 the party would follow in a hired trap, drawn by the 
 horses Jerry had ordered, and driven by the expert 
 whip of the stable, known as Spanish George. Such 
 a division of the party suited Black Dan admirably, 
 for he disliked women, shunning their society, and 
 when forced into it, becoming more somber and taci- 
 turn than ever. 
 
 His plan, however, received an unexpected check. 
 He was told that the horses were engaged by Mr.
 
 THE AROUSED LION 371 
 
 Barclay for that evening. Frowning and annoyed, 
 he demanded why that should prevent him from hav- 
 ing them the next morning, and received the infor- 
 mation that Mr. Barclay was to drive into Reno that 
 night with them, sending them back in the morning, 
 when they would be too tired by the twenty-one miles 
 over the grade, to go out again immediately. 
 
 Black Dan stood in the doorway of the stable 
 looking with attentive eyes at his informant. As the 
 man amplified his explanation with excuses, the bo- 
 nanza king said nothing. For the moment his own 
 thoughts were too engrossing to permit of words. 
 A puppy that was playing near by in the sunlight 
 trotted toward him and bit playfully at his toe. He 
 turned it over with his foot, following its charmingly 
 awkward gambols with a pondering gaze. 
 
 "Then I suppose I can't have Spanish George 
 either?" he said. "Mr. Barclay'll take him in to drive 
 the horses back, and he'll take his time about it." 
 
 "Oh, you can have Spanish George all right," said 
 the stable-man, relieved that he could give his pow- 
 erful patron something he wanted. "Mr. Barclay's 
 driving some one in with him. He'll have one of the 
 Reno men bring the horses back." 
 
 Black Dan looked up, his broad, dark eyes charged 
 with almost fierce attention. 
 
 "Who's he driving in?" he asked. 
 
 "Don't know, sir. He didn't say. All he said was 
 that he couldn't take a driver, as he had some one 
 with him and he'd send the team back in the morn- 
 ing with a man from Reno."
 
 372 THE PIONEER 
 
 The other looked down at the puppy, rolling it 
 gently back and forth with his large foot. 
 
 "When did you say he was going?" he asked. 
 
 "Six-thirty. His valises have come up already. 
 They're in the office now." 
 
 He pointed backward with his thumb toward the 
 small, partitioned-off box called the office. But Black 
 Dan did not seem particularly interested in the 
 valises. 
 
 "Well," he said, taking his foot off the puppy and 
 pushing it carefully aside, "send along the best you 
 have with Spanish George to drive. Be at the In- 
 ternational at eleven sharp. I don't want to start 
 later than that." 
 
 , He left the stable and walked slowly down the 
 street toward the Cresta Plata. His eyes were down- 
 cast, his face set in lines of absorbed thought. Whom 
 was Jerry driving into Reno that night? 
 
 As he walked he pieced together what he had 
 just heard with what he knew already. One hour 
 before the dinner to the Easterners at which he was 
 expected Jerry had arranged to leave the town, 
 driving into Reno with some companion. The com- 
 panion and the gray note instantly connected them- 
 selves in Black Dan's mind. He felt as certain as 
 a man could be without absolute confirmation that 
 Jerry was driving in with a woman. The daring 
 insolence of it made the blood, which moved slowly 
 in the morose and powerful man, rise to his head. 
 Could it be possible that Jerry, on the way to see 
 his wife, was going to stop over in Reno with some 
 woman of the Virginia streets?
 
 THE AROUSED LION 373 
 
 Black Dan's swarthy skin was slightly flushed when 
 he reached the office. He said nothing to Jerry as 
 he passed his desk. In his own private office he sat 
 still, staring in front of him at the geological map 
 hanging on the wall. He was slow to wrath, but 
 his wrath, like his love, once roused was of a primi- 
 tive intensity. As he sat staring at the map his anger 
 gathered and grew. 
 
 At four o'clock the eastern party and their guides 
 were due to meet in the hoisting works for their ex- 
 cursion down the mine. It was nearly a half-hour 
 later, however, when the two ladies, who made up the 
 feminine portion of the party, slunk out of the spa- 
 cious dressing-rooms, giggling and blushing in their 
 male attire. Jerry, Marsden the foreman, and one 
 of the shift bosses, were lounging about the mouth 
 of the shaft waiting for them. There were greetings 
 and laughter, the women hugging themselves close 
 in the long overcoats they wore against the chill of 
 the downward passage, and pulling over their hair 
 the shapeless cloth caps they had been given for head- 
 gear. 
 
 Through the wide opening that led to the dumps 
 the figure of Black Dan, dark against the brilliance 
 of the afternoon, could be seen walking on the car 
 tracks with the rest of the party. In the muddy over- 
 alls, long boots and soft felt hat which was the regu- 
 lation underground dress of the men, he presented 
 the appearance of some black-browed, heavily bearded 
 pirate in the garb of a tramp. As the cage slid up 
 to the shaft mouth, he entered the building, gave the 
 embarrassed women an encouraging nod, and selected
 
 374 THE PIONEER 
 
 a lantern from a collection of them standing in a 
 corner. 
 
 With little cries of apprehension the women stepped 
 on the flat square of flooring, their three escorts 
 ranged closely round them, the signal to descend was 
 given, and the cage dropped quickly out of sight into 
 the steaming depths. Black Dan, Barney Sullivan 
 and the strangers were to descend on the cage 
 in the next compartment, and while they waited for 
 it to come up, stood talking of the foivnations of the 
 mineral, how it had been found and of the varying 
 richness of the ore-bodies. Suddenly Black Dan 
 thought of his specimen, which had come from a part 
 of the mine they were to visit first, and turning went 
 into the men's dressing-room, where he had left it 
 in his coat pocket. 
 
 His clothes had been hung on the last of a line of 
 pegs along the wall. To this he went, and, ignorant 
 of the fact that Jerry had undressed after him, thrust 
 his hand into the pocket of what he thought was his 
 own coat. Instead of the stone his fingers encoun- 
 tered a letter. He drew it out and saw that it was 
 the one he had seen handed to his son-in-law a few 
 hours before. 
 
 At once he drew the paper from the envelope. No 
 qualm of conscience deterred him; instead he ex- 
 perienced a sense of satisfaction that his uncertainty 
 should be thus simply brought to an end. His eye 
 traveled over the few lines, instantly grasping their 
 meaning. He knew the signature. Jerry was not 
 intriguing with a common woman of the town; he
 
 THE AROUSED LION 375 
 
 was deserting his wife with a girl, hitherto of un- 
 spotted reputation, and for years beloved by Rion. 
 It meant ruin and misery for the two human beings 
 nearest to the bonanza king's heart. 
 
 For a moment he stood motionless, the letter in his 
 hand, and before his eyes he saw red. Then it cleared 
 away. He put the paper back in its envelope and 
 thrust it in his pocket. When he came out into the 
 shaft house Barney Sullivan noticed that his face was 
 reddened and that the whites of his eyes were slightly 
 bloodshot. One of the strangers rallied him on his 
 absence, which had been of some minutes' duration, 
 and he made no answer, simply motioning them to 
 get on the cage with an imperious movement of his 
 head. 
 
 The shaft of the Cresta Plata was over two thou- 
 sand feet in depth, and the heat of the lower levels 
 was terrific. Here the miners, naked, save for a cap, 
 breechclout, and canvas shoes, worked twenty-minute 
 shifts, unable to stand the fiery atmosphere for longer. 
 Cold air was pumped down to them from the surface, 
 the pipes that carried it following the roofs of the 
 long, dark tunnels, their mouths blowing life-giving 
 coolness into stopes where the men could not touch 
 their metal candlesticks, and the iron of the picks 
 grew hot. There were places where the drops that 
 fell from the roof raised blisters on the backs they 
 touched. On most of these lower levels there was 
 much water, its temperature sometimes boiling. The 
 miners of the Cresta Plata had a saying that no man 
 had ever fallen into water that reached to his hips
 
 376 THE PIONEER 
 
 and lived. At the bottom of the shaft the "sump" 
 in mining parlance was a well of varying depths 
 which perpetually exhaled a scalding steam. 
 
 Black Dan took his guests to the fifteen-hundred- 
 foot level, whence the greatest riches of the mine had 
 been taken. He was more than usually silent as they 
 walked from tunnel to tunnel and drift to drift. Bar- 
 ney Sullivan was the cicerone of the party, explaining 
 the formation, talking learnedly of the dip of the vein, 
 holding up his lantern to let its gleam fall on the dark 
 bluish "breast" into which the miners drove their 
 picks with a gasp of expelled breath. Nearly an hour 
 had passed when Black Dan, suddenly drawing him 
 back, whispered to him that he was going up to the 
 eight-hundred-foot level to see Jerry, to whom he 
 wished to give some instructions about the dinner 
 that evening. Barney, nodding his comprehension, 
 moved on with the guests, and Black Dan walked 
 back to the station. 
 
 As he went up in the cage he passed level after 
 level, like the floors of a great underground building. 
 Yellow lights gleamed through the darkness on the 
 circular forms of west timbers, hollowed caves trick- 
 ling with moisture, car tracks running into blackness. 
 Each floor was peopled with wild, naked shapes, delv- 
 ing ferociously in this torrid inferno. At the eight- 
 hundred-foot level he got off, the bell rang, and the 
 empty cage went sliding up. The landing on to which 
 he stepped was deserted, and he walked up one of 
 the tunnels that branched from it, called to a pick- 
 boy, whom he saw in the distance, that he wanted 
 Mr. Barclay found and sent to him at once. The
 
 THE AROUSED LION 377 
 
 figure of the boy scudded away into the darkness, 
 and Black Dan went back to the landing. 
 
 It was an open space, a small, subterranean room, 
 the lanterns fastened on its walls gilding with their 
 luster the pools of water on the muddy floor. There 
 were boxes used for seats standing about, and on 
 pegs in the timbers the miners' coats hung. Where 
 the shaft passed down there were several square open- 
 ings larger than ordinary doorways, iron-framed 
 and with plates of iron set into the moist ground 
 which gave egress to the cages. Now there was only 
 a black void there, the long shaft stretching hun- 
 dreds of feet upward and downward. 
 
 Black Dan sat on a box, waiting. Afar off from 
 some unseen tunnel he could hear the faint sound of 
 voices. Near by, sharply clear in the stifling quiet, 
 came the drip of water from the roof. It was still 
 very hot, a moist, suffocating heat, regarded by the 
 miners as cool after the fiery depths below. He pushed 
 back his hat and wiped the sweat from his face. His 
 eyes, as he waited, kept watch on the openings of 
 the three tunnels that diverged from this central point. 
 
 One of them was an inky arch in a frame of tim- 
 bers. In the distance of the others lights gleamed. 
 Now and then a bare body, streaming with perspira- 
 tion, came into view pushing an ore car. With an 
 increasing rattle it was rolled to the shaft opening 
 and on to a waiting cage which slid up. The miner 
 slouched back into the gloom, the noise of the empty 
 car he propelled before him gradually dying away. 
 Black Dan could hear again the voices and then, 
 muffled by earth and timbers, the thud of the picks.
 
 378 THE PIONEER 
 
 Sitting on an upturned box the king of this world 
 of subterranean labor he sat waiting, motionless, 
 save for his moving eyes. 
 
 Suddenly from the undefined noises, the beat of an 
 advancing footfall detached itself. He gave a low, 
 inarticulate sound, and drew himself upright, a hand 
 falling on either knee, his dark face full of a grim 
 fixity of attention. Down one of the tunnels the 
 figure of Jerry came into view, walking rapidly. 
 
 He was smiling, for this summons made his escape 
 from the mine easier than it would otherwise have 
 been. A word or two from Black Dan and then up 
 on the cage, and then away into the night where 
 love and a woman were waiting. The culminating 
 excitement of the day made his eye brilliant and deep- 
 ened the color of his face. Full of the joys and juices 
 of life, triumphantly handsome even in his rough 
 clothes, he was a man made for the seduction of 
 women. Black Dan felt it and it deepened his hate. 
 
 "Did you want me?" he called as he drew near. 
 "One of the pick-boys said you sent for me." 
 
 "Yes, I want to see you for a moment. I want to 
 ask you about something." 
 
 The elder man rose slowly from his box. His eyes 
 were burning under the shadow of his hat brim. 
 
 "Come over here near the light," he said. "I've 
 something I want to show you." 
 
 Near the entrance to the shaft there was a large 
 lantern, backed by a tin reflector. It cast a powerful 
 light on the muddy ground and the plates of iron 
 that made a smooth flooring round the landing. 
 Black Dan walked to it and stood there waiting. As
 
 THE AROUSED LION 379 
 
 Jerry approached he drew June's letter from his 
 pocket and handed it to him. 
 
 Jerry was taken completely off his guard, and for 
 a moment was speechless. He took the letter and 
 turned it over. 
 
 "What's this? Where where'd you get it?" he 
 faltered, his tongue suddenly dry. 
 
 For answer a terrible burst of profanity broke from 
 the older man. He fell on Jerry like a lion. In the 
 grip of his mighty muscles the other was borne back 
 toward the opening of the shaft, helpless and strug- 
 gling. He clutched at the iron supports, for a mo- 
 ment caught one and clung, while the cry of his 
 agony rang out shrill as a woman's. In the next 
 his hands were torn away and the slippery iron plates 
 slid beneath his feet. For one, instant of horror he 
 reeled on the edge of the abyss, then went backward 
 and down. A cry rose that passed like a note of death 
 through the upper levels of the mine. 
 
 Black Dan ran back toward the nearest tunnel 
 mouth. The thud of the picks had stopped. The 
 miners, men who work with death at their elbow, 
 came pouring down and out, scrambling from stopes, 
 running from the ends of drifts, swarming up ladders 
 from places of remote, steaming darkness. White- 
 faced, wild-eyed, not knowing what horror of sudden 
 death awaited them, they came rushing toward the 
 place where their chief stood, a grim-visaged figure 
 at the mouth of the tunnel. 
 
 He checked them with a raised hand, even at such 
 a moment able to assert his command over them. 
 
 "Keep cool, boys. You're all right. There's been
 
 3 8o THE PIONEER 
 
 an accident. It's Barclay. For God's sake, tell Mai*- 
 den to keep those women back." 
 
 In the shaft house above, Rion, tired of waiting, 
 was lounging up and down when the bell of one of 
 the compartments gave an imperious summons for 
 the cage to descend. 
 
 "They're coming up at last," said Rion, moving 
 to the edge of the shaft and stretching himself in 
 yawning relief. "I never knew Easterners to stand 
 the heat so long."
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 HOME 
 
 On the Friday morning June rose with an oppres- 
 sion of death-like dread weighing on her. Jerry had 
 only told her to hold herself in readiness for that 
 day; she knew nothing further. But the morning was 
 not half spent when a letter came from him, naming 
 the time and place of their departure. As she read 
 her dread deepened. The ardent words of love with 
 which the letter began and ended had no power to 
 overcome her sickened reluctance. She was moving 
 onward toward an action which she contemplated 
 with despair and yet toward which she continued 
 inevitably to advance. 
 
 There are many women like June, who, without the 
 force to resist the importunities of conquering lovers, 
 never lose their sense of sin. In the arms of the 
 man they have surrendered to it is heavy at their 
 hearts. The years do not lift it, and the men who 
 have brought them to ruin grow to feel its chill and 
 despise the woman who has not been strong enough 
 to resist or completely give herself up. 
 
 During the rest of the morning she remained in 
 her room trying to sort her clothes and pack her bag. 
 Her mind was in a state of stupefied confusion. She
 
 382 THE PIONEER 
 
 could find nothing, could not remember where any- 
 thing had been placed. At times a sensation of 
 nausea and feebleness swept over her, and she was 
 forced to stop in the work she was doing, and sit 
 down. When at midday the servant summoned her 
 to lunch, the gathered possessions and souvenirs of 
 years were scattered over the furniture and about the 
 floor. 
 
 In the afternoon she wrote the letter to the Colo- 
 nel. She wrote rapidly, not letting herself pause to 
 think, the pen flying over the paper. When it was 
 finished, she sealed it without reading it over. 
 
 The rest of the day passed with lightning swiftness. 
 As she roamed from room to room, or sat motion- 
 less with drawn brows and rigidly clasped hands, the 
 chiming of the hours from clocks in various parts of 
 the house struck loud on her listening ear. The clear, 
 ringing notes of three seemed hardly to have sounded 
 when four chimed softly. The hours were rushing 
 by. With their headlong flight her misery 
 increased. There was now no sitting quiet, 
 spellbound in waiting immobility. She moved rest- 
 lessly from window to window looking out on the 
 desolation that hemmed her in. It had no pity for 
 her. Her little passion, a bubble on the whirlpool 
 of the mining town, was of that world of ephemera 
 that the desert passed over and forgot. 
 
 At sunset the landscape flushed into magical beauty 
 and then twilight came, and suddenly, on its heels, 
 darkness. The night was a crystalline, deep blue, 
 the stars singularly large and lustrous. As she put
 
 HOME 383 
 
 on her hat and jacket she felt that her mouth was 
 dry, and if called upon to speak she would have had 
 difficulty in articulating. Over her face she draped a 
 thin, dark veil sufficient at this hour to obscure 
 her features entirely. On the way out she called the 
 Chinaman and gave him the letter for the Colonel, 
 whom she did not expect back before Wednesday. 
 
 She made her way to the end^of the town through 
 the upper residence streets. They were quite dark 
 at this hour and she slipped by, a slim shadowy shape, 
 touched now and then into momentary distinctness 
 by the gleam of a street lamp. Outside the cluster- 
 ing lights of the city, she turned downward toward 
 where the Geiger grade, looping over the shoulder 
 of the mountain, enters the town. Once on the road 
 itself she walked with breathless speed, the beating 
 of her heart loud in her own ears. She passed the last 
 of the hoisting works, the sentinel of the great line 
 that was stirring the world, and saw the road stretch 
 gray and bare before her. 
 
 Her light footfall made no sound in the dust. 
 Straining to penetrate the darkness with a forward 
 gaze she advanced, less rapidly. The dim form of 
 the deserted cabin loomed up, and then, just beyond 
 it, gradually taking shape out of the surrounding 
 blackness, a buggy with a muffled figure in the seat. 
 
 For a moment she stopped, feeling faint, her clear- 
 ness of reason and vision becoming blurred. But in 
 an instant the weakness passed and she walked on 
 hesitatingly and softly, staring at the indistinct figure 
 and drawn irresistibly forward. As she approached,
 
 384 THE PIONEER 
 
 she saw that the man sat motionless, his back to- 
 ward her. She was close to the buggy when the 
 soft padding of her footsteps in the dust caught his 
 ear. He turned with a start, revealing by the faint 
 starlight that section of a coarse, strange face to be 
 seen between the peak of a woolen cap and the edge 
 of an upturned coat collar. 
 
 "Pardon, lady," he said in a hoarse voice, "Mr, 
 Barclay hasn't come yet." 
 
 June came to an abrupt halt by the side of the car- 
 riage. She stood without movement or sound, para- 
 lyzed by the unexpectedness of the unknown voice 
 and face. For the first dazed moment following on 
 the shock there was a complete suspension of all her 
 faculties. 
 
 There had been much surreptitious speculation in 
 the livery stable as to whom Jerry Barclay was driv- 
 ing into Reno. The man now in the buggy had been 
 sure it was a woman. Seeing his suspicions verified 
 he tried to distinguish her features through the dark- 
 ness and the veil she wore. He leaned forward, 
 eying her keenly, but making out nothing beyond 
 a slender shape, the face concealed by a film of gauze. 
 
 "He's probably been detained at the mine," he said 
 cheeringly. "They've that gang of Easterners goin' 
 down this afternoon." 
 
 The girl made no answer, but drew back a step 
 or two from the carriage. 
 
 "If you'll get in I'll drive you up and down for 
 a spell/' he said. "It's cold work standin' round on 
 a night like this." 
 
 "No," she answered in a muffled voice; "no."
 
 HOME 385 
 
 "Put your bag in, anyway," he suggested, stretch- 
 ing a hand for it. 
 
 She drew back another step and moved the hand 
 holding the bag behind her. 
 
 "Just as you like," he returned, the familiarity of 
 his manner suddenly chilled by annoyance. "It's for 
 you to say." 
 
 She retreated still farther until stopped by a growth 
 of sage at the edge of the road. The man, seeing he 
 could discover nothing from her, gathered up his 
 reins. 
 
 "Well," he said, "I can't run no risks with the finest 
 team in the state of Nevada. I'll have to walk 'em 
 up and down till Mr. Barclay gets here. He said 
 he'd be before time, and he's nearly fifteen minutes 
 late now." 
 
 He chirped to the horses, who immediately started 
 on a gentle trot. The dust muffled their hoof-beats, 
 and noiselessly, with something of stealth and mystery 
 in the soft swiftness of their withdrawal, they re- 
 ceded into the blackness of the night. 
 
 June stood for a moment looking after them, then 
 turned to where the town sparkled in descending 
 tiers of streets. Its noise came to her ears, the hum 
 of human voices, and suddenly the misery that had 
 held her in a state of broken acquiescence all day, 
 that had been growing in her for weeks, rose into a 
 climax of terrified revolt. The full horror of her 
 action burst upon her. In a flash of revelation she 
 saw it clearly, unblinded by passion. Her repulsion 
 toward Jerry's wooing surged up in her in a frantic 
 desire to escape, to get away from him. She feared
 
 3 86 THE PIONEER 
 
 him, she longed to creep away and hide from him 
 the terrible Jerry, her merciless master, before whom 
 she cowered and trembled. 
 
 She cast a fearful look into the darkness behind 
 her and made out the shape of the buggy just turn- 
 ing for the backward trip. It would be beside her 
 again in a few minutes. In front, stretching to the 
 town, the road lay dark and deserted. She gripped 
 her bag and started out toward the blinking lights, 
 running at first, lightly and noiselessly on the trodden 
 vegetation that edged the path. 
 
 Her engrossing thought was that she might meet 
 Jerry. In the condition of nervous exhaustion to 
 which the long strain of the past months had re- 
 duced her, she had lost all confidence in her power 
 to direct her own actions, and resist the dominating 
 man who had had her so completely under his con- 
 trol. If she met him now it would be the end. He 
 would not cajole and kiss her. He would order her 
 into the buggy and ride away with her into the 
 night. 
 
 Several times she met men, dark figures against the 
 lights beyond. At the first glance she could see by 
 their build or gait that they were not Jerry. One, 
 of lighter mold and more elastic walk, caused her 
 to pause for a stricken moment and then shrink back 
 in the shadow of a cabin till she saw her fears were 
 unfounded. As the lights grew brighter and she 
 entered the sparsely settled end of C Street, she 
 slackened her speed and gazed ahead, alertly wary. 
 She did not see but that he must come this way, 
 unless he chose the longer and more secluded route,
 
 HOME 387 
 
 among the miners' lodging houses and cabins, climb- 
 ing up from there to the road above. 
 
 She had started to return without any fixed idea 
 of her goal. As she advanced she thought of this 
 and immediately the Colonel arose to her mind as a 
 rock behind which there was shelter, his lodgings 
 as the one place where she would find protection. 
 In the bewilderment of her mind she forgot that he 
 was not due to return yet, only remembering his 
 original statement that he would be back on Friday 
 night. If she could reach his rooms without meeting 
 Jerry she would be safe. She felt like a child who 
 has run away to find adventures and is suddenly 
 stricken with the horror of strangeness and the wild 
 and piercing longing for the familiar things of home. 
 
 The evening turmoil of C Street had begun. 
 Looking up its length, roofed by its wooden arcade, 
 was like looking into a lighted tunnel, swaying with 
 heads. The glare from the show-windows, the lights 
 from lamps, and the agitated flaring of lanterns on 
 the street hawkers' barrows, were concentrated with- 
 in this echoing tunnel and played on every variety of 
 face, as the crowd came sweeping down on June. It 
 seemed to catch her in its eddies and whirl her for- 
 ward, a dark shape, furtive-eyed and stealthy- footed 
 in the fierce, bubbling buoyancy of the throng, silent 
 amid its hubbub. 
 
 There seemed to her more noise to-night, more of 
 a seething, whirling froth of excitement than she 
 had ever noticed before. She thought it a reflection 
 of her own fever and hurried on, her eyes gleaming 
 through her veil in peering looks sent ahead for
 
 388 THE PIONEER 
 
 Jerry. She was nearing the short street which led 
 down to the Cresta Plata, when from two miners, 
 almost running past her, she heard his name. Her 
 heart leaped, and for a second she flinched and shrank 
 back into the doorway. As she stood there a group 
 of men brushed by in the opposite direction and from 
 these, as they paused for a second at her side, she 
 heard a question and answer: 
 
 "How did he come to fall? Did he slip?" 
 
 "Yes, on the iron plates. He stepped back and 
 then slipped, and before Black Dan could get him 
 he was gone. It was all done in a minute." 
 
 "Lord!" came the ejaculation in a tone of horror. 
 
 She started on and from a cluster of men stand- 
 ing in a saloon doorway she again heard his name. 
 The prespiration broke out on her face. At the 
 mouth of the lane that led to the Cresta Plata 
 a crowd with restless edges, that moved down 
 toward the hoisting works and swayed out into the 
 roadway, made a black mass, expanding and de- 
 creasing as its members dispersed or drew together. 
 It was too early for the day shift to be coming up, 
 and she looked at it with sidelong alarm. It was 
 part of the unusualness of this weird and awful night. 
 And again as she threaded her way through the scat- 
 tering of figures on its outskirts she heard his name, 
 twice in the moment of passing. 
 
 What was the matter? Why were they all talking 
 of him? The sense of horror that weighed on her 
 seemed to increase until it became threatening and 
 tragic. She felt as if she were in a nightmare, with 
 the Colonel's rooms and the Colonel the only place
 
 HOME 389 
 
 of safety and means of escape. She forgot to be cau- 
 tious and started to run, pushing her way through 
 the crowd, dodging round the edges of excited groups, 
 brushing by knots of women collected at the foot 
 of stairways, and from every group the name of 
 Jerry followed her. 
 
 Suddenly, between the massed and moving figures 
 she saw the glare of the colored bottles in the win- 
 dow of Caswell's drug store. It was over this store 
 that the Colonel lived. At one side, outside the bril- 
 liant radiance of the bottled transparencies, a small, 
 dark door gave on the stairs that led to the floor 
 above. From its central panel a bell-handle pro- 
 truded. She tried the knob first and found that it 
 yielded. Opening it softly she looked up the dim 
 stairway and saw in the hall above a light burning. 
 She ran up, her steps subdued on the worn carpet. A 
 narrow corridor divided the floor, passing from a 
 door that opened on the front balcony back to an an- 
 terior region where the landlady lived and let rooms 
 to less illustrious lodgers. Of the two suites in the 
 front that on the left was occupied by Rion Gracey, 
 the other by the Colonel. June had often been in 
 these rooms. She opened the door and looked in. 
 
 The door gave into the sitting-room, empty of 
 occupants and unlit. But the Colonel's landlady had 
 not been advised of his change of plans, and in ex- 
 pectation of his return a fire burned in the grate and 
 cast a warm, cheering light over the simple furnish- 
 ings and the arm-chair drawn up in front of it. June 
 crept in and shut the door. She fell into the arm- 
 chair with her hands over her face and sat limp and
 
 390 THE PIONEER 
 
 motionless in the firelight. The noise of th town 
 came dulled to her ears. She had escaped from Jerry 
 and the pursuing echo of his name. 
 
 A half-hour later the Colonel found her there. 
 After a hurried search for her through the town he 
 had been seized by the hope that she might have 
 sought shelter with him. 
 
 As the opening of the door fell on her ear she 
 raised her head and looked up. He saw her in the 
 firelight, all dark in the half-lit room, save for her 
 white face and hands. An exclamation of passionate 
 relief broke from him, and as she rose and ran to 
 him he held out his arms and clasped her. They 
 said nothing for a moment, clinging mutely together, 
 her face buried in his shoulders, his hand pressing 
 her head against his heart. Then she drew herself 
 away from him and tried to tell him the story in a 
 series of broken sentences, but he silenced her and put 
 her back in the chair. 
 
 "Wait till to-morrow," he said, kneeling down be- 
 side her to stir up the fire into a redder blaze. "You 
 can tell it all to-morrow. And, anyway, there's no 
 necessity to tell it. I know it now." 
 
 "Do you know what I was going to do nearly 
 did?" 
 
 "Yes, all about it. I got your letter." 
 
 "Do you despise me?" she said faintly. 
 
 "No," he answered. 
 
 The fire began to burn brightly. They sat for a 
 moment looking into it; then leaning toward him over 
 the arm of the chair, she said, almost in a whisper, 
 
 ''Where's Jerry?"
 
 HOME 391 
 
 "Jerry?" he answered with a sudden slowness of 
 utterance. "Jerry? Jerry's somewhere." 
 
 "As I came along everybody seemed to be talking 
 of him. I heard his name all along the street. It 
 seemed as if it was following me. I'm afraid of 
 Jerry." 
 
 "You needn't be any more. You won't see him 
 again. There's he's I'll tell you about that to- 
 morrow, too." 
 
 "Will you let me stay with you?" she continued. 
 "Will you let me live here, somewhere near you ? Will 
 you take care of me?" 
 
 He took her hand and pressed it, then held it out, 
 cold and trembling, to the blaze, nodding his answer 
 without looking at her. 
 
 "I have nowhere else to go. I don't know where 
 my father is. Uncle Jim, I can't live up in the Mur- 
 chison mansion alone. It's full of ghosts and memo- 
 ries. I'm afraid of it. I'm afraid of Jerry. I'm 
 afraid of myself." 
 
 "You needn't be afraid any more. I'm going to 
 take care of you now. We'll get some rooms for you 
 back here with the landlady, and by and by we'll 
 get something better. You're never going back to 
 the Murchison mansion." 
 
 "I was so close to dreadful things there," she mur- 
 mured. "It was so " 
 
 A man's step sounded on the stairs, mounted 
 quickly and then struck a resonant response from 
 the wooden flooring of the hall. 
 
 "Who's that?" she whispered, with hurried alarm, 
 her figure drawn alertly upright as if to rise and
 
 392 THE PIONEER 
 
 fly. "Is that some one coming in? Don't let them. 
 I don't want to see any one now." 
 
 The Colonel, after a listening moment, reassured 
 her. 
 
 "That's only Rion," he said. "You needn't bother 
 about him. He lives just across the hall." 
 
 She murmured an "Oh !" of relieved comprehension 
 and fell back in the chair. 
 
 They were silent for a space, both looking into the 
 heart of the fire, its red light playing on their faces, 
 the woman leaning back languidly, sunk in an apathy 
 of exhausted relief; the man possessed by a sense of 
 contentment more rich and absolute than he had 
 hoped ever again to feel. 
 
 THE END
 
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